Thunder lived in Obinna's bones.
Rain lashed the scorched clearing where the **Thunder Altar** had stood moments before—now reduced to smoldering gravel. Blue energy crackled across Obinna's knuckles, every heartbeat synced to distant storms. Beside him, Adaeze gripped her staff, newly etched **storm-glyphs** flickering like live wires beneath her skin.
Above them, Azụmiri circled—**cobalt feathers edged in lightning**—the spirit-eagle's shriek tearing through the downpour.
*"He watches,"* Azụmiri hissed into Obinna's mind.
At the tree line, exactly where Chapter 15 ended, stood **The Reaper**. Rain sluiced off his skull mask, his scythe's blade reflecting no light—only *absence*.
> **"He bleeds,"** Adaeze whispered, eyes sharp.
A crack split the Reaper's mask, oozing black vapor. The Thunder Grove's final wound.
---
### **The Dance of Shadows**
The Reaper moved—not with steps, but with *unmaking*.
One moment: twenty paces away.
Next: scythe humming at Obinna's throat.
Obinna *rolled*, mud spraying.
>*CRACK!*
Adaeze intercepted, her staff clashing against colonial iron. Igbo wards flared—*ọgụ na mgba* (struggle and resilience)—scorching the scythe's haft.
> **"His power falters!"** she shouted.
Obinna remembered the grove's gift: **reverse-lightning**. He slammed charged palms into earth—
>*KA-THOOM!*
Blue bolts erupted *upward* from soil, spearing the Reaper's cloak.
The monster staggered. Smoke poured from his wound.
> **"YOU END TODAY!"** Obinna roared, spear blazing.
---
### **The Poisoned Truth**
The Reaper laughed—a sound like grinding tombstones.
> **"Child of ash... you fight pawns while kings feast."**
He hurled a glass vial. It shattered, releasing **soul-smoke** that coiled into visions:
- **French drills** gutting the Niger Delta, pipes sucking liquid moonlight—*Soul-Salt*.
- **Children in steel cages**, veins glowing mercury-bright as machines burrowed into spines.
- ***Chijioke***—*alive*—strapped to a table, screaming as wires devoured his back.
Adaeze's staff clattered to mud. *"They kept him...?"*
> **"Port Harcourt refinery,"** the Reaper hissed. **"Go. Before he becomes their *final blade*."**
He dissolved into oily shadows.
---
### **The Cost of Thunder**
Rain washed the visions away. Obinna stared at his trembling hands—still crackling with power.
*Father's face surfaced: hospital sheets, fragile breaths, poison in his blood.*
*Same poison in the Delta's veins.*
Azụmiri landed, lightning-feathers dimming.
> *"Truth or trap?"*
Adaeze seized Obinna's arm. Her storm-glyphs pulsed against his skin—a synchronized heartbeat.
> **"Does it matter? That boy is Biafra. Is Nigeria."**
Obinna scooped a handful of charged mud—still humming with the grove's dying resonance.
> **"Then we bring thunder to their doorstep."**
They ran east. Toward the
weeping coast. Toward the refinery's steel teeth. Toward Chijioke.