CHAPTER 10 — PART I
"When Thunder Challenges Heaven"
The finals arena did not resemble the stage used for the early rounds.
It looked like a battlefield built to cage a pair of gods.
The stone had been reforged three times, reinforced with layered seals until it gleamed like black metal beneath the sun. Dozens of grandmasters sat cross-legged along the rim, hands locked in continuous mudras, their qi feeding into the barrier formations. Even they looked pale.
They already sensed it—
this match was not between youth.
It was between forces of nature wearing human faces.
Spectators packed the mountainsides, the pavilions, the rooftops. Nobles leaned over balconies. Sect leaders stood with folded arms and grim eyes. There was no chatter. No cheering.
Only the fast, nervous breathing of a world waiting for something it had no right to witness.
When your name was announced, lightning rippled through the clouds.
When his name echoed after—
"HEAVENLY SWORD JIAN WUYING!"—
the entire arena dropped into a suffocating silence.
You stepped onto the platform first, lightning flickering under your skin with every footfall. Jian Wuying drifted onto the opposite side like a feather carried on still air, robes unwrinkled, expression mild, every motion blindingly precise.
He bowed.
You bowed.
A clean, respectful gesture—
and a silent oath that neither of you would hold anything back.
The referee swallowed hard.
Sweat trickled down his jaw.
Even his voice broke.
"F—FINAL MATCH OF THE ROYAL DRAGON-PHOENIX TOURNAMENT…
BEGIN—!!"
The moment his hand dropped—
your aura detonated.
Not expanded.
Not surged.
Detonated.
Lightning erupted from your body in a vertical pillar that split the clouds like an axe wound. Thunder rolled across the mountains, shaking dust loose from distant cliffs.
Gasps choked the arena.
Elders flinched as their own barrier pulsed in panic.
You inhaled deeply—
and roared like a storm given a throat:
"LIGHTNING DRAGON SACRED ART—
THUNDER FIST GOD!!!"
Lightning clamped around your arms, forming gauntlets of blinding white-blue. A mantle of thunder layered over your torso, shoulders, and jaw like armor forged from a storm's heartbeat. Veins glowed beneath your skin. Your pupils crackled. Two jagged horns of lightning arced upward from your temples.
Someone in the crowd fainted.
Jian Wuying's eyes narrowed—
just slightly.
He saw the transformation.
He felt the weight of the power.
He read the killing intent aimed squarely at him.
But he did not move.
He did not flinch.
That was enough to make your blood boil with joy.
And then—
You vanished.
The reinforced platform cratered beneath your feet.
A sonic boom cracked outward.
STORM RUSHING STEP.
You reappeared right in front of him, fist drawn back, gauntlet blazing.
Then your arms blurred, faster than trained perception could follow—
104 STORMING PALM STRIKES.
Each strike exploded with a thunderclap.
Each blow carved shockwaves into the stone.
Lightning whips lashed across Jian's immaculate white robe.
And for the first time in the entire tournament—
Heavenly Sword Jian Wuying was forced backward.
One step.
Then another.
Then his sandals screeched against the stone as your storm hammered into him, bruises blooming across his ribs and forearm.
From the VIP pavilion, you could hear frantic reactions even through the roar of battle.
Brother Shan, previously unshakable, whispered in disbelief:
"I was sent flying by one of those strikes…
what kind of monster did the Heavenly Sword Sect raise…?"
Yun Shoufeng, wrapped in bandages, leaned forward with a wild grin.
"Look at that! Tentō's forcing him to defend!
And he's already bruised—the match only just started!"
Then, with reckless confidence:
"Honestly, I almost matched Tentō's speed earlier.
I could probably beat this Heav—"
Every single person in the VIP area turned.
Stared.
Judged.
Silence annihilated him.
Yun froze.
"…
NO.
No you can't."
Everyone nodded.
"Correct."
Black Willow muttered with genuine concern:
"One punch from Tentō would kill you. Instantly."
Yun Shoufeng wilted into his seat like a dying plant.
Back in the arena—
your fists continued raining down.
Jian Wuying blocked with his scabbard, redirected with his wrist, parried with perfect angles—
but you saw it.
The tension in his shoulders.
The micro-adjustments.
The forced steps.
You grinned like a wolf.
"I AIN'T GONNA LET YOU WIN!"
He flicked his blade out an inch—
And the air split.
An invisible arc sliced across your ribs and hip.
You staggered back, coughing blood.
The crowd roared, half in terror, half in awe.
But you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and snarled:
"THUNDER CALL!"
Lightning answered.
A divine bolt slammed into your raised sword, lighting your flesh from the inside. Pain consumed your nerves—then clarity replaced it. Your aura ignited anew, recharged and raging.
You lunged.
Lightning Rushing Step.
Lightning Dragon Fang — Thirty-Fold.
Thirty slashes—
long arcs of pure thunder—
crossed Jian Wuying's body with such precision that his robe shredded and thin lines of blood appeared across his chest and abdomen.
He touched one cut.
His brows lifted a millimeter.
Surprise.
Then the Heavenly Sword moved.
And his retaliation was merciless.
Three perfect cuts carved across your torso and thigh.
You were blasted from the center of the arena to the far wall, cracking stone.
Dust rained around you.
You stood, trembling, laughing like you were intoxicated on the fight.
"Dammit—using all those techniques drains me…
energy management's such a pain…"
Jian Wuying's shadow fell over you.
His blade thrust forward—
clean, precise, bone-cutting.
It plunged into your shoulder—
And stopped.
Because you locked your muscles, hardening your body like steel.
You grabbed the flat of the blade—
And sent lightning coursing straight back through the metal.
Jian's body jolted—
his breath caught, the first visible break in his composure.
He reacted instantly—
a palm slammed into your ribs with enough force to snap two of them cleanly.
You stumbled—
but didn't fall.
Your grin widened, savage.
"I AIN'T DONE YET!"
Your battered body ignited with lightning one more time.
Weak.
Unstable.
But alive.
Jian Wuying took one slow breath.
A sign.
A warning.
He was finally taking the fight seriously.
The air turned sharp enough to cut skin.
The barrier cracked audibly.
The elders paled.
Both of you drew back for the final clash—
When something ancient stirred inside you.
The Lightning Dragon Hall opened.
The spectral silhouettes of past masters towered over you.
One stepped forward—
larger, older, more monstrous in aura than Ikazuchiken ever was.
His hand reached for your shoulder.
Power surged through you—
horns reshaping, muscles hardening, blood roaring.
You screamed:
"LIGHTNING DRAGON—
WRATHFUL CLEAVING STRIKE!!!"
Jian Wuying whispered:
"Celestial Severing Art."
Thunder collided with heaven.
A white-blue explosion tore the arena's center apart.
Formation seals shattered like glass.
The stadium floor cracked open as if split by an earthquake.
And in the middle of that cataclysm—
A bomb went off.
END OF PART I
CHAPTER 10 — PART II
"When Thunder Challenges Heaven"
The ground did not crack from your clash.
It detonated.
A deafening roar erupted beneath the arena—an explosion so violent it briefly drowned out your thunder and Jian Wuying's sword-light. The shockwave blasted upward like a volcanic eruption, tearing the reinforced platform apart in a geyser of shattered stone.
You barely had time to register it.
One instant—
you and Jian were locked in a clash mighty enough to bend the sky.
The next—
the ground itself betrayed you.
A massive stone pillar—one of the arena's titanic load-bearing columns, thick enough to hold up mountains of steel—fractured in a single brutal crack. It tilted. It fell.
Jian leapt back with inhuman grace—
but the pillar slammed into you.
The weight of an avalanche crashed over your body.
Stone pulverized your ribs.
Your spine screamed.
Your vision burst into white, then shrank into a narrow tunnel.
Dust surged into your throat.
Blood filled your mouth.
For a moment, you felt your bones bend.
Then everything went dim.
Around you, the world was chaos.
Screams.
Stone collapsing.
Elders crying out forbidden incantations to reinforce the barrier.
Healers rushing forward—only to be tossed aside by the concussive aftershock.
Jian Wuying skidded backward across broken ground, blade raised, expression taut for the first time.
This was not his doing.
This was something entirely different.
A dark silhouette appeared through the dust.
One.
Then another.
Then twelve.
Black robes.
Black masks.
Identical sigils stitched across their chests—the mark of an ancient extremist brotherhood long believed scattered.
They moved with absolute unity.
A single step.
A single breath.
A single killing intent.
And as the dust settled, the leader stepped forward.
He ignored Jian Wuying.
Ignored the elders.
Ignored the thousands of witnesses.
His eyes fixed only on the mountain of rubble pinning your body beneath it.
The voice that came from behind his mask was cold enough to frost bone:
"Death to the orthodox dogs."
Gasps erupted across the arena.
Sect masters rose to their feet.
Liang Xue clapped a hand over her mouth, face white.
Yun Shoufeng grabbed the railing, fury and terror mixing across his features.
Jian Wuying's blade lowered an inch—not in surrender, but in something far worse.
Recognition.
A name passed like poison through the VIP pavilion.
"The Black Crest Order…"
"But they were destroyed decades ago…"
"Impossible…"
The assassins ignored them all.
They strode straight toward the fallen pillar.
One kneeled over you, fingers brushing your throat, checking your pulse with cold precision. He did not speak, but his stillness told the others everything.
You were still alive.
Barely.
The leader raised two fingers.
Two assassins drew hooked blades to finish you.
Your eyes fluttered open for a heartbeat.
There was blood in your mouth.
There was stone crushing your chest.
There was nothing you could move—not a finger, not a toe.
But you still grinned.
Even in near-death.
Even on the edge of blacking out entirely.
A thin breath escaped you, shaped like a promise:
"This… isn't over…"
Then darkness swallowed your vision.
The assassins lifted their blades—
But a streak of white thundered into the crater.
Jian Wuying.
His blade crashed against theirs with such force that the entire crater rang like a bell.
Metal screeched.
Stone shattered.
Air ignited.
The assassins were blown back by the sheer pressure of the Heavenly Sword's killing intent.
Jian stood over your crushed body like a silent ghost, his blade angled downward in a line that promised nothing but death.
Not to you.
To anyone who reached for you again.
His voice was low and cold—so cold it seemed to cut the heat out of the air.
"You interrupt my sword."
Silence.
Not confusion.
Not hesitation.
Fear.
Even the assassins' masked faces seemed to tighten.
Before the leader could speak, Liang Xue leapt into the crater with a choked cry, dragging a glowing talisman from her sleeve.
Healers from three major sects followed, hands burning with medical qi.
The assassins moved—
but so did the sects.
White Spear Hanjun fell from the sky with a roar.
Verdant Medicine Sect elders unleashed barriers.
Storm Valley unleashed shockwaves of compressed air.
The Emperor's personal guards poured into the arena.
And at their center—
Jian Wuying stood unmoving, blade angled at the assassins.
He didn't shout.
Didn't posture.
He simply breathed.
And the assassins retreated a half-step.
The leader hissed under his mask:
"This is only the beginning."
He gestured.
Shadows swallowed them.
In a blink, all twelve vanished like smoke pulled into a void.
The arena was left in ruins.
Tens of thousands stunned.
Dozens injured.
Liang Xue knelt beside the rubble, voice tight with panic as she pressed talismans to your mangled chest.
"Tentō—STAY WITH ME!"
Your heartbeat fluttered.
Once.
Faltering.
Then again.
Healers formed a circle, pouring energy into your core in desperate, staccato bursts. Each pulse forced your lungs to gasp, your heart to twitch, your blood to move.
Jian Wuying did not look away from your ruined form.
Not pride.
Not pity.
A promise.
His blade lowered to his side.
His words were quiet—but sharp enough to cut stone.
"We will end this."
Above you, dust drifted through a broken sky.
Your vision flickered on and off.
Pain radiated through every nerve.
But somewhere, buried beneath stone and blood and near-fatal injury—
your fingers twitched.
Just barely.
Lightning crackled weakly beneath your skin.
The storm wasn't dead.
It was waiting.
END OF PART II
CHAPTER 10 — PART III (FINAL)
"When Thunder Challenges Heaven"
The dust had barely settled when the true chaos began.
The stadium—once a holy ground of martial pride—had become a disaster zone. Cracked pillars, ruptured formations, blood-slick stone, the acrid scent of explosives mixed with lightning…and the faint metallic tang of fear.
Thousands of spectators tried to flee at once, but the Emperor's guards forced order through sheer martial pressure. Sect masters barked commands. Disciples carried the wounded. Elders tended collapsed formations that sparked unpredictably, threatening secondary explosions.
But all eyes kept returning to the center crater.
Where you lay.
Pinned beneath stone, drenched in blood, your body twitching with the dying aftershocks of lightning.
Where Jian Wuying stood like a guardian deity of cold steel.
And where Liang Xue knelt—face pale, robes torn, palms glowing with frantic medical qi.
Her voice cracked—not weak, but frantic with restrained panic.
"Tentō—wake up—Tentō!"
She pushed qi into your chest, her movements fast, desperate. Every transfer caused your body to jolt a few millimeters beneath the rubble. Every pulse of lightning your body reflexively produced burned her palms.
But she didn't stop.
Behind her, Verdant Medicine Sect's healer shouted:
"Do NOT overdraw your meridians! Let us—"
"I WON'T LET HIM DIE!"
Her scream silenced the crater.
Even Jian Wuying blinked.
Even the Emperor's guards paused.
Liang Xue's hands shook as she forced another wave of qi into you—
hot, bright, unstable.
Your heart lurched violently.
A gasp tore from your throat—half-breath, half-strain.
Then silence again.
You were alive.
Barely.
But alive.
The healers instantly set to work.
Twelve hands.
Six talismans.
Three overlapping techniques.
Threads of jade qi danced through your limbs, knitting ruptured vessels, forcing circulation where it refused to move.
They spoke quickly, urgently.
"Spine intact but strained."
"Internal bleeding—massive."
"Qi chamber cracked."
"Lightning Ki disrupting healing—we need suppression seals!"
A formation plate was slammed onto your chest.
It glowed—
Then cracked.
"His lightning is too wild!"
More talismans.
More seals.
More panic.
But there was no giving up.
Not while your fingers still twitched.
Not while your aura still sparked like a stubborn ember.
And not while Jian Wuying stood watch like an executioner waiting for the chance to reverse the blade.
His eyes followed every healer, every talisman, every twitch of your chest.
His jaw was set like carved stone.
When a trembling official finally approached—face shaken, voice attempting formal composure—
"H-Heavenly Sword Jian Wuying… the match… must be declared—"
Jian raised one eyebrow.
A simple motion.
The official collapsed to his knees.
He understood.
You were not defeated by Jian Wuying.
You were not bested by a superior blade.
You were robbed.
And Jian Wuying refused to accept that outcome.
The match result died in the official's throat.
Around the edges of the crater, sect masters argued.
"She should stabilize him first!"
"Block all exists—find those assassins!"
"This was planned for months!"
"Who planted explosives under the imperial arena!?"
"Orthodox and unorthodox war will break out if we mishandle this!"
The Emperor himself was being escorted in, surrounded by golden-armored guards.
But none of that mattered to the one kneeling beside you.
Liang Xue's fingers brushed your cheek.
Her whisper trembled.
"Tentō… you idiot… why do you smile even unconscious…?"
And she was right.
Your mouth—
despite the blood, the cracks, the pain—
curved upward faintly.
Because somewhere deep inside, beneath the agony and ruin and stone—
you saw it again.
The Lightning Dragon Hall.
Its vast halls of storm and bone.
The shadowed silhouettes of masters past.
The ancient titan gripping your shoulder.
The burning transfer of lineage.
The next art you had yet to wield.
Your cracked lips parted.
A single broken word escaped.
Barely audible.
"…next…"
Liang Xue's breath hitched.
"Next? Tentō—what next—?!"
Your eyelids fluttered.
Lightning sparked under your skin.
The healers shouted in alarm—but Jian Wuying raised a hand, silencing them.
He watched your trembling, half-dead smile.
And for a moment—
just a moment—
his eyes warmed.
Not with pity.
With recognition.
He whispered quietly, just for you:
"You will not die here."
The healers redoubled their efforts.
Qi surged.
Talismans burned.
Your chest rose and fell more steadily.
The rubble was slowly lifted off your crushed legs and torso.
Fluid was drained from your lungs.
Your ribs were reset in violent, audible snaps.
Agony carved through your consciousness—
but you held on.
Because beyond pain—
there was purpose.
Beyond death—
there was the storm.
Beyond defeat—
there was the heavenly sword you still longed to race.
And as your breathing steadied, as your body fought inch by inch to remain alive—
a shadow fell across the crater's edge.
Someone new.
Someone who had sprinted across the arena the instant he arrived.
A man with draconic eyes and white hair tied behind him.
A man whose aura made the ground tremble.
A man whose killing intent could cut through a mountain.
Your master.
Ikazuchiken.
His voice ripped across the crater like a whip of thunder.
"GET. AWAY. FROM MY DISCIPLE."
The healers froze.
Liang Xue stiffened.
Even Jian Wuying's eyes sharpened.
Ikazuchiken dropped into the crater, landing beside you with terrifying speed.
Lightning flickered across his fingers as he touched your chest—
and the Lightning Dragon Hall trembled in response.
His expression—normally mocking, harsh, dismissive—
shattered into raw, unrestrained fury.
"Who dared…"
His hands clenched into fists that sparked with lethal intent.
"…to touch my boy?"
For the first time since the explosion—
real, primal fear spread across the faces of the imperial guards.
Even the Emperor faltered.
Ikazuchiken straightened, lifting your broken body with one arm as if you weighed nothing, lightning forming a protective shell around you. His aura swelled—ancient, murderous, savage.
He glared upward toward the stands.
Toward the Emperor.
Toward the sect leaders.
Toward the world.
Then he spoke, voice low and bloodthirsty.
"I will find whoever planted that bomb."
Lightning shook the sky.
"And I will erase their bloodline."
He turned.
"This tournament is over."
And with that—
your master vanished in a burst of thunder, taking you with him.
Left behind were ruins, shock, deathly silence—
and a single Heavenly Sword standing among the rubble, gripping his sheathed blade.
He did not chase.
He did not speak.
He simply watched the last sparks of lightning fade—
and whispered,
"…I will be waiting, Lightning Dragon."
END OF CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11 — THE NIGHT THE MURIM SHOOK The crater still steamed.
Stone was powdered into dust around its ragged rim; the taste of ozone hung in the air like ash. The arena — once a place for honor and ritual — lay torn open, a raw wound in the earth. Pieces of enchanted formation plates twinkled like broken stars across the ruined floor. Wherever the last clash had touched, qi still crackled in tiny, angry arcs.
And in the middle of that ruined theatre, where the Lightning Dragon and the Heavenly Sword had met, there was only an absence.
Tentō Narukami's place in the world had been hollowed out.
Nobody. No sign. Only a yawning hole punched through the stage and the sense that something had gone under the world and not come up. The assembled crowd, the grandmasters, the elders — all of them were left staring at that nothingness as if it were the mouth of a sleeping god.
Jian Wuying stood at the edge, breathing ragged and harsh. The white of his robe had been washed red; hair clung to his forehead; the blade in his hand trembled as though it had weight beyond iron. The graceful poise of the Heavenly Sword was gone from him; he moved like a man who had been carved open and then held his shape because he refused to fall.
And then the shadows crawled up from the yawning wound.
Out of the Abyss
First one. Then two. Then dozens.
Black shapes spilled out — not chaotic, not random, but flowing like a tide that had rehearsed its own cruelty. Masked figures in ash-dark robes, faces hidden, movements unnerving in their calm. They spread in a ring around Jian with the disciplined silence of hunters closing on a wounded stag.
They did not scream. They did not shout. They simply moved, and the arena's atmosphere folded in on itself as if the sun had winked.
Jian took a step forward. He cut. Silver flashed; masks split; blood arced. He killed three, four — maybe more. But every time one fell, two more slid into the space like shadows reassembling. They were relentless, practiced, surgical. They wore no banners, but their gestures were as precise as military drill.
The first command from the masked tide was a whisper that crossed the ruined stones as if delivered by a blade.
"Bind him."
It was clinical. It was ice.
The assassins advanced.
Jian fought like the wedge between heaven and blade, and every cut he made was poetry turned into violence. But something else crept into the geometry of his strikes: fatigue. The fingers that once moved with inhuman grace twitched. The footwork that had been flawless lagged by fractions. The breaths between swings dragged like chains.
He bled. The pain was sharp enough to drown out thought.
And the circle tightened.
The Leader's Calm
He who stepped forward was different. The others moved with the speed of practiced killers; he moved with the slow certainty of a man who had counted out the lives of kings.
His mask was the same as the others', but three vertical streaks of red ash marred its surface. Where the others' movements sang of obedience, his radiated intent — an organized focus so tight it felt like being squeezed. His presence made the hairs on everyone's arms stand up.
The assassins whispered to him and fell back a step. He did not nod. He did not hurry. He walked, and the air seemed to obey him.
"Come with us," he said, voice flat and distant.
Jian spat blood from his mouth. The blade in his hand hummed like a betrayed bell. He answered with the thing a swordman is told to die with: dignity. "Over my dead body," he said.
The leader's head tilted. It was almost indulgent. Then he moved with a speed that did not belong to his calm.
In the time a man takes to blink, the leader was behind Jian. In the next, Jian felt weightless shock and then the impossible: his own sword, the Heavenly Sword, lodged in his abdomen.
The arena screamed as one living thing. Every voice was a raw animal sound. Grandmasters slammed their palms against the immobilizing seals and cursed. The crowd forgot protocol and began to push in panic.
Jian looked down as if trying to reconcile the world with what his body told him. The hilt jutted from him like the end of a wrong prophecy. He tasted metal on his breath. The leader's hand — cool as desert night — turned the blade.
Jian's knees went out.
Why the Grandmasters Could Not Move
The grandmasters had not been idle. They surged first, old as mountains and twice as stubborn — sword qi coalescing into spears of light, palm-lines bending air itself. Their arrival should have ended the assault: masters descending like comets are not things assassins scoff at.
But the arena was not only an arena.
Before the tournament, masks had met within the incense-mottled rooms of a certain conspiratorial hall. The assassins' plan had been surgical. Hidden beneath the floors of the stage, the cult had placed a sealing formation in silence: a lattice keyed to the signatures of qi — a discrimination pattern that would only respond to certain thresholds.
The barrier had sat dormant until the explosion detonated the core. The blast triggered the lattice: a sealing formation that identified and blocked high-level, mature qi signatures — the exact kind that grandmasters emitted. It was a trap for the very people who would defend the Prince.
That is why the elders and the grandmasters, despite their wrath and power, could not cross. Their hands struck the invisible wall and felt only the sting of failure. Formation plates quivered; wards shrieked; spells fail-sparked and died against the seal as if something had suddenly decided their rightful place was not here.
The formation was not brute force. It was discrimination. It locked the highest frequencies and allowed only the lesser — the young, the unmeasured — to slip through.
A plan designed for civil bleed: let the elders stand like statues while the youth moved where the masters could not.
When Grandmaster Xu slammed his palm and the seal did not give, his face contorted into a laughless snarl. "A cunning sealing," he hissed, fury cutting his voice. "A political trap. They want the stage to crack the relationship between the court and the Murim."
He knew the stakes. A prince's death could mean war. A war would annihilate structures old as the mountain — and the one that had placed that lattice wanted exactly that chaos.
The Hostage
The Imperial escort, taught to handle riots and rebellions, executed the drill that meant keeping the Prince safe while avoiding inflaming the Murim elders. Soldiers formed rings, shields up, armor glinting. They fought like the city's last walls.
They were effective — until the man with the three-streaked mask climbed onto a half-fallen pillar like a cat settling on a throne. He moved with a particular kind of fearless contempt, slicing the way open with a small, surgical motion and then taking the Prince as a hostage. A blade kissed the boy's neck.
"Lay down your weapons," the leader said, and his voice in the ruined air carried like a verdict. "Or the royal line ends here."
Silence fell.
Not the stunned silence of shock but the measured silence of calculation. All of the grandmasters understood the geometry of what he offered: one move, and the political balance in the valley would tilt into inferno. The Murim and the Imperial family had a history written with scorched blood and broken oaths. The two sides lived on a cold truce, and the prince's death would break more than the city's law — it would redraw the map of power.
The grandmasters put their weapons down. Some did it with teeth clenched. Others' hands shook visibly. The emperor's envoy, pale and sweating, could not even speak the words for a bargain.
The leader's blade pressed a little harder against the prince's throat, not enough to cut but enough to press the point home. "Kill the grandmasters," he commanded, and his men moved like instruments; his tone allowed no hesitation.
It should have been the end. The formation had done its work. The political calculus was in the masked man's favor. The stage was set to crush the very structures that maintained law.
The Youth's Answer
But youth is a combustible thing.
Where elders hesitated, the younger generation did not — not because they were braver, but because their signatures passed the barrier. The seals were keyed to detect and block mature qi, not raw or inchoate energy. The conspirators had counted on discipline and the elders' fear. They had not accounted for the messy, feral courage of those who still had bones that bent and spirits that snapped.
Liang Xue was the first to erupt into the line of assault. With a rising cry that cut through the built silence like a blade through silk, she dove forward, petals spinning in a deadly storm. Her Plum Blossom sword sang, cleaving through black robes and interrupted plans. She glided as a dancer and struck with the precision of a surgeon.
Brother Shan fell like a falling mountain between the waves of assassins, palms slamming into bodies and stone alike. His fists were thunder incarnate: shockwaves detonated, masked men were hurled like rag dolls, and whole formations of attackers tumbled.
Yun Shoufeng, slippery and reckless, sled into the fighting with a grin that never reached his eyes. He was fluid in movement — windlike — braking into the cracks where the elders could not go. He cut, he feinted, he laughed at death.
Bai Hanjun — spear singing — moved with a single-mindedness that bordered on obsession. He had not come to disrupt schedules or enjoy glory. He had come looking for Tentō. He threw himself into the rubble, shoving away stones, stabbing at anything that might be a mask.
But even as the youth tore the first wave, the leader's strategy unfurled.
His men surged into places the young struck and retreated like a hydra, their leader always returning to the center of the pattern.
Jian's Fall and the Impossible Theft
It happened so quick that many who saw it later would argue over the sequence and the significance, but the fact remained: the leader, with a hand that could be measured as calm, had performed a feat that made every elder's pulse trip.
Jian Wuying's blade — the very sword he had always carried — was in his abdomen.
How? Who could say. Some said the leader disarmed Jian by stepping through the frozen angle of timing and using a binding thread that stole the sword; some swore the man moved in a way that bent the rules of possession. The grandmasters, later in private, described it like watching a moon be taken out of the sky: quick, impossible, and exactly what his hands needed to do.
The crowd fell into a new kind of silence when the leader twisted the shaft. Jian convulsed. The white robe would feed the sun no longer; it darkened with bright, blooming blood. He slid to one knee like the fall of a great poem.
"You will not take him," shouted Brother Shan, voice raw. He lunged.
Shan's reaction was pure: pick up the injured friend, get him out. He grabbed Jian Wuying under the arms.
The leader stepped forward, blade poised, and for a moment a mountain of shadow spelled an intention. A masked assassin reached to bind Jian. The leader made a small motion — an order, a snap of the wrist — and the assassin hesitated.
"I will have him alive," the leader said softly. "Master demands particular prey."
It was then that chaos tripled.
Shan's Gamble — Yun as a Missile
Brother Shan did not have endless time. He had a wounded man in his arms and tiles that could collapse beneath him. He needed a distraction big enough to break the leader's composure.
He grabbed Yun Shoufeng.
Not gently. The monk caught the grab with the pliancy of a reed, but Shan's intent was iron: he threw Yun like a spear — not at the leader, at the column foundation under the leader's feet.
Yun's face in midair: stunned, panicked, screaming.
The pillar's base, already damaged by the explosion and the subsequent shock of the Heavenly-Thunder clash, was not stable. Shan slammed his foot, then his shoulder, then his palm into the foundation in a strike that used every ounce of his body. The base shuddered, a hairline fracture splitting into a hungry crack.
The leader stumbled. His balance, carefully calculated, failed. Yun, a human missile now, struck the leader full in the face with a crash of bone and force.
The impact staggered the leader. The Prince — still held — jerked free by the chain of motion. Liang Xue, without a second thought, darted forward and snagged the prince mid-fall, looping him over her shoulder like a soldier rescuing a child. The boy's protests were high and squeaky:
"PUT ME DOWN— THIS IS SO UNDIGNIFIED!"
Liang Xue did not hear him properly; she sprinted, blossoms throwing a jagged curtain around her as she bolted into the passageways the youth could use but the elders could not. The Prince's face was as red as a plum. The imperial guards' morale fractured into fear and obedience.
Brother Shan, stunned by the force he had used and the recoil that sent him through walls into the street beyond, turned back to lift Jian. He tucked the wounded swordman against his chest and started to run.
Barrier Labels and the Mystery of Passage
Why could the youth go where masters could not? Why was Jian stopped?
The sealing lattice was keyed to frequencies of qi — a discriminating net. It registered matured signature density, harmonic richness, and spiritual refinement. Grandmasters, being old and polished, carried signatures that were loud and clear.
The youth, however, carried either noisy bursts of raw potential or contaminated signatures that the formation regarded as unworthy of blocking. The lattice allowed them like a net letting minnows through while corralling the whales. The design was chillingly effective: if the assassins expected masters, they would be met by empty hands, not the raw hot impulse of youth who could move like smoke.
Jian's inability to pass the barrier was twofold: his body was now marked by a freshly embedded divine blade and his qi, shocked and spilling blood, registered as a stable, high-tier signature — the exact class the seal trapped. He was thus marked as "too strong" and locked out. Already weakened, he could not punch through the formation even if he tried. Yao Lingyin — steadied and skilled — immediately moved to his side.
Yao did not try to force him out; she stayed back, seamstress of life. She set to work with delicate hands and healer's talismans, her face a placid mask that had seen far worse. "Hold on," she muttered, eyes bright. "I will fix what I can." She did not have a miracle to hand — only time, knowledge, and a raw, beating will.
Bai's Search and the Leader's Rising Fury
Meanwhile, Bai Hanjun dug where others would have resigned. He shoved stone aside with the clean efficiency of a craftsman. He wanted to find Tentō as if the act of locating him would rewrite fate. Every heap of rubble had a desperate possibility; every black robe might conceal the boy.
The leader, wiping the blood from his mask, rose slowly. He smelled victory — or could it be that what he had taken from Jian was not victory but the confirmation of something bigger? When he saw Bai moving alone, when he saw only one youth standing in the exposed arena, his eyes narrowed. He dashed toward Bai like the tide answering a call.
Bai readied his spear and met the leader with firm resolve. The leader's sword danced and Bai's spear sang; for a moment it was just another duel. Then the leader grinned behind his mask and his arm began to hiss with that corrupted lightning.
Bai blocked. The leader's blade slashed with savage shorts, trying to find the gaps. Bai countered, twisted, and sought a break to reach the piles where Tentō might be.
Yun, recovering from his toss and the shock of being hurled like a javelin, launched himself back into the fray and tackled Bai aside at the last fraction of an instant. "Found our zappy snake yet?" Yun shouted breathlessly, grinning despite the blood on his lip. He braced as the leader whirled and slashed — Yun's timing was the fluke that saved Bai's life.
The leader's annoyance was a slow, corrosive thing. His sword strokes scattered stone and tore cloth, but he did not want to get mired in a single duel. He wanted the theatre of his design. He wanted the political moment.
The Lightning That Wasn't
They all watched the leader's arm when the lightning erupted. It shivered in the air like a counterfeit storm — threads of electricity that looked familiar, but tasted wrong.
Tentō's lightning had been living, bright, and quick like a hunting falcon; it burned whole things in a single, honest strike and left the body singing with power. The leader's lightning was a mimic: thinner, cracked, edged with ash. It burned like a fever.
Someone near the rim of the VIP box hissed one word that spread: "Lesser."
It echoed through the youth like a chill.
Not lesser in the sense of weak — but lesser in origin. Someone had taken lightning and twisted it. It had structure, but it lacked the soul that made the Lightning Dragon unique. It was dangerous because it was imitation of something holy. That made it profane in the eyes of many.
They felt deja vu: the trajectory of strikes, the way the leader hurled Shan like a meteor. It was the same movement their storms had seen before — a copy of a pattern Tentō sometimes used — but marred by cruelty.
The Pillar Falls
Shan, thrown through collapsing masonry, landed with a world-rattling thud in a street beyond the arena. He coughed and spat dust like a man dragged from a pit. The leader, eyes wild now with frustration, turned toward the final youth who remained in the arena.
He moved like a blade, launching into a stalking fury. His feet blurred; each step chewed through stone. Bai raised his spear and braced — but the leader's fist met him and slammed the spear aside.
The leader did not kill elegantly. He instrumented. He wanted to make a phrase out of violence. He aimed to break a child of the Murim and the kid would have to stand screaming.
He struck with a palm charged by that lesser lightning. Bai felt the blow like a bell being struck inside his sternum; he was flung back and crashed among the rubble. Blood spattered. Bones shrieked.
Yun and the rest moved in a layered blocking motion, but the leader's hand was quick. He kicked a concussive strike that sent Brother Shan spasming through three walls and into the street like a living rock.
For a moment, everyone thought the leader unstoppable.
Then — faint, a whisper of success — Yun delivered the decisive impact. The pillar under the leader's foot was no longer sound. Shan's strike had loosened it. Yun's midair assault connected. The leader's balance failed. He looked down as if betrayed.
The prince, for reasons that would embarrass him later, flailed and shouted. Liang Xue caught him mid-fall and ran like a blade across the arena. Her speed made the youth howl; she made his embarrassment a sacrament.
She carried him past the broken lattice where the elders could not follow. For a breath, she carried the blood of the empire like a child.
Aftermath: Wounds, Promises, Questions
The pillars shuddered apart. Stones rained. Wards fizzled. The leader recovered; he was not done. He spat words through the teeth of his mask — "The Master will come" — and the remaining assassins little by little withdrew into smoke and ruin. They would not die here that night. They had planted the seed.
Jian Wuying lay, lungs ragged, blood painting his robe. Yao Lingyin tended the worst wounds in a display of quiet fury and skill. She did what she could: suppress bleeding, set ribs, plug the worst of the leakage with talismans and incantation. But the wound was deep, and the sword had not fooled anyone: he would die without time and care.
Liang Xue ran until her calves burned. She had the Prince. He was pigmented flame; his face was beetroot-red. He complained as if dignity could be preserved by complaint. She did not look back until she reached a safe corridor.
Bai continued to search. He slipped between falling stones and bodies and struck down a rootless assassin with a spearhead that glinted like a nasal echo. But Tentō was still nowhere to be found.
Brother Shan collapsed near the street, gasping. Yun moved to his side and helped him up, shaking dust from his hair. "We held the prince," Yun said, as much to himself as to the world. "We didn't get him, but we didn't lose everything."
The grandmasters gathered on the rim, hands trembling — not from sorrow alone but from the taste of near-war.
And above the din, anchoring a chaotic storm of thought, Jian Wuying's bare whisper threaded to the ears of those nearest him.
"Tentō… he's not gone… he's under the stage… I felt him… something dragged him down…"
No one could contradict the feeling. Every healer, every master, every youth who had fought had felt the same thing: an intelligence in the dark that had singled out not just a body but a presence.
The leader's parting words lingered as a strip of cold in the air. "This is only the beginning," he hissed.
The Lightning Dragon Hall
Under the broken stones, under blood and mortar and the living crush of a world determined to breathe again, Tentō's chest pulsed once.
The Lightning Dragon Hall answered.
A slow, subterranean echo—frames passing in a place not yet ready for the light—touched his consciousness. Horns shifted in the dream-echo. The remnants of the earlier transfer gnawed gently at the edges as if questioning whether it had been planted or merely pricked by the dark.
Tentō slept. He did not respond yet. But the Hall whispered, and the whisper was not a request.
It was an invitation.
The Night's ScorecardThe Prince lived, though his dignity did not.
Jian Wuying lay wounded, his life a fragile line. Yao Lingyin kept him from the brink for now.
The masked leader had struck deep: he could vanish and return; he could steal a blade like a thief steals breath; he had left the stage in enough ruin to start a war.
The grandmasters were blocked by the formation; political fissures widened like geodes.
The youth had fought like a fracture in the old order; they had saved the prince and bought time with their bodies.
Tentō had vanished under the earth, pulsing with a lineage that the world had only started to wake to.
The night did not end. It had only shifted.
As the imperial guards and Murim elders did the calculus of their losses, as triumphant shouts warred with mourning cries, in the dark beneath the stage a line of lightning curled and waited, patient as a trap, hungry as an oath.
The Hall had been heard. The world would answer.
— end of chapter —
CHAPTER 12 — THE AWAKENING OF THE MYSTIC GOD THE HALL OF TEN THOUSAND STORMS
Your consciousness drifts upward like a spark rising from burning wood.
A dim glow cracks open before you.
Then the world erupts into white-blue thunder.
The Lightning Dragon Hall stands infinite around you — a cathedral of storms and stone. Columns carved with ancient dragons ascend until they disappear into a ceiling of constant lightning. The air itself hums like the inside of a divine thunderbolt.
You stand barefoot on a slab etched with countless runes.
Your head pounds.
Tentō (groaning):
"Ahhh… my head…
Feels like a damn building fell on me—"
A dry voice answers immediately.
Voice:
"…More like a pillar, boy."
Ikazuchiken steps from the shadows — arms folded behind his back, crackling with casual lightning, expression as grumpy and unimpressed as always.
Ikazuchiken:
"And before you complain — I already gave you my sacred art.
Ask somebody else for freebies."
You glare.
The ten other silhouettes shift behind him.
Their auras flare — some like blades, some like storms, one like a serpent curling around a moon.
And one… fiercely eager, practically vibrating with anticipation, the same who reached for you during the duel.
He takes a step forward—
But another silhouette cuts in front of him.
Thin.
Tall.
Robes of an ancient scholar.
Glasses gleaming with cold intelligence.
He clears his throat.
Scholar Silhouette:
"No.
He does not meet the conditions for your art."
The eager silhouette explodes like a fireworks display of rage.
Eager Silhouette:
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE DOESN'T MEET—
I WAITED THREE GENERATIONS—
THREE!!!
IT IS MY TURN—!!"
Ten ancient voices echo from the darkness:
"Sit down."
"Weakling."
"Patience."
"Stop whining."
"You sound like a duck."
The eager one stomps away violently, sparks flying.
The Scholar Silhouette adjusts his glasses again as though nothing happened.
Then he turns to you.
THE SCHOLAR SPEAKS
Scholar:
"Sit."
You sit.
Because there is something about his tone that leaves no room for negotiation.
He waves his hand — a blackboard crackles into existence, glowing with lightning formulas.
Diagrams.
Equations.
Strange calculations connecting lightning, soul density, mental acuity, dragon fractal pathways, and quantum resonance.
Scholar:
"My sacred art cannot be brute-forced like Ikazuchiken's.
No headbutting the problem.
No screaming your way through enlightenment."
Ikazuchiken scoffs.
Ikazuchiken:
"It works fine."
The scholar ignores him completely.
He taps the blackboard.
Scholar:
"To wield my sacred art —
the Lightning Dragon Mystic God —
you must master the nature of lightning beyond motion and force."
You blink.
Tentō:
"…Okay but—
what does that actually mea—"
Scholar:
"You must learn:
Particle differentiation.
Energy resonance symmetry.
Instability calculus.
High-order ki field geometry.
THREE kinds of electromagneto-temporal refraction.
And, of course—"
He writes a horrifying differential equation.
Scholar:
"DD'' = –ab."
You stare.
The room tilts.
Your soul starts to cry.
Tentō:
"WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT EVEN MEAN—?!"
The scholar lifts an eyebrow.
Scholar:
"If you cannot compute this, you cannot learn my art."
You stare at the board again.
Static fills your skull.
You try for an hour.
Then another.
Then another.
And another.
Time flows differently here — each minute outside is hours inside.
Your hair stands on end from stress alone.
THE BREAKING POINT
Finally—
You stand up.
Crack your knuckles.
And say the line that will echo in the Lightning Dragon Hall for centuries:
Tentō:
"F*** THIS.
I'M WINGING IT."
The scholars of 10,000 years gasp.
The eager silhouette stops mid-tantrum.
Ikazuchiken smirks.
The Scholar Silhouette stares as you scribble random lines.
You write the wrong symbols.
You erase the right ones.
You bypass the theory.
And somehow—
By sheer instinct alone—
By pure martial intuition—
By the dumb genius only a battle-maniac chosen by the storm could possibly possess—
You solve it.
Lightning erupts from the blackboard so violently the scholar falls backward.
Scholar:
"…What in the name of the Dao—"
He grabs his glasses.
"Impossible… he solved the Mystic Equation by FEELING it…??"
The other silhouettes blink.
Silhouette #5:
"Well damn."
Silhouette #7:
"Is that allowed?"
Ikazuchiken:
"HAHAHAHA!
MY BOY!"
THE MYSTIC GOD DESCENDS
The scholar stands, trembling.
Then bows.
Deep.
Scholar:
"…You are qualified.
Child of Lightning Dragon…
Take my sacred art."
He touches your chest.
A torrent of pure knowledge, arcane structure, mathematical instinct, and mystic lightning laws floods your soul.
The hall shakes.
The ancient murals glow.
From above, a ring of lightning drops around you, tightening, tattooing itself onto your bones.
Saintly robes materialize on your body.
Lightning-horns reform — smaller, sharper, disciplined.
A smoking pipe of lightning forms in your hand, glowing with controlled storm.
You have become—
LIGHTNING DRAGON SACRED ART:MYSTIC GOD
Raijin, the scholar, steps back proudly.
Raijin:
"…He learned it.
Somehow."
A pause from the elders.
Ikazuchiken:
"He absolutely winged it."
The silhouettes nod.
The eager one sulks.
RETURN TO THE WORLD
The hall begins fading.
Raijin places a hand on your shoulder.
Raijin:
"Go.
This art is yours now."
A pause.
"And for the love of all that is holy—
do NOT try solving that equation again."
You grin and crack your knuckles.
Tentō:
"No promises."
Lightning engulfs your vision.
The Hall collapses into light—
REAL WORLD — THE RETURN
Rubble explodes outward.
Lightning blasts the sky.
Your silhouette rises through smoke:
Clad in scholarly lightning robes.
Calm.
Sharp.
Unimaginably dangerous.
A pipe of lightning glows between your fingers.
Your horns crackle gently, controlled.
You exhale—
A plume of smoke becomes a spiraling storm.
Clouds roll in overhead.
Lightning answers your breath.
Tentō:
"…So you're the one giving my friends trouble."
You raise your pipe.
Blow.
The smoke becomes a storm dragon.
LIGHTNING STORM FORMATION:
HEAVEN'S WRATH**
Lightning crashes down.
The masked assassins SCREAM.
The barrier shatters.
And you lower your pipe with a tired smile.
Tentō:
"Well…
sorry for the wait."
And then you collapse unconscious — your sacred art freshly awakened but your body ruined.
THE GRANDMASTERS DESCEND**
Lightning still crackles faintly around your collapsed form.
Your new scholar-robes fade, your horns dim, the pipe made of lightning fizzles out as unconsciousness drags you away.
But the storm you unleashed remains.
The barrier you shattered is gone.
And that single fact changes the fate of the battlefield.
THE GRANDMASTERS SEE THE GAP
At the very edge of the ruined arena, the elders freeze for a heartbeat.
The sword saints.
The qi monarchs.
The old monsters who had been held back by the barrier.
Their eyes widen.
The Plum Blossom Pavilion Grand Elder, hair swirling like falling petals, whispers:
Grand Elder Plum Blossom:
"…The barrier… it's broken."
The White Spear Fortress Master stands, spear trembling with eagerness.
Spear Master:
"Then we're no longer bound."
The Azure Cloud Abbot closes his eyes.
Abbot:
"Amitabha…
These assassins have sinned beyond measure."
Thunder rumbles above.
Then—
The old monsters step forward.
THE SLAUGHTER BEGINS
The masked assassins, still blinded by your Heaven's Wrath formation, scream and stumble.
They don't notice the shift.
Not until it is too late.
PLUM BLOSSOM GRAND ELDER MOVES FIRST.
She raises her finger.
A single petal falls.
Soft, pink, harmless.
When it touches an assassin's mask—
SHHHHP—
His body falls apart in four clean slices.
Another elder flicks his wrist.
A spear of condensed qi punches through three masked men, pinning them to a collapsed wall.
The Heavenly Sword Sect Grandmaster flicks his sleeve.
Ten heads roll across the floor.
The entire hall shakes with the sound of effortless killing.
The assassins cry out:
"THE GRANDMASTERS—
THEY'RE THROUGH—"
But they cannot run.
THE HOSTAGE CRISIS
At the base of the shattered pillars, the Imperial Prince is being dragged to safety by Liang Xue.
His face is pale, eyes wide, humiliation and terror battling for dominance.
Two imperial guards lie dead beside the pillar.
And above them, perched like a vulture, is the masked figure with the stronger aura — the true leader of the attack, the one with counterfeit lightning ki.
He holds the Prince with one arm, sword to the boy's throat.
As the grandmasters rush in, he roars:
Masked Leader:
"LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS—
OR THE PRINCE DIES!"
The elders freeze.
Their killing intent wavers.
The Plum Blossom Grand Elder halts mid-step.
The Heavenly Sword Sect Grandmaster narrows his eyes.
The Azure Abbot whispers:
Abbot:
"…If the prince dies, the Imperial Family will blame the Murim."
And Bai, Yun, Liang, all the youths feel their stomachs twist.
Centuries of tension between Imperial Court vs Murim Sects hangs over the arena like a sword.
If the prince dies here—
A war starts.
The masked leader smirks as he sees their hesitation.
He points his blade at the elders.
Masked Leader:
"Good.
Now…
KILL THE GRANDMASTERS."
The assassins around him obey immediately—
charging the elders with suicidal devotion.
THE YOUTHS REFUSE
The elders brace—
But the first ones to move…
Are not them.
Jian Wuying.
Already bleeding heavily from your battle.
Barely standing.
Barely conscious.
He steps forward.
Jian Wuying:
"…No."
His voice is soft.
Solid.
Absolute.
He vanishes.
Or tries to.
But he's too injured—he flickers instead of flashing.
Still—
His blade arcs toward the leader's wrist—
BUT—
The leader smiles.
And suddenly—
Jian's own sword is inside Jian's abdomen.
The blade bursts through his back.
Blood sprays onto the pillar.
Liang Xue screams.
Bai's eyes widen.
Yun Shoufeng's cocky grin disappears instantly.
Jian collapses to one knee—
blood pouring from his stomach.
The leader wrenches the blade free.
Masked Leader:
"Little Heavenly Sword…
you overestimate yourself."
Jian coughs blood.
His vision blurs.
He is moments from death.
Liang Xue screams:
Liang Xue:
"BROTHER JIAN!!!"
THE DESPERATE GAMBIT
Bai and Yun react instantly.
Brother Shan acts before thought.
He grabs Yun by the collar—
muscles flexing—
and hurls him like a human spear.
Brother Shan:
"GO!!!"
But not at the leader's body.
No.
Brother Shan charges in the opposite direction—
straight at the base of the pillar.
He strikes with everything he has—
BAAANG—!!!
The foundation shatters.
The pillar trembles.
The masked leader loses balance.
And Yun Shoufeng—
moving faster than any human should—
slams into his FACE.
The leader flies backward.
The Prince breaks free.
Liang Xue grabs him and sprints.
Her footwork is so clean, so elegant, she moves like drifting petals in a storm.
Brother Shan scoops up Jian, who is barely conscious and losing blood fast.
Brother Shan:
"Don't you dare die."
He charges through the arena.
THE YOUTH WHO STAY BEHIND
The grandmasters rush in…
But the clan formation, cracked but still active, blocks them again.
Only youths can pass.
Only those below a certain level of power.
Bai slips through.
Yun slips through.
Shan slips through with Jian.
But Jian Wuying himself—
cannot.
He is too strong.
His qi is too dense.
The formation reads him as "high-level" and repels him.
He coughs blood.
Yao Lingyin (Verdant Medicine Sect) kneels beside him.
Her hands glow green.
Yao Lingyin:
"…I'll stop the bleeding.
Just breathe.
Please."
Jian tries to speak but collapses again.
THE LAST TWO
Bai and Yun remain.
The masked leader stands shakily.
Face bloody.
Aura unstable.
Sword dripping.
He sees Bai — the only youth left who hasn't run.
His eyes narrow.
He dashes.
Straight at Bai's throat.
But Yun tackles Bai sideways at the last moment.
Yun:
"Found our zappy snake yet?"
Bai blocks another slash.
Bai:
"Nah.
He just vanished.
I hope he escaped—"
Yun ducks a decapitating strike.
Yun:
"He didn't.
If he was Jian's level —
the barrier wouldn't let him through."
(yawns mid-duck)
"And I watched that fight.
He definitely was."
Sword slash.
They both leap back.
Bai nods toward the rubble.
Bai:
"…Don't tell me he's buried under that mess."
Another slash nearly takes his arm.
"At this rate, we'll have to dig him out—"
The masked leader snarls and swings wildly.
Yun examines the sword strokes.
Yun:
"He's getting desperate.
And faster."
The leader lunges—
And Brother Shan appears again—
slamming him through THREE walls.
But as the dust settles…
Brother Shan is being choked one-handed.
Lightning ki crackles from the leader's fingers.
Not pure like yours.
But recognizable.
Every youth thinks the exact same thing:
"It's lightning…
…but lesser."
The leader releases his sword.
Drops into a hand-to-hand stance.
And punts Brother Shan through stone.
Yun and Bai exchange glances.
And despite everything—
both say the same line at the same time:
"…I'm getting déjà vu."
Understood.
Chapter 12 — Part C begins NOW, continuing directly from the last line:
"...I'm getting déjà vu."
THE RETURN OF THE SCHOLAR-STORM**
The masked leader tightens his grip on Brother Shan's throat.
Shan's feet scrape trenches into the stone as he tries to pry the arm off his neck.
But the leader's counterfeit lightning surges—
A cruel, unstable crackle.
Not pure.
Not refined.
Not yours.
But strong enough to overwhelm an exhausted Brother Shan.
The leader smirks beneath his mask.
Masked Leader:
"Your monk made a good whetstone.
Your lightning brat made a decent show.
But this ends here."
He raises his free hand.
Lightning condenses into a jagged spear.
A killing blow—aimed at Shan's heart.
Bai and Yun shout at the same time:
"BROTHER SHAN—!!"
But they are too far.
Too beaten.
Too human.
The spear descends—
RUMBLE.
The ground trembles.
Rubble shifts.
Lightning arcs between stones.
Yun's eyes widen.
Yun:
"Oh…
Oh thank the heavens."
Bai exhales.
Bai:
"He's coming out."
The masked leader pauses mid-kill.
His head twitches toward the rubble.
A sound rises from the stone pile—
Not thunder.
Not storm.
Something older.
A crackling, humming scholarly chant, like the whisper of a divine mathematician.
Symbols of lightning crawl across the rubble.
One by one—
stones lift into the air.
The masked leader turns fully.
Masked Leader:
"…Impossible."
Lightning erupts upward.
Rubble explodes outward.
And from the storm—
You stand.THE SCHOLAR OF LIGHTNING EMERGES
No thunder armor.
No bestial horns.
No destructive divine rage.
Instead—
A scholar's robe of lightning-silk.
Hair drifting like ink in water.
Small, elegant lightning horns—coiled like dragon glyphs.
A crackling pipe between your fingers, glowing azure.
Your aura no longer screams.
It breathes.
Calm.
Calculating.
Deadly in a way that makes even storms nervous.
Your eyes drift lazily across the battlefield.
You exhale.
The smoke becomes a floating diagram of thunder runes, rotating gently above your shoulder.
You tap the pipe.
Tentō (soft, tired, polite):
"…Sorry.
I overslept."
Yun gawks.
Bai rubs his eyes.
Shan—still choking—manages a hoarse:
"Bro… help."
The masked leader snarls and hurls Shan aside.
He points his jagged lightning spear at you.
Masked Leader:
"You…
JUST…
DIE—!!"
STORM VEIL ADVANCED FORM
— "THE STORM IS MY SHADOW"
You flick your sleeve.
A veil of misty lightning flows from it.
The air folds.
The battlefield dims.
Your body dissolves into smoke—
And vanishes.
The leader's attack pierces empty air.
Wind whips around in confusion.
Yun gasps.
Bai whispers:
Bai:
"He… disappeared?"
No.
You didn't disappear.
Your voice breathes from the mist behind them—
Tentō:
"Storm Veil — Advanced Form."
A calm step echoes.
"The storm is my shadow."
Humanoid silhouettes emerge from the mist—
Dozens.
Warriors shaped from lightning itself.
Each one crackling with your ki signature.
Lightning soldiers.
The leader stumbles backward.
Masked Leader:
"…Impossible…
A single person cannot control this many—"
Your voice appears beside his ear.
Tentō:
"I learned math."
(He screams.)
THE STOIC STORM SHOW
You reappear beside Bai and Yun.
Hands tucked calmly into your sleeves.
Pipe between your fingers.
Tentō:
"Wanna watch something fun?"
The leader screams again as lightning soldiers swarm him.
He tries to dodge—
They follow.
He tries to flee—
They surround.
He tries to slash—
They explode.
Every detonation chips away at his fake lightning.
His mask cracks.
His aura destabilizes.
He roars in panic:
Masked Leader:
"NO—
STAY BACK—
STAY—AWAY—!!"
You raise your hand lazily.
And point upward.
HEAVEN'S WRATH — FINAL ACTIVATION
The clouds above twist.
Formations ignite.
A massive sigil appears in the heavens, formed from your pipe smoke runes—
but now filled with roaring lightning.
The elders look up in shock.
Plum Blossom Grand Elder:
"Such a… complex formation…
In mid-battle?!"
The Heavenly Sword Grandmaster whispers:
Grandmaster:
"That boy…
has reinvented lightning."
Then—
You lower your hand.
And the sky answers.
KRAAAAAAAAASH—!!!
A pillar of divine lightning descends.
Not wild.
Not raging.
Precise.
Purposeful.
A lightning strike that obeys your equation.
It hits the barrier—
And completely annihilates it.
Glass-like shards of qi scatter.
Wind roars.
The storm rips open the battlefield.
Even the grandmasters stagger back from the pressure.
You exhale once.
Your pipe flickers out.
And finally—
Tentō:
"…I'm out of ki."
You turn around.
Smile faintly.
Tentō:
"Rest is up to you guys."
Then—
Your eyes roll back.
You slump forward.
And fall unconscious.
THE OLD MONSTERS UNLEASH HELL
The moment the barrier shatters—
The grandmasters move like gods freed from cages.
Petals become blades.
Spears become lightning.
Swords carve winds.
Claws tear mountains.
Masked assassins don't scream.
They don't have time.
The battlefield becomes an abattoir of unparalleled martial skill.
In less than ten breaths—
There are no assassins left standing.
Only silence.
THE RESCUE
Liang Xue bursts through the dust, still carrying the Prince.
Imperial guards rush in to retrieve him.
Brother Shan limps toward your unconscious body.
Jian Wuying, half-dead, is carried by Yao Lingyin toward the medical pavilion.
Bai and Yun drag you up between their shoulders.
Yun:
"…You ever…
you know…
NOT overdo it?"
Bai:
"Don't ask stupid questions."
Liang Xue sees you being carried.
Her eyes widen.
Her lips part.
Her steps quicken—
But she stops.
Because she sees your robes.
Your horns.
Your pipe.
She closes her eyes.
Sighs.
Liang Xue:
"…Of course it's another transformation."
And thus, the broken battlefield begins to heal.
The assassins are dead.
The prince is safe.
Jian lives—for now.
And you…
You sleep.
Storm quiet.
For the first time.