Ave Xia Rem Y

~~~

The palace cracks in half.

Huge dark clouds blot out the sun, and furious lightning bolts fall like rain. Countless soldiers scream and seek shelter, but there is none to be found. The dark winds blow with such strength that they easily pick up fully armored men and toss them hundreds of yards away in the blink of an eye.

“You have officially become interesting.”

Liu Jin floats in the center of the storm. Between the lightning flowing over his skin and the small tornadoes swirling around his body, it is nearly impossible to make out anything but a vague silhouette. Even his Qi cannot be felt.

All anyone can feel is the Storm Dragon.

“However, you are also very much a child,” the Wandering Wind says. It does not matter how fiercely the storm rages. None of it touches her. The wind cannot even take away her cloak. “What exactly is the point in giving your body to a Shadow? Do you believe that will make you stronger? Foolishness. You are nothing but a cultivator in the Earth Realm. No matter how gifted you are, that will not change just because the shadow dwells inside you. The only thing you have accomplished is losing your sense of self. You should have just ordered the shadow to attack me.”

The Wandering Wind speaks out of respect for what the child has done. Not doing so would be rude. However, she does not expect to receive an answer. She greatly doubts the child has enough sense of self left to understand her words.

Wrong.

The word is not voiced. It is not spoken through Qi. It is power in its purest form. It is not communicating anything. Rather, it is impressing a fact onto the world by virtue of being. The Wandering Wind’s cloak is torn away. Her emerald eyes hold visible surprise in them.

Lightning strikes a heartbeat later.

The Wandering Wind is gone by the time the bolt falls from the heavens. Despite its visual impact, the attack does not seem to do much damage. The only sign left behind by it is a blackened mark on the ground with a minuscule hole in the middle.

The hole goes down over a hundred miles.

“You mistake the significance of the whelp’s choice,” the Storm Dragon says as he floats down. His feet touch the ground, and his hand reaches for his throat. “Ah, lungs, a throat, vocal cords… I had forgotten how those felt.”

The lightning and the winds calm down enough to reveal the Storm Dragon’s form to her. It is fundamentally the child’s body. However, dark scales have grown over his arms and torso like armor. Even his face is nearly taken over by them.

“The respiratory system is rather convenient, Ancient One,” the Wandering Wind replies. “Would you care to finish your thoughts? It is not often someone is in a position to correct me. How is my thought process wrong? The child’s body should be useless to you.”

“The child’s cultivation is useless to me. In that much, you are correct,” the Storm Dragon says. “The power I am using right now is the power natural to me.”

That is more or less what the Wandering Wind assumed. The Storm Dragon might have taken over the child’s body, but that does not mean he has placed his entire being there. Descendant or not, that would have obliterated the child. Instead, Storm Dragon is merely housing his consciousness within the child while keeping most of his power outside. In a way, it is as if a cultivator managed to move his meridians and dantian outside his body.

While noteworthy, it does not seem particularly useful.

“That is not what is important.”

More bolts rain down. The Wandering Wind easily moves around them. The Storm Dragon is not serious, not yet. There is a lesson waiting, but she cannot yet tell what it is. It is a welcome change. Usually, she can tell the point of a lesson before it is ever spoken.

Should she go on the offensive to speed things up?

As she’s thinking that, the Storm Dragon rams into her. The density of their auras prevents any physical constant. Instead, their powers push against each other. Wind and lightning rampage freely all around them, and...

...

Oh.

So that’s what this is about.

“Life,” the Storm Dragon says at the same time as she realizes it. “That is what the whelp shared with me. That is what is important.”

“That’s not…” For the first time in years, Wandering Wind is confused. “How?”

A shadow is a shadow. It is a remnant left behind by a more powerful being. It is not alive. It can never be. It has already accepted its death and passed on. No matter how powerful, there is nothing more to it. It cannot grow or change. It can only fade away one day.

“Inhabiting a living body is not the same as having life, so…” She narrows her eyes. “This is your doing somehow. This place is your domain, after all. You have overlapped your being and that of the child to the point you’re essentially the same being. It must be something like that.”

The boy is alive. The Storm Dragon and the boy occupy the same space. Thus, the Storm Dragon and the boy are the same person. Thus, the Storm Dragon is alive.

It is easy to say, but the skill required to deceive reality to that extent is ridiculous.

“Hmph, your reputation is well deserved.”

“I do not boast when I say I have never once failed to exceed expectations,” the Wandering Wind says. There is a clear note of excitement in her voice. If all she has theorized is right, that means she is not facing a shadow in its domain.

She is facing the Storm Dragon as a cultivator in one of the Divine Realms. While almost certainly not as strong as he was at his peak–that would be an impossibility too many–the prospect of fighting him makes it hard for her to contain herself.

Because fighting the Storm Dragon as he is now means this will be a battle of Dao.

Going along with this plan was undeniably the right choice. She can see it now.

“I am impressed the child was able to think of it,” the Wandering Wind says. “Did you guide him to that conclusion?”

The Storm Dragon snorts. The thunder is loud enough to make the earth tremble for miles.

“He theorized. Recklessly so.”

“I see. A pity I cannot speak to him now.”

“That is also not quite true.”

The Wandering Wind stares at him in silence for several seconds.

“You left your body,” she concludes. “When the Storm Dragon entered your body, your soul moved mostly out of it—just enough to avoid being overwhelmed by the Storm Dragon’s presence while still keeping itself tethered to this world. That is quite a feat.”

“...I am torn,” Liu Jin says. “I should not be surprised someone of your caliber understood it so quickly, but I feel bad I was denied the chance to explain.”

“I tend to cause that,” the Wandering Wind says. “Do not feel bad. Rather, take pride. It has been decades since I last experienced any surprise. Your grasp of theory and ability to put it into practice far surpasses your age.”

“Would you say I am qualified to speak to you?”

The Wandering Wind’s smile grows.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, you are. More than that, even. As you are now, you are qualified to exchange pointers with me.”

“...I am not sure that is a good thing.”

“Some would agree. Please do your best to dodge this.”

The clouds part. The earth splits. For a moment, even the storm holds its peace. The Wandering Wind makes a single cut across the land without having moved. It is not even half an inch in thickness.

It reaches beyond the horizon.

Liu Jin appears behind the Wandering Wind, his open hand aimed at her. Bolts of lightning shoot from each of his fingers. They spread out and form a cage of purple lightning around her.

“You believe you can trap the wind,” she says, looking at the bars of lightning. “I am offended.”

The cage breaks. Wind wraps around the lightning and unravels it into nothingness. The Wandering Wind’s Qi rises as she asserts her control over the area. The raging winds are pacified, and the dark clouds begin to part.

Thunder howls in protest.

“I do not believe,” the Storm Dragon declares. “Belief is unneeded when certainty exists. The Storm rages, and the heavens weep. The Storm rages, and the earth trembles. The Storm rages, and the wind submits.”

The words fall on her like gravity and slam her against the earth. They take her face and press it into the dirt. Space itself shifts around them as it alters to heed the Storm Dragon’s words, no different from a child who will believe whatever their parents say. The whole area has become a separate realm. Claws of knowledge try to dig into her brain and make her accept.

She’s not there anymore.

“The Wind goes where it pleases. One moment, it is there. The next, it is not. Always moving. Never stopping. Many soar on its currents, but none can claim sovereignty over it,” the Wandering Wind states. “The Storm is no exception. Is it not the Wind that carries the dark clouds from sky to sky? Is it not the Wind that unleashes hurricanes and orchestrates rains? By what right do you try to impose superiority!”

Her words hit, blowing back the Storm Dragon countless miles across the alternate space without once leaving the room. Furious winds wrap around him, each one a lash across his back.

“Foolishness.”

The Wandering Wind barely raises her hands in time to block the lightning.

“You speak to me about the weather. Why should I care about the weather?”

The long tail of a dragon slams into her.

“Do you think the clouds make a storm? Do you think the rain does? That lightning does? Wrong! All of that is wrong!”

His claws come down. The Wandering Wind tries to dodge but finds herself caught by the Storm.

“A Storm is a Trial. It is Change. It is Tribulation. It is the Dawning of a New Age and the End of Yours.”

The lightning bolts hit her by the dozens. They fall from the heavens and bury her deeper into the ground. Each bolt is a law unto itself. Each impresses a different fact. It is a song without words or rhythm. Nothing but the cold march of Truth.

“Impeccable.”

The Wandering Wind rises. Her torn clothes mend themselves, and her wound seal shut, yet the heaviness of her breathing betrays her. How long has it been since she was last truly wounded? How long since anything remotely inconvenienced her?

“You truly are magnificent, Ancient One,” she says. “If you were at your prime, I would not be your match.”

“Ho?” The Storm Dragon smiles as he comes down with lightning raging around him. Truly a divinity made flesh. “The way you phrased it implies that you are my match right now.”

“I intended that,” the Wandering Wind says as she readies herself. “However, I might have misspoken a bit, Ancient One. It is not that I am your match.”

The Wandering Wind breathes.

“Rather, I am completely certain I will not lose.”

“Is that so? Then I have clearly been too lax in my guidance.”

The grin on the Storm Dragon’s face is reflected on hers. The two rush at each other, their auras clashing with force so strong that the whole of the spatial realm quakes around them. They are mere inches away from each other, held back only by their clashing auras. Their power screams at each other, and hundreds of truths are made and shattered within instants.

But then…

“What is that?”

It is the boy, not the Storm Dragon, who speaks. Their clash ends. The boy is the first to back away, and she does not press. They end up floating miles away from each other, yet she can see his face clearly. There is confusion there.

“Can that really be…?”

“You finally noticed.”

Two voices come from the same mouth. The child’s face twists in realization. In a single breath, he has vanished from the spatial realm. In the next heartbeat, the Wandering Wind realizes where he’s heading.

She gives chase.

~~~

“I would really appreciate it if you stopped this.”

There is a very small frown on Bright Sword’s face as he cuts down the many puppets around him. The disciples of The Temple of the Thousand Shadows have come prepared, but neither has brought the full power of their Guardians yet. It makes this both easy and exceedingly complicated.

“I understand you must be confused, but for the sake of the treaty, it would be best if you allowed me to explain.”

Ice rises from the ground, trying to trap him.

“Please explain as much as you want,” Bai Wen says as she summons thousands of ice shards. “However, as I am not part of any treaty, do not expect me to stop my attack.”

“I expected my power would be enough to make you stop,” Bright Sword says as he cuts down her ice and leaves a cut on her cheek. “Clearly, I was wrong.”

Bright Sword does not get the chance to go on the offensive. The swordsman has to quickly move out of the way.

Mud’s attack barely misses him.

“You should not even be standing,” Bright Sword says. “Do not misunderstand. I am happy for you, but you cannot expect me to believe you are in any state to fight me.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Mud said. “Nevertheless, I think it would be worse if I left you to your own devices.”

Once again, Bright Sword does not have the chance to do anything. Arms of shadow rise up to try to grab him. No puppets this time. That means they are growing serious.

“Do you really think you can bring up the treaty to convince us to stand down?! When it’s clear you were harvesting the heart of a Divine Realm Dragon here?!”

Bright Swords frowns.

With the Storm Dragon’s spatial realm down, General He Bin and General Nie Dan in combat, and the Storm Dragon busy with the Wandering Wind, it was clearly the best possible time to see the results of keeping the Storm Dragon manifested all this time.

He did not count on so many capable people lining up to stop him.

Fighting four cultivators of such caliber at once is not easy. More importantly, he cannot kill the disciples of The Temple of the Thousand Shadows. If The Temple of the Thousand Shadows is already suspicious enough to send people like them there, then having those disciples mysteriously disappear will not help things.

He needs to change things.

“Think!” He shouts. “Why would I-”

The Storm comes.

The Storm Dragon appears in their midst, and the fighters freeze in place. No one talks. No one moves. Bright Sword’s eyes recognize Qing Jin, but he cannot imagine what sort of circumstances have caused him to become the scion of divinity he sees before him.

Red eyes pin him to the spot, and Bright Sword suddenly feels small.

Qing Jin’s hand reaches out. The Sacred Bottomless Pearl floats out of Bright Sword’s clothes.

A person falls out.

He’s no different from how Bright Sword last saw him—dirty and covered in rags. His Qi erratically rises around him, filling their surroundings with the power of a Renegade.

The divinity speaks with a voice like a human.

“Elder Brother?”

~~~