What was lightning? Storms?
In Whiteriver, Old Gran had explained the storms as an act of the ancient gods, whose fury and anger had brought down the lightning and rain. As children, hearing the crackles of thunder and booming drums of rain atop their straw roofs, it was all but true: what else could frighten the earth, except Gods?
But there were no Gods.
Just men.
Aurel, seated in a lotus position, attempted to bundle the power of storms within his body. The nature of the energy still felt wild, uncontrollable, as though it would burst from the confines of his body. Breathing in and out, he continued to feel.
What are you?He asked. What are you made of? If not a God, what makes you?
He knew that his knowledge was still limited. Continuously questioning the Will of the World had brought out only vague answers. And this power was, after all, new. But perhaps—Aurel felt he had to treat the Law more as a companion than an object, a living being rather than a dead thing. He didn't know why—but it helped to imagine this Power of Storms as unyielding, mighty, wild, like the last footholds of nature fighting against civilization.
Give me strength, he thought. I want to free the world. Give me your might, your unwillingness to bend.
Thus he stood up. With his spear in hand, Aurel filled the iron with the power of storms. Swirling and sparking in materialized lightning, red bolts thundered against the ground and air. Each swing crackled. A single step carried him across the canyon with a boom. Another carried him the other way. Aurel attempted to feel the wildness and unfolding nature of storms, dancing as though in rain, red lightning forming a dark, bloody circle in the air.
When he was done, Mary trotted over.
As Aurel washed the sweat off his body with water from the stream, she motioned toward the bow in the distance.
"It's too difficult," she announced. "I cannot do it."
Aurel splashed water on his face before standing.
"You must," he said.
Mary shook her head.
"I am not like the otherworlders. I don't understand their powers. It is impossible!"
"Here, let me look." Aurel motioned toward the bow on the ground and the distant, wooden target made of tied wooden trunks. "Try."
Though Mary seemed to tear up, she walked over to the bow and arrows on the ground. She grabbed them, nocking an arrow, before taking a deep breath.
Mary glanced over to Aurel, leaning against his spear.
He must be an Otherworlder, she thought. After all, no native could do such—magic. Though he did not say anything, it was clear from his red lightning that he was no mortal. He also sometimes stared deep into space, not speaking any words. Either he had a secret she could not figure out, or—he had lost his wits. Either of which she did not like.
But at least this part she did not have to fake.
Drawing the bow, Mary stared at the target. She attempted to feel, feel as Aurel had told her, to sense this qi in the air. This mysterious art that he had brought her from his sect, the Heavenly Blossom Sect, was called the Light Swarm Bow.
Over her bow and arrow, a small silver of light crackled to life. As though small dust motes, particles drifted from her hands.
Releasing the arrow, Mary watched as the small light careened off to the right and left, twirling, before brushing the edge of the makeshift target. The light fizzled away, and all that was left was the exhaustion on her shoulders.
"Good," Aurel said. "Your cultivation is beginning to rise."
"Are you sure you are not an Otherworlder? Tricking me? Making a game of this?"
"I am not," he replied.
But Mary could not believe him. As she walked over to the target, returning to grab the arrow, she studied the man.
All Aurel did was train. He barely spoke, and when he did, it was a few words at most. The red lightning within his hands seemed more interesting than her, it seemed. Always moving, always alone, always away, leaving Yue Yue at home.
Thinking of the child, she smiled. She was a sweet thing.
Whatever he was, she still needed him. She did not know the names of those who had captured her that day. But she remembered their faces, their twisted smiles. Li Fan had been one of them, the lowest member of that group. There had been others. The two bald ones, the skinny short one, and the silent man. Every night as she slept, she pictured them within her heart, spoke the names she had chosen for them. Li Jun, Li Jei, the Rat, and the Ghost. They who had taken them from her village.For her revenge, she needed him.
And this Aurel was still a man.
Mary forced tears to come as she approached.
"It is impossible," she said. "How can I defeat them with this small magic? They can move mountains and stop rivers. What is this little light going to do?" She wiped away her tears. Her acting seemed pitiful enough, she supposed.
"What do you want from me?" she asked. "What can I do?"
"I need you to cultivate," he said. "That is all."
"But how can I get your power? That, that lightning?"
He shook his head, turning away.
"Do not worry. Practice."
As he turned away, Mary wiped away the tears.
She would figure this man out soon enough. He was human after all. No matter what, she would get her revenge. Even if she had to act like this, it didn't matter anymore, for everything she valued—pride, humility, her body—was all gone. What more was this acting to break his cold?
She turned back, touching the red burn marks upon her hands from the bow. She would master this art, for all it was worth.
After Aurel finished training, he returned to Shen Jilan's home. Entering the closed shop, Yue Yue bounded over, burying her head into Mary's awaiting arms.
"Autie Mary!" she said. "Did, did you bwing candy?"
Mary handed over the sweets they had gotten from the streets.
Aurel nodded to the old man, patting Yue Yue on the head, before moving to the back of the shop to his room.
Inside his plain room, Aurel reached underneath the bed. There, he grabbed a wide-brimmed, dark bamboo hat. He also grabbed the wooden mask that covered his mouth, leaving only his eyes visible. Painted black, sculpted fangs marked the wood. He had stolen it from a wood sculptor, an Otherworlder who had discarded the mask behind his shop. It suited Aurel well enough.
Donning a black cloak, he jumped out of his room into the back street.
Dusk, rain drizzled across Luoyang city, setting everything in a hazy fog. Thunder crackled in the distance, dark and angry, as it rained across the darkening city. While the water was light, it slammed down with an immense weight, as though the sky attempted to pierce the earth. Over Aurel's bamboo hat, water rolled off, leaving a gap. Thunder crackled again.
Aurel jumped onto the shingles of a building. The sky continuously darkened as clouds loomed, dark and cloudy. Like a prison, Aurel thought. Like a prison, the clouds seem to gather. With light steps, he jumped over shingles, searching in the rain for a target. With each crackle of thunder, he burst forward with thunder, shingles bursting beneath his feet in red terror. The rain swept around him, Aurel alone a dark spot within the crashing sky.
He spotted a man running through an alley. Hands covering himself from the rain, the man's steps left bursting puddles as he slipped like a fish between broken alleys and homes.
The man was weak. Likely just a qi-condensation cultivator.
When another crash of thunder erupted in the background, Aurel burst forward. Red lightning burst forward as his spear glanced forward. Though the man was weak, he could not underestimate them. Most cultivators, Aurel had found, had life-saving treasures of techniques, those they had learned from their time travel.
In an instant, the spear was at the back of the man's neck. A golden flash of light materialized before his spear, and Aurel's momentum stopped. He slid backward in the alley. But the man he had attacked fell to the ground. Though the spear had not reached him, he slammed onto the earth.
"Wh- Do-" Under the rain, the man's voice could not be heard. As he turned around, his teeth and face were stained a rippling, bloody red that the rain continuously washed over.
"I have… stop!"
Aurel walked forward in the rain, a curtain around his hat. The spear burst with red, darkened lightning. Tendrils of light crackled, breaking the stone underneath. As he came closer, he heard the man's cries.
"I have a daughter, please, I have a family!" Bleeding in the rain, his tears mixed with blood and water. "Please spare me! Scarlet Demon! Please!"
"Are you from the other worlds?"
"What?"
"Your family? Are they from the other worlds?"
"Wh-Yes! Yes, esteemed Demon! Yes! Please, please—" The man fell to his knees. "—this is both our second lives, is it not? You understand too, please?"
The man begged.
But Aurel did not spare him.
For he was an Otherworlder after all. What other sin could be so damning?
He moved on to the next.
Running across the water enveloped rooftops, his feet left small spindles with the rain. He paused, however, as he saw a vague, hazy shape within the misty rain. He pinned himself down to the side of the rooftops, for even here, the incredible power and qi coiled within the walking man was apparent. He couldn't see the man's face because of an iron mask. The man paused, but continued his way down the empty street.
A powerful one, Aurel said. Above foundation stage.
Aurel found another qi-condensation cultivator. He was a beggar collapsed in a small nook behind a closed restaurant, with blankets that did nothing to stop the rain. What did it matter that he was a beggar? He was an Otherworlder, after all.
Stepping deftly down into the stone street, Aurel approached.
But the man awoke with a start. Another technique. Aurel took out his spear and burst forward.
Xiao Lin erupted to his feet. Rain dripped across his face, wetting his hair, drenching his clothes and skin—but he could care less. His feet latched themselves to the ground, in fear of the approaching storm, and he wanted to tell them to move. His heart continuously thundered like a mouse. What use was his Thousand Li Detection Technique, when all it could tell him was that death was approaching.
The Scarlet Demon. In the rain, the red bursts of light sparked as the silent figure teleported before his eyes. Xiao Lin's eyes grew wide, but his feet disobeyed. Boom. Boom. Boom. Stone cracked as the red blur teleported, in bursts within the rain. The Scarlet Demon and his masked fangs approached.
If only I hadn't come, Xio Lin lamented. I would not die. He had begged for reincarnation. It was his folly. But how was he supposed to know the heavens would put him in this hell, where resources were even less and monsters even more? Just the one before him.
Perhaps the Scarlet Demon was to put him to rest.
As he felt his head decapitated, blood spurting, he looked toward the flipping, twisting, spinning, dark sky above.
Why was I not a chosen one? He thought. Why give me this chance if you don't give me the talent, oh Heaven?