A storm of qi swirled around He Yu’s dantian. His core. It drew from its surroundings. From the gathering and darkening clouds above, flickering with arcs of purple and gold. From the lashing wind and rain. From the ever growing, ever churning storm. He Yu drew upon it all, and cultivated.

  Deep within the mountain, within the shrine of the Thunder God and his drum, He Yu cultivated. The insights he’d gained from that final battle over the Shrouded Peaks sect had taken years to sort through properly. Years to come to terms with. The overwhelming power of the experts above had shaken the foundations of the world, and even that wasn’t enough to stop her. The Sunset Empress she’d been called. Jin Xifeng.

  Sect Leader Zhou Shanyuan had fallen first. Even the mountain itself proved nothing before Jin Xifeng’s insatiable want. The pillar of heaven, First Elder Cai Weizhe—He Yu’s own martial grandfather—had fallen next. Cracked and broken under the power of countless lesser experts, wielded by a creature of avarice and malice.

  With her jailers defeated, Jin Xifeng swept across the Dragon Empire, claiming it for her own. Although he’d come directly to the Thunder God’s Shrine, seeking refuge from the storm spirit, Yongnian, He Yu wasn’t wholly removed from the world. Occasionally, he ventured forth from the sanctuary with Chen Fei.

  The emperor was dead. Whether he’d been slain by Jin Xifeng herself, or had fallen to some calamity before her arrival, was some point of contention. It mattered little—the result was the same. Jin Xifeng was the empress now. A Twilight Empress for a Twilight Empire. Fitting, as her bloody sunset now hung over the whole of the land that once belonged to the dragon.

  With little else to do, He Yu cultivated. His sect destroyed, his friends scattered, and his mentor missing. What else had he before him? His was the Way of a hero—a legend. For three and a half years, he’d sought a villain. Someone deserving of justice delivered. Someone he could strive against and prevail over. He’d thought Sha Xiang was one such figure. In the end, she’d defeated herself. Sacrificing her future, her very cultivation to something far greater and far worse. He’d got what he asked for. When Jin Xifeng broke free of her prison, he’d come to glimpse what becoming a legend meant. He’d come to glimpse the fury and the power of one who could and did defy the heavens.

  He’d been wholly unprepared. Were it not for the protection of the sect, the protection of his mentor, Zhang Lifen, he’d have died with the rest of his sect brothers and sisters. As the years passed by, grief turned to resolve. Ignorance to wisdom. Helplessness to clarity. Slowly he clawed insight, certainty, and purpose from it all.

  He Yu cultivated the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment. The principle technique of a primordial art gifted him by Cai Weizhe. What records he’d found in his early days at the sect had held little. But the crumbs were there. Cai Weizhe had inherited the Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace—the art he’d personally chosen for He Yu. Cai Weizhe had been the one first to create, then maintain, the Dawn Palace. A grand formation array responsible for sealing Jin Xifeng away in the western wilds. For a thousand years he’d watched over the array, supported by the Shrouded Peaks Sect.

  All things were connected under the Eternal Dao. Some were connected more closely than others. The Dawn Palace, the Peerless Judgment of a ruler and a hero, the Heavenly Palace of the Cloud Emperor. As the years crept by following the fall of the Shrouded Peaks Sect, He Yu pulled those threads ever closer. Followed them ever further. By now, he could see the weft and the weave. The way they twined around one another and reached beyond his sight. He could see when and how he’d been spun into a tapestry begun a thousand years ago.

  He could see his way out.

  He Yu was not yet fully bound. Wholly a part of this grand design beyond his comprehension. He could remain as he was. A lowly, unimportant cultivator. A talented one, to be sure. Whatever he did, his future was bright. His deeds would be mighty. As he was now, he was certain he could reach the Sixth Realm, at least. Perhaps even the Seventh.

  Such was not his Way.

  When he caught the first fleeting glimpse of his personal Dao, it shook him from his meditation. He’d spent days discussing what he’d learned with Yongnian, then with Chen Fei. They had, in their own way, encouraged and guided him. Chen Fei, with her enthusiastic insistence that he did what he thought was right. That he follow the path he’d laid out for himself when he first left his childhood home, the tiny village of Shulin. In her own way, she had become more and more like a sage as the years passed and she walked further along her own Way, up in the mountains near the shrine.

  Yongnian had provided a different, but no less important, sort of guidance. The storm spirit was the steward of this place, appointed by the Thunder God himself to watch over a shrine long forgotten by mortals and immortals alike for purposes the spirit himself did not fully understand. Yongnian did, however, know that He Yu was a part of that purpose.

  Spirit and immortal spent hours, days—even years—discussing the Dao. Discussing the Way of a young and uncertain cultivator unmoored from the support he’d come to rely upon. The Heavenly Palace was connected to the Thunder God, yes. The Heavenly Palace was the creation of an ancient cultivator from a time before memory. Yes, that cultivator was the Cloud Emperor. Perhaps some records yet remained, but they were unimportant.

  Through their discussions, He Yu gained yet more insights. He advanced his understanding of himself, his Way, and his arts. Yongnian added to the lessons He Yu had taken from Zhang Lifen. He’d clarified some of her instruction, and provided corrections to some misconceptions He Yu had formed. Had events passed differently, Yongnian assured him, Elder Cai likely would have imparted these lessons eventually. The Fifth Realm spirit claimed he was a poor substitute for the inheritor of the Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace, but He Yu was grateful for the guidance either way.

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  When He Yu finally made his choice, it was no choice at all.

  He’d already chosen—three times. First, Zhang Lifen had offered him a chance to stay an outer disciple of the Shrouded Peaks Sect. She’d reminded him that to press forward would be to face a life of hardship. He could remain in the outer sect, and he would live a long, comfortable life. A good life, free from worry.

  He Yu entered the tournament.

  Elder Cai had offered him a similar choice. To forget what he’d learned. To choose a different cultivation art, and remain ignorant of what lay in the west. Remain ignorant of the truth behind the Dawn Palace and the Sunset Empress. Ignorance would be his armor, and Elder Cai would not think any less of him for it.

  He Yu went west.

  Finally, He Yu had set his feet upon the path up the mountain. Ready to walk into the storm, face the wrath of heaven, and subject himself to a tribulation. To form his Golden Core. Once again, Zhang Lifen had told him he could stay. Told him he could remain at the peak of Body Refining. Most cultivators never reached the Fourth Realm, she reminded him. His place in the inner sect was secure, and he could still advance his rank.

  He Yu endured the tribulation.

  When He Yu made this final choice, it was no choice at all. He’d already chosen. Those three times, and in countless others. To be a legend was to face the impossible—to shake the foundations of the world and to defy the heavens themselves. To be a hero was to face the unconquerable—to stand where others fell and to endure against all odds. He Yu wasn’t so vain, so foolish, so na?ve any more think he was anything approaching a hero yet. Let alone a legend. But such was his Way.

  After nearly fifteen years at the Thunder God’s Shrine, He Yu went to the deepest part of the temple, and sequestered himself beneath the statue of the Thunder God himself. Yongnian sealed the doors behind him. A distant drumbeat thundered in his heart and his ears as he drew upon the world. Drew upon the fury and punishment of heaven. Upon the wind and rain. Upon the storm.

  Atop the infinite stair of the Heavenly Palace stood the Thunder God himself—Leigong, the Lord of Thunder. Mallet in one hand and drum in the other, he sent punishment to evildoers, striking them down. His wife—Dianmu, Mother of Lightning—guided his punishment with her brilliance. Together, they brought the wrath of heaven down upon the evildoers of the world.

  In the sky above, a great dragon wrapped itself around the heart of the storm. Its beard flowed like clouds, and its scales shone like lightning. It brought wind and rain, flooding and nourishing the land in turn. Its horns held the immensity of heaven and earth. Its body coiled around the sky, the world, the Heavenly Palace.

  He Yu placed one foot upon the stair. Then another. Around him rose the three pillars he’d formed of the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering—an art gifted to him in this very shrine by Yongnian. As he climbed, He Yu drew upon the churning mass of qi all around him. Pulled it in to his core, and cycled it according to the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment—his strange, primordial cultivation technique that showed him the truth of things.

  Within the center of his spirit, a figure emerged from the vast expanse of qi he held and drew upon. Seated in cultivation, it shone golden, primordial, and pure. It flickered with heaven, swirled with water, and churned with wind. A combination of the primary aspects of He Yu’s cultivation base. It was He Yu, perfected and reborn.

  He climbed the staircase. With each step, he pushed more of his qi into his forming Nascent Soul. The stone beneath his feet cracked, as if it had been struck by a thousand bolts from heaven.

  Two more pillars of heaven rose from the expanse of his core. The five of them together forged his body anew. His bones became like steel. His muscles drew upon the very storm and sky. His blood turned to lighting, and his skin took on a shine like burnished bronze.

  The rain sheltered him. He feared no single blow, for he could turn it aside with the gentle course of a stream, or the surging flood of a river as he needed.

  The winds lifted him. No longer did his feet touch the ground, no longer did he need to tread upon the earth.

  Ten thousand steps lay behind him. He erupted into a new realm. He Yu reached for the heavens, and heaven answered.

  He turned and beheld the world with the eyes of an emperor. The pillars of heaven rose on before him and on either side. The stair of the Heavenly Palace stretched up to reach infinity behind him. A great dragon coiled around it all. At the center of his spirit sat his newly formed complete Nascent Soul.

  He Yu opened his eyes and stood. The black sludge of impurities covered the floor of the shrine. More than he’d ever extruded before. He turned his sight inward, just to be certain. It was still there, a tiny representation of himself, seated in meditation at the center of his expanse of qi. Qi more plentiful and potent than he’d ever felt before.

  With a flex of his spirit, He Yu expanded his presence. Rain washed away the sludge of his breakthrough. Wind howled through the chambers, and lighting crawled over every available surface. As he gazed down from atop the Heavenly Palace once more, the dragon swam through the sky above.

  He may not be ready to face Jin Xifeng as he was. She’d slain two Eighth Realm experts like they were nothing. But if he wanted to deliver justice, this was the first step. First on this path, but just another along his Way. A Way that became ever more clear, ever more defined as He Yu cultivated, and shaped the world with his spirit.

  At the far end of the chamber, the twin bronze bound doors swung open. Yongnian stood beyond, clouded hands folded within his robe. The storm spirit approached, his Fifth Realm presence feeling somehow feeble in He Yu’s new sight. When he drew close, he spent a moment silently regarding He Yu, the storm cloud that served as his face betraying nothing.

  “Child of Storms, no more,” Yongnian said at length. “Regent of the Heavenly Palace, this keeper of the shrine greets you.”

  He Yu finally allowed himself a smile. “Thank you, Yongnian. I should have known you’d sense what I’d done.” After fifteen years he’d grown familiar with, and rather fond of, the spirit.

  “Of course. How could you think so auspicious an occurrence within this place could escape my notice?” Yongnian motioned for He Yu to follow. “Come, I’ve prepared a bath. Now that you’ve achieved all that you can here, we must speak on what comes next.”

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