The world around Su Mengtian had transformed into a sprawling expanse of silver clouds and rolling thunder. The eighth stage of the Storm Trial had begun—one that required not brute strength or dazzling skill, but quiet honesty: self-awareness.
Commander Fei Wu stood silently on a ridge of cracked thunderstone, his arms crossed. His voice, when it came, rolled like distant thunder.
"This stage reveals the truths you fear to speak. The tempest cannot be lied to. Face it not as a warrior, but as yourself."
Su Mengtian stepped into the open cloudfield where streaks of violet lightning laced through the mist like serpent veins. He didn't need to wait for a beast or trap. The challenge in this stage was already within.
Thunder rumbled again—not from the sky, but from his own memory of his previous life.
He was ten years old, standing before the charred remains of the outpost village where his mentor, Elder Bao, had once taught him the first principles of loyalty and silence. He had failed to return in time. Raiders had struck, and the old man was among the dead.
Su Mengtian remembered standing among the ruins, fists clenched, hating his helplessness, swearing never to be weak again.
Then, another memory. Crimson Sky Academy. Yueying's back as she walked away after he had concealed the depth of his pain—the truth that even after all his power, he felt broken. Alone.
Even with her near, he never admitted the fracture inside. He had told himself he must be unshakable, unreadable. But that too had been a lie. And now the storm would strip him of such illusions.
The clouds shifted.
A figure emerged—an exact mirror of Su Mengtian.
The double did not speak. It only moved, mimicking Su Mengtian's own fighting stance. The echo of every movement was perfect. But there was a difference in the eyes—a sadness, a tiredness that his usual pride hid.
They clashed, not as foes, but as fragments of the same soul. Lightning crackled with every parry. The duel was not about victory. It was about truth.
As their blades locked, the doppelganger hissed, "You wear a thousand masks. When will you take them off? When will you stop pretending that you do not bleed? That you do not long?"
Su Mengtian's blade trembled.
Not from weakness. From release.
"I am afraid," he admitted aloud. The clouds pulsed with light.
"I fear losing the people I love. I fear being used. I fear that every step I take to protect others turns me into something less human. I fear that if I ever stop pushing, I'll become ordinary—and then I won't be enough."
The double faltered.
"But—" Su Mengtian took a slow breath. Thunder crackled inside his chest. "But I am not those fears. I know them. I own them. And I won't let them chain me."
The reflection dropped its sword. Its form shimmered, disintegrating into arcs of lightning that wrapped around him like a ribbon of storm.
The tempest calmed.
Commander Fei Wu finally stepped forward, the hardness in his expression softened.
"You passed," he said. "Not because you're fearless, but because you faced the parts of yourself that could never be conquered by blade. This is the mark of a true leader. Not one who knows only others—but one who knows himself."
The mist began to clear, revealing the final path ahead.
Su Mengtian stood still, drenched in his own sweat, heart hammering—not from exhaustion, but from catharsis. For the first time in a long while, he felt no need to be anything other than who he was.
And so, with the sky quiet and the horizon ahead, he walked forward—toward the final storm.
---
The final stage of the Storm Trial began in utter silence.
The thunderclouds above the Thunderclad Basin, which had raged in symphony throughout the previous stages, suddenly stilled—as though the heavens themselves were holding their breath.
Su Mengtian stood alone beneath the sky's gaze, the scent of scorched ozone lingering like a whisper of things yet to come. His armor bore the scars of the prior tests, streaked with ash and blood. The wind had grown eerily calm, though lightning still simmered beyond the clouds.
Commander Fei Wu observed from the edge of the basin, his silver mantle dancing faintly. He remained stoic, but his eyes, sharp as a falcon's, stayed fixed on the young man below. In the eyes of the Storm Command, this stage was not just about surviving—it was about becoming. And it would ask more of Mengtian than any other.
There was no beast this time. No riddle, no illusion, no moral choice laid plainly before him. Only silence.
And then came the voice.
It was not thunder. It was not Fei Wu. It was something older.
"Decide."
The word struck like a bell in the void. Reality twisted, and the ground beneath Su Mengtian shifted. In an instant, the basin faded, and he was no longer in the storm-scarred world. He stood within a memory—or perhaps a dream. Yet it felt no less real.
He was back in a war-torn valley, surrounded by cries of battle. Men and women, soldiers of the Crimson Sky, lay injured, dying. Ahead, a collapsing mountain pass threatened to bury a retreating convoy of young cultivators and villagers—refugees trying to flee the wrath of dimensional beasts.
To his left was a narrow path leading to a beacon tower. If ignited, the signal would summon reinforcements within minutes—but reaching it would require leaving the convoy to fend for themselves.
To his right, a group of elite Thunder Qilin soldiers awaited his command to engage a monstrous Serpent-Tyrant who had emerged from the chasm, fangs dripping, eyes glowing with carnage.
The serpent could decimate the convoy. But so could the mountain. And the beacon could call for reinforcements that might save both—but only if lit in time.
There was no perfect answer.
This was the test.
"Decide, Commander Su," came the voice again, now echoing from every direction. It was a chorus of his past commanders, mentors, comrades—and even his grandfather Su Leilong's phantom whisper—testing him not in strength or skill, but in judgment.
Mengtian's fists clenched. His heart pounded. Cold sweat rolled down his temple.
Three paths. No time.
He inhaled sharply, shutting out the noise of screams, the pull of emotions, and even the phantom weight of guilt that loomed like a blade above his neck.
He turned to the elite Thunder Qilin squad.
"Fan out. Delay the serpent. Buy me time—do not fight to the death unless absolutely necessary. Prioritize mobility, not direct confrontation."
They saluted and vanished into the fray.
He turned to the nearest cultivator among the convoy. "Take charge of the evacuation. Anyone still mobile, assist those who can't walk. Keep the convoy moving west, away from both the pass and the serpent."
Finally, he sprinted toward the beacon tower—using every ounce of strength, speed, and will.
The ground trembled. A quake sent fissures spiraling out beneath him. But he leapt from boulder to crumbling ridge, ascended the tower with blistered hands, and struck the ignition sigil with his blood-drenched palm.
A surge of light lit the heavens. The reinforcements were summoned.
And in that moment, the battlefield dissolved. The screams died. The dust vanished.
He stood once more in the Thunderclad Basin.
Chest heaving. Knees trembling.
But standing.
Before him, the storm clouds parted for the first time. A single bolt of lightning cracked from the sky—not in wrath, but in acknowledgment. It struck the basin floor before him, leaving behind a glowing object.
A pair of thunder-forged armguards, etched with the runes of ancient storm kings—relics known only in legend. These were the Thunder-Bearing Armguards, forged from the bones of the first Tempest Fang Bear slain by Su Leilong himself in his youth.
Mengtian approached and knelt, lifting the relics with reverence. They pulsed with energy—not just power, but a memory of everything he had endured.
But then, something else stirred.
A rumble deeper than thunder echoed from the ground.
A hidden seal broke open, and rising on a pedestal of stormstone was a crystalline egg—pale blue and crackling with threads of silver lightning, like a storm trapped in glass.
Fei Wu stepped forward now, his usually impassive face softened by solemn pride. "That… is the Egg of the Celestial Thunder Dragon Spirit Beast," he said quietly. "Left behind by your grandfather. Waiting for the one worthy of its bond."
Mengtian didn't speak. His throat tightened. He approached the egg, laying his hand gently atop it.
And for the first time, the egg pulsed warmly beneath his palm.
From the clouds above, nine dragons of lightning arced across the sky, roaring in approval.
Fei Wu bowed his head—not in condescension, but in recognition.
"You have passed all nine trials. You have chosen with integrity, led with empathy, endured with resilience, and today—you decided not with hesitation, but with clarity. That… is why you will not only inherit your grandfather's legacy—you will surpass it."
The basin trembled one final time—not with destruction, but with promise.
And thus, Su Mengtian's Storm Trial ended—not as a boy chasing power, but as a leader crowned by it.