The descent began in silence, broken only by the low, distant hum of energy pulsing beneath the surface of the living island. Su Mengtian walked alone now. Behind him, the battles among the factions raged far above; the Hallmasters and the Heavenly Spear Alliance secured the entrance to the secret realm, locking down the area as instructed. But this final journey was his alone.
The stone staircase spiraled deep into the earth like the coiled backbone of a leviathan. The walls were carved with shifting sigils that glowed softly in response to his presence.
Each step seemed heavier than the last, not due to fatigue, but from the spiritual pressure coalescing the further he went. The island no longer felt like just a place-it was a slumbering will, and now, Su Mengtian had stepped into its heart.
At the base of the stairway, the cavern opened up into a vast hollow surrounded by reflective, dark crystal. In the center stood a figure, ancient and regal-an elderly man with eyes like whirlpools of stars, a beard white as moonlight flowing to his chest, clad in robes woven from clouds and stormlight.
"You've come," the Avatar of Kun intoned, his voice neither loud nor soft, but resonant in Su Mengtian's soul. "You carry more than thunder in your veins. You carry sorrow... and defiance."
Su Mengtian stepped forward, silent.
"The final trial awaits-the Trial of Will. Not to test strength, but to see the truth you bear," Kun's Avatar said, raising a finger.
The chamber changed in an instant. The crystals dimmed, shadows lengthened, and the world fractured. Su Mengtian found himself in a war-torn battlefield.
Bodies lay broken across red earth, their armor marked with his old insignia. Explosions echoed. Flames clawed the sky. He stood once more at the final siege of his past life-the day he fell.
He was no longer eighteen, but a war-worn commander again. His blade was drenched. Before him knelt Yueying, dying. Her blood pooled at his feet.
"Why couldn't you save me?" she whispered, fading.
Su Mengtian trembled. It wasn't real-but it was truth.
He tried to speak, but his voice cracked. Pain erupted in his chest. Rage. Guilt. Loss. It surged through him like a storm.
"Is this all you are?" another voice echoed. It was his own, from the past-cold, commanding, detached. "Power. Ambition. Victory. And still, you lost everything."
The illusion pressed in. Reality bent around the emotions he had buried.
He dropped to one knee, then both. His breathing slowed.
"I did fail," he whispered. "But I won't deny it."
With those words, the illusion broke.
Light flared. The shadows tore away. Su Mengtian stood again in the crystal chamber, sweat-drenched, heart pounding-but whole.
Kun's Avatar nodded solemnly. "To admit one's truth and yet rise... that is the strength of will."
From the heart of the cavern, a pulse echoed. A deep, ancient heartbeat.
The crystals around him cracked, revealing the true chamber within. A vast, floating orb of condensed spirit essence hovered at the center. Lightning coiled inside it like a sleeping dragon.
"This," Kun's Avatar said, "is my legacy. Not merely power-but the memory of all I have seen. Storms older than time. Depths deeper than empires. Will you carry it?"
Su Mengtian stepped forward. "I will."
The orb surged toward him, passing into his chest. The world screamed in thunder.
His body locked in place. Spirit threads twisted, merged, ignited. Lightning danced through his veins-then stars. Visions of ancient battles in the skies, oceans devoured by storms, divine beasts once worshiped, now extinct.
When the light faded, Su Mengtian opened his eyes. They shimmered with streaks of silver lightning.
The Avatar bowed. "You are now bound to the storm. Rise, Heir of Kun."
As Su Mengtian ascended the staircase once more, the island itself shifted subtly-as though it, too, had awakened. The deep pulse of the storm resided in his soul.
But far above, in the mists, that lone violet eye still watched.
And in the courts of the Empire, Bai Qingtian paused mid-sentence, his gaze drawn to the heavens. In another city, Long Aotian cracked his knuckles as he read an ancient prophecy long forgotten. And within the snowy cliffs, Bai Feng stepped through a portal of ice, his path lit by rising war.
Change was coming. And the storm's heir had just awakened.
The heartbeat of the abyss echoed like thunder wrapped in silence.
Su Mengtian stood at the center of a swirling domain beneath the living island-a realm so ancient it predated memory. The very air shimmered with ethereal lightning, remnants of Kun's elemental might still echoing in the folds of space. The spectral form of the white-bearded elder-the avatar of Kun-remained suspended above a spiraling altar of scaled stone, eyes glowing with time's judgment.
"You have passed the Trials," the elder said, his voice as vast as oceans and as gentle as distant tides. "But trials reveal potential. It is choice that shapes destiny."
Mengtian's body still pulsed with residual pain from the Trial of Will, where he'd relived the betrayal, blood, and agony of his mercenary past. But now, a peace sat behind his gaze. His blood had changed. Kun's breath moved with his.
The altar cracked. From within the abyssal core, a stream of radiant energy surged into
the space, forming a bridge of light toward Mengtian's chest. His Thunder Guardian Dragon bloodline stirred and flared in resonance, but instead of resistance, it opened-accepting the legacy of Kun.
A second pulse came, deeper, more ancient -older than even Kun.
A shadow stirred.
The avatar's expression darkened. "You must not let it awaken... not yet."
But it was too late. From a fissure in the far wall of the abyss, black vines laced with golden lightning began to coil outward. Something slumbered deeper than Kun. Something even the ancient leviathan had kept locked beneath its own sleeping form. A final seal cracked.
Mengtian reached instinctively for his weapons-but his hand stopped. The spirit of Kun's legacy wasn't reacting with fear. It was merging with purpose. A single memory passed through the avatar into Mengtian's mind-an image of a being cloaked in chains of light, imprisoned beneath storms at the dawn of the world.
The Storm Parasite. A forgotten force tied to the original rebellion of the divine beasts.
"Part of your inheritance, Heir of Kun, is its burden. This island does not merely offer legacy. It is also the lock."
Mengtian's expression turned cold. "Then I'll master the lock... and if the key threatens the world, I'll wield it."
The spectral elder nodded. "Very well. Then take what remains."
A final surge of spirit energy tore through the chamber. Markings etched into Mengtian's arms and spine-glowing lines that shimmered like lightning over still water. The Heart of Kun embedded itself within his core, sinking into his dantian with a roaring pulse.
For a moment, it seemed time itself bowed to his presence.
Above the island, the weather cracked open.
Storm clouds spiraled into divine symmetry. Every major faction-The Crimson Flame Clan, Dragon Soul Clan, Celestial Snow Pavilion, Radiant Lion Clan, Golden Chamber of Commerce, and others-looked skyward as the clouds parted to reveal a beacon of power radiating from deep within the island.
Yueying, still cloaked in a vision talisman within her family's camp, stared into the sky. Her silver eyes trembled.
"He's done it..."
But not everyone looked on with awe.
Far off in the distance, a veiled figure perched in the upper canopy of a storm tree, hidden from all factions. Only a single golden eye visible beneath the mask. A mocking voice whispered to no one, "So, cousin... you think Kun's legacy is a throne? Let's see if it keeps you warm when the storm eats your soul."
The heir of the Great Eastern Clan, Tang Jinhai, narrowed his eyes from the ridge where his warriors assembled. "He's awakened something deeper than a spirit beast. This changes the game."
Meanwhile, Long Aotian stood atop his personal warship, arms crossed. "Nephew or not, boy... if you attract the storm, you better learn to ride lightning."
The elder spirit of Kun began to fade, dissipating into the pulse of the chamber.
"You are now bound, Su Mengtian. Not just to Kun, but to the sea of time it once guarded. When the heavens call for reckoning, you will not be allowed silence."
Su Mengtian looked up through the dissipating into the pulse of the chamber.
"You are now bound, Su Mengtian. Not just to Kun, but to the sea of time it once guarded. When the heavens call for reckoning, you will not be allowed silence."
Su Mengtian looked up through the translucent ceiling of the abyss, to the flickering light above.
"Then let them call. I've walked death once. I'll walk storms twice."
He turned toward the spiral of light leading back up the abyss, the Heart of Kun thundering within him.
Behind him, the final seal at the base of the chamber pulsed once, almost curiously. The shadow inside blinked-and smiled.