“Wretched girl!” Guci’s voice, though faint, rasped with indignant spit. “You show up *now*? After three years? And what in the name of the Prime Edict have you done to that strike? That’s not how you handle celestial phenomena! You’ll crack its essence!”
His mother spared the ghost a casual glance. “Relax, old fossil. It’s not just any stray strike.” She squeezed the seething gold, making it pulse like a trapped sun. “It’s *the* source. The very core of the Glimmering Sky Edict. And I’ve been… collecting it.”
“Acquiring it? That’s what you call a grand, thieving escapade across the Upper Reaches?” Guci sputtered, his translucent hand gesturing wildly. “I tell you, Chuan, your grandmother never would have tolerated such blatant disregard for universal property rights! Even if it *was* for a good cause! Which, I’m assuming, involves your useless son over there!”
He Chuan, still reeling, felt a familiar prickle of annoyance. “Useless? I just stared down an apocalyptic tribulation! And reforged half my system doing it!”
“Half, you say? Pathetic,” she interjected, smirking. She crossed the flagstones toward him, her stride untroubled by the celestial fire wrapped around her skin. “That’s why I went. Your early ruin was never an ordinary meridian snap. It was a fragment of the Sky Edict, an envious seed planted by the firmament to choke your growth. No mountain herb could burn that out. Only the origin itself can rewrite it.”
She stopped before him, calloused fingers brushing his cheek. “Three years,” she murmured, her tone dropping low. “Hunting this across the Eight Ascendant Rims. Not to pilfer stray lightning, as I told your grandfather, but to harvest the root of the spark. To mend you whole.”
With a fluid roll of her wrist, she guided the trapped radiance toward his lips. “Open up, brat. Swallow it down.”
He Chuan, against all his stubborn instincts, obeyed. The moment the blazing essence touched his tongue, it was no longer fire but liquid gold, flowing through him like a river of purest light. Every single sundered pathway, every scarred internal channel, ignited. Pain, sharper and more profound than any tribulation bolt, flared, then vanished, replaced by an overwhelming sensation of perfect completion. His vision swam with light, his body thrummed with boundless energy. He felt roots deepening, branches reaching, a network of power far beyond anything he’d ever imagined. His core solidified, then pulsed, expanding, cycling through cycles of transformation so rapid they were almost dizzying. He Chuan felt his spiritual foundation shatter its old ceiling, breaking past Grandmaster, surging beyond the Ascendant Sovereign threshold, and settling into an abyss of quiet power far above any elder perched on the mountain. He was whole.
Above them, the black thunderheads shuddered. The jealous sky, recoiling from the surge in He Chuan's core and the unimpressed glare of his mother, unraveled in absolute rout. The gale broke into thin vapor, leaving behind an unblemished, sapphire expanse.
Guci, watching He Chuan’s transformation, clapped his transparent hands together. “There! See? I told you she was a bandit!” Guci barked. “Not just my legacy, but the very decree of the sky! The absolute brass on both of you! And you swallowed it whole! It’s in your lineage’s blood!”
She flicked the ghost's shimmering forehead. “Quiet down, old fossil. You’ll whine about this for another millennium. Besides, you taught me every scrap of my tradecraft.”
Guci yelped, rubbing his non-existent brow. “Resourceful acquisition? That’s an awfully polite way of saying ‘blatant theft of incredibly powerful artifacts’! I taught you *tact*, not… not grand larceny on a cosmic scale!”
He Chuan watched the pair trade barbs. The harsh knot behind his ribs loosened, cracking through layers of spite and guarded silence. Water gathered unbidden at the corners of his eyelids. Dropping to his knees, he scooped Baozi against his chest, tucking his chin into the plump creature's fur. The badger squeaked softly, digging blunt claws into his sleeve and butting its snout against his collarbone. He was finally anchor-fast.
Across the cracked arena stones, the sect leader, Elder Jin, and the remaining stewards fell onto their knees, foreheads smacking the slate. “Young Master He! Senior Gu! Forgive our blind arrogance! The sect will offer up every vault, every spiritual herb to your command!”
He Chuan never turned his head. Gathering Baozi in the crook of his elbow, he pushed to his feet. He glanced at his mother, then upward at the glowing pendant. A rare, unshadowed grin crossed her sun-browned face. “Well, brat? The horizon is wide. Time to take a walk.”
He Chuan gave a single nod, sweeping his gaze across the terraced peaks and barren servant gullies of the mountain stronghold. The faction squabbles and tournament rings looked petty, smaller than anthills. Turning his back on the prostrate elders and the dust of his former misery, he took his first stride down the path. His mother matched him pace for pace, while Guci hovered overhead, already grumbling about drift currents and astral coordinates. In his arms, Baozi gave a contented snuffle and dozed off.
The mountain spires receded into morning fog, shrinking behind their heels. The wide expanse of Cangtian stretched out ahead, quiet and unbroken.