Chapter 262: Life

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The palace cracks in half.

Huge dark clouds blot out the sun, and furious lightning bolts fall like rain. Countless soldiers scream and seek shelter, but there is none to be found. The dark winds blow with such strength that they easily pick up fully armored men and toss them hundreds of yards away in the blink of an eye.

“You have officially become interesting.”

Liu Jin floats in the center of the storm. Between the lightning flowing over his skin and the small tornadoes swirling around his body, it is nearly impossible to make out anything but a vague silhouette. Even his Qi cannot be felt.

All anyone can feel is the Storm Dragon.

“However, you are also very much a child,” the Wandering Wind says. It does not matter how fiercely the storm rages. None of it touches her. The wind cannot even take away her cloak. “What exactly is the point in giving your body to a Shadow? Do you believe that will make you stronger? Foolishness. You are nothing but a cultivator in the Earth Realm. No matter how gifted you are, that will not change just because the shadow dwells inside you. The only thing you have accomplished is losing your sense of self. You should have just ordered the shadow to attack me.”

The Wandering Wind speaks out of respect for what the child has done. Not doing so would be rude. However, she does not expect to receive an answer. She greatly doubts the child has enough sense of self left to understand her words.

Wrong.

The word is not voiced. It is not spoken through Qi. It is power in its purest form. It is not communicating anything. Rather, it is impressing a fact onto the world by virtue of being. The Wandering Wind’s cloak is torn away. Her emerald eyes hold visible surprise in them.

Lightning strikes a heartbeat later.

The Wandering Wind is gone by the time the bolt falls from the heavens. Despite its visual impact, the attack does not seem to do much damage. The only sign left behind by it is a blackened mark on the ground with a minuscule hole in the middle.

The hole goes down over a hundred miles.

“You mistake the significance of the whelp’s choice,” the Storm Dragon says as he floats down. His feet touch the ground, and his hand reaches for his throat. “Ah, lungs, a throat, vocal cords… I had forgotten how those felt.”

The lightning and the winds calm down enough to reveal the Storm Dragon’s form to her. It is fundamentally the child’s body. However, dark scales have grown over his arms and torso like armor. Even his face is nearly taken over by them.

“The respiratory system is rather convenient, Ancient One,” the Wandering Wind replies. “Would you care to finish your thoughts? It is not often someone is in a position to correct me. How is my thought process wrong? The child’s body should be useless to you.”

“The child’s cultivation is useless to me. In that much, you are correct,” the Storm Dragon says. “The power I am using right now is the power natural to me.”

That is more or less what the Wandering Wind assumed. The Storm Dragon might have taken over the child’s body, but that does not mean he has placed his entire being there. Descendant or not, that would have obliterated the child. Instead, Storm Dragon is merely housing his consciousness within the child while keeping most of his power outside. In a way, it is as if a cultivator managed to move his meridians and dantian outside his body.

While noteworthy, it does not seem particularly useful.

“That is not what is important.”

More bolts rain down. The Wandering Wind easily moves around them. The Storm Dragon is not serious, not yet. There is a lesson waiting, but she cannot yet tell what it is. It is a welcome change. Usually, she can tell the point of a lesson before it is ever spoken.

Should she go on the offensive to speed things up?

As she’s thinking that, the Storm Dragon rams into her. The density of their auras prevents any physical constant. Instead, their powers push against each other. Wind and lightning rampage freely all around them, and…

…

Oh.

So that’s what this is about.

“Life,” the Storm Dragon says at the same time as she realizes it. “That is what the whelp shared with me. That is what is important.”

“That’s not…” For the first time in years, Wandering Wind is confused. “How?”

A shadow is a shadow. It is a remnant left behind by a more powerful being. It is not alive. It can never be. It has already accepted its death and passed on. No matter how powerful, there is nothing more to it. It cannot grow or change. It can only fade away one day.

“Inhabiting a living body is not the same as having life, so…” She narrows her eyes. “This is your doing somehow. This place is your domain, after all. You have overlapped your being and that of the child to the point you’re essentially the same being. It must be something like that.”

The boy is alive. The Storm Dragon and the boy occupy the same space. Thus, the Storm Dragon and the boy are the same person. Thus, the Storm Dragon is alive.

It is easy to say, but the skill required to deceive reality to that extent is ridiculous.

“Hmph, your reputation is well deserved.”

“I do not boast when I say I have never once failed to exceed expectations,” the Wandering Wind says. There is a clear note of excitement in her voice. If all she has theorized is right, that means she is not facing a shadow in its domain.

She is facing the Storm Dragon as a cultivator in one of the Divine Realms. While almost certainly not as strong as he was at his peak–that would be an impossibility too many–the prospect of fighting him makes it hard for her to contain herself.

Because fighting the Storm Dragon as he is now means this will be a battle of Dao.

Going along with this plan was undeniably the right choice. She can see it now.

“I am impressed the child was able to think of it,” the Wandering Wind says. “Did you guide him to that conclusion?”

The Storm Dragon snorts. The thunder is loud enough to make the earth tremble for miles.

“He theorized. Recklessly so.”

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“I see. A pity I cannot speak to him now.”

“That is also not quite true.”

The Wandering Wind stares at him in silence for several seconds.

“You left your body,” she concludes. “When the Storm Dragon entered your body, your soul moved mostly out of it—just enough to avoid being overwhelmed by the Storm Dragon’s presence while still keeping itself tethered to this world. That is quite a feat.”

“…I am torn,” Liu Jin says. “I should not be surprised someone of your caliber understood it so quickly, but I feel bad I was denied the chance to explain.”

“I tend to cause that,” the Wandering Wind says. “Do not feel bad. Rather, take pride. It has been decades since I last experienced any surprise. Your grasp of theory and ability to put it into practice far surpasses your age.”

“Would you say I am qualified to speak to you?”

The Wandering Wind’s smile grows.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, you are. More than that, even. As you are now, you are qualified to exchange pointers with me.”

“…I am not sure that is a good thing.”

“Some would agree. Please do your best to dodge this.”

The clouds part. The earth splits. For a moment, even the storm holds its peace. The Wandering Wind makes a single cut across the land without having moved. It is not even half an inch in thickness.

It reaches beyond the horizon.

Liu Jin appears behind the Wandering Wind, his open hand aimed at her. Bolts of lightning shoot from each of his fingers. They spread out and form a cage of purple lightning around her.

“You believe you can trap the wind,” she says, looking at the bars of lightning. “I am offended.”

The cage breaks. Wind wraps around the lightning and unravels it into nothingness. The Wandering Wind’s Qi rises as she asserts her control over the area. The raging winds are pacified, and the dark clouds begin to part.

Thunder howls in protest.