Chapter 14 – The Lightning Hunt
Outside the Tower of Furnace, the skies above Blazing Wolf Mountain were far from calm.
Thunder rolled endlessly, and streaks of lightning clawed at the horizon like wild beasts caged in the clouds.
Baifang stood atop a jagged cliff, his spear planted in the stone, clothes tattered and soaked in rain. His hair clung to his face, eyes sharp and alive with electric light.
Yin Jin had vanished into the tower a day ago—though deep inside, Baifang felt something more. The air was wrong, heavy, vibrating with unseen power.
> "That idiot's stirring up another storm in there, isn't he?" he muttered with a grin.
"Guess I'll handle the outside mess."
Below him, the valley boiled with movement—fire beasts of every size prowled through molten rivers, their cores glowing like stars. Baifang needed ten mid-grade cores to pass the second phase. He already had seven.
He twirled his spear, lightning snapping from the tip. "Three more, then I'll drag Yin Jin out myself."
He leapt from the cliff.
The ground split where he landed, a surge of electricity turning the rain to steam. A pack of Crimson Horn Boars shrieked and charged, tusks blazing with magma. Baifang met them head-on—his laughter echoing through the storm.
> "Come on then! Let's see who fries first!"
He thrust his spear forward. Lightning burst from it in spirals, piercing through three beasts at once. Their bodies convulsed before collapsing into charred husks, cores clinking against the rock.
The storm only grew wilder. For hours he hunted, his movements like lightning incarnate—swift, unpredictable, unyielding. Each strike was a dance, every kill a rhythm. But deep down, even as the thrill burned in his blood, he couldn't shake a strange pull from the tower.
Something immense was awakening within it.
By the time Baifang had slain his tenth beast, the rain had stopped. The clouds turned gold and black, swirling above the tower's summit. He shielded his eyes as a deafening explosion tore through the air.
A pillar of black-gold flame erupted skyward, so vast it split the clouds apart. The mountain trembled under its heat.
Baifang froze, mouth half-open. "...What the hell did he just do?"
A shockwave of fire rolled down from the tower, melting the upper cliffs. Baifang slammed his spear into the ground, forming a lightning barrier that shimmered against the inferno.
When the blaze faded, the sky was clear—unnaturally clear. And above the cracked tower, a single figure hovered, cloaked in light.
Baifang's grin returned, faint but proud.
> "Knew you'd come out alive, idiot."
He shouldered his spear, gazing up at Yin Jin's silhouette framed by the dawn.
> "Guess my turn's next… I'll have to get stronger too."
Lightning flickered around him again, restless and wild, as if answering the c
hallenge.
> "Azure Sky Academy's not ready for us."