Chapter 5: Eight Days on the Back of a Thundercloud
The first night, no one slept.
They floated five hundred meters above the world, cradled inside a violet storm that should have torn them apart. Wind screamed past the wagons, yet inside the cloud the air was still, almost warm. Lightning played across the edges of their little island like curious cats, never quite touching.
Lin Qiu stood at the front of the formation, barefoot on nothing but condensed thunder qi, arms slightly spread. His cloak snapped behind him like a war banner. Every so often he would flick a finger and the entire cloud would tilt, correcting course or rising higher to avoid a mountain peak.
Su Ling watched him from the doorway of her palanquin, knees drawn to her chest.
He looked like a god from the old paintings, except gods weren't supposed to have bruises under their eyes or cracked lips from not drinking enough water.
She crawled out, careful not to jostle the wounded guards floating nearby, and walked across empty air until she stood beside him.
"You're shaking," she said.
Lin Qiu glanced at her. The violet glow in his eyes had dimmed to embers; maintaining the thundercloud was draining him faster than the Heart could refine ambient qi at this altitude.
"I'm fine."
"You're lying. Your meridians are overheating. I can see the lightning crawling under your skin."
He didn't deny it.
Su Ling pulled a small jade bottle from her ruined sleeve. "Frost lotus elixir. My father's private stock. One drop will cool your channels for six hours."
Lin Qiu stared at the bottle like it might bite him.
"I don't take handouts."
"It's not a handout. It's payment for services rendered." She uncorked it and held it out. "Drink, or I'll pour it down your throat myself."
A faint smile tugged at his mouth. He took the bottle and swallowed a single drop.
Instantly the violet lightning crawling over his arms calmed, turning from angry crimson-tinged arcs to gentle lavender threads. He exhaled, shoulders loosening.
"Better?"
"Much." He handed the bottle back. "Thank you, Miss Su."
"Just Ling is fine." She hesitated. "Why are you doing this? You could have walked away."
Lin Qiu looked north, where the horizon already showed the faint shimmer of Qingyun City's guardian array, still hundreds of li distant.
"Because once," he said quietly, "no one helped me when I needed it. And because twenty-three days from now, the sects will open their gates. I intend to walk through them owing no one."
Su Ling studied his profile. "You're going to join a great sect with that power?"
"I'm going to make them beg me to join."
She laughed despite herself, a startled, bright sound that made several sleeping guards stir.
"You're insane."
"Probably."
The second day, the cloud passed over the Jade Serpent Gorge.
A flock of third-grade Ironwing Rocs—spirit beasts with wingspans wider than houses—rose from the cliffs, shrieking challenge at the intrusion into their territory. Their leader was a fourth-grade matriarch, late Foundation Establishment equivalent, feathers like black steel.
The guards woke screaming.
Lin Qiu opened his eyes.
He stepped off the cloud.
For one heartbeat he fell. Then lightning condensed beneath his feet into a violet dragon a hundred meters long. He landed on its head like a rider mounting his steed.
The dragon roared. The sound cracked the gorge walls.
The roc matriarch dove, talons that could shred mountains reaching for him.
Lin Qiu raised one hand, palm forward.
"Thunder Monarch Art: Second Form — Heavenly Prison Cage."
A sphere of violet lightning blossomed around the matriarch, hundreds of thunder chains snapping into place. The roc hit the cage and stopped dead, wings beating uselessly. Every time it touched a chain, a million volts poured through its body.
Ten breaths later the matriarch crashed to the gorge floor, smoking, alive but humbled.
The rest of the flock fled.
Lin Qiu returned to the cloud. The dragon dissolved back into sparks that soaked into his skin.
Su Ling's mouth was actually hung open.
"You… you subdued a fourth-grade spirit beast without even drawing a weapon."
Lin Qiu shrugged, but his legs were shaking again. "It was only early Foundation level. Barely a warm-up."
He sat down hard and accepted another drop of frost lotus elixir without protest this time.
By the fourth day, the guards had stopped being afraid of him and started worshiping him.
They called him "Young Master Thunder" behind his back and argued over who got to polish his (non-existent) boots. One even tried to kowtow mid-flight and nearly floated off the cloud.
Lin Qiu threatened to drop them all in the next river if they didn't cut it out.
Su Ling just watched, amused and thoughtful.
On the sixth night, the cloud drifted slowly so everyone could rest. They camped on the wagons as if on solid ground, cooking rice over a fire made of controlled ball lightning.
Su Ling found Lin Qiu sitting alone at the edge, legs dangling over nothingness, staring down at the moonlit world.
She sat beside him.
"Tell me your name," she said. "Your real one."
He was quiet long enough she thought he wouldn't answer.
"Lin Qiu," he said finally. "From Cloud's Rest village. I was… nobody."
"Not anymore."
"No," he agreed. "Not anymore."
She nudged his shoulder. "When we reach Qingyun City, come to the Su family compound first. My father will want to thank you properly. And… I'd like to repay the rest of what I owe."
Lin Qiu turned to her. Moonlight painted silver across his strange violet eyes.
"I'll come," he said. "But not for repayment. For information. I need to know which sect fears thunder the least."
Su Ling smiled, small and sharp. "Then you want the Violet Heaven Palace. They were founded by a Thunder Monarch ascender ten thousand years ago. Their current sect leader is… complicated. But their core inheritance is lightning dao."
Lin Qiu's heart thudded. The same palace his grandfather had once served.
He looked north again, where the city lights were now close enough to make out individual towers.
"Violet Heaven Palace," he repeated, tasting the words.
Thunder rumbled inside his chest in answer.
On the morning of the eighth day, the thundercloud descended over the eastern gate of Qingyun City just as the sun rose.
Hundreds of thousands of cultivators—outer disciples recruiting, rogue cultivators hoping for a miracle, merchant clans showing off their geniuses—looked up as a violet storm drifted out of a clear sky and gently set six wagons down in the middle of the main avenue like it was the most natural thing in the world.
The cloud dissolved into sparks that vanished into a barefoot boy in a patched cloak.
Silence fell across half the city.
Then the shouting started.
Su Ling stepped forward, chin high despite her torn robes, and announced in a clear voice that carried for blocks:
"I am Su Ling of the Three Rivers Merchant Union. This is my savior, Lin Qiu. Any who seek to make trouble for him will answer to the Su Clan… and to the thunder he commands."
Lin Qiu felt hundreds of spiritual senses sweep over him and bounce off the Heart's pressure like rain off dragon scales.
He took one step forward.
The cobblestones beneath his foot cracked in a perfect nine-petaled lightning flower.
Message delivered.
Somewhere in the city, atop the tallest tower of the Violet Heaven Palace's recruitment pavilion, an old man in purple robes opened his eyes.
The teacup in his hand shattered.
"…So the little monster has arrived early," he murmured, smiling with far too many teeth.
"Interesting."
Lin Qiu looked at the towering gates, at the floating islands in the distance where true immortals trained, and felt the violet star in his chest roar with hunger.
He grinned, wild and free.
"Let's begin."
To be continued…