Above, thunder rolled.
It did not roll like mortal thunder.
It was a constant, world-shaking drumbeat—layer upon layer of violet bolts crashing down, flashing through cloud and mist, turning the sky over Thundercrash Mountain into a sea of light. The entire mountain range seemed to breathe with it. Every time heavenly thunder fell, the bones of the earth trembled, the stone itself humming with Law.
Below that storm, fire and lightning tangled together.
A phoenix of flame screamed as it dove, its cry slicing through the roar. Purple dragons of thunder answered, weaving like rivers through the air. On the wide stone platform carved out by ten thousand years of heavenly punishment, Vermillion Bird fire and dragon lightning clashed again and again, leaving trenches of molten rock and spiderwebs of charred glass in their wake.
Ren rose from his seated position without hurry.
The last filaments of Fire, Thunder, and Wind Laws sank into his flesh and meridians, like hot needles turning into warm bone. The vermillion bird, thunder dragon, and gale roc that had circled him moments ago were no longer visible; they lingered instead as faint branded imprints, etched into his True Essence, into the flow of his Dao.
His aura distorted the storm around him in small ways.
Every bolt that fell near him bent, subtly, unconsciously. A streak of lightning would twist an inch off its path. A gust of wind would break around him as if circling a mountain peak. Fire essence thickened near his skin, as if the world itself recognized him as a natural hearth.
Ren rolled his shoulders once, letting numbness fade from his legs. His gaze dropped toward the battlefield below.
"Since I've taken the mountain's hospitality," he murmured, tone light, "it'd be rude not to say hello."
His figure blurred.
The storm sea that cloaked Thundercrash Mountain churned as if stirred by an invisible hand. Layers of cloud, dust, and lightning folded like fabric. Ren stepped once.
Space itself rippled.
He appeared far below, between cloud and stone, his body hovering amid the middle layers of the mountain's thunder domain. Violet bolts wove a net above and below, every flash turning the jagged cliffs into ghostly bones for a heartbeat before tossing everything back into shadow.
Ren's eyes narrowed, his perception piercing through mist and glare.
There.
On a broad platform half-melted by countless strikes, a phoenix of flame shrieked and dove.
The Vermillion Bird's wings were spread to their full span, fifty feet of burning crimson-gold, every feather flocked with Fire Laws. Each flap drew out a blazing storm, torrents of phoenix fire surging upward to slam into a descending rain of purple lightning.
On its back stood a woman in red.
Her robes clung to a slender waist, skirt snapping and twisting in the storm gusts. Long black hair was tied back with a simple vermillion ribbon, a rare touch of softness amid the chaos. The longsword in her hand traced arcs of scarlet, every slash leaving behind a trail of fire lotuses that blossomed against the encroaching bolts and died in charred petals.
Mu Qianyu.
Divine Phoenix Island's Saintess of the Vermillion Bird Faction. In this lower realm's terms, early Revolving Core, the sharpest phoenix plume of her generation.
Even so, she was losing.
Opposite her, coiled around a jagged stone spire like a living mountain, a dragon of thunder raised its head and roared.
The Purple Thunder Flood Dragon's body was thick as a city wall, each scale a piece of polished amethyst etched with interlocking lightning runes. Purple arcs crawled beneath its translucent belly; Thunder Laws that had simmered for nearly ten thousand years raced there like imprisoned rivers.
Thundercrash Mountain itself was its throne and nest. For millennia it had eaten lightning as mortals ate grain, devouring thunder treasures, hoarding thundergrass, breeding an entire swarm of thunder lizards to patrol the slopes. In the surrounding Southern Wilderness, the Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder nurtured in its thunder soul was whispered of as one of the most violent, berserk lightning essences under heaven.
Now its long whiskers crackled with killing intent. Purple lightning wrapped around its claws in armor-like plates. Its pupils burned with tyrannical cruelty as it lashed at the air.
Thunder crashed.
Flame surged.
Each collision tore new wounds into the platform—trenches melted into glass, glass shattered into dust, dust fused again under the next blow. The entire stone platform looked like a scar that had never had the chance to heal.
Ren hovered just outside the heart of the battlefield, letting storm wind tug at his cloak, listening to the rhythm of destruction.
His spirit sense swept through the clash.
Mu Qianyu's true essence revolved in a firm, steady cycle. Phoenix fire rose from her dantian like a pillar, poured into her sword, and spread in arcs that carried a faint trace of high-order flame—embryonic Phoenix True Fire, Divine Phoenix Island's lifeblood. Her Fire Laws had already stepped clearly into the second level; every swing carried the meanings of "burn through," "purify," "cleanse," layered within.
Behind her, the Vermillion Bird screamed, Vermillion Bird flames erupting to wrap its entire body. Fire clung to its feathers like armor, burning away stray lightning arcs that dared to approach.
But the feathers on its wings were already charred at the edges.
Each beat sent out sparks and embers. Its breathing was heavy. Even as it spat pillars of True Fire, streaks of purple lightning etched deeper and deeper into its bloodline, burrowing into bones and meridians like poisonous thorns.
"Her foundation is solid," Ren murmured. "But…"
The disparity was too great.
A Revolving Core martial artist and a half-mature Saint Beast, even with Phoenix heritage and Vermillion Bird flames, were still too small in front of a Saint Beast that had ruled this land for ten thousand years and eaten thunder as food. Thundercrash Mountain's entire thunder domain supported the Purple Thunder Flood Dragon. Every bolt that fell from the heavens was more nourishment for it than damage.
Lightning gathered in the dragon's throat.
Ren's gaze sharpened.
That one isn't casual.
The Purple Thunder Flood Dragon reared up. Above its horns, the thunderclouds roiled, twisting into a vortex. All the scattered lightning for several miles began to funnel inward, drawn as if by an invisible spiral drill.
Veins of violet-white light converged.
Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder—half-formed, yet already terrifying.
Mu Qianyu's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
"Little Flame!" she shouted.
The Vermillion Bird shrieked in response, Vermillion fire boiling out from its bloodline. Flames rushed up to wrap her in a cocoon of burning feathers. She gritted her teeth until her jaw ached, Vermillion Bird Flame erupting as she thrust her sword forward with both hands.
The blade's cry joined phoenix song.
A sea of red surged upward, phoenix shadows faintly appearing within, layered wings beating once, twice, as if to shield sky and earth.
Thunder and phoenix collided.
For a breath, they held.
From the outside, the clash looked like a pillar of purple lightning driving into a storm of vermillion flame. The pillar buckled. The flame shattered. Space twisted around them, rocks at the edge of the platform lifting like boats on storm waves.
Then thunder won.
The phoenix shadow tore apart. The sea of flame was ripped open. Purple light roared down through the gap like a heavenly executioner, a single pillar of annihilation aimed directly at Mu Qianyu and the Vermillion Bird beneath her feet.
If that blow landed head-on, even with their Heaven-defying foundations they would be crippled. Little Flame's phoenix bloodline would be scarred, its Saint Beast path nearly cut. Mu Qianyu's meridians would be charred black, her Revolving Core cracked.
"Not nice," Ren said softly.
He moved.
To Mu Qianyu's eyes, a figure simply stepped out of the thunder.
There was no warning.
One moment, the dragon's shadow filled her entire world, purple light drowning everything, her own Vermillion Bird Flame screaming in warning. The next moment, a back appeared in front of her.
A boy's back.
His clothes were simple—dark, travel-worn, edges scorched by scattered lightning. His black hair was tied back casually, a few strands loose at his nape, damp with storm. His hands hung loosely at his sides, shoulders relaxed, as if he were standing under a summer drizzle instead of in front of a Saint Beast's killing blow.
Mu Qianyu's heart trembled in her chest.
Who…?
The Purple Flood Dragon's Divine Thunder descended.
The boy lifted his hand.
He didn't shout a name.
He didn't weave any elaborate technique frame or shout some grand title that shook the heavens.
His palm simply opened.
Fire, thunder, and wind answered.
Above his palm, a vermillion bird of pure flame flashed into existence—small, only the size of a basin, but its feathers were dense chains of rune-strokes. Each feather was a line of Fire Law at the fourth level, compressed to an extreme.
Alongside it, a slender thunder dragon coiled, scales formed from linked lightning runes, eyes cold and bright. Behind them, invisible to mundane sight, wings of gale spread, layers of pressure difference forming razor-thin blades of wind.
They weren't illusions.
They were manifestations—Fire, Thunder, and Wind that had been given instinct and shape, moving half a step ahead of his conscious will. Each beast twitched, tested the air, then turned toward the incoming Divine Thunder like predators smelling prey.
Fourth-level Laws.
At the instant the Purple Flood Dragon's Divine Thunder struck, the little vermillion bird opened its beak.
It swallowed.
The world went silent.
From Mu Qianyu's perspective, that single palm seemed to fill her entire vision. The purple thunder lance that had just threatened to erase her phoenix fire vanished into the vermillion bird's throat without a ripple. Even the aftershocks were devoured. Wind and thunder folded around the boy like tame beasts curling at their master's feet.
The pressure of the Purple Thunder Flood Dragon's Law aura shattered.
The Saint Beast itself froze where it coiled around the spire, its pupils contracting to needle-thin slits.
Ren closed his hand.
The manifested vermillion bird, thunder dragon, and gale collapsed into a swirl of Law essence that flowed back into his meridians, leaving only faint traces of heat and ozone in their wake.
Thunder still crashed in the distance.
But on that stone platform, for a heartbeat, there was only stillness.
Mu Qianyu stared at his back, chest rising and falling rapidly.
…Pulse Condensation?
Her spiritual perception brushed over his body almost on its own.
His meridians were full and solid, true essence circulating at a speed that made her scalp numb. But the aura he let her feel was still that of the Pulse Condensation realm. True essence flowed through meridians and organs, tempering flesh and bone, but had not yet converged into a true Houtian reservoir.
A Pulse Condensation martial artist had just swallowed a Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder strike head-on. He had manifested Law beasts she couldn't even name.
Her breath caught.
This… how?
The pressure of his Fire Laws pressed on her Vermillion Bird Flame like an ocean. Her phoenix fire, proud descendant of Divine Phoenix Island's heritage, instinctively shrank back in front of that heat. The qualitative difference made even her master's fire feel… shallow.
It felt divine.
Fire at this level, in the Divine Phoenix Province, simply did not exist. Only those Legendary Figures who had once stood highest under the heavens were rumored to brush against Laws of this depth.
And this youth, suspected to be in Pulse Condensation, wielded such flames casually.
Heaven-defying.
Those were the only words that surfaced in her mind.
Ren felt her stunned gaze on his back and couldn't help a soft chuckle.
Understandable.
In a lower realm like this, for most people, even touching the embryonic form of a Concept was enough to be called a genius. Second-level Laws were already something talented sect masters might never touch in their entire lives.
Third level… rarely appeared outside of legends and old records.
As for the fourth level?
In the language of this lower world, such a thing simply didn't exist.
To them, it really was divine.
He let that idle thought drift away and turned his attention back to the Purple Thunder Flood Dragon.
The Saint Beast's massive body coiled uneasily around the stone peak. Its slitted eyes were fixed on him now; the contempt it had held toward Mu Qianyu was completely gone, shredded and burned with its Divine Thunder.
"You've eaten well for ten thousand years," Ren said casually. "Thundercrash Mountain's been good to you."
His tone was light, conversational, as if discussing the weather rather than appraising a Saint Beast that could turn a kingdom to ash.
The Purple Thunder Flood Dragon roared, purple arcs flaring across its scales. The sky responded; bolts fell one after another, trying to rebuild its collapsed momentum. Thunder lizards far below shivered and scattered, bloodline resonance instinctively answering their king's anger.
Ren lifted his hand slightly.
His aura changed.
It didn't explode outward in a flashy wave.
It sank.
Heaven and earth origin energy in the surrounding several miles seemed to suddenly grow heavy. The thunderclouds that had freely rolled across Thundercrash's peaks for millennia trembled. A faint, indescribable feeling of a higher Heaven pressing down descended.
Suppression.
The Purple Thunder Flood Dragon stiffened.
Its thoughts—never very complicated, yet never needing to be—stuttered for the first time in centuries. Its bloodline, proud descendant of ancient thunder lineage, howled in indignation—
—and then quailed.
Beneath the relaxed gaze of that plain black-haired youth, its Saint Beast instincts shrieked. Something in that quiet aura reminded it of old nightmares buried deep in its blood—of ancient predators that had once hunted dragons like game.
Ren tilted his head, expression almost curious.
"Sit."
His voice wasn't loud.
But the Law woven into that single word brooked no refusal.
The Purple Thunder Flood Dragon's massive body shuddered. For a ridiculous half-heartbeat, it actually pressed lower against the stone, its head dipping before its pride snapped tight and it shrieked, lightning exploding outward in a desperate attempt to throw off the pressure.
Ren's smile thinned.
"Still unruly, huh?"
Inside his body, true essence—which had been lazily circulating through his meridians—suddenly sped up. The Heretical God Force stirred, Modified Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians vibrating in resonance. Thunder, Fire, and Wind origin energies that had been wandering through his flesh after his recent comprehension now surged toward his dantian.
The bottleneck that had been there for some time—Pulse Condensation's last thin membrane—cracked like old ice.
A deep hum rang through his bones.
True essence, which had previously flowed only through meridians, now dove into his lower abdomen, converging, condensing. The space just below his navel seemed to stretch open into a quiet sea. True essence poured into it like a river rushing home, swirling, gathering, forming a whirlpool of power.
Houtian.
His inner Heaven reflected the change; the tiny projection of his Martial World pathway brightened, aligning with this world's Essence Gathering system as his dantian officially opened and solidified.
From Mu Qianyu's standpoint, the already oppressive pressure suddenly climbed another step.
The youth's aura, which had been strange yet still placed within Pulse Condensation's frame, leaped directly into Houtian—then went beyond what she associated with an ordinary Houtian master. It was as if a mountain chain had quietly descended and settled on Thundercrash Mountain's peak.
This… He actually breaks through in the middle of this storm…?
"Good timing," Ren said lightly to himself, flexing his fingers.
The thunder essence he'd swallowed earlier, the Laws he'd branded along his meridians, all fed into that step. The breakthrough felt as natural as exhaling.
He looked up at the Purple Thunder Flood Dragon again.
"One move," he said. "Otherwise it feels like I'm wasting your thunder."
He raised his right hand.
Fire gathered.
Not just heat, but the purest meaning of Fire that he had just pushed into Manifestation. In his dantian, fourth-level Fire Laws roared awake. Behind him, invisible to ordinary eyes yet perfectly clear on the level of Law, a vermillion bird of flame spread its wings, song shaking the storm sea.
Thunder answered.
The Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder that had been the Saint Beast's greatest trump card shuddered inside its thunder soul. Ren had already grasped its structure earlier above the Primal Chaos Heaven; lightning essence seeped out of the surrounding storm, gathering at his fingertips, turning into fine, crackling lines that coiled like miniature dragon whiskers.
Wind coiled.
Gale Laws compressed, twisting into a spiral that wrapped Fire and Thunder together. Each breath of air near his fist became a sharpened blade of pressure, vectors aligning along a single line.
Ren took one step into the air.
To watchers, that step was nothing special. To his Immortal Soul Bone, it was a calculated vector—the line of least resistance through the storm, straight to the Purple Thunder Flood Dragon's weakest point, where thunder soul, bloodline, and Law accumulation converged.
He punched.
No flowery name.
No grand stance.
Just a straight punch, the kind a street brawler might throw in some alley—except on that fist, Fire, Thunder, and Wind Laws at the fourth level intertwined, compressed to the limit, wrapped around the newly stabilized sea of true essence in his Houtian dantian and hammered forward in one focused burst.
The world flashed white.
From Mu Qianyu's perspective, a line of red-gold cut through the storm.
The Purple Thunder Flood Dragon roared, throat tearing—
Then its roar cut off.
Ren's fist never touched its scales.
It landed on the empty space just above its brow—a point where everything that made the beast what it was met: bloodline, thunder soul, and ten thousand years of Law accumulation.
There was no earth-shaking explosion.
No mountain-collapsing shockwave.
The Purple Thunder Flood Dragon simply… stopped.
Purple light crawled frantically over its body, then froze. Its scales dimmed like cooling metal. The storm over Thundercrash Mountain faltered, bolts stuttering, their wild rhythm suddenly off-beat.
Ren slowly opened his hand.
In his palm floated a sphere of condensed thunder no bigger than a fist. Inside it coiled a tiny purple flood dragon, roaring silently, its body formed from countless interlocking lightning runes. Each rune was a fragment of the Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder's Law, tightly packed and trembling.
The Saint Beast's massive body slumped.
Without its thunder soul, it was still a terrifying corpse filled with potent blood and essence, a priceless treasure to any sect—but it was no longer alive. The ten-thousand-year tyrant of Thundercrash Mountain had fallen to a single punch.
Ren glanced at the dragon soul in his hand.
"Come here," he said mildly.
His Inner Void stirred.
True essence wrapped around the Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder, filtering its berserk nature, shearing away the beast's crude will, turning the thunder into a usable strand of Law folded into his Dao.
The thunder soul vanished from his palm, dragged into that inner space.
Above, the storm quieted another fraction. Thunder still rumbled—it would not vanish overnight—but the feral edge was gone, like a pack that had lost its king.
Only then did Ren turn fully around.
Mu Qianyu and Little Flame had retreated a fair distance during that last exchange. The Vermillion Bird's feathers were scorched in several places, its breathing rough; its eyes, usually proud and arrogant, held a flicker of exhausted wariness. Mu Qianyu's face was pale beneath dust and ash, strands of hair sticking to the sweat on her cheeks.
She had never been so thoroughly shaken.
A youth not much younger than her had flown into a battlefield where a Saint Beast and a Divine Phoenix Island Saintess were struggling. He had swallowed a Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder strike, suppressed a Saint Beast with pure aura, broken through from Pulse Condensation to Houtian in the middle of Thundercrash's storm, and then killed that same Saint Beast with a single punch, calmly taking its thunder soul for himself.
All while revealing only the realm fluctuations of someone who had just stepped into Houtian from Pulse Condensation.
Her mind, tempered through countless cultivation sessions and battles, struggled to fit that sequence of events into any framework she knew.
Ren descended toward her at an unhurried pace, boots touching the air as if it were solid ground.
As he approached, Mu Qianyu realized something else.
The oppressive aura that had weighed on her chest when he fought the Saint Beast… had vanished.
In its place, his presence felt… gentle.
Warm, even.
Like standing near a bonfire on a cold winter night—not the raging heart of a wildfire, but a controlled hearth someone had built with care.
He landed lightly on the scarred stone in front of her and smiled.
"Phoenix Saintess," he said, tone relaxed. "That was a fierce bout."
Mu Qianyu blinked, then dragged herself back to composure and cupped her fists, bowing slightly on the back of the Vermillion Bird.
"This junior…" She paused, then straightened her spine. "Divine Phoenix Island's Mu Qianyu thanks Senior for your timely rescue."
He waved a hand.
"Drop the 'Senior'," he said. "In this world's terms I'm only just stepping into Houtian. If you call me that, I'll start feeling like somebody's cranky ancestor."
His voice was deep without being heavy, carrying an easy humor. It didn't have the archaic cadence of the old masters she was used to; there was something freer, looser, in the way he spoke—as if every word had been picked for comfort, not ceremony.
"Ren Ming," he added with a small nod. "Seven Profound Martial House. Currently wandering and bothering mountains."
Seven Profound Martial House?
Mu Qianyu's lashes trembled.
A mere Martial House of a small kingdom had produced… such a person?
Her gaze couldn't help but sweep over him again.
His clothes weren't luxurious. He carried no obvious treasure aura, no ancient jade pendant humming with power, no secret artifact hanging at his waist. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she would never have believed such a youth existed in a place like the Great Zhou Dynasty.
Ren caught the flicker of disbelief in her eyes and chuckled.
"Right," he said. "Before you start worrying…"
He lifted his hand.
A thin thread of lightning that had been quietly coiled around Mu Qianyu's heart meridians shuddered like a guilty snake.
The remnant Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder that had invaded during the battle twitched, as if suddenly aware that the thing which had devoured its king was now looking directly at it.
Mu Qianyu stiffened.
"You—"
"There's still some of that stuff stuck in you," Ren said calmly. "And in your partner."
He tilted his chin toward Little Flame.
The Vermillion Bird gave a low, strained chirp. Its wings trembled; between its feathers, faint faint traces of purple light flashed and disappeared, like tiny lightning scars trying to hide.
Mu Qianyu's fingers tightened around her sword hilt.
She had noticed, of course.
The Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder's nature was too fierce. Even a brush could leave behind stubborn thunder souls that gnawed at meridians and bloodlines for years. She had planned to slowly refine them over several months with Divine Phoenix Island's secret methods once this tempering was over.
"You can see this?" she asked, voice dropping low.
Ren's eyes met hers.
They were calm and clear, a faint, steady warmth in them that had nothing to do with fire.
"Of course," he said. "Thunder like that is loud. Hard to ignore."
He let a brief silence hang between them, then smiled.
"If you'd like," he added, "I can help you clean it out. Free of charge."
Mu Qianyu's brows knit together faintly.
"Free of charge…?"
Her instincts, honed on Divine Phoenix Island where every favor between peak experts hid layers of interests, immediately raised a wall of caution.
Ren saw that and laughed under his breath.
"It's fine to be suspicious," he said, not offended in the slightest. "You're carrying your sect on your back. You're supposed to be careful."
He lifted both hands, palms open, as if to show he held no weapon, no contract, nothing binding.
"The only thing I want in return," he continued, "is for you to watch."
Mu Qianyu blinked.
"…Watch?"
"My Fire Laws," Ren said lightly. "I like helping geniuses walk further. Especially beautiful, proud phoenix girls who burn their own path."
Mu Qianyu's face heated despite herself.
The words should have sounded shameless.
And they were, a little.
But his eyes didn't hold the greasy hunger she'd seen in many self-proclaimed young masters. Instead, he looked at her the way a flame-obsessed artisan might look at a rare fire—appreciation, curiosity, and a hint of playfulness.
Little Flame chirped behind her, Vermillion Bird instincts reading more than she could.
Danger.
But also… warmth.
Mu Qianyu exhaled slowly, steadying her breath.
"Cleaning out the thunder souls in our bodies…" she said cautiously. "That is not something easily done. Even my master would need time and careful preparations."
Ren shrugged.
"In most cases, yeah," he agreed. "But I'm a little… specialized."
He lifted a hand.
A tiny vermillion bird of fire appeared above his palm again. This time it was smaller, only the size of his thumb. It hopped once, twice, tilting its head, eyes full of mischief.
The Law pressure it exuded was boundless.
Mu Qianyu's throat went dry for a moment.
That divine fire manifested again, as casually as someone flicking a candle alight…
"Besides," Ren added, letting the little fire bird dissolve into sparks, "I'm not planning to strip your thunder clean. I'll temper it. Help you and your partner digest it, make it yours. That's better for your future than letting it gnaw at you for years."
Mu Qianyu's fingers tightened on her sword, then slowly loosened.
In the end, she had already seen his methods.
If he had wanted to harm her, doing nothing when the Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder descended would have been more than enough.
She met his gaze again, this time without flinching.
"All right," she said quietly. "Then… I will trouble you."
Ren's smile deepened, a hint of satisfaction glinting in his eyes.
"Good," he said. "Let's find a quieter spot. This place still smells like dragon breath."
They left the dragon's corpse where it lay, thunder lizards already beginning to creep nervously closer from the edges of the domain, instincts half-drawn by the scent of a fallen king, half-terrified of the youth standing over the body.
Ren took a single step.
Space folded with him; the world blinked.
The blasted platform vanished.
They reappeared on a narrower ledge carved into Thundercrash Mountain's side, shielded from direct lightning strikes by an overhanging cliff. Above, thunder still rumbled, but it was distant. The wind here carried the sharp, clean scent of rain and stone rather than the suffocating taste of raw ozone.
Ren lifted his hand.
Fire and thunder Dao lines unfurled from his fingertips, tracing themselves into the stone. A simple protective formation settled over the ledge, translucent lines sinking into the rock like roots.
It didn't block the storm entirely.
It diverted the worst of the lightning, channeled Fire and Thunder origin energy into a slow circulation that flowed around them in an orderly loop instead of crashing wildly.
"This will make it easier," he said casually. "Sit."
Mu Qianyu folded her legs beneath her and sat where he indicated, back straight, sword resting across her knees. Little Flame settled behind her, wings folding in carefully, tail feathers spreading to shield her back, eyes half-closed.
Ren knelt down in front of her.
"Give me your hand," he said.
Mu Qianyu hesitated.
Her fingers lifted, then stopped in midair.
Ren's gaze dropped to her hand, then went back to her face. His smile turned softer, teasing the edge of her caution without pushing.
"If I wanted to do something improper," he said mildly, "I wouldn't pick a thunder mountain as my spot. I've got better romantic taste than that."
Her ears heated despite herself.
"You…"
She bit back the instinctive rebuke and took a slow breath.
He was being shameless on purpose, she realized. Not like those heirs who used their status to press women, but in a way that cracked tension, that refused to let the air grow too heavy to breathe.
"…Fine," she said quietly.
She extended her right hand.
Ren's fingers closed gently around her wrist.
His touch was warm, neither too tight nor too light. Her pulse, which had been running fast since the battle, gradually slowed under that steady pressure.
"All right," he said, his voice dropping into a lower, calmer register. "Focus on your dantian. Circulate your Vermillion Bird method like usual. Don't fight the thunder that moves. Just let me guide it."
Mu Qianyu nodded.
She closed her eyes.
Inside her body, phoenix fire rose from her dantian, flowing along her meridians in patterns she had walked thousands of times. Warmth washed away fatigue and pain, licking at charred meridian walls and tired flesh.
Ren's spirit sense slipped into her body like a breeze.
He didn't intrude roughly.
He followed the circulation of her own true essence, letting it pull his awareness along her meridians and blood vessels. The Immortal Soul Bone inside him turned complexity into simplicity; every twist of her energy channels, every scar along her meridians, every place the Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder had bitten into flesh and flame—all of it laid itself out before his mind's eye in sharp, clean detail.
There.
Threads of purple lightning were coiled around certain acupoints like barbed wire around delicate jade, biting into them with poisonous patience.
Ren's fingers around her wrist tightened just a fraction.
"Found you," he murmured.
Thunder Laws stirred.
Not in a violent explosion, but as a fine, precise flow. The fourth-level Thunder Laws he'd comprehended compressed into countless hair-thin filaments that slipped along Mu Qianyu's meridians, weaving around the parasitic Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder.
Instead of crushing them outright, he wrapped them.
"Don't resist," he said quietly.
Mu Qianyu's brows furrowed as she felt foreign thunder moving through her body. There was no pain. Where his thunder passed, her meridians felt… soothed, as if they had been stiff for years and were finally being kneaded loose.
His thunder encircled the remnants of Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder, isolating each stubborn thread, squeezing it, stripping away the beast's imprint.
He did not discard the refined thunder.
He guided it into her Vermillion Bird Flame.
Every time he siphoned a bit of Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder, he ran it through his own comprehension, burning away the Purple Flood Dragon's feral will and leaving only pure, high-grade thunder essence. Then he fed that into Mu Qianyu's phoenix fire, letting the Vermillion Bird method fuse it into its circulation.
Thunder tempered flame.
Flame refined thunder.
Gradually, her Vermillion Bird Flame began to carry a new note. Its usual roaring heat gained a sharp, crackling edge that slipped along her meridians like fine silver needles—electrifying yet obedient to her will.
A brand-new flame took root in her dantian.
Thunder Phoenix Flame.
Mu Qianyu's lips parted slightly.
She could feel it.
Ren's focus did not waver.
As he worked, his spirit sense also quietly brushed over old scars along her meridians. Places where harsh training had left fine cracks, places where the Vermillion Bird method's fierce circulation had rubbed too hard against mortal limits.
He tempered them with a mix of Earth and Water Laws at the second level, softening, nourishing, then subtly hardening again. Her meridians thickened, became more elastic, their capacity to hold true essence expanding.
Time blurred under the whisper of storm.
After about an incense stick of time, Ren exhaled softly.
"All right," he said. "Run your technique once more. See how it feels."
Mu Qianyu obeyed.
Her Vermillion Bird cultivation art revolved.
True essence flowed through her meridians with a smoothness she had never experienced. Places that had always felt slightly rough or constricted now opened, like a riverbed that had been cleared of stones. Her true essence sped up without strain. In her dantian, her Revolving Core burned brighter; the phoenix fire around it flickered with faint violet threads.
She opened her eyes.
"…This…" she whispered.
Ren smiled.
"Consider it interest," he said. "From that thunder soul I took."
Mu Qianyu's throat tightened.
Without realizing it, she had tightened her fingers around his wrist at some point. Only when she became aware of the warmth under her palm did color rise to her cheeks.
She quickly drew back her hand, tucking it into her sleeve.
Ren's smile grew more amused.
"Don't worry," he said. "I'm not charging you for that."
"You…" She took another breath, pressing down the strange flutter in her chest. "Thank you."
"Mm. You can thank me properly by paying attention later," he said lazily. "I'll show you something better than your sect's fire diagrams."
Mu Qianyu: "…"
She truly didn't know whether to laugh or sigh.