Runes • Rifles • Reincarnation

Jin Shu stared up at the storm overhead, filled with a furious rage—at himself, at the thing that had taken her from him, and at the heavens themselves. Rage so vast, it threatened to burn him from the inside out. Rage that made him want to tear the sky apart with his bare hands.

"ROAR!!" His fury erupted in a guttural roar, raw and primal.

It sounded like a wounded dragon's final cry. The mountains trembled under its weight, the very air vibrating with its force. The roar climbed higher, striking the storm clouds above. The heavenly punishment quaked.

A beat passed.

Then, the clouds began to shift.

The storm's massive clouds—once three hundred feet wide—began to shrink. Two hundred feet. One hundred. Fifty. Then nine. But smaller didn't mean weaker. No. The lightning, once brilliant blue, turned pure white. A radiant, terrible contrast to the pitch-black clouds that coiled around it.

Together, they formed a shape—familiar, ancient. Yin and Yang. White lightning, supreme and searing. Black clouds, ominous and immense.

"Come! Strike me!" Jin Shu bellowed, arms wide. "Let me feel your wrath—because you will feel mine!"

A blinding pillar of white light fell from the heavens and consumed him whole, just as one had engulfed Liu Hua earlier.

In his Minor Deity form, he should have been immune to both pain and lightning. But this was no ordinary lightning. It didn't just sear flesh or burn qi—it pierced down into his soul, sending white tendrils of electricity surging through his soul space.

Gold. Shuang. Long Jinshu. Himself.

All of them convulsed inside his soul space as the lightning invaded places within that he hadn't even known existed.

The pain was excruciating. Worse than being burned alive. Worse than when Nano had reconstructed his body cell by cell.

And then—it stopped.

The lightning vanished as abruptly as it had struck, leaving behind only a hollow, echoing agony. Jin Shu opened his eyes, expecting to see the four golden, lightning-shaped vajra he'd wielded before.

Instead, his body was covered in intricately designed black armor. Six arms—not four—extended from him, each hand gripping a curved blade of blinding white.

He didn't stop to question it. His mind, clouded with pain and rage, had no room for thoughts. Only one truth burned bright in his heart:

Punish the punisher. Avenge the one they stole.

With another earth-shaking roar, Jin Shu leapt. His body rocketed into the sky, cutting through the air like a comet of vengeance. In a single breath, he reached the clouds.

With a savage cry, he plunged all six blades into the storm's twin halves. The blades tore great gashes in the yin-yang cloud, but the heavens responded with fury. White lightning surged down upon him, joined now by a new black lightning which had been hiding inside the dark inky black clouds. It was quieter, colder, and crueler than its white counterpart.

The agony was soul-rending. A hundred times worse than before.

But he didn't stop.

He slashed again. And again. Carving at the storm like a beast possessed.

Still, it wasn't enough.

More! He screamed inward. I need more power!

"Jin Shu! I—I can't hold on any longer!"

Nano's voice rang in his ears—frantic, strained. The machine that should have felt no pain now sounded like it was enduring just as much as he was.

"What?!" he tried to ask, but then—he felt it.

Something shattered inside him.

Inside his dantian—his core.

Gone. Broken.

And with it, Nano.

"Nano?!" he screamed inward. "Nano?!!"

No reply.

"Damn it!!" he roared aloud, pain and fury converging into a single, savage cry as he redoubled his assault on the storm, blades flashing, soul burning, grief bleeding through every motion.

He had lost someone again.

For the first time in this life, someone he had truly grown close to—a loved one—had been cruelly ripped away.

And it was his fault.

If he hadn't rushed ahead… if he had only listened to her more carefully… if he had told her he could see the soul space, she might have explained the process in full. She might have lived. Nano might have lived too.

But beyond guilt, deeper than grief, was rage.

Rage at the thing that called itself the heavens. That cold, indifferent force, high above, watching them scurry about on the earth like ants—insignificant and disposable.

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He would destroy it.

He would make it understand: it could not trample them without consequence.

"I shall destroy the heavens!" he roared into the void.

His vow was nearly drowned in thunder—but the heavens heard it.

The storm responded.

Lightning intensified, crashing down with a divine fury. It tore into his body, ripping flesh from bone. Every strike was punishment incarnate, unrelenting and absolute.

He screamed—a soul-deep, gut-wrenching cry—as the Minor Deity Formation protecting him shattered beneath the onslaught. His true body, no longer shielded, was exposed to the wrath of the heavens.

It didn't survive a single breath.

Blinding white lightning and pitch-black arcs consumed him utterly. In an instant, Jin Shu's body vanished from the world.

Jin Shu died—for the first time in this life, and for the third time across all lives.

But the storm did not end.

Amidst the sea of lightning and roiling clouds, a soft white light emerged. It glowed gently, impossibly, through the blinding radiance and devouring darkness.

Then—It pulsed. Once. Twice.

Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

A heartbeat.

And then—The white light drew in the surrounding storm like a black hole in reverse. Clouds, lightning, and fury vanished into it, sucked inward at a speed no mortal eye could follow.

The heavens fell silent.

Only the glowing light remained, hovering alone in the sky, pulsing softly like the beat of something newly born.

Within the soft white light, a shadow began to stir.

At first, it was nothing—tiny, dark, insignificant. But slowly, steadily, it grew. The shape became more defined, more present. It pulsed in time with the heartbeat echoing from the light.

As the last traces of the storm cleared, figures began to emerge near the mountain. One by one, cultivators revealed themselves, drawn by the cataclysmic power of the heavenly punishment.

At the forefront stood Chen Ai Yun, Sun Mei'er, Feng Lian, and a scattering of core elders. Behind them gathered core disciples—Fan Biyu, Li Xue, Tian Li, and several others—faces tight with worry. And further back still, a smaller group of inner disciples had arrived. Though fewer in number, their presence was just as striking. They had split into two groups, one centered around Bing Hou, the other around Zhu Ren.

Their expressions made it clear—they had been watching for a long time.

Sun Mei'er stepped forward, her gaze locked on the light in the sky. She moved to break away from the elders, but a hand caught her wrist.

"Ai Yun, let me go!" she snapped, turning sharply toward Chen Ai Yun. "I have to find my Shu'er!"

"He… he's gone, Mei'er," Chen Ai Yun choked out, voice breaking. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks. "We have to wait. We don't know what the heavenly punishment left behind. I… I can't lose you too…"

They all knew the danger. If that light was a remnant of the punishment, provoking it could result in their deaths as well. The heavenly punishment adjusted itself to match its target. That was why none of them had dared interfere—not when it began, not when it struck, and not now.

"He's not gone!" Sun Mei'er cried. "We… we just haven't found him yet!" She struggled against Ai Yun's grip, panic overtaking her composure. "Let me go! I have to find him! My baby!"

But Chen Ai Yun pulled her into an embrace instead, holding her tightly—more for her own sake than Mei'er's. She, too, wanted to search. She, too, hoped. But the image of that lightning swallowing Jin Shu's body without a trace haunted her.

There was no body. No soul. Nothing.

He was gone.

Tian Li and Biyu watched the two women sob in each other's arms, a cold dread settling into their bones.

"What's happening?" Li Xue asked quietly, her voice almost too soft to hear. "He was undergoing heavenly punishment, right? Isn't it… over?"

"I… I think…" Biyu began, but her voice caught. She couldn't finish.

"What? What do you think?" Li Xue pressed, the fear creeping into her voice now too.

Tian Li placed a hand on both their shoulders, her own voice barely above a whisper. "He… failed."

"No—!" Li Xue's protest was cut short.

Suddenly, the world went white.

Color vanished from everything—sky, trees, mountains, flesh. Just white. Pure, blank, and blinding.

No one understood what was happening. No one even had time to move or speak.

Then—just as suddenly—color returned.

The light was gone.

In its place hovered a single rune, suspended midair where the storm had once raged.

Nearly no one recognized it.

But those who had been closest with Jin Shu did.

It was the same rune that had once been etched over his heart.

The Unity Rune.

A symbol Jin Shu had created himself. A rune he had named and inscribed with his own hands. A power he had comprehended alone—and never fully explained.

Unity hovered alone in the air, suspended in silence. No longer etched into flesh, no longer bound to its master. It pulsed once, faintly—like a final breath held too long—then dimmed.

Its creator was gone.

Gone from the mountain, the storm, the world.

Held only in the hearts of those who loved him.