Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Wrath of Heavenly Thunder

“Brat, die,” the Demonic Cultivator snarled as rage at Lin Dao’s disregard finally broke him. With a flick of his right hand, a Soul Summoning Banner leapt from his Storage Pouch into his palm. He snapped the banner, and hundreds of wandering souls bound within it were released, surging toward Lin Dao.

Lin Dao drew back his gaze, a chill scattering through his eyes as it skimmed the souls’ translucent bodies. At his ears rose voices hoarse with blood and grief: “Save me, save me, I don’t want to die…” “Mother! Mother, where are you? I’m so scared!” “My child! Give me back my child…” “…”

Lin Dao’s eyes sharpened. He opened his mouth and spoke two words: “Clouds, come.”

High above, the dense black sea of cloud seemed to boil in an instant.

“Thunder Lord,” he said again, and a muffled peal rolled through the smothering sky. It was as if an eye of boundless heavenly might opened within the thunderhead. That gaze flicked lightly toward the earth, fell upon Lin Dao, then vanished without a trace.

The foremost wraith stretched incorporeal fingers toward the hem of Lin Dao’s robe. A thread of violet lightning flashed across his eyes. His lips parted: “Thunderburst.”

Before the word had fully left him, the thunder had arrived. Lightning wrapped in the natural authority of heaven crashed down, blasting the horde of resentful ghosts to dust, annihilating them cleanly.

In the heart of the lightning stood a tall man, calm and cold, expression unruffled; even his otherwise ordinary features now seemed to carry a deadly, dangerous magnetism.

The only witness, the Demonic Cultivator, saw and his pupils contracted; his earlier confidence vanished: “You’re a lightning-root cultivator?” Then, “No… no. A Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator with a lightning root can’t possibly draw on the thunder of heaven itself.”

He realized in a jolt that the cultivator before him was not what he seemed. Was he concealing his realm? Golden Core? Nascent Soul?

In the next breath he emptied the Soul Summoning Banner of its remaining resentful spirits, but his own body streaked away at top speed. He chose to run.

Lin Dao flicked several bolts of lightning, sweeping the rushing wraiths aside in a handful of strokes. Then he raised his right hand; his spread fingers clenched toward the fleeing figure.

Thunder Net.

Bolts speared out of the clouds and, crossing in midair, wove a lattice that dropped over the Demonic Cultivator like a net. The thunder’s ferocity writhed through the mesh like a nest of frenzied little snakes, rampaging across the man’s body and leaving scorched, blackened welts everywhere they passed.

“Aaaah…” Screaming, the Demonic Cultivator tumbled from the air and thrashed on the ground, but the net sealed him completely; whether he stood, sat, lay, or writhed, the lightning ravaged him all the same.

With a few swift steps, Lin Dao came to stand before him.

“Spare… spare me,” the Demonic Cultivator wept, pain-blind. “I’ll do anything for you. I’ll be your beast of burden. I can swear a heart-demon oath.” Yet he was, after all, a Demonic Cultivator; even as he pleaded, hatred curdled in his heart. [If I survive this, I will kill this hateful man. If he has any mortal kin in the secular world, I will slaughter them too.]

Disgust flickered in Lin Dao’s eyes. He trusted none of the man’s lies. Left alive, this one would only sow disaster again. Lowering his gaze slightly, he looked down on the groveling fiend and said, voice like ice: “One who cultivates yet does not enter the righteous path to benefit the living, but falls to the demonic way and feeds its flame, that is the first crime.”

Boom. From the clouds came an answering peal.

Under the Demonic Cultivator’s widening gaze, Lin Dao lifted his right hand; with fore and middle fingers together, he traced a light cut through the air above the man’s shoulders where arms met torso. In the next instant, both arms were severed, blood gushing.

“For selfish ends you abused your power and preyed upon innocents in the secular world. That is the second crime.”

Boom. The thunder swelled again, stronger than before, as if countless thunder-beasts were roaring overhead.

Lin Dao’s fingers stroked the air once more. A flash like sword-light, and both legs were sliced off cleanly. “Aaaah… no… please… please spare me…”

Lacking hands and feet, the Demonic Cultivator writhed along the ground like a gutter maggot. Lin Dao recalled those innocents whose souls, after death, had been trapped within the Soul Summoning Banner with no rest, never to reenter the wheel of rebirth, wiped from this world forever. Those who committed such sins felt no guilt, no shame, no regret; given the chance, they would do it all again. [Only killing can end such killing. Only blood can repay such blood.]

“At the brink of death you show no remorse, your malice boundless. Not even the gods and buddhas could ferry you. That is the third crime,” Lin Dao pronounced, his voice low.

Boom. The thunderheads, brewed to fullness, rang with triumphant clamor at the final judgment.

“Punish the crimes together: Heavenly Thunder Punishment, to set the Dao aright.”

Boom.

As the last word fell, a bolt laced with fine threads of gold dropped from the clouds and struck the crown of the Demonic Cultivator’s head. The ferocity of the lightning unraveled his body inch by inch. A queer, scorched smell spread, and his screams cut off.

When the lightning passed, no figure remained. Only a scatter of black ash on the ground, faintly, still hinted at the outline of a human shape.