Chapter 51: "Lightning, Regret, and Extremely Questionable Genetics"
In which Kyo trains on a planet designed by someone who thinks weather should be lethal, remembers why he left home, and discovers that unresolved feelings are considerably harder to kill than monsters.
Far from the ordinary cultivation world, hidden behind layers of dimensional barriers and formations that would make most Rune Masters cry into their notebooks, there existed a pocket dimension belonging to Sage Shirogane.
Calling it a pocket dimension was technically accurate in the same way calling an ocean a puddle was technically describing water.
The place was roughly the size of a solar system.
And every part of it belonged to Shirogane.
This was his territory.
His laboratory.
His sanctuary.
His personal world where he could conduct whatever experiments he wanted without governments, sects, Ancient Sects, or irritated Sages appearing at his front door to ask questions like:
Why does that creature have seven hearts?
Or:
Why is the mountain screaming?
Or the increasingly common:
Was that thing originally human?
Shirogane had been alive for nearly three centuries.
Three centuries of research had accumulated here.
Libraries.
Laboratories.
Formation arrays.
Sealed regions.
Entire artificial environments.
And specimens.
So many specimens.
Some were creatures Shirogane had collected from distant regions.
Others were rare races, strange bloodlines, mutations, spiritual beasts, and things that probably deserved their own category simply because nobody sensible wanted to decide what they were.
Shirogane studied the laws of the world.
Space.
Souls.
Ki.
Elements.
Bloodlines.
Genetics.
And when studying genetics, apparently merely observing nature hadn't been interesting enough.
He improved it.
Or at least that was the word he preferred.
Humans had been modified.
Elves had been modified.
Spiritual beasts had been modified.
Other races had undergone the same treatment.
Stronger muscles.
Altered organs.
New elemental affinities.
Regeneration.
Artificial bloodlines.
Sometimes several bloodlines combined into one organism just to see what happened.
What happened was usually something horrifying.
For Shirogane, that apparently counted as useful data.
One planet within his private solar system had been transformed into a cultivation ground.
Four enormous regions divided the world.
One was buried beneath endless ice.
Another burned beneath oceans of lava and volcanic fire.
A third suffered winds powerful enough to tear forests from the ground.
And the fourth?
Lightning.
Nothing but lightning.
Black clouds covered nearly the entire sky. Thunder rolled without pause, and bolts thicker than ancient trees struck the landscape every few seconds.
The ground itself had been burned black from centuries of storms.
Standing beneath all of it was a fourteen-year-old boy.
Kyo.
Lightning crashed down.
He raised one hand.
BOOOOM!
The bolt struck him directly.
Instead of burning him alive, electricity raced across his body, pouring through his skin and into the organ beating beneath his chest.
His heart.
His bloodline.
The Black Lightning Heart.
Kyo gritted his teeth.
The energy disappeared into him.
His heart beat once.
THUMP.
Black electricity exploded across his arms.
Another bolt fell.
He absorbed that one too.
Then another.
And another.
The Lightning Heart bloodline had belonged to his clan for generations.
At its most basic level, it granted a powerful natural affinity toward lightning.
Then came absorption.
The ability to take lightning into the body and use it as fuel.
At greater levels came reinforcement.
Then partial transformation.
Eventually—
complete transformation into lightning itself.
Kyo had already reached the point where he could convert portions of his body into lightning for brief periods. For straight-line rushes, the difference was enormous.
One moment he stood still.
The next—
CRACK!
His body became a streak of black lightning.
He crossed several hundred meters almost instantly and reformed upon the broken ground.
A massive creature was waiting for him.
Six legs.
Armored hide.
Two heads.
Lightning pulsing beneath transparent sections of flesh.
One of Shirogane's creations.
Because apparently normal training partners were too boring.
The beast roared.
Kyo drew his sword.
And charged.
Kyo had been one year old when most of his family died.
Parents.
Uncles.
Aunts.
Older cousins.
Most of the adults who should have raised him.
Gone before he had even been old enough to properly remember their faces.
He had grown up surrounded by people who could tell him stories about his family.
But stories weren't family.
Portraits weren't family.
Names engraved into memorial tablets weren't family.
So Kyo had grown up alone.
Not completely.
The Veiled Moon Sect had raised him.
He had teachers.
Other disciples.
People who fed him when he was young and corrected him when he trained badly.
But the empty space where his family should have been never really disappeared.
Then Kyo learned how they had died.
Ballom.
The Master of Death.
That name gave the empty space a shape.
Something to hate.
Something to blame.
Something he could eventually kill.
So he trained.
Harder than everyone his age.
Harder than was healthy.
Harder than anyone could convince him was necessary.
Because one day he would stand before Ballom.
And one day—
he would kill him.
Kyo reached Foundation Establishment Stage One at thirteen.
By fourteen, he had reached Stage Two.
That alone would have made him a monster among ordinary young cultivators.
It still wasn't enough.
Ballom wasn't some spiritual beast he could eventually overpower by simply training harder.
Ballom was Spirit Transformation Realm.
And not an ordinary one.
The Master of Death was an elite existence even among beings of that realm.
A creature powerful enough that a major kingdom would hesitate before provoking him.
Powerful enough that a weakened sect could be crippled trying to deal with him.
Kyo knew all of that.
He still intended to kill him.
But there had always been one line he would never cross.
He would not betray the Veiled Moon Sect merely for strength.
Power obtained by selling everything you believed in wasn't strength.
It was pathetic.
That was what Kyo had believed.
Then he met Sage Shirogane.
The lightning beast lunged.
Kyo disappeared.
CRACK!
Black electricity flashed across the landscape.
The creature's claws struck empty ground.
Kyo appeared beside its left head.
His sword moved.
SHING!
Blood sprayed.
The beast roared.
Kyo was already gone.
Another lightning rush carried him behind it.
His sword struck again.
But his mind wasn't really on the creature.
His body knew what to do.
His thoughts were somewhere else.
Back on that mission.
Back when Shirogane had first spoken to him.
The Sage had told him something impossible.
Ballom had never attacked the Veiled Moon Sect.
The Veiled Moon Sect had attacked him.
Kyo hadn't believed it.
Why would he?
Shirogane was an enemy of the Sect.
A former disciple who had abandoned it long before Kyo was born.
A Sage who could have destroyed large portions of Veiled Moon territory if he truly wanted to.
Oddly enough, Shirogane never had.
Whatever resentment he carried toward the Sect, there still seemed to be some attachment buried beneath it.
At the time, Kyo hadn't cared.
An enemy was an enemy.
Then Shirogane told him the rest.
Ballom had been captured.
Weakened.
Sealed.
And the vessel chosen to contain him—
was Ren Kisaragi.
Kyo had nearly attacked Shirogane for saying it.
It sounded too convenient.
Too cruel.
Too impossible.
His best friend?
Ren?
The idiot who slept during lectures and somehow woke up precisely when food appeared?
The boy who had spent half their childhood competing with Kyo over absolutely everything?
Ballom was inside him?
Impossible.
Then Ren lost control.
Kyo still remembered that day.
The pressure.
The darkness.
The feeling of something ancient looking through Ren's eyes.
Something that was not Ren.
Something that made every instinct in Kyo's body scream at him to run.
For the first time in his life—
Kyo felt Ballom.
And Shirogane's words became truth.
Ballom hadn't killed his family while attacking the Sect.
His family had died because the Sect had gone after Ballom.
They had been part of the operation used to capture him.
Then Ballom had been sealed inside Ren.
Kyo's entire purpose shattered in a single moment.
For years, he had lived for one thing.
Kill Ballom.
Avenge his family.
Simple.
Clean.
Then he discovered that killing Ballom meant killing Ren too.
His best friend.
The boy he had known since they were six.
The other lonely kid.
Kyo cut through one of the lightning beast's legs.
It collapsed with a roar.
He barely noticed.
Ren had been alone too.
No parents.
No real family.
Barely any children willing to approach him.
For years, everyone around him had treated him like some dangerous object that might suddenly explode.
Kyo hadn't understood why back then.
Ren had just looked like another Ninja.
Maybe a little strange.
Maybe too loud when he got comfortable.
But normal.
So Kyo had talked to him.
Then they trained together.
Competed.
Fought.
Argued.
Ate together.
And somewhere along the way, the other lonely boy became his best friend.
Then Kyo discovered why Ren had been isolated.
The Sect had feared what they had put inside him.
That was the part Kyo couldn't forgive.
They had sacrificed his family to capture Ballom.
Then sacrificed Ren's childhood to contain him.
And everyone expected Kyo to simply accept it.
No.
Someone had to answer for it.
Someone had to pay.
If Ballom couldn't be the target anymore—
then the people who created the entire situation would be.
The Veiled Moon Sect.
Kyo had expected Ren to understand.
More than anyone.
Ren should have understood.
Kyo remembered confronting him.
Remembered telling him to leave.
Come with me.
It had seemed obvious.
They had both been used.
Both of their families had paid the price for a decision neither of them had made.
Kyo thought Ren would be furious.
Instead, Ren had looked at him with that stubborn expression Kyo hated because it usually meant the idiot had decided something and mountains would have better luck changing his mind.
"The Sect gave me everything too."
Kyo could still hear him.
"I have friends here. Master Jin is here. People who care about me are here."
Kyo had wanted to shake him.
"How can I destroy all of that because some people made a terrible decision?"
Then came the sentence Kyo hated most.
Because some part of him understood it.
"Everyone does something wrong eventually. That doesn't mean everything they built deserves to burn."
Ren had stepped closer.
"We can change it together."
Kyo's sword stopped for half a heartbeat.
The lightning beast nearly caught him.
He moved aside at the last instant.
BOOM!
Its claw shattered the ground.
Kyo's eyes narrowed.
"Idiot," he whispered.
Even now.
Even after two months.
That argument still made him angry.
Because Ren had looked at the same truth—
and reached the opposite conclusion.
Kyo saw injustice that demanded punishment.
Ren saw something broken that could still be repaired.
That was where they split.
Their disagreement became a fight.
Then the fight became something worse.
Neither of them backed down.
Of course they didn't.
They were Ren and Kyo.
Backing down had apparently been removed from both of their bloodlines.
Kyo had been stronger.
More advanced.
More experienced with his bloodline.
And after leaving with Shirogane, he had gained something else.
A new genetic transformation.
An artificial demonic bloodline designed specifically to integrate with his Black Lightning Heart.
Shirogane called it the Stormfiend Bloodline.
When activated, Kyo's body changed.
Muscles strengthened.
Bones hardened.
His Lightning Heart accelerated violently.
Black lightning became thicker, heavier, almost alive.
The transformation temporarily pushed his combat power all the way to approximately Foundation Establishment Stage Six.
Kyo had believed that would be enough.
Then Ballom's power covered Ren.
And Kyo nearly died.
Even now, remembering that thing standing where Ren had been made the hairs along his arms rise.
Living darkness.
Claws.
Tendrils.
A shape that barely looked human.
Ballom's power.
Ren's body.
And somewhere inside it—
his best friend.
Kyo had barely survived.
Worse?
He had almost killed Ren before that.
That part bothered him more than losing.
The lightning beast charged again.
Kyo lowered his sword.
His heart thundered.
Black lightning erupted across his entire body.
For one instant, flesh disappeared.
Kyo became electricity.
CRAAAAACK!
He shot straight through the creature.
Reformed behind it.
The beast froze.
Then its body split apart and collapsed.
Kyo stood silently among the smoking remains.
Lightning continued falling around him.
He looked down at his sword.
He regretted that fight.
He could admit that much.
Not leaving.
Not choosing Shirogane.
Not deciding that the Sect needed to answer for what it had done.
But fighting Ren that far?
Almost killing him?
Yes.
He regretted that.
And when he learned Ren had survived—
Kyo had been relieved.
More relieved than he would ever admit aloud.
But relief did not change anything.
If Ren came after him again, they would fight again.
That was simply who Ren was.
The idiot wouldn't stop.
Which meant Kyo couldn't afford to remain where he was.
He had to become so strong that even Ballom's power couldn't close the distance between them.
Strong enough that next time—
he could defeat Ren without nearly killing him.
Two months had passed.
Kyo was no longer Foundation Establishment Stage Two.
Lightning struck.
He raised his hand.
The bolt vanished into his body.
His heart thundered.
THUMP.
Foundation Establishment Stage Three.
He had broken through after two months of almost continuous training.
Devouring higher and higher grades of lightning.
Fighting Shirogane's engineered monsters.
Getting injured.
Getting healed.
Then doing it again.
And again.
And again.
Shirogane constantly altered his body between sessions.
Tiny genetic improvements.
Reinforced tissues.
Better compatibility.
Greater tolerance.
Not enough to turn Kyo into something else.
Not yet.
All of it had one purpose.
Preparation.
Because the Stormfiend Bloodline was only the beginning.
Kyo and Shirogane had agreed on a much greater target.
The bloodline of the Void Swordsman.
Even among Sages, the Void Swordsman had been terrifying.
His power came from a bloodline concentrated within his eyes.
The Voidscar Eyes.
Eyes capable of touching the power of the Void itself.
Kyo didn't know everything about them.
Shirogane had deliberately withheld much of the information until Kyo's body was ready.
Probably because Shirogane considered learning whether the subject survives implantation part of the research process.
Comforting.
But Kyo understood the important part.
The bloodline was powerful.
Extremely powerful.
And his current body couldn't survive it.
Not yet.
That was why he was here.
Why he absorbed lightning until his organs felt cooked.
Why he fought creatures engineered specifically to kill cultivators stronger than him.
Why he allowed Shirogane to alter his genetics.
Kyo had made the agreement himself.
He would become Shirogane's subject.
Shirogane would give him the power he wanted.
Not free power.
Not charity.
A transaction.
Kyo understood exactly what he had agreed to.
And he accepted it.
Because one day, he would possess strength nobody could dismiss.
Strength nobody could take away.
Strength great enough to make the people responsible for his family's deaths answer for what they had done.
Something moved beneath the scorched earth.
Kyo turned.
Three more creatures emerged.
Lightning-adapted abominations.
One resembled a wolf with metallic scales covering its body.
Another had too many arms.
The third looked like Shirogane had once encountered the concept of anatomy and taken personal offense.
Kyo sighed.
"Of course."
The creatures charged.
His sword rose.
Black Lightning erupted around him.
And somewhere between the thunder and the screaming monsters, Kyo found himself wondering something he had been deliberately avoiding.
What is Ren doing right now?
He almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the answer was obvious.
Training.
What else would that idiot be doing?
Ren never stayed down.
Kyo knew that better than anyone.
If Ren lost?
He trained.
If someone surpassed him?
He trained harder.
If someone told him something was impossible?
Then you had just given Ren a personal invitation to waste the next several years proving you wrong.
Kyo cut through the first beast.
Black blood sprayed across the ground.
The second attacked from behind.
Kyo became lightning.
Its claws passed through empty air.
He reformed above it and drove his sword downward.
CRACK!
The blade went through its skull.
One remained.
Kyo landed.
His breathing remained steady.
Two months ago, this fight would have been difficult.
Now?
Warm-up.
He stared at the final creature.
But he wasn't seeing it.
He saw red hair.
A stupid grin.
A boy standing across from him despite blood running down his face.
We can change it together.
Kyo's grip tightened around his sword.
"No."
The beast charged.
Kyo's eyes hardened.
He refused to have that argument again.
Refused to stand across from Ren while both of them tried to kill each other over people who had made their decisions long before either boy had been old enough to understand them.
Next time would be different.
It had to be.
Ren would become stronger.
Kyo knew it.
Ren would chase him.
Kyo knew that too.
And eventually—
their paths would cross again.
Maybe Ren would still demand he return.
Maybe Kyo would still refuse.
Maybe neither of them would change.
Which meant another fight.
Another real one.
Another battle where one bad decision could end with one of them dead.
Kyo looked toward the endless lightning covering Shirogane's artificial sky.
For perhaps the first time, that possibility frightened him more than Ballom ever had.
He lowered his sword.
Black Lightning gathered around him.
The last beast roared.
Kyo disappeared.
CRAAAAACK!
A black bolt crossed the battlefield.
The creature's head separated from its body.
Kyo reappeared behind it.
He didn't turn around.
The corpse collapsed.
Lightning flashed across the sky.
Kyo closed his eyes.
I know you won't give up, Ren.
That was the problem.
Because neither would he.
His hand tightened around the sword.
So get stronger.
Another bolt crashed into him.
Kyo absorbed it.
His Black Lightning Heart thundered.
Become as strong as you want.
Black electricity crawled across his skin.
Come after me again if you have to.
His eyes opened.
There was no anger in them now.
Only resolve.
But next time…
Kyo looked toward the distant horizon.
I won't let either of us die.