The Floating Cloud Sect's island hung three thousand meters above the eastern plains - a massive chunk of sky-stone wrapped in perpetual white mist, held aloft by nine grand levitation arrays carved into its underside.
In my first life, I had been denied entry.
Too low-born.
Too dirty.
Too much of a gutter rat with stolen power.
This time I came to burn it down.
Yue and I stood on the highest ridge overlooking the valley at dawn.
The mist was thinning, revealing the island's elegant spires and floating jade bridges.
A perfect pearl of arrogance suspended in the sky.
Yue glanced at me.
"Jade Prince will be waiting.
He's proud.
He'll want to humiliate you personally before killing you."
"Good," I said.
"I want him to remember every second of it."
We moved.
No climbing.
No sneaking.
I circulated the two fragments in unison - violet core, crimson veins.
A faint storm of qi gathered around us.
Then I stepped forward.
And fell upward.
The levitation array beneath the island sensed the intrusion and flared in warning.
Golden chains of cloud-intent snapped toward us like living whips.
I raised my right hand.
Crimson vines erupted from my palm - not threads this time, but thick, barbed roots thick as a man's thigh.
They slammed into the chains, coiled, crushed, and drank.
The golden light dimmed.
The chains crumbled into sparkling dust.
We landed on the lowest floating bridge.
Alarms wailed across the entire island.
Hundreds of outer disciples rushed forward - sword formations, cloud spears, mist blades - a beautiful, coordinated display of sect pride.
I smiled beneath the mask.
"Stay behind me," I told Yue.
She raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not helpless."
"I know.
But this one's personal."
The first wave hit.
I didn't dodge.
I absorbed.
Every sword strike, every spear thrust, every qi technique - I mirrored, copied, then returned twisted.
A disciple's Cloud Piercing Sword became a crimson thorn-sword that pierced his own dantian.
A mist blade became a vine that wrapped his throat.
A protective cloud array became a suffocating storm of thorns.
They fell in waves.
Not killed outright - crippled.
Drained.
Left alive to remember.
The Jade Prince appeared on the central jade platform, surrounded by his personal guard.
He wore white robes embroidered with floating clouds, hair bound with a jade crown.
His face was the same handsome arrogance I remembered from the auction.
But now there was fear in his eyes.
"You..." he snarled. "The Copycat.
The ghost who should have stayed dead."
I walked forward slowly, crimson vines trailing behind me like a royal train.
"You tried to bid on my soul once," I said.
"Eighty thousand high-grade stones.
You thought that was enough to own me."
His face twisted.
"I'll give you one chance," he said. "Kneel.
Swear loyalty to the Floating Cloud Sect.
And I'll spare your miserable life."
I laughed - the same cracked laugh from the gutter, from the 999th step.
Then I raised both hands.
The island trembled.
Crimson vines exploded from every surface - from the jade tiles, from the clouds themselves, from the very air.
They wrapped the floating bridges, cracked the spires, tore the levitation arrays.
The island began to tilt.
Screams rose from every corner.
The Jade Prince summoned his signature technique: Nine Heavens Cloud Dragon Descent.
A massive dragon of condensed cloud and lightning roared into existence above him, scales shimmering, claws long as spears.
It dove toward me.
I didn't move.
I simply opened my arms.
And copied the dragon.
Not the form - the essence.
The violet fragment pulsed.
Crimson light bled from my body.
A second dragon rose - larger, thorned, hungry.
It met the Nine Heavens Cloud Dragon mid-air.
They clashed.
Thunder cracked the sky.
The prince's dragon shattered like glass.
Mine devoured the remains.
Then it turned on its master.
The Jade Prince staggered back.
"You... you can't-"
I stepped forward.
The thorn-dragon coiled around him - not killing, not yet.
Just holding.
I walked up to him.
Close enough to see the sweat on his perfect face.
"Do you remember the words you said when they refused me entry the first time?" I asked softly.
He shook his head, trembling.
I leaned in.
"'The heavens have no place for rats.'"
I placed my palm on his chest.
A single violet-crimson thread sank into his dantian.
His cultivation base - twenty-three years of sect resources, heavenly elixirs, pure bloodline - began to flow.
Backward.
Into me.
He screamed.
I drank.
When it was done, he collapsed - a broken young master at the edge of mortality.
I looked around.
The island was falling slowly - arrays failing, bridges collapsing.
Sect elders rushed from the inner halls.
Too late.
I raised one hand.
The remaining fragments I had collected pulsed in unison.
A storm of crimson vines rose from the island itself - tearing, consuming, collapsing.
The Floating Cloud Sect's pride fell from the sky.
And as it fell, I felt the heavens themselves take notice.
A distant rumble - not thunder.
Something deeper.
The first warning tribulation.
A single violet bolt gathered far above.
Not aimed at me.
Not yet.
But watching.
Yue appeared beside me, blade sheathed.
"You're drawing their attention faster than last time."
I looked up at the gathering storm.
"Good."
I smiled - cold, certain, almost peaceful.
"Let them see."
"Let them remember."
"The Copycat Sage is awake."
"And this time, the heavens will be the ones who fall."
End of Chapter 7