The Heavenly Realm cultivators were the first to run. They were closest to the gathering clouds on their flying swords or swarms of insects or lotus platforms. They could see the clouds crackling with malevolent red and purple lightning. They could feel the heavenly fury, feel the utter violence of the coming storm. So they ran. To reach the Heavenly Person Realm required a moment of revelation, a personal grasp of what it meant to be immortal. Not one of them, heretic or orthodox, believed immortals could survive what was coming.

The Earthly Realm Cultivators chased after them. They weren’t as sensitive to the qi of annihilation carried by the clouds above, but at that scale, it was really just a matter of degree. Everyone knew that if they stayed, they would die. No chance of fighting. No hope of resisting. Violent obliteration, universal and inescapable.

They ran side by side, heretic and orthodox, climbing over the wounded and the dying, the wounded trying to run on broken legs, crawling for the desert dragging their guts over the rough sands, scrambling over the ruins of the depot, climbing over each other and hacking aside anyone between them and escape. The terror pressed on them, reaching within them and drove them out into the wasteland. No one could withstand what was coming. Nobody tried.

Except three. An old man, and two children. Fu stared into the clouds and slowly spoke.

“I despaired, because immortality was denied to me. My heart grew so cold. So cold I could hardly stand it. I thought Hell would be a place of frozen fire that would feel just like my heart. Envy. Hatred. Watching those younger than me surpass me. Watching those I despised reach immortality.” A thin rain started. It felt stinging, somehow. As though it wasn’t just water. Withered hands spread out in the rain. Two bloody knives dropped from them.

“Then I learned to let go. I slept with dozens of women, hating myself a little more each time because I didn’t care about them. I just wanted children. A legacy in flesh, the immortality of mortals. But the heavens denied me that too. Then I learned to let go. How can hands holding knives lift up a child? I returned to the Temple and learned to let go of my self hate. My cruelty. My insane pride.”

Brother Fu looked at the gathering lightning. He was smiling even as tears mixed with rain on his withered cheeks.

“My accomplishments? What accomplishments? I achieved nothing. I let them go. My learning? I had learned nothing. I let it go. Those I saved, those I killed? Would they have lived or died without me? Of course they would have. Taking all in balance, I saved no one. I let it go. I let it all go. I returned to the teachings of the ancestors. I cultivated virtue and the art of effortless action. I moved with nature. Finding more and more within myself to let go. The only thing I hadn’t let go was my crimes. My need for absolution. I gave up so much, I thought that all that was left was my regret that I would leave no legacy. A life with nothing to show for it is a fitting end for an old monster. But the dao gave me everything.”

He looked down at Tian fondly. “It gave me a son. Someone who loved me, even knowing that I had lived as a demon. Someone who saw the horrors of the world, but could still be kind. What better immortality could there be? What better legacy could there be than this? Everything good about me will live on, and my wretchedness will follow me into the grave. I don’t need immortality. Who I am now is enough. This life was enough.”

Tian smiled, his own tears lost in the stinging rain. “That’s the first time you called me son. You really made me wait.”

“Nonsense. This was the exact right time to tell you. If you believe otherwise, you are lacking in cultivation.” Brother Fu sounded austere. His smile betrayed him.

“Father… we have to run.”

“There is no outrunning a heavenly tribulation, little Zihao. That aura of destruction is no bluff, and it is coming for me. Junior Hong, I don’t know what you are doing here, but if your sisters have run for it-”

“I just don’t want to run. It hasn’t been a good day, Senior Fu.” Sister Hong’s tired face slowly appeared as the rain washed away the blood. She and Tian had killed their way into the base, and she hadn’t been adverse to stabbing things jumping over them.

“Sees a tribulation cloud and thinks it’s an opportunity to vent her anger. Tsk, tsk. I always said that Skull Crusher Bai couldn’t be trusted to raise children properly.” Brother Fu shook his head. The clouds seemed to be coming together in a twist, looking saturated with lightning.

“I… haven’t seen my Senior Sister in a while. Do you know if…?”

Elder Fu shook his head. “I don’t know. She was running deep patrols the last I heard, but at our age, we don’t keep close track. She would be mad if I let anything happen to her precious little sister, so do me a favor and take this stubborn son of mine and run. I don’t know if you still have time to get clear, but so long as you get some distance, there is hope.”

Brother Fu looked up at the tribulation clouds. “I only read about these. And even the books I read were written by people who had only heard of them.” The lighting crackled and snarled. The sound rolled through the wasteland, bouncing between the buildings into a cascade of noise that obliterated thought as completely as the lightning would obliterate all life.

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“I am so grateful that the two of you are here, but you need to run. Now. You just learned all sorts of things about the elements. Here is an opportunity to study a literal heavenly dao. To capture even the tiniest fragment of Tribulation Lighting in your own arts? Heavenly Person Experts would be sick with envy.”

“But why? Why?! It’s not fair!” Tian burst. He couldn’t take Brother Fu acting casually anymore.

“Because the Heavens have set their bounds. The hierarchy can be challenged, but not overturned. The Earthly shall not cut down the Heavenly, and the Mortal shall not slay the Immortal.”

“I served tea to a Saintess who was a skeleton! I watched an ugly turtle fight a pointy rock and learned more about your martial arts! I found the fire in me, and I lit a lamp in my heart. I have so much to tell you about, Father. I have so much to show you. I grew. I learned. I tried my best every day. Don’t stay here! Run. Fight! Let me fight with you!”

Brother Fu laughed. He sounded happy, free. “Amazing! What a crazy thing! Tea to a skeleton, really?”

Tian nodded convulsively.

“Good! Good! That’s the kind of civilized wildness I like to see in my son! But this isn’t something we can settle down with a good tea session.” The clouds convulsed. The red lightning gathered, deepening in color and becoming brighter and brighter.

“Ah. Too late. Zihao, please. At the very least, step back. Junior Hong, look after your brother. He cares too deeply about people, and I worry someone will take advantage.”

“I will. I always do.” Hong’s voice sounded muffled. Had she been protecting him? More than what her grandmother’s network was doing? He had never noticed. And right now, he really didn’t care.

“Father!”

“Be a dutiful son. Step back. And watch how your Father faces the heavens without fear.”

“It’s not the damn heavens! It’s not the damn dao! Think about what you have been teaching me! Cultivation is in accordance with nature and the dao. So if your martial arts, which is all about working with the dao, can let a mortal kill an immortal, than that’s the fucking dao! And WHAT PART OF THAT DOG-FUCKING HELL-CLOUD LOOKS HEAVENLY TO YOU, OLD MAN?!”

“TIAN ZIHAO! How dare you use such disgraceful language!”

“SHUT UP AND FIGHT!” Tian screamed.

The lighting reached down, like a lazy red dragon extending a single claw to pierce an old rabbit. Brother Fu had been distracted, focused on scolding Tian. His reaction was instinctive. The lighting struck, but a withered arm was moving before it even reached him. A soft palm reached out, and guided the lightning to the ground.

There was an explosion, and a shape flipped through the rain. When the steam cleared, Brother Fu was standing, looking at his blackened arm in shock.

“That… shouldn’t be possible. Or so I believe, anyway. Heavenly Tribulation is supposed to be the Dao’s wrath made manifest. Inescapable, the embodiment of destruction. Its slightest touch brings obliteration. It destroyed the ground but barely touched me. This…”

Tian and Hong had been knocked flat. The blast of the explosion and the remnants of the lighting were enough to paralyze them and leave them spasming on the ground.

“It’s either not truly Heavenly Tribulation, or there is a problem with the Heavens. What a strange, impossible thing.” Brother Fu’s voice was full of wonder. “But it looks like tribulation lightning in nearly every way the books describe.”

Two lightning claws reached down for him, the color becoming darker, the lightning lines more jagged. This time Brother Fu was ready, and with a curious expression, he let his body flow. Not fighting the lightning, just riding it out. Letting the lighting slide right past him.

“Impossible. Quite impossible. I shouldn’t be able to do this with real lightning, let alone whatever this is. I truly know nothing.”

Three claws slashed down. Buildings were ripped apart. The ward over the hospital burst like a bubble, and the roof caved in. Fires broke out across the broken buildings and ruined warehouses of the depot. Brother Fu seemed unharmed.

“I move with the Dao, and the Dao is within me. I no longer contend with others, yet I am punished for my arrogance. I live frugally, yet it seems I want too much. This is… unjust. Without compassion or understanding. This is not the true dao.” Brother Fu’s voice was slow, steady.

Four claws raked down, the red turned nearly black, the jagged lines looking more like wisps of fire. For the first time, Brother Fu frowned. He reached up, like he was welcoming the lightning, then let his body shift with it. The explosion ripped through the base once more, but this time away from the hospital.

Tian and Hong were six parts dead. They couldn’t save themselves one tiny bit. But they heard every word clearly. There was a charm to them. And though they were twitching on the ground, they could still make out Brother Fu’s form. Reserved, but with a straight back. Penniless and unashamed. Humble below the heavens… so long as they were the heavens.

“The True Dao is the Dao that cannot be spoken, for it is too vast, too wonderful for mere words. The true Dao…” The clouds convulsed. A single point of light gathered, sun bright, but the blackened crimson of drying blood. Five claws reached out, no longer reminding one of a dragon, but seeming like a dragon’s foot in truth.

Brother Fu’s voice changed. The charm was heavier, resonant. Something so ancient and so true, the weight of it shook the air and the stones and the hearts of every being that heard it. “Reaching the ultimate of emptiness, deeply guarding stillness, the things of this world arise together, and that is how I watch them return.”

The foot of the dragon pressed down and Brother Fu welcomed it. No technique, no exquisite arts, he reached his tiny mortal hand upwards and met a Mad God’s fury descending. The dragon pressed down on him, trying to crush him into the earth. Reducing the old man into another stain on the wasteland, never to reach the heavens.

Brother Fu let the force crush down, not resisting. He flowed with it, like water down a mountainside, And then he used that force and fury to turn. His hand lifted up once again. “There is no immortality beyond the Dao! And I move with the Dao!”

The lighting rose from the earth, and shattered the heavens.