Chapter 298 — Six Bolts

CHAPTER 298

Six Bolts

The first bolt hit Shi Feng square on the crown of the head.

Boom!

White light covered the cliff top. A ring of stone cracked beneath Shi Feng, and burnt hair filled his nose. Pain seized every muscle at once. He clenched his teeth and forced himself to hold his posture.

He stayed seated.

Shi Feng thought, Only the first. Stay steady. He could trace the lightning down his spine and through his meridians. The pain was fierce, but his physique was already taking in the force instead of resisting it.

It didn't fight the lightning. It drank.

The bolt faded. Left behind in his flesh was a bright, stinging warmth, the leftover qi of the strike. Shi Feng let it sink into his bones and breathed out smoke.

[Devoured: Heavenly lightning residue ×1]

“Two!” He Zhen's voice came faintly from the slope.

The second bolt was thicker. It came down with a crack like a mountain splitting, and Shi Feng's robe burst into flame at the shoulders. He beat the fire out with one hand and kept his other hand on his knee.

Drink, he told himself. Slowly. You'll get indigestion.

The second residue joined the first.

“Three!” He Zhen said.

On the slope, the crowd had stopped breathing.

“He's still sitting up!”

“Two bolts, and he's still sitting up!”

“A normal Foundation Establishment cultivator doesn't last past the third!”

“Hush!” He Zhen shouted. “I'm counting!”

The third bolt was as wide as a barn door. It fell, and the whole range shook with the sound. Dust jumped off the roofs of Artificer Hall. A hundred birds left the trees at once, and a chestnut seller fell backwards off his stool.

When the white faded, Shi Feng was still there. Black marks ran up his arms like roots. His eyes were open.

“Four,” He Zhen said, in a thinner voice. “Four... this isn't normal. The gap between bolts is too short.”

“Is it supposed to be longer?” Zhu Liu asked.

“A full breath between strikes,” He Zhen said. “That gives the cultivator time to heal. He’s getting half a breath. Heaven's net is wide and its mesh is coarse, yet nothing slips through. Look how soon the next one gathers!”

Sima Lan said nothing. Her chalk had snapped in her hand. She hadn't noticed.

On Windcut Peak, ten li to the west, Elder Shen Tuo stood at the edge of the rock with both eyes fixed on the cliff. He was a heavy man in grey, and he had brought his best watcher to count the bolts and report the true figure. The watcher's eyes shone faintly gold, because he was using an eye art that could see ten li as clearly as ten paces.

“Four bolts,” the watcher murmured. “Foundation Establishment, and the cloud is— Elder, the cloud is far too wide. This isn't a normal—”

He stopped.

“What is it?” Shen Tuo asked.

“I can't see,” the watcher said.

“Don't be foolish. The cliff is right there,” Shen Tuo said.

“It’s dark!” the watcher cried, clapping both hands over his face. Blood ran between his fingers. “I can’t see anything, Elder! My eyes—what happened to my eyes?”

Shen Tuo spun around and stared at the cliff. There was nothing wrong with it. The lightning was still falling.

Nothing had touched the watcher. Nothing had even looked at him.

Shen Tuo's face turned grim. He said nothing, but he took a step back from the edge.

“Five!” He Zhen said.

The fifth bolt was blue. Shi Feng's meridians sang with it. The Thunder-Marrow in his bones rang like a struck bell, and for one breath he thought his skull would split. Then the Physique swallowed it, and the ringing became warmth.

[Devoured: Heavenly lightning residue ×5]

The sixth bolt followed before the fifth had finished fading.

Shi Feng felt the next strike gathering before the last had cleared. He thought, Too fast. He abandoned every other thought and concentrated on holding his body together through the sixth bolt.

“Six!” He Zhen said.

The slope was silent.

“Six,” Elder Tian Luo said slowly. He had stood up from his rock without noticing. “Six, and the cloud is not even thinner. That is not a Foundation Establishment tribulation.”

“It's growing,” a disciple whispered.

At the very back of the crowd, nobody was watching the cliff.

Lin Langtian had slipped in beside the old sweeper. His sweet potato hung forgotten in his hand. He was staring at the old man's right sleeve, which had moved. Only a little. Just the way a man's sleeve moves when he flicks away a fly.

Ten li away, a watcher had gone blind.

Lin Langtian looked up at the old man's face. It was as sleepy and ordinary as always. Li Changyuan leaned on his broom and watched the clouds.

“Fly,” Li Changyuan said, to nobody in particular.

“A big one,” Lin Langtian said softly.

Neither man mentioned it again.

On the cliff, the seventh bolt began to gather. The cloud had stopped turning. It was holding its breath.