Chapter 87: The Thunder Storm

The vast expanse of the astral soul realm erupted into a blinding tempest of violet and golden electricity. Raw elemental energy tore through the starlit void as Rain pushed her body to its absolute limits, her movement turning into a jagged streak of lightning. Yet, no matter how fast she struck, the Immortal stood immovable.

Wielding the starlight storm blade with terrifying grace, the phantom—a cruel fragment of Rain’s own psyche conjured by the blade’s horrific Astral Burden—parried every blow effortlessly. The Immortal was a monster of the sixth realm. Even reduced to a spiritual remnant, her mastery over the storm was supreme. To her, Rain’s Eclipser Rank 3 strength was nothing more than an insect thrashing against a hurricane.

"Wow, I knew you were always this weak, but I never thought you were this weak," the Immortal drawled, her voice carrying smoothly over the roar of thunder. She flicked her wrist, the storm blade unleashing a violent shockwave of compressed wind and lightning that sent Rain skidding across the astral floor.

Rain gritted her teeth, her chest heaving as blood dripped from her lip. Before she could regain her footing, the Immortal surged forward, her presence smothering the realm.

"I mean, even when your family abandoned you..."

The Immortal’s words struck like a physical blade. A memory Rain had buried in the deepest, darkest corner of her mind flashed violently before her eyes: a tiny, shivering girl standing in a dirty alleyway, being bartered off for a tiny pouch of copper coins. Spare change, just so her parents could eat meat for a single week. That was all her life had been worth to them.

"Shut up!" Rain screamed, her voice cracking as she threw herself back into the fray.

She turned into pure light, her movement blinding as she lashed out with a desperate salvo of lightning strikes. The Immortal didn’t even bother dodging. She spun the starlight blade in a lazy arc, absorbing the onslaught directly into the edge of her sword, her eyes gleefully drinking in Rain’s agony.

"What? It’s the truth," the Immortal taunted, her smile widening into something grotesque. "Even after your grandmother sold everything she ever owned just to buy you back... what did you do for her?"

The screaming inside Rain’s head transformed. The quiet, calculating demeanor she usually maintained burned away, replaced by the unhinged wrath of a madwoman. Her violet lightning flared violently, rising in intensity until the surrounding air began to ionize and shatter into static.

Though her current physical vessel was battered and weak, Rain’s soul was that of an Immortal—tempered by centuries of uncompromising Will and slaughter. She unleashed that dormant, ancient aura all at once, letting the suffocating pressure of a true Lightning Cultivator flood the realm.

Yet the shadow visage of the Immortal only grinned wider. The starlight blade hummed happily, literally feeding on the heavy surge of murderous intent Rain was pouring out. The weapon swallowed her furious aura, converting her own soul-power into crackling golden thunder along its edge.

"Am I lying?" the Immortal mocked, stepping easily through Rain’s aura as if it were a mild breeze. "She made herself homeless, starving in a filthy refugee camp just because she wanted her precious granddaughter to live a better life! And what did you give her in return?"

"SHUT UP!" Rain roared, completely losing control.

She lunged forward, her remaining hand glowing with a dense, unstable sphere of white-hot lightning. The two figures collided at the center of the void, their blades and fists clashing in a deafening, continuous explosion of kinetic force and raw plasma. Thunder roared like screaming beasts, tearing the starlit domain apart at the seams as their duel turned into a blood-soaked, frantic storm.

---

There was nothing but lightning all around.

Rain had always been unshakeable. Calm, composed, and unnervingly cool—her own guild members used to whisper that she carried herself like a cold god looking down on mortal men. If you had asked her fallen team members about her before their end, that was exactly what they would have said. For a long time, she had simply been Rain, keeping the world at an arm’s length. But something had shifted a year ago. Ever since then, she had begun looking at everyone with that same distant, arctic gaze.

Now, that illusion of cold divine superiority was being ripped to shreds.

The battle escalated into a violent storm of blue and purple lightning, two blinding streaks of light weaving through the vast void of her astral soul at terrifying speeds. Arc after arc tore through the starlit sky until the raw power of the Immortal completely overwhelmed her. With a deafening crackle, the Immortal struck, smashing through Rain’s guard and slamming her violently into the hard ground of her inner world.

Above them both, the towering shadow visage of her astral being stood silent, its massive frame now hair-triggered with wild, branching veins of purple electricity.

Coughing up blood, Rain pushed her upper body off the cold floor and looked up. Hovering directly above her was her past self, staring down with that exact same frigid, godlike expression Rain had used on everyone else.

The Immortal smiled a chilling, cruel smile as she raised the storm blade high, its starlight steel humming with an unstable, dense concentration of electrical energy.

"Do you know the difference between a storm and lightning?" the Immortal asked softly, her voice cutting cleanly over the atmospheric hum. She lowered her gaze, her smile widening. "You see, if you build up enough lightning... which is precisely what this blade is made for..."

Rain watched in helpless horror as the tip of the storm blade locked onto her chest.

"It forms thunder."

BOOM—!

A terrifying, localized explosion of pure acoustic force and white-hot plasma detonated upon contact. The shockwave shattered the ground of her soul realm, sending Rain flying backward like a broken ragdoll.

As her body tumbled uncontrollably through the air, her sight fading and her soul screaming in agony, a single realization struck her with crystal clarity: in that final, terrible moment, looking up at the Immortal’s cold eyes, she finally understood how everyone else felt whenever she looked down at them.

The pain was blinding.

---

Rain crashed onto the cold, cracked floor of her astral soul realm, her vision blurring as white-hot agony surged through her marrow. Through the hazy red fog of her failing consciousness, she watched her past self—the Immortal—walking up to her with slow, deliberate steps. The sound of the storm blade humming with residual thunder echoed across the void.

Then, she heard her own voice speaking inside her head, dripping with cold, mocking disdain.

What? Don’t tell me you’re feeling sorry now. Don’t be like that. After all, like you said... for the greater good.

The Immortal stopped right before her, looking down at Rain’s broken form. Rain tried to push herself up, only to cough out another mouthful of spiritual blood that splattered across the dark floor.

At that exact moment, a sharp, sickening sound echoed through the entire realm.

CRACK.

The massive central core of Rain’s astral soul fractured. A web of luminous fissures spread across the burning sphere, leaking unstable energy into the void.

The Immortal’s smile widened into something grotesque. She reached down, grabbing Rain by her hair and yanking her head back with savage force to compel her to look up.

"Am I lying?" the Immortal whispered, her breath freezing the air between them. "I mean, she even paid with the tiny bits of copper she scraped together just to get you into a sect. And what did you do? You abandoned her for power."

Rain glared into those cold, lightning-filled eyes, her jaw trembling as she spat blood directly at her past self’s face. "I didn’t! I just wanted to be stronger... to protect her!"

"Yeah, yeah. ’Protect her,’" the Immortal mocked, not even flinching as she wiped the blood away. "Was that what you used to justify it in your hypocritical little mind? Or were you simply embarrassed by her?"

With a flick of her wrist, the Immortal let go of Rain’s hair, letting her head slam hard against the floor.

"I mean, she visited the sect every single month," the Immortal continued, pacing slowly around her broken form. "She stood at the outer gates waiting for you. But you never showed up. Why was that, Rain? Was it because she was dressed like a beggar?"

"No... no..." Rain gasped out, her own words sounding completely foreign to her ears. They felt hollow, weak, like a desperate lie she was trying to force herself to believe. "I just... I just wanted to grow stronger..."

"Hiding behind ’power’ again," the Immortal sneered, her laugh ringing like striking iron. "One month turned into two. Two months turned into three. Then five. Then six. Until she finally stopped coming altogether. And you never once went out to look for her, did you? You just wanted to keep playing the role of the pristine genius. You were afraid that with her around, everyone in the sect would discover the filthy gut from which you crawled."

Rain clutched her head, her mind violently tearing apart under the blade’s relentless psychological assault.

"And after years and years of burying your head in cultivation to reach a higher stage," the Immortal’s voice grew dangerously quiet, dropping to a dark, menacing whisper, "you finally went back, only to find out she had died five months after you entered the sect. Slaughtered by the loan sharks she borrowed money from just to pay your entry fee. And what was the word you used back then? Ah, right. A small sacrifice for the greater good."

"No! No! No!" Rain shrieked, her remaining hand tearing at the floor as purple lightning flickered wildly from her shattered core. "I wanted to grow stronger to protect her! But I was too late! I was just too late!"

"Late?" The Immortal scoffed, raising an eyebrow with pure contempt. "Or relieved that she was dead so she wouldn’t drag down your precious reputation?"

The Immortal paused, looking down at Rain with quiet, analytical disgust. "I guess what Xander said about you was true after all. I think I finally understand why he killed you in your past life."

Rain’s breath hitched. She stared down at the dark, cold ground, her lips moving frantically as she muttered through her tears. "No... no... I... I..."

"Is that really what you think?" a soft, frail voice suddenly interrupted.

Rain froze. The cold, suffocating pressure in the air vanished in an instant.

Slowly, terrifyingly, Rain looked up.

The Immortal was gone. Standing in her place was a tiny, frail old woman—someone who had been dead for centuries. She wore threadbare, patched clothes, her weathered hands trembling as she held the massive, humming storm blade with a gentle, loving smile.

The frantic "no"s that Rain had been desperately screaming were now pouring directly out of the old woman’s mouth in Rain’s own voice.

Rain’s eyes widened to their absolute limit, every drop of blood draining from her face as her soul shattered into complete, utter horror.

"G-Grandma...?"