The air was still screaming.The storm hadn’t stopped even after the Thunder Leviathan fell. The entire marshland was a wasteland of shattered trees, boiling pools, and arcs of lightning still crawling along the broken surface of the monster’s corpse.Kirin stood in the middle of it all, chest heaving, body trembling like a burnt out circuit. His hand was still outstretched, black lightning still flickering around his fingers like reluctant serpents that refused to die. His clothes were in tatters, and his blood steamed as it hit the superheated mud.The Chaos Lightning had worked.But it had also devoured him.“..Kirin...” Rem’s voice cut through the roaring rain, sharp and desperate.Kirin turned his head weakly, barely managing to look at her. His vision swam, everything blurred together in streaks of red and violet. His Qi flow… it wasn’t flowing. It was screaming. Every meridian in his body pulsed and tore under invisible strain, like an overfilled pipe about to burst.He opened

The air in the outskirts had changed.It wasn’t the same stormy wilderness Kirin had stepped into days ago. No, now it smelled different, thicker, heavier. The kind of air that clung to your throat and made you swallow twice before breathing again. Blood had a scent of its own, metallic and sharp, and it mixed disturbingly well with the ozone from lightning strikes.Kirin walked through the fog drenched trees, his boots sinking into wet soil. Rain dripped through the canopy, masking distant screams and clashes of Qi. The forest had become a battleground, not between man and beast, but man against man.The Festival of Indra had turned into open warfare.At first, the competition had been friendly, small duels, quiet rivalries, harmless sabotage. But after the Leviathan’s death and Kirin’s name shooting up the contributor list, envy had sunk its claws deep into people’s hearts. Students started whispering, forming alliances, and then those alliances turned into factions.Now they hunted

The storm had finally begun to thin.For days, thunder had roared like an endless drumbeat over the forests and valleys of Indra’s domain, but now the skies merely grumbled, quieter, almost tired. What had once been a carnival of blood and lightning now looked like the aftermath of a forgotten war.Bodies... both human and beast... lay scattered across the soaked terrain. The ground itself steamed from the countless lightning strikes that had turned soil into glass. The scent of ozone, smoke, and decay clung to the air like a curse.Kirin walked among it all, silent. His boots sank into mud streaked with blood, but he didn’t seem to notice. His lightning hummed faintly beneath his skin, still unstable but more obedient than before. Every few minutes, his fingers twitched, small arcs crackling between them.Rem followed close behind, spear strapped across his back, her usual calm expression replaced with something somber. She had tied a black cloth around her arm, a small gesture of re

“The results,” the headmaster finally announced, “will now be revealed.”A hush fell over the hall.The banners overhead began to shift, glowing names appearing in radiant light. Each name pulsed with faint energy as if reacting to the bearer’s cultivation essence.“Starting from the Rank 3 Division!” the announcer’s voice echoed.Dozens of students leaned forward, breath held.Fiftieth, forty-ninth, thirty fifth, names were called, cheers rising here and there, others groaning when theirs weren’t heard.Then“Fifth place... Kirin Arcanus.”Silence. It spread like frost through the room. Heads turned. A thousand eyes found him instantly.Kirin didn’t flinch. He just stood there, staring ahead, emotionless. A few students whispered loudly.“Fifth?! That’s impossible.”“He’s a Rank 3! He’s barely been here for a month!”“Didn’t he almost fail his Qi control exam?”“He killed the Leviathan, didn’t he? That was him!”The headmaster’s gaze found Kirin briefly. A small smile flickered on hi

The rain had stopped. For the first time in weeks, the skies above the Indra Institute were clear, the clouds parted to reveal a pale morning sun casting soft light over the academy’s spires. The storm outside had ceased, but the echoes of the festival, the chaos, the blood, the lightning scorched earth still lingered in the air. Kirin stepped out of his dormitory, the weight of the Celestial Refraction Pill still thrumming in his veins. Every step he took felt different, like the ground itself recognized the power now contained within him.Students paused in their morning routines. Conversations died mid sentence. A pair of Rank 3 students who had been sparring moments ago froze in place, their eyes widening as they noticed him.Kirin didn’t stop to bask in the attention. He lifted his hands instinctively, watching as tiny arcs of lightning danced across his fingers. A simple spark leapt from his palm to a nearby metal rail without a sound. The surge of energy felt different now. Bal