Chapter Two: Transforming Clouds into Human Form

More and more objects were recognized by Wuyun one after another; as long as they had existed since ancient times, he could name them all. In the end, these things began to ferment within the treasure bottle. The rising mist replaced the gases that made up Wuyun’s current body, even expelling the demonic aura that Shengba had infused into him.

At this moment, Shengba no longer bore any trace of his former dominance; instead, he was overtaken by madness. As countless materials were thrown in, he leaped and danced, singing the songs of shaman gods and weaving intricate gestures of arcane formations.

If an outsider had witnessed this, they surely would have laughed aloud. But Wuyun did not think so. To him, Shengba was sacrificing his own lifespan, reaching out to communicate with immortals, sages, and gods from other worlds or planes.

A vast, oppressive force descended. Then, it transformed into a flood of incantations that poured into the treasure bottle.

Only then did Wuyun furrow his brow. “Three hundred and twenty-one curses?”

He marveled. Three hundred and twenty-one curses—seemingly unconnected—were woven together into a single grand malediction. Yet this master curse was not directed at Wuyun himself, but at the newly rising mist.

When the mist was cursed, it was as if Wuyun himself was cursed. It sounded simple, but to merge three hundred and twenty-one curses into one entirely new, mysterious curse—how much time would it take? How much backlash would it bring?

“I see now!” Wuyun’s form began to take shape within the bottle—a living human figure, though his bones were forged from those myriad substances. Shengba’s expression shifted into a strange, half-smile.

Just as Wuyun was about to praise Shengba’s unparalleled wisdom, an unexpected event occurred.

A piece of blood-red wood rose and dropped into the bottle. It began to bleed, more and more, until finally it turned into a vapor of blood, which the now human-shaped Wuyun absorbed.

This was the crucial moment.

The vapor, formed from the blood of tens of millions of different children, helped Wuyun take on flesh—a body of blood and meat.

But this blood was mortal blood!

A demonic body, yet mortal blood—what kind of existence could Wuyun become in the end?

“It’s the curses that matter most. Is this your method of controlling me?”

Wuyun had barely asked when the world spun wildly. An infinite tide of worldly energies surged in, carrying with them the full spectrum of emotions—joy, anger, sorrow, delight, parting, reunion—all flooding into his body. Then came fortune, appearance…

Shengba laughed, “Do you know now why I founded my sect, why I drew blood to test talent? It was all for this day…”

He laughed and laughed, but suddenly, the laughter died.

He had fallen into madness.

Wuyun noticed something curious: Shengba’s fortune had entirely vanished, and endless, shadowy darkness was surging in.

Far away, separated by several planets, dozens of great figures sensed what was happening on the Luoshui Star, in the Luoshui Realm.

One of them exclaimed, “Endless misfortune fills the Luoshui Star and Realm. My heavens, is the Luoshui Star about to explode, bringing devastation upon all life?”

“Why is this happening?” Shengba was dumbfounded. His intelligence was unmatched—he had plotted for so long, it was never mere luck.

“But I succeeded! I truly succeeded!” Shengba, in his madness, wept and laughed. No treasure could banish his current state.

Even a supreme immortal jade pendant, when it rose into the air, was struck by a sudden bolt of blue-gray lightning and shattered into dust!

The space Shengba occupied became like a sieve, riddled with countless small holes through which blue-gray lightning poured, living things that, upon entering, melted away the holy artifact shielding Shengba.

The main peak was revealed, and then a wave of energy descended from the heavens. The entire Sword Mountain Sect was swept away as if by a flood.

“Nine Heavens Divine Thunder,” Shengba murmured. He recognized this thunder that crossed space—it was the deathless, inescapable judgment thunder faced by immortals and gods in tribulation.

The wave just now was the First Thunder, the Clearing Thunder, meant simply to clear the field of unrelated matters and strip the tribulation-taker of all hidden means.

Even this non-lethal first thunder caused the destruction of eight of the sect’s nine peaks, all swept away. Not one was left, including their resisting masters—all members of the sect were gone.

The fortunate and the strong survived; the rest perished in untold numbers.

Even the strongest defensive formation Shengba had crafted, along with all his hidden tricks, were exposed and wiped clean by the Clearing Thunder.

A single thunderbolt, like a sentient being, completed its task and did not dissipate but returned to its origin, as if assembling with its kind.

Shengba was numb, for the second thunder had already struck him.

The only thing left unscathed was the treasure bottle and the human-shaped Wuyun within—entirely untouched.

“Is it you? Chaos Thunder? Dumpling Thunder?”

Wuyun, now in human form, was immobilized within the bottle. After countless ages, he finally had his own body.

“Chaos Cloud? Peeping Cloud?”

A lightning bolt in the shape of thunder appeared within Wuyun’s bottle. It moved as if unopposed, and upon seeing Wuyun, it was not excited, but surprised.

“Chaos Cloud is dead?”

“Dead? You and all your wives and descendants are dead!” Wuyun retorted in ancient tongue.

The floating gray lightning seemed embarrassed. “I don’t know if my true form has wives or offspring. This is only a billionth fraction of my energy—so little that this dimension can barely bear it.”

Chaos Thunder observed Wuyun for a long while, sighing repeatedly.

Outside, time seemed to stand still. After Chaos Thunder had examined Wuyun’s current body for a good while, a trace of sorrow appeared. The bottle trembled with that sorrow and disintegrated into dust.

“My true form, when young, wished to take you as a companion, but you never gave him a chance,” the voice of Chaos Thunder echoed, making Wuyun’s scalp prickle. In cloud form, he had always watched the world with a brotherly camaraderie—he never imagined…

Wuyun was furious. “I saw you as a brother, and you’ve been thinking of me as a woman?”

“In chaos, there is no male or female, no superior or inferior, only the strong and the weak. If Chaos Cloud had not died, my true self would have kept these words hidden for eternity.”

The vibrations slowly faded. Outside, Shengba had turned to ash. Yet his true spirit—his soul—did not return to the origin of this dimension, but drifted and gathered far away.

“This is a soul from a higher dimension, passing through only to hunt and kill Chaos Cloud. I will follow his soul, confine his true form and all conspirators, and await judgment by my true self!”

As the thunder was about to leave, Wuyun’s usually unruffled face showed rare anxiety and anger. “After all the times I saved you, now that my true spirit is born, you ignore me, ungrateful as ever!”

“You are no longer Chaos Cloud. All things of chaos transcend this dimension, undying and indestructible. Even the products of world-ending dimensions cannot help it. But you have become mortal, with a lifespan and a fate as one of this dimension’s own.”

As the voice grew more distant, Wuyun angrily called out, “Every time you were hunted by annihilating spirits, it was I who hid you, rescued you—and now you abandon me so coldly!”

Time froze again. After a long while, the thunder reappeared as if it had never left, and muttered, “But now you are mortal; any ripple of my power could annihilate you. Tell me, how am I to help you?”

“No, you owe me. You must repay me!” Wuyun declared with conviction, as if finally grasping Chaos Thunder’s weakness.

“Ah, now I remember—when I entered this dimension, I sensed a will in its space. Why don’t you act as its agent of Heaven’s will, right some wrongs for it? It’s settled!”