When the third seal cracked, the world tore open.
Not physically—but in spirit.
Li Wei was flung into a void of roaring wind and flashing memory. He stood once more on the peak of the broken mountain—but this time, the silver-haired man stood beside him.
Li Feng.
The man who shared his name. His face.
Or perhaps… his future.
"You think this power is yours?" Li Feng asked.
"You think the wind chose you? It didn't. It remembers. And it's waiting."
"Waiting for what?" Li Wei asked.
Li Feng turned to him, eyes like endless sky. "For someone to finish what I could not."
He gestured—and the clouds above parted, revealing the heavenly array of the ancient sects. Enormous sigils drawn in the sky, controlling fate, death, advancement. A cage so subtle that no one ever noticed they were trapped.
"You think we ascend by merit?" Li Feng said. "The heavens reward only obedience."
He pointed at the pendant.
"Inside that is the Tempest Core. The will of the storm. Pure, free, violent. I broke the sky trying to set it loose."
"And failed."
Li Feng smiled.
"Maybe. Or maybe I left the pieces for someone better."
He stepped forward—and merged with Li Wei, dissolving into wind and memory.
And then Li Wei heard it.
The final whisper:
"Break the sky… or become its slave."
⸻
Li Wei opened his eyes.
The Tempest Core had awakened.
His qi surged—no longer wind-aspected, but wind-born. The storm now answered to his will, not just his breath.
And then the alarms sounded.
⸻
Elder Yun had made his move.
The inner court claimed Li Wei had opened a cursed artifact. That he was a danger to the sect. That he carried the remnant of a heretic.
They came with chains.
Li Wei met them alone at the Windpeak Stair.
A dozen elite disciples. Three elders.
They demanded surrender.
Li Wei raised his hand—and the wind bowed.
"I don't want to break the sky," he said quietly.
"But I won't kneel to it either."
The battle was swift, beautiful, terrible.
He didn't kill.
He didn't need to.
He disarmed the sky.
⸻
When the dust settled, the elders stood down.
Even Elder Mo arrived—watching not with fear, but acceptance.
The storm had passed.
And Li Wei remained.
⸻
In the months that followed, the Azure Wind Sect changed. The old order broke. New voices rose. Cultivation became not just about strength—but about choice.
Li Wei never took an inner court position.
He walked alone, beneath the open sky, training others in the Path of the Tempest Heart, leaving behind only one message:
"If the heavens are just, let them prove it.
And if they are not… let the storm come."
And high above, in the sky that once held chains…
The wind sang his name.