After a week of being in the new world, Travis hadn’t done… much. He smoked. That was it. Over the week however, he did run through his memories. What he saw depressed him, and what depressed him… made him smoke.

He found that the world was primitive, and was filled with magic spells and cultivation. Cultivators were people who seized fortune from the heavens, grasped fortune with their bare hands and ripped it from the realm of the celestials.

The known world was a network of floating boulders, each one a staggering monolith. Each one was occupied by either a sect or a city. This network of floating boulders was called the Necklace of Buddha. Wang Tao hadn’t known the reason why.

The sect Travis was in was the Void Immortal Sect. It was a relatively middle of the road sect, but if legends were to be believed, it had been glorious in the past. But alas, the past was the past. What mattered was the present, and the present Void Immortal Sect was distinctly average.

Travis’s experience of cultivators scared him. There was one particular memory that had floated into his mind when he was about to go to sleep. It was the scene of two cultivators fighting in some sort of competition. The might shown, and the destructive techniques they threw at each other scared him down to the bone.

That night - thunder and lightning had struck - and all Travis could do was stay up all night shivering; rocking back and forth with his arms around his knees and his teeth clenched.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!” Travis roared as the thunderclaps rumbled around him. He had never heard thunder this loud. It penetrated his soul, sending his cultivation aflutter. He was truly afraid. Not only because of the supernatural thunderstorm, but because of the new world. All of his fears, his homesickness, his misery, all culminated in that moment.

He saw someone in the sky. It shocked him so much, he forgot about his terror. Someone was flying! They were bold enough to stand in the sky when the lightning was that terrifying! It was an elegant figure, a woman. She stood in the air, looking towards the sky, with the wind whipping her hair around, and the rain soaking her to her skin. She stood there in defiance of the storm, in defiance of the heavens. Lightning burst down, excited to eliminate the arrogant woman.

Travis gasped. The woman took the lightning on headfirst, and as blood poured out of her mouth, she roared with laughter.

“Is this all? Is this all that the heavens have planned for me?” She said, derision on her lips.

The heavens seemingly were angered by her condescension. The heavens were above all, how could a mere cultivator look at them with derision? The lightning previously had been silver, and relatively harmless. The clouds roiled, and the rain and wind ceased. The whole storm collapsed in on itself, and was sucked into one point. All of the storm had been condensed into one point. The moon shone brightly as a bolt of lightning formed.

This bolt of lightning was black in colour, ominous as it just gathered in the air slowly. It was as if it were savouring the taste of fear in the air.

The female cultivator looked at the bolt of lightning and her heart thrummed. She gasped,

‘The legendary black lightning!’

Her eyebrows furrowed. An elderly man below was pacing rapidly as he was looking at both the woman and the lightning.

“Milady, don’t be rash! The black lightning is something that cannot be taken on with your body! It is the amalgamation of the heavenly storm. If you take it on…” He trailed off.

“You doubt me, my servant?” The woman teased.

“No, of course not ma’am! I would rather die. I just hope you do not subject this poor servant into having to explain your death to the sect master.”

The woman roared with laughter. “You do not have to worry about anything like that happening.” She looked towards the lightning, but this time, the thrumming in her heart meant something different to fear.

The black bolt crackled as it was fully formed. An explosion rang out, sending shockwaves through the sect. Travis’ floor rumbled, and his bed shook.

It descended, ripping through the air with breakneck speed. The woman’s eyes narrowed, and she pointed her finger. Sucking in a deep breath, she cried out and charged towards the lightning bolt. Her finger and the bolt collided, setting off sparks and beams of rainbow light.

The elderly man below was about to jump into the sky to intervene, but the woman wailed - then growled in defiance as she pushed the lightning bolt away. A beam exploded from her finger, and battered the lightning bolt.

As the lightning ceased - futile against her - the moon illuminated her, making her seem otherworldly.

She smiled, all the anger and frustration leaving her heart.

Travis gaped, gazing upon the elegance of the moon-kissed cultivator. Looking at her, the fears were washed out of his heart. The beauty, the magnificence… could he look like that one day? Could he, someone who had died under the boot of oppression, crawl into the heavens one day?

Travis clenched his fist. This new world was scary, and brutal… but aren’t the hardest things more rewarding at the end?