The Trial
Two years passed on the mountain.
Time behaved differently there. Days could stretch into stillness or collapse into moments. The air was alive with presence — not gods exactly, but something older. The stones whispered when no one was listening. The rivers sang in voices that predated language.
Nezha learned quickly, but learning did not ease his loneliness.
Under Taiyi Zhenren's guidance, he mastered the speech of wind and the discipline of breath. He learned to move like water, strike like lightning, and stand as unmovable as stone. The Universe Ring became an extension of his will, spinning around him in arcs of golden light. The Red Armillary Sash moved like a living thing, binding and releasing with thought alone. The Wind Fire Wheels carried him across the sky as if the air itself obeyed his command.
He was seven years old and could do things that made immortals pause.
But power, he discovered, was a poor companion.
____
At night, when training ended and Taiyi retired to meditate, Nezha would sit at the pavilion's edge and look down at the world below. Somewhere beyond those clouds was Chentang Pass. His mother's voice. His father's steady presence. The pond where lotus flowers bloomed.
He took out the silk charm his mother had given him and held it until it grew warm in his hand. It smelled less like her now, more like mountain air and time passing.
He wondered if she still sang in the mornings.
He wondered if they remembered him the way he remembered them — as something that hurt to think about but hurt more to forget.
---
Taiyi found him there one evening, as twilight poured through the pines like wine through silk.
"You are troubled," the master said. It was not a question.
Nezha did not look up.
"I can split mountains now," he said quietly. "I can call fire from nothing. I can fly faster than wind." He paused. "But I still don't know why."
"Why you have power?"
"Why I'm here. Why Heaven made me this way. Why..." He stopped, searching for words. "Why being strong only makes me feel more alone."
Taiyi sat beside him, silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was gentle.
"Power does not create connection, Nezha. It reveals the distance between what you are and what others can understand. The lonelier you feel, the greater you've become."
"Then I don't want to become greater," Nezha said. "I want to go home."
Taiyi smiled sadly.
"And you will. But not yet. There is one more trial."
---
The next morning, Taiyi led him to a place Nezha had never seen — a cliff of black glass overlooking a chasm filled with molten light. The heat was immense, the air shimmering and thick.
"This is the Fire Vein," Taiyi said. "The heart of the mountain's power. You have learned to wield your strength. Now you must face its source."
He turned to Nezha, his expression grave.
"Today you do not fight my illusions. You do not spar with wind or stone. Today, you face yourself."
Before Nezha could ask what that meant, the ground beneath him opened.
---
Fire erupted from the chasm.
Not ordinary flame, but something primordial — the kind of fire that had burned before the world learned what burning meant. It coiled upward, taking shape.
From the inferno rose a creature woven of smoke and flame and fury. It had Nezha's face. His eyes. His shape. But where Nezha held back, this thing did not. Where Nezha questioned, it *knew*. Where Nezha carried doubt, it carried only rage.
It was everything he feared he might become.
The creature opened its mouth and roared — not with sound, but with heat and light and pressure that bent the air itself.
Then it struck.
---
Nezha moved on instinct.
The Universe Ring spun from his wrist, expanding into a circle of golden light that caught the creature's first blow. The impact sent shockwaves across the cliff, shattering the black glass beneath his feet.
He leapt backward. The Wind Fire Wheels ignited beneath him, turning the air into his battlefield. He rose, spinning, the wheels trailing fire as he soared above the creature's reaching limbs.
The Red Armillary Sash unfurled from his shoulders like wings made of silk and lightning. With a thought, it lashed out — wrapping around the creature's arms, binding them in ribbons of crimson brilliance.
But the creature only laughed.
It flexed, and the sash burned away like paper. It launched itself upward, faster than Nezha expected, and they collided midair in an explosion of fire and force.
---
They fell together, grappling, spinning through smoke and flame.
Nezha could feel the creature's heat against his skin — not burning, but familiar. Like looking into a mirror and seeing not what you are, but what you could be.
It was strong. Faster than him. Unafraid.
It was him without hesitation. Without mercy. Without the part of him that still remembered his mother's voice.
And for a moment, Nezha wondered: *Is that what I'm supposed to become?*
---
The creature threw him down.
Nezha hit the cliff hard, the impact cracking stone. Pain lanced through him — sharp and clarifying. He rolled to his feet, breathing hard, and looked up at the thing wearing his face.
"You're not me," he said.
The creature tilted its head, almost curious.
"I am what you deny," it said, its voice an echo of his own. "Power without doubt. Strength without fear. You hold yourself back, and that is why you will always be alone."
Nezha's hands clenched.
"No," he said. "I hold myself back because I *choose* to. Because power without choice is just destruction."
He raised his hand, and the Universe Ring returned to him, glowing brighter than before.
"And I am more than that."
---
He moved.
Not with the technique Taiyi had taught him, but with something deeper. He called thunder not from the sky, but from within — from the place where his mother's lullabies still lived, where his father's hands on his shoulders still felt real, where the memory of home still burned bright.
The mountain cracked.
Lightning poured from his body in waves, not wild but *directed*. The Wind Fire Wheels spun faster, carving circles of light in the air. The Red Armillary Sash became a storm of crimson threads, weaving a pattern that looked like stars, like lotus petals, like everything beautiful and terrible all at once.
He didn't destroy the creature.
He *embraced* it.
The sash wrapped around them both, pulling the fire-thing close. Nezha pressed his forehead to its burning brow and whispered:
"You are part of me. But you are not all of me."
The creature's eyes widened. Then it smiled — not with malice, but with something like understanding.
It dissolved.
Not destroyed, but integrated. The flames sank into Nezha's skin like water into earth, and for the first time, he felt *whole*.
---
When the light faded, Nezha stood alone on the cliff.
The chasm was quiet. The fire gone. Even the heat had settled into warmth.
He looked at his hands. They glowed faintly, pulsing with his heartbeat.
Taiyi stood at the cliff's edge, watching. His expression was unreadable.
"What did you learn?" he asked.
Nezha was silent for a long moment.
"That mastery isn't about control," he said finally. "It's about acceptance. I can't separate what I am from what I fear. I can only choose what I do with it."
Taiyi nodded slowly.
"Then you are ready."
"For what?"
The master's smile was sad.
"To leave."
---
That evening, as stars began to appear in the impossible sky, Nezha sat with Taiyi beneath the ancient pine at the mountain's heart.
"You said I was ready to leave," Nezha said. "But you also said I wasn't ready to go home."
"That was two years ago," Taiyi replied. "You are older now. Stronger. But more importantly — you understand what strength costs."
He looked at Nezha, his gaze gentle.
"The world below is not the mountain. It will not bend to your will. It will fear you, fight you, misunderstand you. And you will be tempted to prove yourself, to show them what you can do."
"I won't—"
"You will," Taiyi interrupted, not unkindly. "Because you are young, and the young need to be seen. But Nezha..." He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "When that moment comes, remember: you do not owe the world your power. You owe it your choice."
Nezha looked down at the clouds, at the world hidden beneath them.
"I want to see my mother again," he said quietly. "I want to feel wind without it being a lesson. I want to run without purpose." He looked up. "Is that wrong?"
Taiyi's smile deepened, sad and knowing.
"No, young flame. That is the most human thing you've ever said."
He stood, brushing off his robes.
"Freedom is not escape," he said. "It is the courage to burn without seeking permission."
He turned to walk away, then paused.
"If you wish to descend, I will not stop you. The mountain has taught you what it can. What happens next..." He glanced back. "That is your story to write."
---
Nezha did not sleep that night.
He sat at the pavilion's edge, watching the world turn beneath him. He thought about his mother's lullabies, his father's steady hands. He thought about the lotus pond and the way the moon looked broken on its surface.
He thought about the creature of flame — the part of himself that wanted to burn without care, without consequence.
*I am more than that,* he had said.
But what if he wasn't? What if going back to the world meant becoming exactly what everyone feared?
He took out the lotus seed — still safe in its silk pouch, still warm to the touch. He had never planted it. Never used it again after that first night.
"When you are lost," Taiyi had said, "cast this into water. It will remind you who you are."
Nezha closed his hand around it.
*I know who I am,* he thought. *I'm the boy who came from love.*
*And it's time to go home.*
---
At dawn, Nezha stood at the mountain's edge.
Below him, the world spread out like a painting — rivers winding silver through green valleys, mountains rising like dragon's teeth, and somewhere beyond the haze, the sea.
The sea where his story had begun. Where Heaven's thunder had met mortal earth. Where a dragon king still waited, watchful and patient.
He did not know what would happen when he descended. He did not know if his parents would recognize him, if the world would accept him, if he could walk among mortals without breaking everything he touched.
But he knew he had to try.
The Wind Fire Wheels ignited beneath his feet.
Behind him, Taiyi Zhenren stood in the temple doorway, watching. He did not call out. Did not stop him. He simply bowed — a gesture of respect from master to student, from immortal to something that might become more.
Nezha looked back once, just once, and nodded.
Then he stepped off the edge.
---
The descent was not like the ascent.
He did not float gently on clouds. He *fell* — fast and free, the wind screaming past him, the world rushing up to meet him. The Wind Fire Wheels carried him like a comet burning through atmosphere, trailing light and heat.
For the first time in two years, he laughed.
Not because he was happy, but because he was *free*. Because the wind did not care what he was. Because gravity did not fear him. Because falling felt like flying if you didn't think about where you'd land.
He angled toward the coast, toward Chentang Pass, toward home.
---
Far below, in the palace of the Eastern Sea, Ao Guang opened his eyes.
He felt it instantly — the disturbance in the air, the shift in Heaven's weight, the return of the thunder child.
The Dragon King rose from his throne. The water around him darkened, pressure building in the deep. His scales shimmered with suppressed lightning.
"So," he murmured, his voice rolling through the ocean like a distant avalanche. "The mountain has released him. Heaven's mistake returns to the world."
Around him, the palace trembled. Coral shivered. Fish fled into darker waters.
"Let him come," Ao Guang said. "Let him remember why the sea does not forgive."
He turned to the shadows of his court, where his sons waited — the third prince among them, young and eager, scales bright with untested fury.
"Ao Bing," the Dragon King said. "The flame-child descends. You know what must be done."
The young dragon bowed, trident gleaming in the deep-sea light.
"Yes, Father. The ocean remembers."
The ancient king's eyes glowed with cold fire.
"Then let the reckoning begin."
---
And in the depths, something ancient and patient began to rise.
The tide had been still for seven years.
Now it stirred.
---
⸻
**End of Part III — The Trial**
Thank you for reading! Nezha is finally descending from the mountain—but the ocean has been waiting. What do you think will happen when he meets Ao Bing?
Next update: [wednesday] — Chapter III: The Tide and the Flame
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— Lumina Whispers