After the thunder god fled, Sunset Peak returned to its usual working rhythm.
The air smelled of pine shavings, mountain dew, and warm copper. Austin did not waste time admiring the clear sky. Good weather meant he could work.
By mid-morning, his tools lay along the porch. In the courtyard, the six black stone storage cells hummed softly and gave off a gentle lavender light.
Austin spent three hours running power into the cabin. He cut narrow channels in the pine walls, laid copper wire inside them, and held everything in place with handmade iron clips.
By noon, his electric cooktop was ready.
He had wound ghost-iron wire into a flat coil and set it into a slab of soapstone. A clay switch connected it to the storage bank. It was simple, solid, and easy to control.
Austin flipped the switch.
Click. Hummmm.
The coil glowed red in three seconds. He set his heavy cast-iron skillet on top.
Sizzle.
The heat spread evenly, with no smoke and no cold spots. Austin added cured mountain ham, three solar eggs, and sliced wild parsnips. Soon the cabin smelled of crisp pork, sweet roots, and crushed pepper.
“Now that’s proper base living.” He flipped an egg with a cherrywood spatula. “No firewood to chop. No ash to clean. No chimney fires. Clean heat whenever you want it.”
Outside, beneath the bamboo lightning rod, sat a hollow stone basin.
Austin had placed it there to catch rain. During the storm, energy from nine lightning strikes had run down the copper pole and collected in the bowl. Two inches of fizzy violet dew now covered the bottom. Tiny sparks snapped against the stone rim.
An alchemist would have called it Nine-Heavens Thunder-Marrow Dew, a legendary medicine capable of rebuilding mortal bones. A single flask could start a war between great sects.
To the skinny black puppy limping out of the blackberry bushes, it looked like water.
The pup was barely bigger than a teapot. Mud covered its patchy fur, and its ribs showed beneath its skin. One ear flopped over its brow, and the other dragged in the dirt. Hunger had pulled its belly tight against its spine.
The old Chu Yuan had sometimes given the stray stale millet during the winter. The pup had not forgotten the porch or the person who once fed it.
Now it was desperately thirsty. The smell of fried ham filled the air, but the pup went straight to the stone bowl. It crossed the courtyard on shaking legs, pushed its nose into the violet dew, and drank.
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.
Austin saw it through the kitchen window.
“Well, look at that. A friendly spawn.” Austin smiled faintly. “Every homestead needs a dog to chase off raccoons.”
He cut off a crisp corner of egg yolk with his spatula, stepped onto the porch, and tossed it into the courtyard.
“Hey, mutt. Breakfast. Come get it before the kid sweeps it up.”
The pup licked the bowl dry. Then it smelled the egg and scampered over. It swallowed the food in one bite.
Solar fire from the yolk met the thunder dew in its belly.
BOOM!
Black and violet lightning shot three hundred feet into the sky. Loose gravel rattled against the woodshed, and the cabin windows shook.
The puppy’s patchy coat vanished. Dense black fur and dark scales covered its growing body. Its thin legs became thick and muscular, ending in white-gold claws.
In five seconds, the ten-pound stray became an eight-hundred-pound beast.
CRACK—SNAP.
Two huge growths burst from its shoulders. They stretched, split, and formed two more canine heads.
Three heads. Six ruby eyes. Long fangs dripping violet fire. A ring of tribulation lightning circled its necks.
An ancient Three-Headed Nether-Solar Cerberus stood in Austin’s courtyard, the kind of monster old sects buried beneath entire mountain ranges.
All three mouths opened, and the beast howled. Rockslides answered on peaks ten miles away.
“AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Austin stood on the top step, still holding his spatula. His left eyelid began to twitch.
He opened the developer screen.
“Look at that model. They duplicated the head twice on the same neck. And the body is eight hundred percent too big. Does nobody test these updates?”
He sighed, walked through the crackling lightning, and stopped in front of the middle head. Then he tapped its nose with the spatula.
Thwap.
“Knock off the howling. You’ll stress the chickens, and I need the eggs. And close your mouths. You’re burning holes in map point fourteen-eight. I spent four hours leveling this courtyard.”
The courtyard fell silent.
Six red eyes blinked at the greasy spatula. Then the Cerberus looked at Austin with its newly awakened senses.
This was no fragile mortal. This was the Solar Father who had fed it star-fire and heavenly thunder.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Its heavy tail began to beat against the ground.
The beast dropped onto its belly and rolled onto its side. Three long pink tongues flopped from three mouths.
Pant, pant, pant.
Austin’s scowl softened. He scratched the middle head behind its floppy ear. The huge skull pressed against his knee and nearly knocked him over.
“Good boy, Pug. Strange model, but a good boy.”
He rubbed the thick fur with his knuckles.
“Rule one: don’t chew the building. Rule two: don’t dig within three feet of the foundation footings. You sleep on the porch rug and keep wild hogs and griefers out of the compost. Clear?”
Pug closed all six eyes and purred like an idling engine.
Twenty feet away, Li Xiaoyao slowly let go of the garden fence. The monster was huge, but Austin had noticed the stray when it was weak and fed it without asking for anything.
Xiaoyao fetched an old blanket and laid it on the porch. Pug curled onto it at once. Austin gave Xiaoyao a small nod, and they went back to work.