Thunder Rumbles Twice #3

Wuxia #3

by V. Kriptonov, M. Bachurova

The tournament of clans didn’t end the way Lei Cheng wanted it to. His fate has taken another surprising turn: Lei is no longer a slave of clan Zhou. That said, he isn’t exactly a free man either. Lei now serves as the bodyguard to the young clan leader Yun. And although the work takes up much of his energy, it also gives him the chance to continue his own investigation. Lei seeks his old enemy Kiang. Nobody has ever seen the man’s face, only heard the unbelievable rumors that surround him. Just one thing is certain: Kiang is furnishing the clans of the Celestial Empire with a new drug. Try it once and you’re hooked. In the new world, Lei’s enemy continues to march toward his goal. And Lei continues the fight, with no plans of stopping.

But as soon as he finds a thread leading to Kiang, it is immediately cut. The enemy has dispatched a new foe to the fight – an incredibly agile ninja who hides his face and tries time and again to kill Lei. The bodyguard of clan Zhou’s leader becomes a permanent source of danger for the very man he is protecting. As if that weren’t enough, the the young leader himself keeps putting his own head in the noose while trying to assert his authority before the other clans.

Is Yun a friend, or a future ally? The leader of a mighty clan, or just a boy who lost his father and found himself in a tough spot? Whatever the case, right now Lei is on his side. And to finally solve the matter of redistributing spheres of influence, Yun and Lei have set off for a summit. The heads of all four clans of the Celestial Empire will be gathered there. The fate of this world – and of Lei Cheng himself – will be decided there. All the clans’ forces march toward an ancient monastery high up in the mountains to fight a decisive battle…

586 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 22, 2022

About the author

Vasily Kriptonov is an author and citizen of the world. He works in several speculative genres such as action sci fi, fantasy, YA sci fi and wuxia. He’s also trying his hand at non-speculative genres such as mystery and detective novels. He was a runner-up of the 2015 Debut literary prize in the Best YA and Children’s Books as well as the winner of the Transylvania-2021 literary prize for Best Long Form. [amazon]

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a review copy of this book.
This portion of the story progresses the story quite significantly. We get a look at some interesting inner workings of the clans, and of course, the main character's moves are (as always) unexpected, and prone to stir up trouble. Of course, what else would he settle for?
There's not a whole lot of cultivation in this one, so if you're reading the story for that, you might be disappointed. I'm personally not a big fan of the cultivation style of LitRPG, so this suits me just fine. Your mileage may vary. I'll be keep an eye out for more in this series, things are getting very interesting now. Very interesting indeed.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book three

After three books I have decided that this is not a cultivation story. It's a portal story and some weird spirit stuff. So far it hasn't really been explained very deeply.
This was a decent third book. I found it a bit boring but didn't skip anything, and it helps set up the back end of the arc.

Mistakes: Will be on Goodreads and sent to the publisher.

7/10 off to read book four.