Azure Sky Inner Sect – Cloud-Water Courtyard Training Ground
Day 94 – Mid-morning, three days after registration
The sun hangs high over Celestial Harmony Peak, but the light that reaches Cloud-Water Courtyard is filtered through the permanent silver scar in the sky (the wound the spear left when it drank fifty-three ancestors). The cracked bronze bell has not rung since the day they arrived. No one has dared repair it.
Liàn Xing is shirtless in the private training ground, doing one-finger push-ups in the starlight spirit spring. Each rep sends ripples of liquid galaxy across the water. The half-formed spear shaft is planted point-down beside him, drinking ambient qi so aggressively the air for three metres around is perfect vacuum.
Lan Shuyin sits on a floating lotus pad twenty metres away, legs crossed, twin short-spears across her knees. She is sharpening them with a whetstone carved from frozen thousand-year dragon marrow. Every stroke leaves a trail of frost-blue sparks that hang in the air like fireflies before dissolving into snowflakes.
Zhao Shentian is napping against a jade pillar on the pavilion roof, boots crossed, nine golden rings orbiting lazily above his head like bored suns like they're waiting for something worth cutting.
Zhenxing floats upside-down above the spring, eating candied hawthorn and humming an ancient star-song that makes the courtyard's protective formations flutter like laundry in wind.
None of them are wearing sect robes.
They never asked for any.
At exactly 10:17 the courtyard gate slides open with a deliberate creak.
A delegation arrives.
Not elders this time.
Wēi Hé Xuān, ranked 7th on the Celestial Ranking Stele, Core Formation middle-stage, owner of the renowned Crimson Flame Lotus Body. Twenty-four years old, son of a Nascent Soul elder, face carved from the kind of arrogance that has never known consequence.
He is flanked by twenty core disciples in perfect azure robes, formation flags fluttering, killing intent barely leashed. Crimson flame lotuses orbit each of them like burning halos.
Wēi Hé Xuān stops exactly ten paces from the spirit spring, hands clasped behind his back.
His voice rings out, cultivated to carry across entire battlefields.
"Liàn Xing of the gutters. Rumour claims you believe yourself above sect law. Rumour claims you dissolved Elder Qiū's robes in spirit water and threatened ten thousand lives. Rumour claims you are the Silver Ghost who erased fifty-three ancestors with one lazy swing."
He smiles, all perfect teeth and perfect contempt.
"I, Wēi Hé Xuān, seventh of the Celestial Ranking, challenge you to a formal duel. Here. Now. Under sect rules. Refuse, and be branded coward for eternity."
Behind him, his twenty followers spread into the Crimson Lotus Killing Formation. Flame lotuses bloom in perfect synchrony, temperature spiking fifty degrees in a heartbeat. The grass at their feet blackens and curls.
Inside the courtyard, no one moves.
Liàn Xing finishes his thousandth push-up, stands slowly, water cascading off him like liquid starlight.
Lan Shuyin doesn't look up from her whetstone.
Zhao snores louder.
Zhenxing flips right-side up, still chewing.
Wēi Hé Xuān's smile falters.
"I challenged you, gutter rat. Stand and face me, or admit you are nothing but rumours and smoke."
Liàn Xing wipes starlight from his chest like normal water.
Walks forward until he stands at the edge of the spring.
His voice is quiet.
Almost bored.
"You have ten seconds to leave."
Zhao's snore cuts off mid-breath.
Lan Shuyin's whetstone pauses.
The temperature drops thirty degrees from Lan Shuyin's killing intent alone.
Wēi Hé Xuān's face flushes crimson to match his lotuses.
"Insolent—"
He thrusts one hand forward.
Twenty flame lotuses condense into a single spear of pure crimson fire and shoot toward Liàn Xing at supersonic speed.
Core Formation middle-stage full-power strike.
Fast enough to kill most Nascent Souls.
Liàn Xing doesn't move.
He raises one finger.
The crimson spear stops a metre away.
Frozen solid.
Not by frost.
By absence.
A perfect circle of silver-black annihilation appears around the spear, devouring fire, heat, intent, and sound in the same heartbeat.
The frozen spear falls.
Shatters into harmless ash that drifts away like red snow.
Wēi Hé Xuān staggers back one step, eyes wide, dao-heart cracking audibly.
His twenty followers' formation collapses like wet paper.
Liàn Xing walks forward.
Each step leaves a footprint of liquid starlight in the jade tiles that refuses to fade.
He stops three paces from Wēi Hé Xuān.
"Nine seconds."
Wēi Hé Xuān drops to his knees.
Forehead slams the ground so hard it leaves a crater.
"Senior Liàn, this junior was blind! Please forgive this junior's offence!"
His twenty followers drop instantly, foreheads to the ground in perfect, terrified unison.
The crimson lotuses wink out like snuffed candles.
Silence.
Then Zhao starts clapping slowly from the roof.
"Four seconds to make a Core Formation middle-stage kneel. New personal record."
Lan Shuyin resumes sharpening her spears.
"Clean up your mess," she says without looking up. "The courtyard smells like cheap fire now."
Wēi Hé Xuān scrambles backward on his knees, bowing with every movement, until he and his entourage flee through the gate as though the void itself is chasing them.
The gate slams shut.
Zhenxing flips right-side up.
"First official worshipper acquired. Should we start charging tribute?"
Liàn Xing returns to the spring.
Resumes push-ups.
"One thousand and one," he mutters.
Lan Shuyin's smile is small and sharp.
"They'll send stronger ones tomorrow."
Zhao flips down from the roof, landing cat-light.
"Let them.
I'm getting bored again."
Word of the four-second kneeling spreads faster than tribulation lightning.
By noon, every core disciple on Celestial Harmony Peak knows:
Do not look at Cloud-Water Courtyard.
Do not walk within a hundred metres.
Do not breathe in their direction without permission.
By evening, anonymous gifts begin arriving at the gate:
Ten thousand high-grade spirit stones in perfect stacks
A crate of thousand-year ice-jade carved with frost lotuses
A golden sword pill that screams when touched, delivered with a note: "For Senior Zhao – from an admirer who wishes to remain unnamed"
They accept everything.
They thank no one.
By nightfall, the cracked bronze bell has been quietly removed and buried.
No one dares replace it.
In the elders' secret hall, panic has become cold calculation.
They send one final, sect-wide directive:
Observation only.
No provocations.
No duels.
No eye contact.
The inner sect has learned its first real lesson:
The gutter has come home.
And it brought a spear that doesn't need to swing twice.