Azure Sky Inner Sect – Cloud-Water Courtyard
Day 99 – 04:17, pre-dawn
They come in the dark before the dawn.
Twenty-three core disciples wearing black masks painted with crude silver spears.
Ranked 3–9 on the Celestial Ranking.
All Core Formation.
All carrying weapons that scream with killing formations.
They call themselves the Ghost-Slaying Alliance.
They have spent four days planning this.
They have rehearsed formations until their meridians bled.
They have sworn blood oaths to kill the gutter trash and restore sect honour.
They arrive thinking they are hunters.
They are wrong.
The courtyard gate explodes inward in a perfect circle of crimson flame.
Wēi Hé Xuān stands at the front, eyes bloodshot from sleepless nights, Crimson Flame Lotus Body burning so hot the rain turns to steam before it touches him.
Behind him, twenty-two masked figures fan out into the Nine-Petal Inferno Annihilation Formation.
The air temperature spikes a hundred degrees in a heartbeat.
"LIÀN XING!" Wēi Hé Xuān screams, voice cracking with rage and terror. "Your arrogance ends tonight!"
Inside the courtyard, nothing moves.
Only rain.
Wēi Hé Xuān's dao-heart wavers.
Then the darkness answers.
Liàn Xing steps out of the shadows under the pavilion arch.
Coat open.
Shirtless.
Silver circuits glowing like moonlight on broken glass.
Spear shaft resting on one shoulder, casual as a broom.
He is barefoot in the mud.
He is smiling.
It is not a nice smile.
Behind him, Lan Shuyin appears on the roof, twin short-spears already spinning.
Zhao leans against a pillar, yawning, seven golden rings orbiting lazily (he still hasn't found the other two).
Zhenxing sits on the broken gate, legs swinging, eating a peach.
Wēi Hé Xuān's formation falters.
Liàn Xing speaks.
"You woke me up."
That's all the warning they get.
He moves.
Not fast.
Not slow.
Just inevitable.
The spear shaft traces a lazy circle.
A perfect circle of silver-black annihilation expands from the tip.
Everything inside the circle ceases.
Twenty-three core disciples.
Nine-Petal Inferno Annihilation Formation.
Crimson flame lotuses.
All of it.
Gone.
No blood.
No screams.
Just absence.
The circle closes.
Wēi Hé Xuān is left standing alone, mask cracked, eyes wide, dao-heart shattered into a thousand screaming pieces.
Liàn Xing stops three paces away.
Rain hisses where it touches his skin and turns to steam.
He looks down at the kneeling man.
"You wanted to slay a ghost."
He crouches.
Speaks softly.
"I'm not a ghost."
He taps Wēi Hé Xuān's forehead with two fingers.
Starlight pours in.
Wēi Hé Xuān's cultivation base collapses from Core Formation middle-stage to Qi Refining layer 1 in the space of one heartbeat.
He collapses, sobbing, mask falling away to reveal the face of a broken man who will never be able to cultivate again.
Liàn Xing stands.
Looks at the empty space where twenty-three core disciples used to be.
Then at the sky where dawn is still two hours away.
"Next," he says to the darkness.
The darkness answers with silence.
Because every hidden elder watching through scrying arrays just collectively pissed themselves.
Lan Shuyin drops from the roof, lands beside him.
Her voice is soft.
"You didn't kill them."
"I gave them what they wanted," he answers. "A chance to start over from zero. Like I did."
Zhao finally finds his eighth and ninth rings buried in the mud, wipes them on his sleeve, grins.
"Twenty-three in one swing. New record. You're getting boringly efficient."
Zhenxing finishes her peach, tosses the pit into the absence-circle where it vanishes forever.
"Ghost-Slaying Alliance status: disbanded. Membership: one crippled young master crying in the mud. Achievement unlocked."
Liàn Xing looks at the broken gate.
At the footprints in the mud that will never fill with water.
At the sky that is starting to pale with false dawn.
He exhales.
The spear shaft hums, disappointed there wasn't more violence to be inflicted.
He turns back toward the pavilion.
"Back to sleep," he says.
Lan Shuyin catches his wrist.
Her fingers are cold.
Her eyes are not.
"You're shaking," she whispers.
He looks down.
His hand is trembling.
Not from exertion.
From rage.
From the memory of every time someone looked at him and saw only trash.
He closes his fist.
The trembling stops.
"I'm fine," he lies.
She doesn't let go.
Zhao watches them, golden eyes unreadable.
Zhenxing floats between them, tiny hand on Liàn Xing's cheek.
"Host," she says softly. "It's okay to be angry. Just don't let it own you."
He looks at the place where twenty-three lives used to be.
Then at the two people who stayed.
Then at the spear still humming for blood.
He exhales again.
This time it's steadier.
"Tomorrow," he says. "We train harder."
Lan Shuyin's smile is small.
"Good."
Zhao grins.
"About time."
They walk back inside.
Behind them, the rain finally stops.
The mud where twenty-three disciples knelt begins to glow silver.
No one will ever walk there again.
The legend grows, and the boy who was once trash learns what it feels like to be the thing nightmares are afraid of.
He hates it.
He needs it.
He doesn't know which feeling will win.
But the spear does, and it is patient.