It's now been three weeks since they had been in The Valley Of Harmonious Rest, and with daily training and other intimate "Practices", Longwei has now broken through Foundation Establishment Stage Two.
But on they third week, while following their usual routine came the unexpected.
HUNTERS...
Six of them, In red and white robes... Jade Phoenix Palace colors, emerged from the mist like ghosts, coming for their runaway disciple.
The lead hunter was a woman probably in her forties with a scarred face and icy eyes, behind her were two more women at Foundation Establishment Peak and three younger disciples, two girls and a boy with none looking older than seventeen or eighteen, atleast at Foundation Stage Three.
It was like a Training exercise, where you bring the young ones along to learn how to retrieve runaways, while showing them what happens to disciples who abandoned their duties.
They were here for Mei and not for him.
That's an advantage.
The lead woman stopped about thirty paces away with her eyes locked on Mei, dismissing Longwei entirely. A crippled servant, maybe. Irrelevant.
"Xuefeng." Her voice carried across the valley. "Your aunt sends her regards. Time to come home."
"I'd rather die," Mei said flatly.
"That can be arranged." The woman gestured and her companions spread into formation. "But the Matriarch wants you alive. Prefers it, anyway. Your bloodline is too valuable to waste."
"My bloodline, right." Mei's laugh was bitter. "But not me, just what I can be used for."
"Everything is used for something, you knew this when you took our resources and trained under our roof, enjoyed our protection." The lead hunter drew her sword frost aspected, probably Core Formation grade. "Now you pay the debt. So come quietly or we'll drag you back in pieces."
Mei's ice flared around her hands. "Try it, Instructor Bingwen."
Bingwen? Longwei remembered that name away. One of the Elders Mei had mentioned before, the one who'd sealed her fire.
"I taught you everything you know, child." Bingwen said. "Do you really think you could beat me?"
"No." Mei's voice was cold as her element. "But I'm not alone."
Bingwen's eyes flicked to Longwei for the first time. Finally seeing him, assessing him.
"A cripple?" She laughed. "You fled the palace for a fucking crippled sword cultivator?"
"He's not a cripple," Mei said quietly. "Not anymore."
Longwei channeled his Qi. Letting it flare visible, letting them feel his Foundation Establishment.
The Hunter's expressions changed with Confusion, then calculation.
"Impossible," Bingwen said. "Once a core is destroyed..."
"Forbidden arts," one of the younger disciples breathed. "They're practicing the forbidden cultivation together."
"Even better." Bingwen smiled. "Two criminals instead of one, ohh... the Matriarch will reward us well for bringing back both of you. The boy can be interrogated first about his techniques then executed."
She raised her sword.
"Take them, the girl alive if possible. The boy... do whatever is necessary."
The hunters attacked.
It happened fast.
The two Foundation Peak cultivators went for Mei, recognizing her as the primary target and the three younger disciples came for Longwei, eager to prove themselves against the "crippled" one.
Bingwen hung back, observing. Waiting to intervene if her students struggled.
They think I'm the weak link, that I'll go down easy.
Perfect.
The first young hunter to reach him was the boy, maybe like seventeen, tall but still trying to grow into shoulders, too broad for his frame. His sword technique was textbook perfect, probably drilled into him since childhood.
It was also completely predictable.
Longwei sidestepped the thrust, caught the boy's wrist and pulled him off balance. The boy's eyes widened in surprise.
He's never actually fought someone who fights back dirty.
Longwei drove his other palm into the boy's solar plexus. Not a technique, just raw force backed by Foundation Establishment cultivation, and the boy's defensive Qi shattered like wet paper.
He went down gasping, sword clattering away.
One disabled, but not yet dead.
The two girls were more cautious... They came together coordinated, one high and one low. Clearly better trained than the boy or at least more strategic.
Longwei met the high strike with his forearm, letting it cut him shallow then used the pain to focus and grabbing the girl's sword hand and pulled. She came stumbling forward into his knee, nailing her nose on the hard floor. She fell back screaming.
The second girl tried to capitalize on his extension, slicing her sword at his exposed side aiming for the kidney.
Almost got it too.
But Longwei was faster than she expected. He dodged it and took the blade along his ribs instead of through them, and got his hand on her throat.
Yang energy flooded through the contact, concentrated and burning.
The girl's eyes bulged, her skin blistering where he touched. Her defensive Qi ignited like dry kindling.
This is it, this is the moment. Kill her and take the power.
Longwei's hand tightened.
The girl was choking, clawing at his wrist trying to channel Qi through her compromised pathways, but failing.
One squeeze, that's all it would take. Crush her windpipe, shatter her core and cultivate her essence.
She couldn't have been older than sixteen.
But she attacked me, she was the enemy and the technique works on enemies.
Does age matter? She chose this fight.
Somewhere nearby, Mei was battling the two Foundation Peak cultivators. Ice clashing against blade, Longwei could feel her strain through their bond.
Make the decision, either Kill or release. Choose.
The girl's struggles were weakening, her face was turning purple.
Longwei looked into her eyes.
Saw terror, not the hardened resignation of a warrior accepting death. Just raw, animal fear of a child who'd suddenly realized training exercises and real fights were very different things.
"Fuck..."
He released her throat and shoved her away. She fell gasping, clutching her burned neck.
"Run," he said. "Before I change my mind."
She ran.
The broken nosed girl grabbed her friend, and together they half dragged the other boy toward the valley's edge. Three young disciples fleeing in terror from the "crippled" cultivator.
Which left four.
Longwei turned to find Bingwen watching him with a confused eyes.
"Mercy," she said. "Interesting... either you're weak or you're selective about your targets." She raised her sword.
"Let's find out which."
The two Foundation Peak cultivators intensified their assault on Mei.
She was holding them off, but barely. Ice constructs blocking strikes, frozen ground making them slip and spears of cold stabbing out when openings appeared.
But she was one Core Formation against two Peaks working in coordination. The math was slowly killing her.
One of them got through, with their sword slicing across Mei's shoulder. Blood spraying against white ice.
Mei's pain spiked through their bond like a knife in Longwei's chest.
Something in him snapped.
But not theatrically, not like a cultivation breakthrough or a moment of enlightenment.
Just a cold vicious part that had been straining at its leash since Zhou Chen threw him in that ravine finally slipping free.
I am so tired of being too weak to protect what's mine.
Bingwen was saying something in the front, Probably her usual threats. Longwei wasn't paying attention anymore.
He moved.
Foundation Establishment Stage Two wasn't much against Core Formation One, atleast not in a straight fight, or with technique against technique.
But Longwei wasn't fighting straight.
He closed the distance before Bingwen expected it, she'd been preparing a technique, confident in her cultivation advantage. Her sword came up too late.
Longwei's palm strike took her in the sternum. Yang energy, everything he had was condensed to a burning point. Her defensive Qi was stronger than his attack, it should have held, would have held... If he'd been trying to overwhelm it.
Instead, he let his Yang flow, seeking the natural fractures in her defense, the weak points where her Qi circulated. He Found them and exploited them, wriggling through like water through cracks.
Bingwen gasped as his energy invaded her meridians. Started to counterattack, to purge him...
Longwei got his other hand around her throat and squeezed.
His Yang wrapped around her cultivation base like a fist.
And clenched.
Her core didn't shatter immediately. She was Core Formation with decades of cultivation, which mewns she was stronger than him in every measurable way.
But she'd underestimated him and that was her weakness. Now he was inside her defenses choking her core with foreign energy while his hand cut off her air.
"You made a mistake," Longwei said quietly. "You hurt her."
Bingwen's eyes were bulging, she tried to speak but couldn't.
Her cultivation base spasmed and Cracked.
Then Shattered.
The energy explosion was bigger than the two Foundation cultivators he'd killed before, this was Core Formation Stage zero with a lifetime of advancement, of resources consumed and power accumulated.
It flooded into Longwei like a tsunami.
He'd thought he was prepared, he'd read the Scripture's descriptions. Mei had warned him about the rush.
None of it came close to the reality.
Foundation Establishment Stage Two became Stage Three in a heartbeat, Stage Three became Peak before Bingwen's body hit the ground. Peak strained toward Core Formation, nearly breaking through before the energy finally stabilized.
The power was intoxicating.
Better than dual cultivation, even better than partnership. It was better than anything he'd ever felt.
"MORE,"
something whispered. "That was just one Core Formation, Imagine two, Imagine ten."