"The offspring." Hou Zi's voice cut through everything. He stopped in front of me. "That was you. You killed it, you BASTARD!"
Su Ling, Mei, and others closed in from behind him, their voices layering over each other in a wave of curses, accusations that blurred into a single sound.
But was I going to listen to all that?
Heh. Instead I began counting them, my eyes moving across the group. "One, two... six, seven!" I stopped. My eyes narrowed into crescents. "Weren't you twelve? Where are the other five... and I don't see Wei Peng."
I paused and let the silence do its work.
"What happened?"
The noise died down and the disciples looked at each other with hollow expressions.
"FUCK YOU." Suddenly, one of the disciples tore his blade free and lunged at me directly.
The others called out instantly, reaching for him, but the distance had already closed.
(A chance!)
I caught his wrist with one hand, redirected the momentum, and drove my other fist into his stomach with everything the Essence Palm could produce at full compression.
BAM.
The force went through him completely. My fist buried itself in, emerging from his back.
The disciple's cry lasted for exactly one moment before his eyes turned red and the sound died with him.
I dropped the body as if it were nothing.
The clearing went absolutely still. The Bai group had frozen where they stood. The spirits hadn't moved either. Every mouth in Chen Wu's group was open and not one of them could tell whether what they had just seen was real.
I studied the body for a moment, then the group.
"Ah, now there are only six." I turned toward the spirits, then swept my gaze over everyone present. "And don't tell me I should have simply stood there and let him run me through."
There my eyes found Su Ling, and she looked back at me. "Yes, enjoy it instead of complaining."
Then the silence shattered.
The remaining disciples erupted simultaneously, their voices tangling with each other as they turned on the spirits, demanding, arguing, some of them with wet eyes and shaking hands. The grief, the rage, and the exhaustion of two days inside this place finally finding a direction to move in.
"STOP IT."
Chen Wu's voice arrived like a blade through cloth, clean and immediate, the disciples went quiet and turned to him with expressions that had nowhere left to go.
His face was hard and his eyes were on me with the particular quality of someone who had made a decision about what they were looking at and were still deciding what to do about it.
I met his gaze and said mockingly.
"Oh, wait." I tilted my head. "Can you at least tell me how they died? We did travel together after all... though that story changes a little when you left me alone with that centipede." I kept my voice light and easy. "Different story entirely, isn't it."
Chen Wu said nothing.
I watched him hold it together and found the effort genuinely interesting.
.....
At the edge of the gathering the Bai Village head stood with Master Tang, Bai Feng, and Bai Xia, all four of them watching the scene unfold with varying degrees of composure.
The village head spoke in a low tone. "My little Xia likes this person."
Master Tang raised an eyebrow. "Why, are you against it? Just look how he is turning the tables."
Bai Xia's eyes snapped from Fu Yang to her grandfather.
The village head sensed the stare. "No, I didn't mean it like that. What I mean is he would make a fine addition to the Bai family... The question is whether he would ever accept it. Don't forget what happened last night."
Bai Xia's gaze dropped.
Bai Feng watched the scene ahead for a moment longer, then a slow smile crossed his face. "Don't worry, Xia. He is only a travelling cultivator and with Master Tang here it would not be a problem. Also I have a perfect idea for how to get him on our side after he gets the inheritance."
The other three turned to him at once.
"Are you thinking of going against Clouded Peak Sect by..." the village head began.
"What? No, grandfather. That would be foolish."
"Then?"
Bai Feng said nothing further. The smile on his face only deepened.
I had settled onto a flat stone while Chen Wu's group gathered around the fallen disciple. The spirits stood nearby.
"Come on." I opened my hands toward the spirits. "I dislike wasting my precious time. Let's begin the second trial."
The spirits rolled their eyes, one each. "Of course, but first we will personally handle the purification process. Until then..."
I handed the materials over without waiting for the sentence to finish, which drew visible surprise from the Bai group upon seeing such unfamiliar things.
The spirits took the materials from Chen Wu and me before leaving.
I set the manual open on the ground in front of me.
Behind me Chen Wu's group had pulled themselves out of the worst of it and were resting. The Bai group had moved toward them with food and quiet words, and the combined sound of it became a formless noise at the back of my attention.
"Here."
The voice was small and came from beside me. I did not need to look to know who it was.
Bai Xia held a plate of food toward me. I set it aside without taking any. The appetite was not there.
"Is this what you need to make?" she asked, looking at the open manual.
I nodded slightly.
"Um." A pause. "What are you going to do after this? When you win the trial... will you leave?"
"Haha, what?" I looked up at her briefly. "You have already decided I will win."
She leaned slightly closer. "It's what my grandfather said. And I believe it too."
My eyes returned to the manual. Somewhere nearby I could feel a gaze that had not moved from me for some time, but I ignored it.
"We will see."
She stayed and continued talking, sometimes asking nonsense questions, sometimes attempting jokes that never quite landed.
I had understood what she was doing from the first moment at the crack where she tried to stop me.
A little bratty girl from a village at the edge of nowhere, trying very hard to appear more sophisticated than she really was.
The act was easy to see through. I had seen too many versions of it by now, and I had no interest in it. I simply moved forward and left it behind.
"You didn't answer the first question." Her voice softened. "What are you going to do after this?...What is your path?"
"Path?"
I repeated it quietly and the word turned itself over in my mind.
(For what was I doing all of this?) I asked myself.
If I was still afraid of dying again and again, then why was I throwing myself deeper into all of this? At the end of everything I would die again regardless.
If it was jealousy of someone like Chen Wu, then hadn't I already gone too far?
Was it simply surviving? Then why had I thrown myself into an endless sea with no shore visible in any direction?
In my mind, I found myself looking at a single thing. It was death.
Why are you after me so desperately? Can I not live?
And then I noticed the missing piece, the one that had been absent for so long and the recognition of it hit me so directly that I burst into laughter.
Every head turned at the sound, only to find me laughing in a crazed state.
It was there. It had always been there. I simply had not looked at it directly.
"Live," I said, turning to face Bai Xia. "But forever." I held her eyes. "Tell me. Can someone remain alive for eternity?"
She tilted her head slowly. "It's... I don't know. I don't think it's possible."
A silence settled over me, complete and absolute, and for a brief moment I did not move at all.
"Are you..." she started, that was when the spirits returned.
I stood immediately, and everyone nearby rose with me.
The materials the spirits carried back had changed. What had been raw pieces, liquid and bundled grass had been reduced into small dense spheres, each one uniform, the internal character of the original material still present and identifiable but compressed into a form that was clean and workable.
I picked one up and turned it between my fingers. The crystal character was unmistakable even in this new shape.
The blue spirit addressed the assembled groups. "The materials are ready. The rules of the second trial are simple. Do not attack or disturb your opponent during the refinement process." Its gaze moved specifically to me and held there for a moment before continuing.
"Whoever constructs the Binding Soul Seal first and uses it against their opponent wins the trial and receives the inheritance. So let us..."
"Wait." I raised my hand. "They are six and I am one. If I finish first I can only use the seal against one of them. What about the others? What if they..."
The mood across the gathering sharpened.
The spirits exchanged a glance, then turned their attention back to me, and both of them laughed at the same time.
"Hoho. You do not need to concern yourself with that. You only need one. Use it on a single person and the threat of it handles the rest..."
"That's true."