Blood stained the stone.
The battlefield was no longer a contest it was a massacre.
Crimson Night disciples lay impaled on poison thorns. Ice-frozen corpses drifted across shattered bridges. Song-blades clattered uselessly beside bodies with eyes wide open and no souls left behind.
The Seven Pillars loomed above it all, pulsing in rhythm with slaughter.
But none of them had chosen.
Not yet.
Not until the right blood was spilled.
Yunfan exhaled slowly, leaning on Wordless Edge, blood dripping from a gash on his right arm. Around him, three attackers lay twitching one with a zither string through his throat, another frozen mid-scream by a glyph-echo.
"Why do they keep coming?" he muttered. "Can't a guy duel in peace anymore?"
But then the air shifted.
The mist rippled.
And something stepped out that shouldn't have existed inside a sealed inheritance realm.
It wasn't human.
Not anymore.
He was tall, shirtless, skin charred-black with crimson markings etched into his flesh like cracked runes. His eyes glowed like burning coal. A curved black blade dragged behind him, whispering curses into the air.
"They call me Heiyu the Vessel," he said, voice layered with more than one tongue. "Corrupt Path. Fourth Branch."
The ground recoiled from his presence.
Yunfan blinked.
"No offense, big guy, but… your face looks like something I flushed last week."
Heiyu grinned.
"Good. That means you'll taste fear."
They clashed.
Hard.
Faster than most could see.
The first exchange shattered stone. The second split the wind.
Yunfan's blade met Heiyu's black saber in a streak of silver and ash.
Corrupt Qi exploded around them like molten oil spitting shadows that tried to eat light.
Yunfan's robe burned at the shoulder. He spun back, zither string drawn, and snapped a harmonic pulse that cracked the demon's left cheek open.
Heiyu laughed.
"That all? My blood's laughing louder than you."
He charged again, blade howling.
Yunfan blocked once, twice, then ducked under a third swing that tore through the air like a scythe. He slid across the ground, slicing upward with a diagonal strike that left an afterimage of thunderlight.
Heiyu caught the blade with his hand.
"Thunder? I eat worse."
Then slammed Yunfan into the stone hard enough to crater the ground.
Mu Qingxue looked up from her pillar trial.
Lan Suya stopped playing her zither.
Even Xu Weiran froze mid-blink between spatial folds.
All eyes turned to the battle.
Yunfan lay on the ground, blood in his teeth, ribs cracked.
He smiled.
"You're really strong. Impressive."
Heiyu stepped forward, dragging his saber again.
"Time to end your rhythm."
Yunfan sat up, barely.
"One second, one second. Just…"
He pointed behind Heiyu.
"What is that?"
The demon frowned.
"What?"
Yunfan stood up and shouted:
"LOOK OVER THERE!"
Heiyu turned his head instinct? Pride? Arrogance?
Yunfan didn't wait.
He vanished in a bolt of thunder.
He didn't run away.
He ran toward the Pillar of Silent Steel.
He dove full speed, body battered, lungs failing, and slammed his hand onto the pillar's base.
It glowed.
Once.
Twice.
Then roared.
Silver light erupted from its core.
The pillar wrapped around Yunfan like threads of condensed sword intent. Wind howled. Thunder cracked. The platform below him shattered into rising fragments of floating earth.
Heiyu screamed, lunging forward
But the light burned him.
Burned the corruption inside him.
And flung him backward into the dust, screeching like a beast unmade.
Yunfan floated, enveloped in the light, sword in hand, zither humming with rhythm from a plane no one else could hear.
His eyes were closed.
His mouth was grinning.
"Told you," he whispered."You should've looked."
Every other cultivator stared, breath held.
And for a moment… no one dared move.