The great hall of the upper terrace was already filling when Jin Mu arrived. Golden lamps guttered in the sconces, casting a flickering brilliance over the polished blackwood tables. Attendants in silken blue moved in practiced silence, laying out platters heaped with delicacies.
At the dais, beneath a massive tapestry of the sect's crest—a nine-headed hydra devouring a crowned serpent—the senior elders sat in stately rows, eyes bright as knives.
It was called the Feast of Triumphs, an annual celebration of the sect's glory. To the uninitiated, it might have looked like the pinnacle of cultivated civilization: perfect decorum, elegant conversation, respect paid to merit and sacrifice.
But Jin Mu knew better.
This hall was an arena more vicious than any battlefield. Here, the smallest weakness was catalogued, the faintest misstep filed away to be exploited. And beneath the ritual toasts and speeches, the truth lay bare: power in this world belonged to those born to it—or those willing to become monsters to seize it.
He took his place at the end of the long table reserved for newly advanced disciples. As he lowered himself onto the bench, he felt the weight of a hundred appraising gazes.
Let them look, he thought. I will not bow to their approval.
Elder Su, whose face was a parchment map of contempt, rose first. His voice dripped honey and venom in equal measure.
"Tonight, we celebrate the perseverance of our disciples," he intoned. "Their devotion to Order, their readiness to sacrifice lesser desires for the greater law."
His eyes flickered across the room—passing lightly over the golden-robed scions of the noble houses—before fixing, just a beat too long, on the few who had no family crests on their sleeves.
"Some of you have climbed higher than your station ever promised," he said softly. "Remember that it is only through the sect's generosity that such elevation is possible."
Laughter, low and polite, rippled through the favored seats.
Jin Mu watched without blinking. In another life, he had tried to appease men like Su—to prove his worth with deference and patience. He would not make that mistake again.
Later, as the servants brought out porcelain bowls of phoenix broth, Jin overheard the measured cruelty in every conversation:
"How fortunate you are that the elders took pity on your background…"
"…so surprising you advanced at all, considering your lack of refinement…"
"…inevitable some cannot rise above their blood."
And always, the hollow praise offered in the same breath as the insult—veneer over rotting wood.
Shen Yan caught his eye across the hall. His expression was carefully neutral, but his fingers drummed the table, as if he wished he could strike the speaker instead.
For a moment, Jin felt a phantom warmth—an echo of camaraderie they had once shared. Then he looked away.
The hypocrisy here was not his to forgive.
Near the meal's end, Elder Su lifted his cup.
"To the future of the Ninefold Concord," he declared. "May those worthy prosper—and those unworthy know their place."
Glasses lifted. The nobles toasted without hesitation.
Jin raised nothing. He kept his hands folded in his lap, gaze steady on the far wall. The silence around him thickened. Someone coughed. A servant hesitated, unsure whether to remove his untouched wine.
It was a small defiance, but it was his.
When the last dish was cleared and the elders had departed, Jin slipped from the hall. He ignored the curious stares, the murmurs behind cupped hands.
Outside, the night was bitter cold. He stood on the threshold for a moment, letting the chill bleed into his bones.
I will not become what they wish me to be, he thought. I will not crawl for their approval. And if that makes me a villain, so be it.
He returned to the sparse quarters the sect allotted the lowborn. A single cot, a small brazier, the barest scrap of privacy.
He lay down fully clothed, arms folded over his chest. The darkness pressed close—comforting in its emptiness.
But sleep did not bring rest.
He was standing in a ruin.
Rain fell in sheets, black as spilled ink. All around him, the corpses of his disciples lay heaped like discarded rags—faces he knew, faces he had failed.
He turned, searching for any sign of life.
A figure rose from the wreckage—tall, wrapped in burial cloth, its mouth sewn shut with gold wire.
Shen Yan.
Even in death, his eyes were bright with accusation.
"You knew," the corpse hissed, though its lips did not move. "You knew what would come—and you did nothing."
Jin staggered back. "I tried—"
"You watched us burn. You let us die."
"No…"
"You deserve nothing."
The world convulsed. The sky split, raining knives of silver flame.
Jin fell to his knees, hands pressed over his ears. But the voice was inside him now—raking claws across his mind.
"You deserve nothing."
"You deserve nothing."
I tried, he thought, tears searing down his cheeks. I tried.
But the darkness swallowed him.
He bolted upright, mouth open in a soundless scream.
His breath came in ragged gasps, every muscle locked. The cot rocked under him as tremors wracked his limbs.
Cold sweat plastered his hair to his skull. His heartbeat was a war drum in his throat.
Not real, he thought, clutching the edge of the blanket. Not real.
But it felt real—the guilt, the shame, the knowledge that no amount of power could ever bring back the lives he had lost.
His vision swam. He pressed his palms over his eyes, fighting to force air into his lungs.
Minutes passed—long, shuddering minutes.
When the worst of the convulsions subsided, he sat staring at the door, feeling smaller than he had in years.
He would not sleep again that night.
As dawn began to pale the window slats, he rose. His joints ached from tension, but he forced them to move.
He dressed slowly, methodically, as if assembling armor one piece at a time.
I will not yield, he told himself. Not to them, not to regret, not to the ghosts of my own failures.
He looked at his reflection in the cracked washbasin—eyes hollow, face drawn.
"I will pay any price," he whispered to the empty room. "But I will not deserve nothing."
And when he stepped outside into the cold, he carried that vow like a blade.