This has to be an illusion, he thought, running through alleyways. His feet never once stopped as he made his way toward the other areas of the village. This isn't possible. He leapt to the side of a building and pulled himself onto the roof.
His heart pounded as he heard movement below, and sure enough, his intuition proved right—a battalion of five guards swept into the alley he had just passed through. This has to be one of those ghost cultivators' tricks.
And if it wasn't, then it might have something to do with my spirit sea.This might be tied to me conjuring that bloodstream… and the bird. He thought quickly. If so, how did I start conjuring those things into existence?
"You, check that way!" a guard barked, pointing his polearm at another. Shi Yang crouched low, breath shallow, watching in silence as they searched. He hoped they wouldn't find him.
These aren't the abilities of the original Shi Yang of this cultivation realm… That had felt more like a peak—no, maybe even beyond Qi Refinement. A True Foundation Realm technique?
Then the question is: when did I start doing things outside the original Shi Yang's comprehension? The only thing I can think of is when I changed his Dao manifestation image from a lake into a waterfall.
But how could that have created a whole world that feels this real?… His brows furrowed deeper, until suddenly, his eyes widened. No. I hadn't just changed it into a waterfall…
I used the one from Xiu Mei's hometown.
"Captain!"
A cry rose from below. One of the guards stumbled back as a window beside him cracked wide. Blood-soaked water burst through the fissures. Shi Yang's mind raced:
So… you've uncovered this much about the High Tide Sect?
Yes. When the Immortal Road Sage and the Alliance of Sects struck my home, plundering the women—mothers and daughters both—I fled. Their cruelty reminded me of your unmoving strength, and strangely enough… our encounters at the waterfall, the place we always met…
His conversation with Xiu Mei echoed in his mind. He remembered her words about the Tide Sect, the cave behind the waterfall, and how passing through its reflection had plunged her into an illusory world:
Ten years I lived in that remnant world. Ten years of discipline, of studying under the elders, until I gained the Ocean Sect's skills. But when the illusion finally broke, only days had passed in the real world.
Have I… unintentionally copied a profound technique? His eyes swept the streets as mirrors shattered all around. By infusing the cave into my Dao manifestation, I created not one but three heavenly techniques.
The water roared. Glass across the village splintered. Rivers of blood surged, sweeping away dirt, crates, even foundations. People screamed as the floods claimed them. Some were dragged by the current, limbs torn as they were smashed into walls. Others clawed at rooftops only to be ripped free, their cries gurgling before being swallowed whole. Bodies spun, crushed, and broken in the red torrent.
The ground quaked.
A hill burst from the heart of the village, tearing buildings apart, flinging debris and men alike into the air. Its jagged summit cracked open as blood-water poured down in roaring cascades, drowning the streets below.
And then—the world itself began to unravel.
On the surface of the crimson flood, a vision flickered. A blurry battlefield. A woman cloaked in lightning, her body shrouded in a storm, carried a man limp in her arms. Lightning rained from the heavens at her call, splitting the earth and setting the sky ablaze.
Shi Yang's eyes widened. His instincts screamed. This was it—his way out of the spirit sea.
He ran.
The ground shifted beneath him, the floods chasing his heels as he raced toward the storm-lit vision. His body bled, his lungs burned, but he didn't stop. He couldn't.
And then—threads.
Blazing orange cords snapped into existence, weaving from the air itself. They lashed around his arms and legs, constricting with the heat of fire, trying to drag him down into the flood. A voice hissed behind him, the tone sharp, feminine, filled with command.
A sorceress.
Shi Yang roared, every muscle straining against the bindings. His skin seared where the cords touched, blood dripping from the burns. Still, he pushed forward. Step by step, inch by inch, he tore free of their hold.
The vision's light widened before him, lightning crackling across the bloody surface. His body plunged forward.
And then—he was through.
The threads snapped apart. The world of blood, flood, and screams—collapsed behind him.
Or so he thought.
For the people still trapped within it, the nightmare did not end.
The waters kept rushing, crimson torrents devouring streets, dragging homes into their currents. The villagers screamed, clutching children, clawing against broken doors, only to be swept away. Every reflection on every shard of glass showed not their faces, but endless waterfalls spilling blood, crashing down, drowning them in echoes of a stranger's Dao.
"Get them out of the stream!" a voice rang, harsh and commanding.
A woman cloaked in a mantle of faint orange light wove threads of flame into bridges across the current. Her hands snapped outward, cords latching onto children and dragging them to her side, their eyes wide, skin torn raw from the river's bite.
"Move! To the ridge! Get to higher ground!" another sorceress shouted, her staff slamming into the mud as runes of frost burst outward, freezing a channel through the flood. Villagers stumbled across it, but the ice cracked under the strain of the blood-water's weight, shards of frozen crimson splintering in every direction.
They worked feverishly. Threads of fire binding beams to form rafts, runes glowing to hold back collapsing walls, charms pressed into bleeding palms to keep hearts beating. Yet for every life pulled free, three more were swallowed whole.
—
The world threshed around the villagers, but to the resurfacing Shi, this story mattered not, as it was nothing more than another mystery in the life he had been transmigrated into.
Hmngh? Shi hummed, his eyelids heavy as someone shook his shoulder. He tried opening his eyes, but he couldn't just yet. Who's… talking?
He thought he heard a murmur.
"I told you he's had a busy night, and he's just resting up," Xiu Mei's voice sounded, as he felt her pull his arm. His body fell toward the right, as she caught him against her chest.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm just making sure there isn't something fishy going on here," a gruff voice spoke.
"Don't be," Han Jie chimed in. "It's like my… Daoist friend said, he's just sleeping." She stared at the guardsman as she manned the reins of the horse-drawn carriage she and Xiu Mei had acquired.
The guard didn't seem to believe them. He looked at the unconscious fellow once more, then at the man with a white cloak over his torn blue robes. And then his assistant upfront. He didn't know what compelled him.
But he felt something off about this passing carriage, and he had to stop them from entering the town. "Wei Jianhong!" his partner called out, fed up with him.
"Let them pass already," he said, holding his spear. "They look decent enough."
Wei Jianhong turned to the impatient man. "Wait a minute, let me check one more time."
He leaned in through the open carriage door, his hand steady on the frame. The torchlight flickered across the interior, and what he saw made him pause.
Inside sat a man dressed in women's clothing—robes of pale silk patterned with faint blossoms, hair carefully styled and held together by delicate pins that shimmered in the light. A thin veil covered his mouth, softening his features into something androgynous, yet unmistakably refined. At first glance, he could have been mistaken for a courtesan from the pleasure quarters.
Beside him sat another figure, gaunt and sharp-boned, with a thin beard and the unmistakable poise of someone used to authority. Yet his clothing was ill-fitted, his posture too tense. Wei Jianhong's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Something about the pairing unsettled him.
He had seen this before. Wealthy cultivators—or worse, traveling bandits—sometimes trafficked beautiful men with soft features, disguising them in women's attire to pass them off as courtesans or attendants. He remembered too vividly the broken faces of those drugged into silence, the faint glaze in their eyes.
And this one… this one looked too fragile, too perfect.
Wei Jianhong's grip tightened on his spear. His gut told him to be cautious. Leaning closer, he reached toward the veiled man and shook him gently by the shoulder.
The man stirred, his head rolling slightly before his eyes cracked open. They were clouded with exhaustion, confusion swimming within them. He tried to sit up, but his body swayed against the veil of silk that pressed over his lips.
"…What's your name?" Wei Jianhong asked, his tone calm but edged with authority.
The man blinked. His gaze darted as though searching for an anchor. "…Yin…" he muttered hoarsely, his brow furrowing. A pause. Something didn't feel right—his own words struck him as wrong. His lips moved again, more firmly this time. "…Shi Yang."
Wei Jianhong exhaled slowly, studying the man's face. "Yin Shi Yang," he repeated, voice measured. "Are you alright? Do you know where you are?"
The veiled man's breath hitched faintly, confusion flashing in his eyes as the words sank in.