Shi Yang sighed, then let himself drop flat on the mattress, the soft padding catching his fall. His eyes wandered up to the ceiling, expression flat.
I've convinced them to participate… but why did I?
Even he wasn't sure. The logical choice would've been to move alone—there would still be people heading toward the Eastern Sea, opportunities ripe for the taking. So why persist in this farce of a tournament?
The rewards, he thought grimly.
His mind replayed the details: top three positions, two government titles, and one earthly treasure. In their predicament, the posts were worthless—shackles, nothing more. But the treasure…
That, at least, is worth fighting for.
A quiet spark lit his eyes. Alright then. Let's aim for number one.
He raised his legs, rolled fluidly, and flipped off the bed. His feet touched the ground without a sound.
"They told me not to use my new techniques unless it's life or death…" His lips curved faintly. "But they never said anything about testing them."
He crossed his legs on the floor, spine straightening, breath evening out. Hands folded together, he sank into silence.
"Let's start with meditation," he whispered to himself.
And as his consciousness stilled, the inner vision returned—the waterfall.
This time it was no longer a vague, hazy shadow of itself. Clear water cascaded endlessly, roaring yet tranquil, flowing exactly as he had once envisioned. It poured through his meridians, crashing against hidden obstructions, polishing them smooth. The longer he watched, the more real it became, droplets sparkling like liquid jade.
The sound of the waterfall consumed him, steady and ceaseless. His breathing fell into rhythm with its flow.
Far away, in a chamber drenched in crimson lantern light, another pair of eyes watched.
The mirror in the cloaked figure's hand shimmered faintly, Shi Yang's seated form flickering within it. Blood smeared across its surface pulsed with a faint glow, feeding the image.
On the throne draped in silken veils and shadows, she reclined like a queen of death. Her long legs crossed lazily, her pale skin gleaming like carved jade, her robes loose enough to mock propriety. Behind her, the grinning skulls that adorned the hall seemed to leer all the more under the scarlet glow.
Her crimson eyes narrowed as she studied the young man's reflection. A faint smile touched her lips, curved with amusement—no, hunger.
"Interesting…" Her voice was low, sultry, carrying an undertone of danger.
The cloaked figure shifted uneasily but did not speak, holding the mirror steady in his hands, letting the lady's gaze pierce into the flickering image of Shi Yang.
"Should we capture them for interrogation, Hong Yan?" a middle-aged man asked, stroking his beard. His eyes carried the weight of experience. "Especially if they are tied to the Ocean Tide Sect."
The woman named Hong Yan glanced at the men in the room, then back at the mirror. "No need," she whispered. "It seems this group of individuals carries backgrounds far stronger than you assume."
The men exchanged looks of disbelief. "Mistress, what do you mean? These are clearly just children who stumbled upon fortune."
"Children?" Hong Yan's lips curved into a cold smile. "One has a natural lightning affinity, with a mind sharp enough to craft thunder formations that even you struggle to decipher. Another has stepped into the Foundation Realm, mastering not one but two complete Daos—not of trifling elements, but of the ocean and iron-steel. She was still unstable from her breakthrough, yet fought without faltering.
"And the last child, as you call him, bound two women to his side in this barren world. He devised a technique that could restrain hundreds of Qi Refinement cultivators and momentarily suppress a Foundation Realm expert—all from sheer comprehension alone."
She flicked her hand, and the mirror slid from the cloaked man's fingers into her own. Raising it closer, her voice softened into a purr. "Not to mention his dual cultivation method. It may seem unremarkable on the surface, but I can feel the current of a carp swimming within him, struggling upstream—one day it will leap the dragon gate."
Her laughter rang like silver bells. "These are not coincidences. Fate has entangled these three—a prodigy of formations who will likely inherit a Lightning Dao, a fallen scion of the Tide Sect marked by Heaven's wrath, and a living cauldron brimming with untapped potential."
The men fell silent. Then one asked cautiously, "Mistress… what do you wish us to do?"
Hong Yan's eyes lingered on the mirror. Slowly, she bit her finger, crimson welling up. With deliberate strokes, she wrote upon the surface: How do I intercept fate?
A ghostly whale's cry echoed, mournful and deep. The mirror cracked, splintering into five shifting visions. Shi Yang appeared in each—scaling mountains, battling dragons, clashing with barbarians, and carving through countless foes.
But in one vision, something else caught her eye.
A young girl walked alone through a crowded street. The scene fast-forwarded—she lived as a beggar, starved and despised. Then came a night where drunken men cornered her, laughter turning vile as they ripped at her rags. Scales glimmered beneath her skin.
"A barbarian tribe's spawn…" one of them jeered. But when they tore the cloth from her chest, they froze. A woman.
Their shock quickly shifted into bolder cruelty. Hands clawed at her as they lunged.
Then—blood flashed.
A blade pierced through one attacker's gut. His scream curdled in the night air as Shi Yang stepped from the shadows, glowing with power, his eyes colder than steel.
Hong Yan's smile deepened as the mirror's fractured visions shimmered before her. She lowered her hand, blood still glistening on her fingertip, and turned her gaze upon the men gathered around her.
"You doubt me still?" she asked softly. Her tone was gentle, yet the air in the chamber grew suffocating.
The men exchanged uneasy glances. None dared speak.
Her crimson eyes flicked toward one of them—a burly man with a scar across his cheek. She raised her hand, fingers curling lazily.
"Then let me show you what fate tastes like."
The man's body stiffened. His eyes widened in horror as his chest convulsed. He fell to his knees, clutching his throat, a strangled sound tearing from his lips.
"M-Mistress—spare me—!"
His plea was cut short as his flesh bulged grotesquely. A pale light began to seep from his eyes, mouth, and chest. The man screamed as his very essence was dragged upward, ripping through skin and bone as though his body were no more than a husk.
The chamber filled with a shrill, piercing wail—not of mortal pain, but of soul-deep agony.
The light congealed into the outline of a woman—ethereal, transparent, her face contorted in terror. She writhed against Hong Yan's pull, yet could not resist.
The man's body slumped forward, panting heavily, his eyes vacant and glassy. He blinked in confusion, looking around as though waking from a dream. For a fleeting instant, he seemed like a lost child who could not comprehend where he stood.
Then Hong Yan flicked her wrist.
A shadowy claw formed in the air and snapped his neck without hesitation. His corpse collapsed like discarded cloth.
The chamber grew deathly silent.
Hong Yan cradled the struggling soul in her palm, stroking it almost tenderly. "Yes… this one will do nicely."
She lifted the spirit and pressed it against the mirror's cracked surface. The ghost screamed as its form was drawn inward, threads of light weaving into the vision where the barbarian girl cowered on the ground.
But then—
CRACK!
The mirror splintered violently, its surface shattering like ice under a hammer. The entire image dissolved into chaos—shards of light, scattered screams, and then nothing.
The barbarian girl's vision was gone. So too was Shi Yang's reflection, erased in an instant.
Hong Yan's crimson eyes narrowed, her grip tightening on the now-empty air. The mirror, fractured into a thousand lines, should have fallen into useless shards. Yet it did not. The blood smeared across its surface began to writhe, congealing into jagged script.
First came Xiu Mei's side of the vision—her figure walking down the street with Shi Yang and Han Jie. Beside her, letters carved themselves into the glass, glowing like wounds cut into flesh:
Fate is broken.
Then Han Jie's image appeared, faint and unstable, the words dripping down beside her:
Time and Space are severed.
At last, Shi Yang came into focus. Unlike the others, his figure was clear, sharper than any illusion should be. The blood spread like wildfire across the mirror, letters crawling over his likeness as though branding him:
All revolves around one not of Heaven or Earth. Order turns to chaos, timeline to thought, and your will to ash, as the Tide Sect prays for its last salvation.
The last words bled out like a dying man's final breath.
Then, with a deafening shatter, the mirror finally gave way—splitting down the middle, shards raining across the chamber floor.
The blood-lettered phrases lingered in the air like burning afterimages before vanishing into nothingness.
The hall fell silent. Not even the skulls dared to leer.
Hong Yan's fingers flexed slowly, her smile faint but sharp as a knife's edge. "…So. Even Heaven cannot see him."
Her laughter rang out, cold and melodic, echoing through the death-lit chamber.