The oath left Chen Wu's lips like thunder.
The heavens did not smite him.
The sky remained still.
That silence was more terrifying than a thousand lightning bolts.
Because it meant his words carried weight.
Chen Wu slowly lowered his hand, his expression carved from ice.
On the ground, Zhao Feng coughed blood, his chest heaving. His once-proud face was swollen, his lips trembling. He tried to push himself up, but his arms shook like reeds in the wind.
"P-please…" Zhao Feng's voice cracked, weak and pitiful. "Chen Wu… spare me… we are… fellow disciples…"
Chen Wu's lips curved into a cold smile.
"Spare you?" His voice was quiet, but each syllable cut like a blade. "Tell me, Zhao Feng, when you mocked me before the sect, did you think of sparing me? When you trampled my dignity, calling me trash, where was your mercy?"
Zhao Feng's eyes widened. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
"Where was it?" Chen Wu stepped forward. Each step echoed in Zhao Feng's chest like a war drum.
Zhao Feng shrank back, his body trembling.
"I—I was wrong!" Zhao Feng's forehead struck the dirt with a thud. He kowtowed, blood and soil staining his skin. "Junior Brother Chen, I—I was blind! Forgive me this once!"
Chen Wu chuckled darkly.
"You were blind?" His gaze was merciless. "No. You saw clearly. You saw an opportunity to step on me and raise yourself. That was no blindness. That was your nature."
Zhao Feng's teeth rattled as he kowtowed again and again, his voice breaking. "Please! Please! I'll never do it again! I'll treat you with respect! I'll—"
"Respect?" Chen Wu's aura surged, pressing down like a mountain.
Zhao Feng collapsed flat against the dirt, wheezing under the invisible weight.
"You think respect can be begged for?" Chen Wu's voice thundered. "Respect is taken. It is crushed out of the bones of those who stand against me. You—" his eyes burned coldly, "—are nothing but a stepping stone."
Rustle—
Leaves shifted.
Unseen eyes grew wider.
More disciples were gathering at the edge of the clearing, drawn by the sounds of battle. They whispered among themselves, their faces pale.
"Is that… Zhao Feng?!"
"He's kneeling! Begging!"
"Chen Wu… wasn't he supposed to be crippled trash?!"
Each whisper was a dagger stabbing into Zhao Feng's pride.
"Shut up!" Zhao Feng's voice cracked as he glanced desperately toward the crowd. "Don't look! Don't—!"
But Chen Wu's foot came down, pressing Zhao Feng's head back into the dirt.
The gasps around the clearing were sharp and collective.
Chen Wu leaned down, his voice low, venomous. "No, Zhao Feng. They must look. They must see. Because humiliation is the only lesson worms like you understand."
Zhao Feng's body shook violently as the dirt ground against his teeth.
Chen Wu's voice grew louder, carrying across the clearing. "Zhao Feng, do you remember what you called me before? Trash? Waste? The disgrace of Azure Heaven Sect?"
The crowd held its breath.
"Say it again." Chen Wu's eyes gleamed with cruel amusement. "Say it now, as you kneel. Say I am trash, and let us see if your tongue survives."
Zhao Feng whimpered, his body convulsing.
"I—I…" He swallowed mud, tears streaming down his face. "No… you are not trash. I was wrong! You are—strong! You are… merciless!"
Chen Wu laughed. A low, dangerous laugh that sent chills through every disciple watching.
"Not enough."
He pressed his foot harder until Zhao Feng gagged.
"Call yourself trash. Call yourself the disgrace of Azure Heaven Sect."
Zhao Feng's body froze. "N-no… don't make me…"
"Do it." Chen Wu's voice cracked like a whip.
The pressure bore down, snapping Zhao Feng's last shred of resistance.
"I—I am trash! I am the disgrace of Azure Heaven Sect!" Zhao Feng screamed, his voice hoarse, echoing through the trees.
The crowd erupted in shocked murmurs.
Chen Wu slowly lifted his foot. "Good. You learn quickly when pain is involved. Perhaps humiliation is the only scripture you can read."
Zhao Feng slumped in the dirt, trembling. His tears, blood, and mud mingled into one grotesque mask.
Chen Wu dusted his robes, his voice cutting across the clearing.
"Remember this, all of you." His gaze swept across the onlookers, sharp as a blade. "Those who dare call me trash will end the same way. Kneeling. Begging. Broken."
A heavy silence followed, suffocating.
Not a single disciple dared to meet his eyes.
Chen Wu turned his back on Zhao Feng, walking away as though stepping over a corpse. His aura was calm, composed, regal.
Behind him, Zhao Feng whimpered faintly, too broken to rise.
The whispers grew louder, spreading like wildfire.
"Chen Wu… he's different…"
"That aura… he feels like an entirely new person…"
"Even Zhao Feng was crushed. Who can stop him now?"
And in the shadows, those unseen eyes gleamed with intrigue.
*******
Zhang Rulan had only come to the outer forest for herbs.
Her basket still hung from her arm, half-filled with spirit grass and wild roots.
But what she saw in that clearing—
It froze her blood cold.
Chen Wu.
Yes, she knew that name well.
Every disciple did.
The sect's weakest. The joke of the outer court. The boy who couldn't even pass the basic bone-strengthening stage after three years.
He was the example elders pointed at when they wanted to warn others not to waste their cultivation.
"Do you want to end up like Chen Wu?" they would say.
And yet…
The figure standing in the clearing bore no resemblance to that trash.
Zhao Feng lay crumpled in the dirt, his lips swollen, his nose leaking blood, his limbs twitching.
He had begged. He had screamed. He had called for mercy.
But Chen Wu—
No, this thing wearing Chen Wu's skin—
Hadn't given him a single shred of dignity.
Rulan pressed a hand against her mouth to keep from gasping aloud.
What kind of aura is this…?
It wasn't just strength.
It was pressure.
Dominance.
The kind of force that pressed on the heart, that whispered to the soul: Kneel, or be crushed.
Chen Wu stood there, chest rising and falling with calm control.
Not a hair out of place.
Not a tremor in his limbs.
As though humiliating Zhao Feng—a senior who had mocked him for years—was as easy and natural as flicking dust from his sleeve.
"Pathetic."
His voice was low.
Cold.
Carved with disdain sharp enough to cut.
"You call yourself a cultivator? Even begging, you couldn't do it properly. If you're going to kneel… then kneel as if your life depends on it."
Zhao Feng groaned, trying to raise his head.
But Chen Wu's foot pressed him back down, grinding his cheek into the mud.
"I… I yield… I yield!" Zhao Feng's voice cracked. "Please, don't—don't cripple me!"
Laughter spilled from Chen Wu's lips.
But it wasn't the laughter of a relieved boy finally turning the tables.
It was darker.
Older.
The laughter of someone who had crushed thousands before, and would crush thousands again.
Pathetic worm, Mo Tianxie thought, his soul curled in contempt inside this fragile shell.
Even now, you beg without dignity. When I knelt before the Heavens, I made the skies tremble. And you… you can't even grovel properly.
"Remember this," Chen Wu's words lashed like a whip.
"In this sect, you will not raise your head before me again. You will crawl. You will grovel. And if I hear your barking at me even once more…"
His foot pressed harder. Zhao Feng's teeth scraped against the dirt.
"…then I will make sure you never walk again."
Zhang Rulan's nails dug into her palm.
Her heart thundered.
This… this wasn't the Chen Wu she knew.
Had he gone mad?
Or—
Or had he been hiding his strength all this time?
The basket slipped from her hand.
It hit the ground with a dull thud.
Chen Wu's head snapped up.
His eyes—those cold, abyssal eyes—locked directly onto hers.
Rulan's breath caught.
For a heartbeat, she felt as if she had been stripped bare, her soul laid open for judgment.
She stumbled back a step, clutching at the tree behind her.
"N-no… I didn't mean to…" she whispered, though she hadn't even spoken aloud.
Chen Wu studied her for a long, heavy moment.
Then he smiled.
Not kindly.
Not reassuringly.
It was the smile of a predator who had noticed a trembling rabbit.
"You saw nothing."
The words weren't shouted.
They didn't need to be.
They slid into her ears like chains, sinking deep, binding her tongue.
Rulan nodded furiously, her lips trembling. "Y-yes… I… I saw nothing…"
And yet even as she spoke, her mind was racing.
She had seen everything.
The sect's trash had humiliated Zhao Feng in front of the trees and sky.
If this rumor spread—if the disciples heard—
The outer sect would boil over.
Chen Wu turned away from her, as if she were already dismissed.
Zhao Feng still writhed beneath his foot, muttering broken pleas.
But Chen Wu released him at last, wiping his hands as if he had touched filth.
"Live," he said coldly.
"Live with the memory of today carved into your bones."
Zhao Feng scrambled up on all fours, half-mad with fear, and fled the clearing without daring to look back.
Silence settled once more.
Broken only by Zhang Rulan's ragged breathing.
She hadn't moved.
She couldn't.
The weight of what she had seen pinned her in place.
And Chen Wu—
No, Mo Tianxie within him—
Laughed silently.
Good. Let her spread it. Let the sect choke on whispers. Fear is the first step to dominance.
Rulan stumbled away at last, clutching her basket against her chest like a shield.
But even as she fled, her mind burned with a single thought:
"Chen Wu… is not trash. He's… a monster."
By the time she returned to the sect's outer courtyards, her lips couldn't stay sealed.
She tried to swallow it, tried to obey his terrifying command.
But the words slipped out in breathless whispers.
One disciple overheard.
Then another.
Then another.
By sundown, the wildfire had begun.
The name Chen Wu—
Once the sect's greatest joke—
Now spread on every tongue.
Not in laughter.
But in fear.
*******
The morning mist had not yet lifted from the Azure Heaven Sect.
But already, whispers spread like sparks across dry grass.
"Did you hear? Chen Wu… defeated Zhao Feng."
"Impossible. Zhao Feng was at the peak of Body Refining! Chen Wu is trash!"
"Trash doesn't make Zhao Feng kneel in the dirt. I heard it with my own ears. Zhao Feng begged."
Gasps. Laughter. Shock.
The story twisted with each retelling, but the core remained the same—Chen Wu, the coward, the sect's eternal joke, had humiliated one of the sect's brightest talents.
And humiliation was a currency more valuable than spirit stones.
By midday, the entire outer disciple courtyard was buzzing.
Groups huddled beneath pavilions. Swords paused mid-swing in the training fields. Even the aloof inner disciples glanced toward the outer courts with faint curiosity.
Chen Wu's name was no longer a byword for weakness.
It had become dangerous.
On the elder's terrace, where white-bearded figures sipped tea and discussed sect matters, the rumor had already arrived.
"Chen Wu?" One elder's brows furrowed deeply. "That useless boy? Didn't he fail three breakthroughs in a row?"
Another stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps a hidden master took pity on him. Or perhaps… he stumbled upon a fortuitous encounter in secret."
A third elder scoffed. "Or perhaps Zhao Feng was careless and let his guard down."
Yet none of them could ignore it.
Because disciples kneeling in the dirt, begging for mercy, in full view of witnesses—that was no ordinary quarrel. That was sect politics. That was face.
Zhao Feng himself had locked himself away in his residence.
The proud young genius of the Zhao clan had not left his room since the duel. His servants whispered at the doors, unable to coax him out.
But even within the closed chamber, he could hear it.
The laughter.
The voices.
"Zhao Feng, the mighty tiger, bowed to the crippled dog."
His fists bled from where he had smashed them into the walls. His teeth ground until they cracked.
He swore on his bloodline that this humiliation would not stand.
And when Zhao Feng swore, he meant it.
Meanwhile, rivals sniffed blood.
Among the outer disciples, Wang Shi—the sly-eyed youth who had always stepped on Chen Wu for amusement—grinned coldly.
"So… the trash has grown fangs. Good. Very good."
His fingers tapped against the hilt of his blade.
"If Zhao Feng can't keep a dog in its place, I'll do it myself. A few broken bones will remind the sect of the truth."
But even he was wary.
Because rumors did not spread this fast unless there was weight behind them. Unless witnesses believed. Unless something had truly changed.
In the women's quarters, Zhang Rulan hugged her knees, heart still pounding.
She had not told everything.
She had not told them how Chen Wu's eyes had glowed with a predator's calm. How Zhao Feng's strength seemed to dissolve in front of him.
She had not told them how, for a fleeting instant, she thought Chen Wu might strike Zhao Feng dead where he knelt.
That secret burned inside her chest.
If anyone knew she had seen it up close, they would hound her for every detail.
And part of her… feared speaking the truth.
Because it would mean admitting that she was afraid.
Afraid of Chen Wu.
Afraid of the shadow that lingered around him, like a demon wrapped in mortal flesh.
In his quarters, Chen Wu—no, Mo Tianxie—sat cross-legged, eyes closed.
The whispers of the sect reached him even here.
He felt them like threads, weaving a reputation around his new body.
Good.
Fear was the seed of power.
Respect was a fruit that ripened from it.
He had lost everything once—his throne, his army, his dominion over heaven and earth.
But here, even in this frail vessel, he could feel it beginning again.
One humiliation, one shattered rival, was enough to shift the currents of fate.
He would nurture this storm.
And when the time was right, he would reveal the name that made the heavens tremble.
Mo Tianxie.
The Demonic Sky Tyrant.
But not yet.
For now, the mask of Chen Wu would serve him well.
That evening, Sect Elder Qiu summoned the senior outer disciples.
The gathering was small but tense.
His sharp gaze swept the courtyard.
"Is it true," he asked, his voice carrying the weight of judgment, "that Zhao Feng was defeated by Chen Wu?"
Silence.
Until finally, one disciple stepped forward.
Zhang Rulan's cousin, Li Sheng.
He bowed. "This disciple does not dare lie before Elder Qiu. It is true. I heard it with my own ears. Zhao Feng swore an oath. He begged for mercy."
Murmurs erupted.
Elder Qiu's eyes narrowed.
Interesting.
The sect was a forest, and every disciple was a tree. But sometimes… one seed grew differently. One tree cast a longer shadow.
Perhaps Chen Wu's roots ran deeper than anyone thought.
"Summon Chen Wu," Elder Qiu ordered. "I will see for myself whether this trash has become something more."
And in his chamber, Mo Tianxie opened his eyes, a slow, cruel smile spreading across his face.
So the elders were curious.
Good.
Curiosity would lead them into his palm.
The path of the villain was not only to crush his enemies beneath his heel.
It was to bend the world itself into an audience for his ascent.
And the Azure Heaven Sect… was just the first stage.