The mountains did not welcome them.
As Liang Feng crossed the final ridge, the air thickened unnaturally. His Blood Qi stirred—not in hunger, but in warning. The sensation crawled across his spine like cold fingers.
Master Shen slowed. "We're walking into a net."
Liang Feng nodded. "I know."
The sky darkened.
Not clouds.
Formations.
Massive warlord-grade suppression arrays unfolded overhead like overlapping wounds in the heavens. Crimson, gold, and black sigils locked into place, sealing space itself.
Then—
The drums sounded.
Deep. Slow. Funereal.
From every direction, figures emerged.
Thousands.
Elite warlord troops in disciplined formations. Sect elders floating above the ground. Array masters locking down escape routes. Skyships hovering like iron coffins, their cannons glowing with annihilating Qi.
At the center—
Luo Zhen.
He stood calmly atop a floating platform, hands clasped behind his back.
"Liang Feng," his voice carried across the battlefield effortlessly.
"This is your siege."
Master Shen's breath trembled. "They're not trying to kill you fast."
Liang Feng's gaze swept the battlefield.
"They're farming experience," he said flatly.
Luo Zhen smiled. "Good. You understand."
He raised one hand.
The drums stopped.
And the killing began.
Blood Without Targets
The first wave charged.
Liang Feng stepped forward, Blood Qi expanding outward in controlled pulses. Soldiers collapsed as their blood tore free, formations breaking instantly.
But the arrays reacted.
The Blood Qi rebounded.
The pressure twisted sideways—
And struck behind him.
Liang Feng felt it too late.
A scream.
He turned.
The refugee caravan from earlier—hidden in the valley below—was caught in the backlash. Dozens of bodies ruptured instantly. Children. Elderly. Cultivators too weak to resist.
Blood surged upward.
Toward him.
Liang Feng froze.
"No—"
The Blood Qi did not ask permission.
It assimilated.
The screams ended abruptly.
Silence followed.
Master Shen staggered, horror etched into his face. "Liang Feng… you—"
Liang Feng stared at his hands.
They trembled.
Not from fear.
From confusion.
"I didn't target them," he said slowly.
Luo Zhen's voice cut through the battlefield. "Blood does not care about intention."
Something cracked.
Not violently.
Quietly.
Inside Liang Feng.
He felt it—the line he had crossed without meaning to.
A warmth filled his chest.
Not power.
Regret.
The first real emotion he'd felt in days.
The siege resumed.
The Sky Bleeds
Skyship cannons fired.
Beams of condensed warlord Qi crashed down, shattering mountains, vaporizing entire sections of earth. Liang Feng roared as Blood Qi erupted defensively, forming a rotating barrier of compressed essence.
He pushed forward regardless.
Each step crushed soldiers into paste. Blood flooded the battlefield, turning the land into a crimson marsh.
Luo Zhen watched intently.
"See?" he murmured. "Pressure creates monsters."
Liang Feng leapt into the air, tearing a skyship apart mid-flight, ripping its crew dry before hurling the husk into another vessel.
The sky bled.
Fire rained.
Blood rained.
The battlefield descended into absolute carnage.
Liang Feng's aura swelled uncontrollably.
Too much.
Too fast.
The Blood Qi began to override restraint.
He screamed—not in rage—
In resistance.
"I won't lose myself!" he roared.
And then—
A voice cut through the chaos.
"LIANG FENG!"
Clear.
Human.
A young woman stood at the edge of the battlefield, protected by a flickering talisman. Blood stained her clothes, but her eyes were steady.
She looked directly at him.
"Stop."
Liang Feng froze mid-air.
Not because of Qi.
Because of recognition.
"…Mei Lin?" he whispered.
Master Shen's eyes widened. "She's alive…?"
The Anchor
Mei Lin stepped forward despite the chaos.
"Do you remember," she shouted, "the night you stole medicine for my brother?"
Images slammed into Liang Feng.
A freezing village. A starving child. Blood on his hands—but not from killing.
"You said," Mei Lin continued, voice trembling but strong,
'If I don't steal it, he dies. If I do, I get punished. Either way, someone bleeds. Might as well be me.'"
Liang Feng's Blood Qi shuddered violently.
His aura flickered.
"You weren't efficient," she said. "You were kind."
The word hurt.
More than any wound.
Luo Zhen frowned for the first time.
"Interesting," he murmured. "An emotional anchor."
Liang Feng landed heavily, cracking the ground.
His breathing was ragged.
"I killed them," he whispered. "I didn't mean to—but they're dead."
Mei Lin nodded, tears streaming. "Yes. And if you keep going like this, you'll kill everyone."
She met his gaze.
"But if you stop now… you're still you."
The Blood Qi howled.
Two paths pulled at him.
Consume.
Or endure.
Luo Zhen raised his hand again. "Enough."
The siege tightened.
"This battle ends now," Luo Zhen declared. "Kill him."
Liang Feng looked at Mei Lin.
Then at Master Shen.
Then at the blood-soaked battlefield.
He made his choice.
Not surrender.
Not massacre.
Control.
Liang Feng slammed his palms together.
The Blood Qi collapsed inward violently—compressing, condensing, screaming.
The battlefield froze.
Time seemed to pause.
Luo Zhen's eyes widened.
"A second compression? Impossible—"
BOOM.
Liang Feng vanished.
Not escaped.
Transcended range.
Miles away, he reappeared, collapsing to his knees beside a ruined cliff, Blood Qi barely stable but intact.
The siege arrays shattered uselessly behind him.
Luo Zhen stared at the empty battlefield.
Then smiled slowly.
"He chose to stay human," Luo Zhen said softly.
His gaze sharpened.
"Good. That will make breaking him even more satisfying."
Liang Feng lay gasping, Mei Lin and Master Shen beside him.
The blood on his hands finally washed away in the rain.
But the stain inside him remained.
The world now knew two things:
Liang Feng was a calamity.
And he had something left to lose.