The heavy iron gates slammed shut. The sound echoed like a coffin lid dropping, sealing the silence of the arena behind them.
Yang Yi didn't look back. He scanned the new hell.
The Outer Sect wasn't the golden paradise promised in the legends. It was a sprawling, industrial slum clinging to the mountainside. Gray stone shacks stacked on top of each other like tumorous growths. Smoke from alchemy furnaces choked the sky, turning the sunset into a bruised purple smear.
"It smells like sulfur and desperation."
The girl walked beside him. She dragged her feet, the soles of her boots scraping the cobblestones. Her skin remained dangerously pale, the veins in her neck visible and blue.
"Better than the smell of burning flesh." Yang Yi adjusted his collar. The bruising on his throat throbbed in time with his heartbeat.
A clerk in a stained gray robe sat at a kiosk near the entrance. He didn't look up from his ledger. He tossed two wooden tablets onto the counter.
"Block 9. Hut 402. Don't lose the tablet. Replacement cost is ten spirit stones."
Yang Yi snatched the tablets. He threw one to the girl. She caught it, her reflexes dull.
"Block 9," the clerk added, finally looking up with a sneer. "The Dregs. Try not to get murdered for your boots before morning."
Yang Yi walked away.
The streets of the Outer Sect teemed with life. Disciples in gray robes hurried past, carrying baskets of herbs, ores, and buckets of waste. No one made eye contact. The air hung heavy with a palpable tension—the fear of the weak preying on the weaker.
They navigated the maze of alleyways. The deeper they went, the filthier the streets became.
Hut 402 sat at the edge of a ravine used as a garbage dump. The roof sagged. The door hung on one hinge.
"Home sweet home."
Yang Yi kicked the door open.
It didn't swing in. It fell off the hinge and clattered onto the dirt floor.
Inside, three men sat around a low table playing dice. They looked up, startled. They wore the gray robes of outer disciples, but their sleeves were rolled up to show tattoos of centipedes winding up their arms.
Squatters.
The largest one, a man with a shaved head and a missing ear, stood up. He kicked the table aside.
"Wrong house, fresh meat. This is Centipede territory."
Yang Yi sighed. His body screamed for rest. His qi reserves were dry. His muscles felt like they had been run through a meat grinder.
He stepped over the fallen door.
"Get out."
The bald man laughed. He pulled a jagged knife from his belt. "Did you hear that, boys? The cripple wants us to leave."
The other two stood up, cracking their knuckles. They sensed the weakness. They saw the burns on Yang Yi's neck and the girl trembling in the doorway.
"We'll take the girl," the bald man said, licking his lips. "You can sleep in the ravine."
Yang Yi didn't flare his aura. He didn't have any aura left to flare.
He picked up the heavy wooden door from the floor.
He moved.
It wasn't a martial arts technique. It was the brutal efficiency of a dockworker. He swung the door like a massive shield.
The edge of the wood caught the bald man in the throat.
Crunch.
The man dropped the knife. He gagged, clutching his crushed windpipe, and fell to his knees.
The second squatters lunged.
Yang Yi didn't drop the door. He drove it forward, ramming the man into the back wall. The impact shook dust from the rafters. The man slumped, pinned between the wood and the stone.
The third man froze. He looked at his leader choking on the floor, then at the man pinned against the wall. Then he looked at Yang Yi's eyes.
Dead eyes. The eyes of a man who had killed an Enforcer an hour ago.
"Out."
The third man didn't argue. He grabbed his gasping leader by the collar and dragged him out into the alley. The pinned man slid down the wall and scrambled after them on all fours.
Yang Yi dropped the door. It landed with a heavy thud, covering the entrance again.
He turned to the room. It was bare. Two straw mats, a cracked water jar, and the smell of mold.
He collapsed onto the nearest mat. Dust puffed up around him.
The girl stepped in. She propped the door back up, wedging a stone against the bottom to keep it in place. She sat on the other mat, pulling her knees to her chest.
"You're running on fumes."
Yang Yi closed his eyes. "Fumes are enough for trash like that."
Silence stretched between them. The sounds of the sector—shouting, glass breaking, distant screams—filtered through the thin walls.
"Lin," she whispered.
Yang Yi cracked one eye open.
"What?"
"My name. It's Lin."
Yang Yi stared at the ceiling. The adrenaline faded, leaving only a bone-deep ache.
"Yang Yi."
"We have a problem, Yang Yi."
"Only one?"
"The Enforcer. His clan won't let that slide. And the Hawk Clan leader you crippled on the stairs. We made enemies before we even unpacked."
Yang Yi reached into his pocket. He fingered the Dragon Transformation Token. It felt hot again, feeding on the ambient hostility of the sector.
"Let them come. They bring supplies."
He rolled onto his side, turning his back to her.
"Sleep, Lin. Tomorrow we find out what this sect is really hiding."
He didn't mention the veins he saw in the mountain. He didn't mention the blood array beneath the registration stone. For now, ignorance was the only armor she had.
Yang Yi drifted into a light doze, one hand on his sword, the other on the token. The wolf in his blood settled, waiting for the next hunt.