The road back to the main city was silent, save for the steady clopping of hooves against the dirt path. Layla and the others from the Silver Lotus Sect moved with purpose, their thoughts already focused on survival. The winter was coming, and despite everything that had happened, the world did not wait for tragedy to settle before demanding its due.
Meyu, however, lingered at the gates, her gaze locked onto the distant form of Atlas, now left behind in the care of Master Daokan. She had made her decision. As much as she wanted to stay, to be there when he woke, she knew what he would have chosen. Someone had to keep his business running, and that responsibility fell to her. It was not just out of obligation—it was out of respect.
Yuxe Wuye stood beside her, her presence a steadying force.
"You made the logical choice" she said, her tone as measured as ever.
"Atlas would have done the same."
Meyu exhaled slowly, nodding. "I know. But that doesn't mean it feels right."
Yuxe gave her a knowing glance. "Logic rarely does. But this is how you honour him—not by waiting at his bedside, but by ensuring he has something to wake up to."
The two stood in quiet understanding before turning to follow the rest of the group into the distance. The further they walked, the quieter the air became, until finally, they disappeared from sight.
From the high walls of the sect, Master Daokan watched their departure, his expression unreadable. Beside him, Yan Shuren and Shen Xue stood in silence.
"Our obligation now is clear," Master Daokan murmured.
"Atlas."
Shen Xue tensed slightly, knowing what was coming. Master Daokan turned his gaze toward her, his voice firm.
"You will receive punishment befitting your strength. You are to train under my watch until you can ensure such a disaster does not happen again. You lost control of the match, and that is unacceptable."
Shen Xue bowed her head in acknowledgment, but the weight of his words pressed against her pride.
"Understood, father."
Yan Shuren exhaled. "That technique he used… It shouldn't exist."
Master Daokan's brow furrowed. "And yet it does." He looked toward the unconscious Atlas, lying still in the sect's infirmary.
"I am more concerned than I have been in years."
He turned back to them, his voice carrying a rare edge of unease.
"That technique. Absorption of Qi. It is nearly identical to the forbidden techniques of Mo Cheng the Devourer."
Shen Xue's expression darkened. "The man who stole rather than cultivated."
Master Daokan nodded. "He did not cultivate Qi—he stole it. His techniques drained others, siphoning years of hard work in an instant. He fed upon the meridians of weaker cultivators, draining them to fuel his own power. He was a plague upon the martial world, and in the end, he was killed by my master. That technique should have died with him. And yet, here it is, manifesting in someone who has never trained a day in his life."
His fists clenched. "How?"
Yan Shuren, ever the rational one, offered a measured explanation. "There are only three ways such a technique could resurface. One—his bloodline carries remnants of it, intentionally or not. Two—someone else, somewhere, has been practicing it, and Atlas is reacting to an external force. Three—this is not the same technique, but something even worse."
Master Daokan's eyes darkened. "Worse?"
Yan hesitated before speaking. "You asked me to investigate Meilin's Qi rot. The information I uncovered was… disturbing. The nature of her affliction aligns with a forgotten path of cultivation. A technique that should have been wiped from history."
Shen Xue frowned. "What technique?"
Yan's voice was grim. "The Dao of Decay. The path followed by the Black Sage, Xu Mo."
A heavy silence fell over them. Master Daokan inhaled sharply. "Xu Mo… I should have remembered sooner."
Yan continued, "The Black Sage did not fight wars—he simply touched cities, and they crumbled. He whispered words, and entire bloodlines withered. Even now, the ruins of his passage are places where no life dares to grow. The very concept of qi rot… it is his legacy."
Master Daokan's jaw tightened. "If this is truly related, then I have failed in my duty to remember history's lessons."
His mind drifted back, decades into the past, to the battle that ended Xu Mo's reign. The battlefield was ruined, the air thick with death. He had barely been standing, his own body ravaged by the withering touch of the Black Sage's techniques. Before him, Xu Mo lay in a broken heap, a gaping wound in his chest where Daokan's final strike had landed.
The Black Sage had smiled through bloodied teeth, his voice a whisper of malice.
"You may have killed me, Daokan, but decay does not die. It lingers. It waits. And one day, it will return."
Master Daokan clenched his fists. He had ignored those words for years, dismissing them as the final delusions of a dying man. But now, as he looked upon Atlas's unconscious form, he feared Xu Mo had spoken the truth.
Yan Shuren broke the silence first, his voice heavy with the weight of realization.
"Two forbidden, forgotten techniques—one in Atlas and one in Meilin. And we are the ones who must guide them. How do we cultivate something that was never meant to be cultivated?"
Master Daokan's expression remained impassive, but his mind turned sharply over the dilemma.
"Meilin's Qi rot—I noticed it long before she ever arrived at the sect. I should have investigated further. Now, we face an unknown path."
Shen Xue frowned. "You never spoke of it before. Why?"
Master Daokan exhaled. "Because at the time, it was only a theory. Now, it is a reality. If Xu Mo's legacy lives within her, then the method to train her must be rewritten entirely. The Dao of Decay was never meant for cultivation—it was a force of destruction. If we do not find a way to stabilize it, it will consume her just as surely as Atlas's power will consume him."
Yan crossed his arms. "Then the answer is clear. We do not train them in the ways of traditional cultivation. We train them in how to survive their own power."
Master Daokan took a slow breath, steadying himself.
"Then we start now. But this will not be a simple path. It is not just their survival we must consider, but the consequences of what they become."
Before anyone could respond, a small voice interrupted them.
"What's wrong with him?"
They turned to see the child Atlas had bought, now awake and standing beside Physician Ming. The girl's eyes, still heavy with sleep, were locked onto Atlas's unconscious form, her expression unreadable.
"He looks… empty."
Physician Ming placed a reassuring hand on the child's shoulder. "He needs time to heal."
The girl did not look away. "But will he wake up the same?"
Yan Shuren knelt slightly, offering her a gentle smile. "He will be fine. You don't need to worry."
Master Daokan nodded, his voice calm but firm. "Atlas is strong. He will wake up."
The girl, with her empty eyes unwavering. "You're both lying."
The air grew still.
"People who get hurt like this… they don't wake up the same. If they wake up at all" she continued, her voice quiet yet sharp, carrying the weight of a child who had seen too much.
"Why do adults always say things like that?"
Master Daokan stiffened. The realization hit him harder than he expected. He had seen countless warriors break, seen men far stronger than Lin Wuye and Yan Shuren reduced to husks of themselves, but looking into the girl's empty eyes, he knew better than to lie again.
Instead, he asked, "How did you wake up?"
The girl tilted her head, an eerie calm settling over her face before she spoke.
"I didn't. They woke me up." A ghost of something—too twisted to be called a smile—crossed her lips.
"And I screamed until my voice gave out."
A cold chill ran through the room. Shen Xue clenched her fists. Yan Shuren swallowed, a rare unease flickering across his usually composed features.
Master Daokan, however, remained steady.
"You were experimented on. Forced to endure something you should never have gone through. And yet, you are here. Why?"
The girl blinked, and for a moment, the indifference in her gaze made everyone feel sick.
"Because they wanted to see what would happen."
Physician Ming visibly paled, a tremor running through his hands as he instinctively took a step back. Xian Yue, the beautiful servant who had remained composed through many horrors, covered her mouth, turning away as though she might be sick. Even Shen Xue, hardened as she was, tightened her jaw, her usual sharp confidence wavering.
Master Daokan, however, looked the most furious of all. His expression remained still, but beneath the surface, his Qi trembled—a rare sign of his barely contained rage. His fingers curled into a tight fist at his side, his breathing slow and controlled.
"Who did this to you?"
The girl hesitated for only a moment before speaking, her voice eerily detached.
"My parents sold me. They called me useless. A burden. They fought over who would get the coin, and in the end, they sold me to a trader who didn't even count me as a person—just weight on his cart."
She lifted her gaze, staring at nothing in particular.
"They trained us to be obedient. If we weren't, we were punished. Some were broken fast, some held on longer. It didn't matter. Eventually, we all broke."
A sudden gagging sound broke the heavy silence.
Ren, who had been walking nearby and overheard everything, stumbled to the side and vomited, his body rejecting the sheer horror of what he had just heard. He braced himself against a pillar, his breath ragged, his heart torn between disgust and overwhelming pity. His fists clenched as he tried to steady himself, but the fury bubbling inside him made it impossible to stay still.
He wiped his mouth, his voice shaking. "How… how could anyone do that to a child?"
Her voice was hollow as she continued. "There was a Qi master there. I never knew his name, but I remember his face. He was different from the slavers—calm, collected. He didn't hit us or shout. He didn't need to."
Master Daokan's expression darkened. "Describe him."
The girl's eyes flickered with something unreadable. "Tall. Silver hair, even though he wasn't old. His hands never stopped moving, like he was always testing something. He had a mark on his wrist—some kind of seal. He smiled when the others screamed."
Yan Shuren inhaled sharply. "That sounds like a descendant of Wu Xun."
Shen Xue tensed. "The Thousand Hands Executioner?"
Master Daokan's fingers tightened. "Wu Xun was said to have mastered every form of hand-to-hand combat, his strikes so fast that he could tear through armor like paper. But instead of becoming a protector of the weak, he became a butcher. He sold his skills to the highest bidder, wiping out entire clans in a single night."
He exhaled sharply, his mind racing. "But Wu Xun has been dead for decades. If what you say is true, then this man must be his descendant. And if his bloodline still carries those techniques, then he is a threat that must be identified immediately."
Without hesitation, Master Daokan turned on his heel, motioning to one of his hidden disciples lurking in the shadows.
"Send word to my informants. I want everything on the remnants of Wu Xun's lineage. If there is an heir to his craft operating in the underworld, I want to know who they are, where they are, and what they are planning."
The disciple bowed and vanished, the air shifting slightly in his wake.
Yan Shuren watched, arms crossed. "This is dangerous. If Wu Xun's techniques have truly survived, we may be dealing with something far worse than just a rogue assassin."
The silence that followed was broken by the girl's voice, as if she were asking something as routine as the weather.
"So, what will you do to me? Make me lay down and do those things again?"
The weight of her words struck like a hammer.
Xian Yue, the ever-poised servant, turned pale, her hands trembling as she clutched at her robes. Several of the female attendants had to look away, their stomachs churning at the realization of just how much horror this child had endured. Physician Ming visibly recoiled, looking as though he might be sick.
Master Daokan's fury deepened, his qi pulsing with restrained rage. Shen Xue's fists clenched so tightly her knuckles turned white. Even Yan Shuren, the ever-composed warrior had to take a slow breath to contain himself.
But no one—no one—hesitated in their answer.
"No" Master Daokan said, his voice carrying an unshakable finality.
"You will never endure that again."
Yan Shuren nodded. "From this moment forward, you are under our protection."
Shen Xue took a step forward, her gaze unwavering. "Whatever was done to you, it ends here."
The room, once filled with calculation and tension, now held a singular resolution. They had come here for Atlas. But now, they had two to protect.
"Then I'll show her something else instead."
Ren stood in the doorway, his expression a mixture of anger and determination. He had overheard everything, and though his heart ached with pity, he knew there was something more important than just feeling sorry for her.
"I'll show her fun things to do around here" he continued, his voice filled with an unshaken resolve.
"She doesn't need to keep remembering all of that. She needs to know what it's like to just... be a kid."
Master Daokan, a man who rarely tolerated interruptions, said nothing for a moment. Then, something in his expression softened.
"Go ahead" he said. "Who wouldn't allow that?"