I

Hao Zhen took a step back, clutching the talisman tighter.

Having just jumped out of the spiritual beacon, the inner disciple didn’t lunge at him. Instead, he stood right in front of the red beacon-cloud, eying Hao Zhen warily. More than once, his gaze dipped to the talisman in Hao Zhen’s hand.

It was clear from the way the inner disciple stood that he knew martial arts. He stood slightly crouched, his sword held by his waist. The man looked at him as a predator would look at its prey, searching for weaknesses and prepared to lunge the moment he found one.

Hao Zhen swallowed. The inner disciple wasn’t nearly as intimidating as Tian Jin or Lan Yue when they got serious—there was a weight to their presence that he lacked. But he was still incomparable to the outer disciple he fought before.

Hao Zhen was now confident in his earlier assumption—the inner disciple before him was no lackey. He was a cultivator in his own right, and given his evident familiarity with martial arts and expensive robes, most likely one from a magical background—or a hard-working talented mundane-born. Hao Zhen didn’t know which one was more dangerous, but either way, the man wasn’t someone he could underestimate.

And the inner disciple appeared to have come to a similar conclusion about him. The man didn’t make any moves—only scrutinized him, as if trying to figure him out.

“That was clever,” the man said, his voice cold and sharp like a shard of ice, and without a hint of condescension or arrogance. “Considering your attempt to blind me just now, and your preemptive attack back in the clearing… You aren’t the inconsequential outer disciple Du Qing claimed you were.”

“What’s your point?” Hao Zhen asked, letting his voice tremble a little. He didn’t even need to act. He was fairly confident in his plan, but that didn’t mean it was without risk. This could very well be his last conversation.

“If you’re already like this, then your two teammates should be very dangerous indeed, given what I’ve heard about them,” the inner disciple continued, ignoring his question. “I can see now why Du Qing made you that offer. I’m not sure if he’d have fulfilled his end of the deal—Du Qing’s not exactly the most trustworthy person around—but that way at least you three would have a chance to live. He looked conflicted enough, at least.”

not a lackey. “Why are you working with Du Qing, then?” Hao Zhen asked. Depending on the reason, maybe there was a way to turn this situation around—and maybe even turn the inner disciple against Du Qing.

“Same reason everyone else works for him. He finds out your secrets and holds them hostage. Either you do what he tells you to do, or he tells his master your crime, and your life comes to a swift end.”

“So he’s blackmailing you? What does he have—”

“I see,” the inner disciple said, cutting him off. “You’re trying to stall for time, aren’t you?” The man stood up a little straighter, some of the tension leaving his body, and Hao Zhen schooled his expression. “You think your two teammates can deal with Du Qing and Jiao Heng, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The inner disciple simply shook his head. “You think that just because you took down Elder Qian and Fei Yang, you can take us on now? We found the cave—the restraining array. That’s how you killed the two of them, isn’t it?” Before Hao Zhen could say anything, the inner disciple continued. “And now that you’ve taken the pills in their spatial rings and are using their weapons, you think you can take us on now. How long has it been since your two teammates reached the fourth level? A day? Two?”The inner disciple lifted his sword up in front of his body, pointing it straight at Hao Zhen, and Hao Zhen realized that there was really one way out of this situation after all.

“Your teammates are no doubt exceptional, but Du Qing and Jiao Heng have years of training on them. Du Qing might be a conniving snake, but he’s still the strongest prime disciple—and Jiao Heng the strongest inner disciple. Tian Jin and Lan Yue stand no chance.” As he spoke, the inner disciple drew his sword to his side, falling into a stance.

The moment had come. Hao Zhen took in a deep breath, then raised his sword in front of him, right in front of his body.

The inner disciple sighed. “Look, you’ll be dying regardless—that I can guarantee you. But this doesn’t have to be painful. If you—”magic

As the inner disciple spoke, Hao Zhen tapped into the Ethereal String connecting him to the man and his sensory nerves. He didn’t speak the Command, as he normally would when Commanding the brain, but instead visualized himself turning around and running away—from the inner disciple’s perspective. It was far from a perfect recreation, but it was the intent that mattered. The mind would fill in any gaps and fix any flaws with the hallucination.

Immediately, Hao Zhen felt the strain on his spiritual power and willpower, but he forced himself to keep holding the sword firmly in front of him.

“I see. So that’s your choice,” the inner disciple said, before lunging forward.

He ran straight at Hao Zhen, quickly crossing the distance between them. Clenching his jaw, Hao Zhen ignored his instincts to run away, standing firm as he kept channeling spiritual power into Ethereal String Puppetry.

And just like that, the inner disciple impaled himself in Hao Zhen’s sword. The blade—of the fourth order—cleanly pierced through the inner disciple’s chest.

The man trembled, and Hao Zhen cut off his connection to Ethereal String Puppetry, removing the burden on his body, and pushed his sword further up. The inner disciple fell into him, and Hao Zhen instinctively propped him up with his other arm. Hao Zhen looked behind the inner disciple’s body and saw the bloodied end of his sword sticking out of the man’s back.

“You…” the inner disciple said, and Hao Zhen hurriedly took a step backward as he pulled his sword back. The man collapsed to the ground, face-down, right in front of Hao Zhen’s feet.

Gurgling sounds came from the man’s throat, and a pool of blood spread out beneath him. His heart racing in his chest, Hao Zhen took in a deep breath, then took a step forward, and stabbed into the man’s neck.

Using his Spiritual Sight, Hao Zhen ignored the glare from the spiritual beacon just a few feet away from them and stared at the inner disciple’s body. A few moments later, the man’s soul could no longer be seen, the man’s body losing its red radiance. Only the glow from the man’s magical artifacts—his sword, his spatial ring, and his robes—remained.

For a while, Hao Zhen simply stared, blankly, at the man’s corpse. Then closed his eyes and shuddered. Breath in, breath out, Hao Zhen took a few moments to compose himself before opening his eyes again.

Then, clenching his teeth, he stored the corpse in his spatial ring and set off toward the clearing.

II

Lan Yue leaned to the side, and she felt a rush of heat on her face as Jiao Heng’s flaming fist shot right past her head. . Stepping out with her left leg, she dropped into a crouch and stabbed at Jiao Heng’s stomach.

Jiao Heng jumped in the opposite direction, narrowly dodging the attack. Lan Yue lunged after him, and Jiao Heng twisted his body to the side. A punch followed, and Lan Yue only barely managed to raise her sword in time to block it. Even so, she had to jump back to dissipate the impact.

Landing a few feet away from the prime disciple, Lan Yue quickly fell into a stance, ready for a follow-up attack from the inner disciple, but none came. Instead, Jiao Heng had his eyes narrowed at her, a frown on his face.

Lan Yue took that opportunity to catch her breath. Some smoke and dirt still hung in the air, but most of it had already dissipated. Almost immediately after the explosion, Jiao Heng had charged at her, and they had been fighting since then. On the other side of the clearing, she could hear the sounds of metal clashing as Du Qing and Tian Jin fought.Hao Zhen’s plan couldn’t have gone more wrong. She understood that he wanted to first confirm whether Du Qing had something else planned before they started fighting. Still, had he thrown the explosion talisman right at the start, they probably would have already finished dealing with Du Qing’s group.

Then again, that meant she wouldn’t have been able to see Du Qing’s deliciously pained expression as he tried to convince them to take his stupid offer, only for Tian Jin—Heavens bless him—to mercilessly shoot him down. And that also meant she wouldn’t have gotten to face Jiao Heng like this.

Lan Yue tightened her grip on her sword, eying Jiao Heng with a certain hunger. The inner disciple still stood staring at her, unmoving, wary. He was one of the few inner disciples she knew by name. She normally only really paid attention to the prime disciples, but Jiao Heng was an exception.

The strongest inner disciple. When she joined the sect as an outer disciple, defeating him had pretty much been her goal. The condition to win her bet with her father. There was no way she wouldn’t know his name.

She took in a deep breath, considering her options. Jiao Heng deserved his reputation. She had thought she was unrivaled against someone on the same level—Tian Jin notwithstanding—but the strongest inner disciple was proving much stronger than she originally assumed.

In terms of skill, she was clearly above him, but…

She eyed the flaming, red-yellow coat covering Jiao Heng’s body. Solar Strength Blessing—the first form of Blazing Sun Aura. A spiritual skill that greatly increased all of the user’s physical qualities, on top of providing them with a flame-like coat of aura hot enough to burn the skin of a cultivator at the same level. Under the glare of the sun, the aura from Solar Strength Blessing seemed to burn even brighter.

A single punch or kick from him, and she’d go down. Jiao Heng wasn’t as tall as Tian Jian, but he still had several inches on her, and had been practicing martial arts since his childhood. Even without Solar Strength Blessing, he eclipsed her in terms of strength. With his spiritual skill activated, there wasn’t really any comparison. And while she was definitely superior in terms of skill, he wasn’t that far off. If she was only slightly careless…

Lan Yue narrowed her eyes. She could win, of that she had no doubt. Using Blazing Sun Aura cost Jiao Heng spiritual power, and it was only a matter of time before he ran out of spiritual stamina. As long as she managed to keep dodging his attack, he’d eventually reach spiritual exhaustion, and then victory would be hers. And if she managed to stab him… Her sword was a fifth-order one. Even if she were to factor in the defensive properties of Solar Strength Blessing, she would still be able to use it to cut him.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know what exactly was going on with Hao Zhen. By the time the smoke had cleared out, both her teammate and the third-level redsoul Du Qing brought with him were gone, and she wasn’t in any position to check on him. From what she knew of his ability, he should be able to deal with a cultivator a level higher under the right circumstances, but there was always the risk of something going wrong.

Hao Zhen seemed to somehow be related to all of this fate business, so he had to be important in the grand scheme of things in some way. She also had to admit she had grown to consider the boy, if not a friend, then at least a comrade over the past couple of weeks. Either way, she had to make sure he was safe, so she had to finish this fight as quickly as possible. And that meant she really only had one option.

Lan Yue didn’t like using her spiritual skill, as she didn’t like people knowing she had one, because that’d lead to questions. Still, Hao Zhen and Tian Jin already knew about it—and her special circumstances—so it didn’t matter as long as they killed everyone else. Which was the plan, anyway.

Across from her, Jiao Heng was still staring at her, studying her. She wondered what he was thinking. Then he murmured something she couldn’t quite hear before pushing off against the ground and shooting at her. Lan Yue put up her sword in front of her just in time to block his fist, before taking a few steps to the side.

Reaching inside her soul, she tapped into her spiritual skill. From her body, faint red-green mist started rolling out. To stop Jiao Heng from noticing, she threw herself at him, stabbing out with her sword in a flurry of attacks. Jiao Heng retreated, and she advanced on him, briefly pausing her attacks just long enough for him to regain his rhythm and start throwing out his own attacks at her.

Their deadly dance continued. More and more faint mist rolled off her body, diffusing throughout the surrounding air. Already she could see its effects on the inner disciple—his movements weren’t as fast, and his punches didn’t seem to pack as much strength.

The inner disciple seemed to notice it too, because he suddenly jumped away from her, his expression alarmed. “You— What is—” Then his eyes widened. “That mist. Is that—”

Without a word, Lan Yue lunged at him, and Jiao Heng had no choice but to dodge. She didn’t give him a single moment to catch his breath, attacking him relentlessly. Forced on the defensive, the inner disciple could only move his body around to dodge her attacks, his expression growing darker and darker. Even with Solar Strength Blessing, he was now only roughly at her level in terms of strength and speed, and with every second that went by, he only grew weaker.

Moments later, Jiao Heng failed to move out of the way fast enough, and her sword stabbed through his stomach. The inner disciple staggered back, eyes wide, and she spun on her feet, sweeping the blade of her sword through his neck.

Lan Yue gathered some spiritual power before her to shield her from the spray of blood, watching as Jiao Heng fell to the ground. First his head, then the rest of his body a beat later.

Her eyes on the corpse, Lan Yue slowly exhaled, letting her sword drop to the side and deactivating Viridescent Poisonous Aura.

She shivered. Jiao Heng, the strongest inner disciple. Dead, by her hands. In a way, she had already fulfilled her bet with her father. She had killed the strongest inner disciple, so the moment she was promoted to the Inner Court—which would happen the moment the Glistening Stone Hunt was over—she’d take the crown as the top-ranked inner disciple.

Or at least that have been the case. Lan Yue looked up, concentrating on the battle happening on the other side of the clearing. Tian Jin and Du Qing were still engaged in combat. She took a step forward, towards them, before stopping herself. Her hands clenched into fists, she stared at the two for a few moments, before shaking her head.

As much as she hated Du Qing, Tian Jin’s feud with him was much greater than hers. This was his battle. As for Tian Jin himself… She’d defeat him later, fair and square.

Right now, there was something else she had to do. She looked at the spot she remembered Hao Zhen being at. There were footprints on the ground, disappearing into the forest beyond.

Lan Yue then waved her hand over Jiao Heng’s corpse, storing it in her spatial ring, before going after the trail.