“If you need help…”
“I’m fine! You idiot, if you try to come near me again, I’m going to hit you with this sword!”
“Okay! Just… try not to trip over again, alright?”
“I have a missing leg, you simpleton, and this naked blade doesn’t make for a good walking stick!”
Feng half-sighed, half-chuckled as he watched Yunjin clamber over a particularly large tree root. Despite her missing right leg, the Young Miss moved with a lot more vigour than she ...
2025-05-21 08:48:14 +0000 UTC
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Ru Yunjin opened her eyes.
Her consciousness waned on the precipice, made worse by the foulness that surrounded her. Darkness and wet flesh pressed in on all sides. The smell would have overwhelmed her to madness had her nose and tongue not already rotted off.
All around her, the sound of grinding and pulsating meat lumbered on with tortured persistence. She knew where she was: she distinctly remembered being lifted and dropped within the miasmic maw of the Plague Leech.
The...
2025-05-20 11:10:12 +0000 UTC
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Hei Xingyu swung.
Blade-strewn hands sent forth rippling waves of infernal rage. Heat blasted her off in floods, turning the torpidity of cold decay into radiant flames. The virulent marshland, once soaked with moisture, has rapidly succumbed to an eerie, relentless dryness. Brown mud and greenish swamp water were desiccated to beige dust within seconds.
Rather than a sweltering heat raked with clammy humidity, it was as if every ounce of moisture in the air was sucked into the co...
2025-05-19 09:56:06 +0000 UTC
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“Does he meet your expectations so far?”
“It is nothing new. You presented me a Fool, and he acted the part. Am I to be impressed?”
“No. You are to understand, Botulvorn.”
“I understand his nature has not changed. Should he make the journey to Mount Tai once more, what makes you think he would not make the same choice again?”
“He will not. This time, I shall give him no other al...
2025-05-18 09:34:14 +0000 UTC
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The air shifted.
The flow of the gushing tar oil from the cultivator’s wounds — previously reduced to dying trickles — suddenly exploded in intensity. Such was the pressure that the summons wrapped around the well of slime burst apart instantly. A spray of high-pressure tar nearly severed Elder Jun in half. His quick reactions saved him from an untimely death, and he escaped with only his right ear cleaved off.
Half of Shao’s assaulting limbs were destroyed in the resultin...
2025-05-17 12:00:10 +0000 UTC
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~~~
“The world is vast and myriad in its mysteries. Do not ever assume you understand all under Heaven. The impossible has been made mundane. Nothing is certain any more.
“Not even death.”
— Unknown Source
----------------------
Feng blinked.
There was blackness everywhere. The arena he was in moments ago was gone. He was stuck in a featureless abyss, void of anyone or anything.
Save for one.
“Hm. This wasn...
2025-05-17 09:32:49 +0000 UTC
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A chuckle resounded in his head once more.
“Prideful Dragon. Fortunately for both of us, today is not the day I’ve decided for us to die.”
Feng wished he shared his phantom’s optimism.
Bihui snapped his — their? Feng still remembered the ghostly, near-inhuman figure behind the facade — nose back into place. A single drop of ghastly black blood fell to the sand, hissing into thick vapours within seconds.
“Well, you have done it now.” The same se...
2025-05-17 00:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“I am Bihui,” the foreign cultivator greeted politely. “Young Master of the Howling Meadows Sect.”
Feng frowned. “I have not heard of your Sect.”
The Young Master was taught all the names of the monasteries that populate the Outer Northern Provinces of the Empire. He had memorised the names of dozens upon dozens of Sects, Clans and Divine Arts, such that he would be well-informed when approaching any situation relating to foreign cultivators.
That he did not reco...
2025-05-16 09:18:14 +0000 UTC
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~~~
“There was a time, an Age ago, when we were told thus: True cultivation demands patience, humility, and respect for the natural order. True immortality is not walked in haste, but with tiny steps thousands of years in the making.
“That Age is long past. We know now that those were lies told to us by the Gods. To keep us docile, tamed, and in fear of rightful progress.
“What patience? What humility? Do you think you will achieve wisdom by sitti...
2025-05-15 10:50:59 +0000 UTC
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~~~
“True strength lies not in power, but in the ability to endure trials of the heart.
“All of Earth and Heaven may move to confront you, but none will test your resolve as much as yourself. Only you can decide if you will rise before Tribulation.
“Face your fears. Do not run from yourself. Your Dao is the means you shall use to break fate’s shackles.”
— Unknown source
----------------------
There were three ...
2025-05-14 10:45:34 +0000 UTC
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Yunjin fell to her knees and bowed immediately.
“I greet the Corpus of the Decaying Greyroots Sect.”
Her body was shaking uncontrollably. Her face spilt blood from every orifice, each drop of red thickening into foul pus the moment they were exposed to the rancid air.
Eyes wide and breathing erratic, the poor woman was barely able to stay conscious as the countless hundreds of parasites within her began writhing in joyous fervour.
The head of the possessed Plague L...
2025-05-13 09:28:05 +0000 UTC
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~~~
“You told me to prepare you a weapon fit to slay gods. It may be a millennium late, but I dare say I have delivered.”
“We shall see. In the meantime… Would you like a wager, Botulvorn?”
“Hmm… Why not? The Dead have little else for entertainment. I do enjoy a gamble, though I hope the stakes are worth the games, Hierophant.”
----------------------
Four years ago…
2025-05-13 00:00:04 +0000 UTC
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“This is… rather unprecedented, Young Master.”
“Are you denying me access?” Feng coldly questioned.
“If it is your desire, then I — a humble cultivator of your Sect — am in no position to refuse,” the tournament handler apologised dryly. “However, I feel I would be remiss not to inform the Young Master that fatalities are not uncommon within the Tournament Arena. There are many who seek your death, for your untimely — and ultimately blameless — demise would...
2025-05-12 11:02:41 +0000 UTC
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“Well, it’s better than assaulting the guest compound, I guess,” the Senior begrudgingly relented. “For a moment there, I thought you were going to drag the entire Beheaded Phoenix Sect into a war against the Decaying Greyroots just to save one woman — their own Heiress, no less! Lady Ru would be swooning if she knew.”
Feng scoffed. “Not likely. She would just call me an idiot. Frankly, I’m insulted that you think so little of me to believe I would do such a thing.”
2025-05-11 08:00:06 +0000 UTC
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~~~
“‘The bitterest of hardships forge the greatest soul…’ I must say, I am not too fond of that saying. Temper swords if you must, but remember that too much of it just embrittles and breaks the blade. You should learn to be like me: brewing, drinking, and being drunk… The world is unbearable otherwise. On this, I believe our Lord would agree.”
— Patriarch ‘Hei Shang’ to Young Miss ‘Hei Xingyu’ in a private conversation, days before she...
2025-05-10 12:12:04 +0000 UTC
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“This world — our world — exists only for those who are blessed. Those vaulted, precious few who are chosen by fate to walk that most harrowing and timeless of roads: the Path to Mount Tai, where immortality waits.”
“Do not interrupt her.” The lady in his head spoke once more as Feng was about to protest. “This is a lesson that you must learn, too.”
“Not everyone can reach Immortality. That distant, final goal of all living creatures,” Yunjin ...
2025-05-09 09:52:51 +0000 UTC
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Feng breathed out. “Do you plan to return to your Sect? You can’t possibly want that.”
“... I do not,” Yunjin replied after a while. “But neither do I have long to live. I can feel it. My body… It is dying.”
“Quite frankly, I’m surprised she held for so long. The toxin concentrations within her were not insignificant. Had we been even a week later, she would have likely expired already.”
A mere week… If his Father had decided to meet with Pat...
2025-05-09 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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~~~
“In death, rebirth. In pain, growth. In suffering, Immortality.”
— ‘The Hungry Decay’, a common chant among supplicants of the Decaying Greyroots
----------------------
4 years ago…
The Blighted Bog was, without a doubt, one of the worst places Feng had ever visited in his life.
Granted, Feng had not really lived for very long. Fourteen years was a pitifully short length of time for a mortal, let a...
2025-05-08 08:41:01 +0000 UTC
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What future do they share? How was Feng to know?
“Thread carefully,” the wraith warned.
Who was Yunjin to him? Feng thought long and hard. He could not find an adequate answer.
Four years ago, she was the girl he failed to save. Four years ago, she was the girl he desperately wanted to see happy after all the horrible things she suffered through.
But now? It was different. She was no longer a girl who needed him to be safe. She was no longer so weak that s...
2025-05-07 09:47:23 +0000 UTC
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The phantom woman looked clearer with each passing day. No longer was her face or form obscured, as it had been ever since he broke into the Shaping Realm. Now, he could almost view the full breadth of her breathtaking beauty, one that he had only last witnessed as a child.
There were those among his Sect who wondered how Feng could hold his composure when assailed by the affections and legendary loveliness of Lianshi. The Young Miss drew forlorn stares no matter where she went. Cultiva...
2025-05-06 11:21:58 +0000 UTC
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~~~
“There shall be times when a cultivator must give certain aspects of themselves to advance the Path. Their pride, their morals, their very flesh. Yet there are two things one must hold dear, lest their cultivation deviate entirely and they lose themselves.
“First, your beliefs are your own. The experiences you carry and the people you meet may influence the shape of it, but ultimately, the Path that makes a person is utterly unique. It is built upon t...
2025-05-05 09:31:39 +0000 UTC
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~~~
4 years ago…
“Come on! We are almost there!”
Feng whispered encouragements to the struggling girl as he pulled her up a bulging plant root. The stolon was rotted through, pock-marked in countless pustules filled with grub-ridden slime. Rivulets of diseased bark wept from slick tissue. The globular bile-coloured flowers above them shook with the pair’s movement, raining greenish pollen from tendrils lined with slits of human teet...
2025-05-04 06:00:04 +0000 UTC
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She had changed much since he last saw her.
Feng’s last memory of Yunjin was not kind. Pale, sickly, with her skin bulging, and her torso bloated by moving grubs. Hair thin and torn off in clumps, their original dark colours turned white at the roots due to stress. One eye milk-pale with blindness, the other crusted with dried pus and weeping endless tears.
Feng would always remember the terror and helplessness he saw the first time he met those eyes.
She looked completely...
2025-05-03 05:57:00 +0000 UTC
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The girl blinked. She felt the floor vibrate. A weird noise had just echoed within the chamber. More than that, there was something in her eye. Was that… light?
Her half-blinded vision was slow to adjust, but eventually, she saw it: a single crack in the wall of her room, letting in just the smallest shimmer of light. It was the first ray of illumination she had seen in months.
Did part of the wall just give way to age? The idea felt ludicrous. Yunjin had clawed at them with all...
2025-05-02 12:04:32 +0000 UTC
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~~~
“Embrace Decay. Embrace Eternal life.”
— Creed of the Botulvorn
----------------------
4 years ago…
It hurts.
It always hurts. Yunjin could no longer remember a time when her body did not hurt. Her form was moulded by pain, married to it. She was no longer capable of even begrudging its company.
It was her sole companion. The weight of its torment was never in her power to deny.
Sh...
2025-05-01 12:20:01 +0000 UTC
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“... and next we have a delegation from the Cocoon Weaving Sect, who presents to you a shipment of clothing produced personally by the Matriarch of the Ju Clan herself: the esteemed Eight-Eyed Weaver. It is her sincere hope that…”
The announcer carried on. In that poor Inner Disciple’s hands was a list as wide and tall as he was, filled to the brim with messages detailing the well-wishes and gifts delivered to the Young Master by countless visitors.
Entire stacks of crates...
2025-05-01 00:20:00 +0000 UTC
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“Thank you once again, Honoured Elder. I understand you had your apprehensions in regard to this affair.”
Divine Viands were not to be carelessly used. For the last thousand years, the Corpus of the Beheaded Phoenix had been repeatedly plundered for parts to consume. What was once a bountiful spread of Divine sustenances that seemed endless had long been reduced to mere bones and skins. The Sect could not feast like their ancestors once had, and must be prudent in their use of the r...
2025-04-30 12:20:01 +0000 UTC
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~~~
“A true cultivator knows himself above all other matters. He must be wary of his desires, his wants, and he must constantly use the Path to fulfil them.
“Spiritual advancement does not necessarily come from the acquisition of greater techniques, qi pills, or even Divine Viands. Those merely allow the process of your breakthrough. It does not guarantee it.
“The true determining factor is Enlightenment. Acknowledgement. You must look up...
2025-04-29 12:06:23 +0000 UTC
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~~~
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”
The Dragon turned, looking at the sword-grafter at his side.
Daiyu no longer looked the same as she had all those centuries ago, when they first began their journey. Her body was marred with broken edges. Her blades were chipped and warped.
His executioner had become more lethal than any sword had a right to be, and yet was made lesser because of it.
Zhong ...
2025-04-28 12:03:20 +0000 UTC
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~~~
Feng was somewhere else again.
There was… a room? The air tasted cloyingly vile. It reeked of perversion, of sex, and strangely enough…
The scent of lightning and passion. Gunpowder and silver mercury.
Something moved against him.
Soft and hard. A naked body languid against his skin. Zhong looked down.
A woman of silver, bare of the slightest stitch of clothing.
Slender legs, r...
2025-04-27 08:00:24 +0000 UTC
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