Chapter 5: First Blood on Demonic Hands

*Chapter 5: First Blood on Demonic Hands*

The horn cut through the Mire like a blade.

Three long blasts. Righteous alliance signal. That meant at least a full squad had surrounded the cave mouth. Twenty cultivators, maybe more.

Rong Jue didn’t slow. He moved through the swamp water with the quiet of a predator, saber in hand. The black blade didn’t reflect the moonlight. It ate it.

Xie Lian kept pace. Three meridians weren’t much. Enough to run without collapsing. Enough to throw a punch that wouldn’t break his own wrist. But against trained inner disciples, he was still trash.

"Stay behind me," Rong Jue said without looking back. "If you die, I’m not carrying your corpse."

"I don’t plan to die," Xie Lian said. His voice was steady. He was surprised to find it true.

They reached the edge of the tree line. Beyond was a stretch of open mire, and beyond that, the cave. Three white figures stood at the mouth, talismans glowing in their hands. Taiyi Sect outer disciples. Young. Nervous. The kind sent ahead to die first.

Behind them, more lights. The real squad, moving in formation.

Rong Jue clicked his tongue. "They brought children. Insulting."

"They think you’re alone," Xie Lian said. "They don’t know I’m here."

"Good." Rong Jue rolled his shoulders. The dragon mark on his cheek shifted, scales catching the light. "Let’s disappoint them."

He moved.

Xie Lian had seen Rong Jue fight in his last life. On the execution platform, chained and beaten, Rong Jue had still killed six guards before Xie Lian drove Frostfall through his heart.

This was different. This was Rong Jue unchained, twenty years old, with a saber and nothing to lose.

He hit the first disciple before the boy could light his talisman. One strike, neck to hip. The boy didn’t even scream. He came apart.

The second disciple froze. The third threw his talisman.

"Shield!" Xie Lian shouted.

Rong Jue didn’t need the warning. He twisted, and the talisman detonated against his saber. Golden light burst, righteous qi meant to purge demons. It hit Rong Jue’s demonic qi and screamed.

Xie Lian felt it in his teeth. His new meridians recoiled.

Rong Jue took the blast on his blade and kept moving. He was on the third disciple in two steps. The boy tried to draw his sword. Rong Jue took his hand off at the wrist.

Then the real squad arrived.

Ten of them. Inner disciples, blue robes with Taiyi Sect’s cloud pattern. At their head was a man Xie Lian recognized. Liu Huan. In his last life, Liu Huan became an elder. One of the ones who stood silent while Shen Yizhou drove Frostfall into Xie Lian’s chest.

"Rong Jue," Liu Huan called. His voice carried over the Mire. "Surrender the manual and we’ll give you a quick death. The sect is merciful."

Rong Jue laughed. "Your mercy is a sword in the back. Ask your trash disciple."

Liu Huan’s eyes slid past Rong Jue and landed on Xie Lian. He frowned. "Xie Lian? You’re supposed to be crippled on Servant Peak."

"I was," Xie Lian said. He stepped out from behind Rong Jue. The silver under his skin caught the moonlight. "I got better."

Liu Huan’s face went slack. Then furious. "Demonic qi. You fell to heresy. Shen-shixiong will be heartbroken."

The name was a slap. Xie Lian didn’t flinch. "Shen Yizhou can choke on his heart."

He moved first.

It was stupid. Three meridians against ten inner disciples. In his last life, he could have killed them all with a thought. Now he was slow, weak, and his qi burned going out.

But he remembered Rong Jue’s words. Demonic qi respects strength, not rules.

So he didn’t fight like a righteous sword. He fought like a demon.

He went for Liu Huan’s throat. Liu Huan blocked, contempt in his eyes. "Trash remains trash."

His sword came down. Xie Lian couldn’t parry. He wasn’t fast enough.

So he didn’t try.

He stepped inside the strike, letting the blade cut his shoulder to the bone. Pain blinded him. He used it. He grabbed Liu Huan’s sword arm with his left hand, locked it, and drove his right fist into Liu Huan’s dantian.

Demonic qi, cold and hungry, poured out.

Liu Huan’s eyes went wide. "You—"

Xie Lian’s qi hit his core and detonated.

Liu Huan flew back ten feet and didn’t get up. His robes were smoking. His core was cracked. He wouldn’t cultivate again.

Silence.

The other disciples stared. They’d expected a crippled boy. They got a demon who traded blood for blood.

Xie Lian looked at his hand. It was black to the wrist, veins silver. The shoulder wound was already closing, dragon marrow and demonic qi knitting it shut. It itched. It felt good.

He looked up and met Rong Jue’s eyes.

Rong Jue was staring at him. Not with disgust. Not with fear.

With recognition.

"Like that," Rong Jue said softly. "Fight like you mean it."

Then the Mire exploded.

The rest of the squad attacked. Swords, talismans, binding arrays. Righteous qi filled the air, burning Xie Lian’s lungs.

Rong Jue was a storm. His saber moved faster than sight, cutting through talismans and bone. He didn’t defend. He didn’t need to. Anything that got close died.

Xie Lian fought beside him. He was slow, but he was vicious. He remembered two hundred years of war. He remembered how to kill. Every move he’d learned as Immortal Emperor came back, twisted into something darker.

He took a sword through the ribs and broke the wielder’s neck. He caught a binding array on his arm and used it to yank a disciple into Rong Jue’s blade. He was bleeding from a dozen cuts and he didn’t care.

For the first time in two lives, he felt alive.

"Left!" Rong Jue barked.

Xie Lian moved. A sword missed his throat by an inch. He drove his elbow into the attacker’s face, felt bone give.

"Behind!"

Xie Lian dropped. Rong Jue’s saber passed over his head and took a disciple’s legs off.

They fought back to back. Demonic qi and demonic qi, black and silver, moving like they’d done this for centuries.

Maybe they had.

When it ended, the Mire was quiet. Bodies in the water. Blood turning it black.

Xie Lian stood, breathing hard. His robes were in tatters. He was covered in blood, most of it not his. The silver under his skin was bright, pulsing. Three meridians, but he’d used them like he had twelve.

Rong Jue kicked a corpse over. "You fight like you were born in the Wastes. Not Taiyi Sect."

"I learned," Xie Lian said. He wiped his mouth. The blood tasted like iron and victory.

Rong Jue studied him. The dragon mark was bright, agitated. "You killed him. Liu Huan. You cracked his core. That’s not disciple level. That’s elder level."

"Was it?" Xie Lian met his eyes. "Or did he just think I was trash."

Rong Jue didn’t answer. He looked at the bodies, then at the sky. Dawn was coming.

"We need to move," Rong Jue said. "They’ll send more. And worse." He hesitated. "You used demonic qi. Openly. Taiyi Sect will know. Shen Yizhou will know."

"Good," Xie Lian said.

Rong Jue’s head snapped up. "You want him to come?"

"I want him to see me," Xie Lian said. He looked at his hands. The black was fading, but the silver stayed. "I want him to know what he threw away."

Rong Jue was quiet for a long time. Then he turned and started walking, away from the cave, deeper into the Mire.

"Come on, trash disciple," he said over his shoulder. "If you’re going to declare war on the righteous path, do it after we’re not standing in a graveyard."

Xie Lian followed. His shoulder still burned where Liu Huan’s sword had bit. It would scar.

He hoped it did.

---

They didn’t stop for two days.

Rong Jue set a brutal pace, moving through the Mire like he’d been born in it. Xie Lian kept up. Barely. His new meridians screamed, but he didn’t fall. Every time he thought he would, he remembered Liu Huan’s face when his core cracked.

That kept him walking.

On the third day, they reached the edge of the Mire. Beyond was the Black Pine Forest, and beyond that, the border of the Northern Wastes. Demonic territory.

Rong Jue stopped. "Once we cross, the righteous sects can’t follow without starting a war. But the demonic sects will try to kill us too. They want the manual."

"Let them try," Xie Lian said.

Rong Jue looked at him. "You’re different. After the fight. You were..."

"Alive?" Xie Lian suggested.

"Honest," Rong Jue said. "No righteous mask. No courtesy. Just blood."

Xie Lian didn’t know what to say to that. So he said nothing.

Rong Jue reached into his qiankun pouch and pulled out a strip of cloth. Black, plain. He threw it at Xie Lian. "Cover your face. Your face is known. Taiyi Sect will have drawings up by now. 'Crippled disciple falls to demonic path, kills inner disciples.'"

Xie Lian caught the cloth. "You’re worried about me."

"I’m worried you’ll get me killed," Rong Jue said. But he didn’t look away. "Put it on."

Xie Lian tied the cloth around his lower face. It smelled like smoke and leather. Like Rong Jue.

"Fourth meridian tomorrow," Rong Jue said, turning toward the forest. "It’s the heart meridian. It’ll hurt worse than the others."

"Why," Xie Lian asked.

"Because it makes you choose." Rong Jue didn’t elaborate. He started walking. "Keep up, A-Lian."

Xie Lian froze.

A-Lian.

Rong Jue kept walking like he hadn’t said it. Like it was nothing.

Xie Lian touched the cloth on his face. His heart, with its three silver meridians, beat once, hard.

He followed.

---

*End Chapter 5*

*Meanwhile, in Taiyi Sect*:

Shen Yizhou stood in the main hall, holding a blood-stained report. Liu Huan’s core, cracked. Ten inner disciples, dead. The killer: Xie Lian, outer disciple, presumed crippled.

"He used demonic qi," the messenger said, kneeling. "Witnesses say he fought beside the demon Rong Jue. They called each other—"

"Enough," Shen Yizhou said softly. He crushed the report in his hand.

His shixiong. His kind, righteous shixiong, who he’d poisoned himself to keep from ascending. Who he’d loved.

Who was now a demon.

Shen Yizhou closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were cold.

"Double the bounty," he said. "I want them alive."

He would save Xie Lian. Even if he had to break him to do it.

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