CHAPTER 220: BUILT TO CRUMBLE

The strike hissed past my nose, close enough to split the air.

I didn’t flinch.

I stepped in instead, driving a knife-hand thrust straight toward his eye.

If his body could shrug off blows, then I’d go for what couldn’t be hardened. Soft tissue. Vital points.

But the guy was fast. Experienced. His palm snapped up in a crescent block, catching my wrist and angling it away. He knew how to guard the places that mattered.

It was clear he wasn't just any disciple. Likely a second-class, or even first-class disciple. He wasn't inferior to Wei Long of Narrow Stone Peak. Albeit he clearly wasn't in peak condition.

We broke apart with a scrape of boots on stone.

He didn’t press. I didn’t retreat.

We circled.

Then, a flicker through the bond.

A gentle pulse; not urgent, not panicked. Just presence.

Tianyi.

And behind it, Windy’s thrum. Still alive. Still fighting.

I bit the inside of my cheek, letting the copper of blood anchor me.

They were alive. Good.

But this whole operation was already more complicated than it should’ve been.

We knew there were cultivators, but an elite like him? Hidden among raiders?

A cave complex engineered to collapse on command?

We’d assumed this would be a clean subjugation. A show of force. Not a full-scale trap.

My teeth clenched.

The disciples we sent to flank the cave had better find those exits. If we didn’t link up soon, Tianyi, Windy, and Jian Feng might end up buried alive.

Because we hadn’t sprung the trap.

We walked straight into it.

The Iron Palm disciple took a step forward, dropping into a low stance, his hands open and ready.

I adjusted my footing in kind. He was measuring me. Feeling out my rhythm. Trying to find that rhythm in between my strikes so he could catch me once and for all.

He hasn't realized I was still holding back. And I didn’t intend to let him until the exact moment it mattered.

I swallowed the anxious voice in the back of my head and stilled my breath.

No more testing. No more observation.

Time to move to the next stage.

Defeat the disciple in front of me.

Regroup with the others.

He saw me pause.

"Surrendering?” he asked. “If you are, do it now.”

There was no cruelty in his voice.

Just tired certainty.

I shook my head, voice low. “Sorry.”

Why was a man like him, who fought for such cruel people, so determined to make us turn back? What did he see that I didn’t?

But I shelved the thought.

Questions could come later.

Right now, my job was simple.

Qi surged into my legs and the stone beneath me cracked from the sudden force. A plume of flame burst from my soles; an explosive takeoff that launched me straight at him like a shot arrow wrapped in heat.

His eyes widened.

I was already there.

Palm, elbow, knee. Strike after strike rained down with precision. Each blow carried heat behind it now, real heat, and I could feel the change as they landed.

The flare of scorched fabric.

The hiss of skin meeting flame.

No more harmless singes. These left welts. Deep red.

He tried to hold his stance, but the rhythm was mine now.

He staggered back. One step. Two.

Until the wall was at his back.

I pressed in for the finisher, drawing my hand back—

His punch came from nowhere.

I made a mistake.

There was a divot behind me. I couldn’t pivot. Couldn’t fall back. The angle was wrong.

He saw it too. His face lit with the calm of a man who’d already thrown the last stone.

But I didn’t need to dodge.

My knees bent, my feet shifted half a step apart.

ROOTED BANYAN STANCE!

The moment his fist collided with my chest, the ground beneath me took it.

Not a ripple. Not a crack.

The force flowed through me, into the earth, like water finding a riverbed.

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His face contorted in disbelief, then pain.

A sickening crack rang out.

His wrist gave way.

I didn’t have to look to know it was fractured.

Whatever technique that had let him survive everything until now, crumbled in the face of my stance. I took my chance, and delivered a kick to his solar plexus while his guard was down, making him crumple to his knees.

His breath hitched.

My eyes met his.

I was about to speak, but heavy footsteps pounded down the tunnel behind me.

One of the Verdant Lotus disciples who flanked the cave networks—Jun Tao, I realized, his robe torn, his sleeve soaked red—stumbled into the clearing, eyes wide.

“Kai! Urgent!”

I turned. “Did you find the exit?”

He shook his head, breathing hard. “No. The other cave networks are dead ends—but they’re not empty. They’ve got kidnapped victims. Half-dead. We stabilized what we could, but some of them are... They won’t last long. We need more healing vials. Now.”

"What?"

I snapped my head towards my fallen opponent. For the first time, I saw the fight leave his eyes; not in surrender, but in stunned realization.

“They kept them there?” he murmured to no one in particular. “I told them—just the goods—”

Jun Tao shot him a venomous glance, but didn’t speak.

I turned to the collapsed tunnel behind us, heart sinking.

“Tianyi and the others are trapped. There has to be another exit.”

I reached down, unhooking my satchel and pulling free the healing vials I had on hand.

“Take these,” I said, shoving them into Jun Tao’s arms. “Split them. Prioritize the ones who can be saved.”

Jun Tao hesitated, eyes flicking towards my opponent. “What about—”

“I’ll catch up,” I said. “Just go.”

Jun Tao nodded and turned, sprinting back down the path like the air itself was chasing him.

As he turned, clutching the vials I’d shoved into his arms, a rumble came before his second step.

A low, grinding groan that vibrated up through the soles of my feet.

The cave shuddered.

Stone cracked.

“Get out!” I shouted.

I didn’t wait.

The ceiling above us fractured like brittle bone. Chunks of rock slammed down behind us.

A scream pierced the dust.

The disciple I’d been fighting—he staggered, eyes wild, not looking at me, not trying to escape.

“Yu Long!” he roared.

He didn’t slow down.

But he didn’t flee either.

I cursed under my breath, sprinted past him, grabbed his collar, and dragged him toward the exit. He thrashed, tried to pull away, but the next impact sent a rain of stones down in a roar of dust and darkness.

He stopped resisting.

We ran.

Jun Tao was already ahead, silhouetted against daylight, his voice yelling something I couldn’t hear over the sound of stone collapsing in on itself. I pushed more qi into my legs, the ground blurring as I did so.

We hit the outer cavern slope just as the last tunnel behind us caved in completely.

A plume of dust billowed out like a dying breath, swallowing everything behind it.

Silence.

I hunched over, panting, ribs aching.

The Iron Palm disciple dropped to his knees beside me, coughing hard.

Then his breath caught.

He stared at the collapsed cave mouth.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no—”

His voice cracked, raw and hoarse. “Yu Long!”

He pounded the dirt with his good hand, over and over, like he could reach someone buried too deep to hear.

I turned away.

I didn’t know who that was.

But I felt something else.

A flicker in my chest.

A thrum through the bond.

Tianyi. Windy.

Still alive.

Still moving.

Underground.

I exhaled through clenched teeth. “They’re not gone.”

Jun Tao looked up, eyes wide.

“I can feel them,” I said. “They’re alive. Somewhere deeper. There must be another exit. One that hasn't collapsed within yet.”

Then the voice came behind me.

“Wait.”

I turned.

The man I’d just dragged from death staggered upright, face pale, eyes burning.

“I can help you,” he said, breathing hard. “I know where their exit is. Where Renshu Bao always went, when he didn’t want anyone to follow.”

I didn’t move.

I didn’t speak.

“Please,” he said, and there was no pride left in his voice. “He’s still in there. My brother. I have to find him.”

I stared at him, uncertain.

He met my gaze, broken wrist cradled, dirt caked in his skin.

I didn’t know what kind of person he was.

But I knew grief when I saw it.

“…Fine,” I said. “Lead the way.”

He didn’t waste a word.

Just turned, limping as fast as his legs could carry him up the slope.

I followed close behind, gaze flicking across the valley walls as we climbed. My steps were light, but my senses sharp. Every part of me still expected a trap. For him to veer left at the last second and lead me into an ambush.

But he didn’t.

He moved like a man with only one thing on his mind.

We reached a ridge choked with overgrowth. He ducked under a gnarled tree root, shoved aside a patch of moss—and there it was.

A shaft.

Not a tunnel. Not an exit.

A wound in the earth.

Rough-hewn stone ringed the rim, clearly man-made. Moonlight poured down in a single, silver beam. A shaft wide enough to fall through. Narrow enough to miss unless you knew exactly where to look.

He pointed. “There.”

I crept forward and knelt by the edge, careful not to let my silhouette catch in the light.

And I saw them.

Far below, at least two stories down; the shaft widened up like a basin of broken rock.

Tianyi stood, wings flared, her back to the wall. Her arms were raised in a loose, defensive guard.

Windy coiled beside her, fangs bared, tail twitching.

Jian Feng stood just ahead of them, his blade drawn, one sleeve torn and bleeding.

Facing them—

A fat man.

Clothed in cracked leather armor, his face pale with sweat. His mouth moved, yelling something I couldn’t hear from above. His hands were trembling. In one, a short knife. In the other, an unconscious boy held by the collar; barely conscious, limp like a sack of roots.

The blade pressed against the boy’s neck.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH MY BROTHER!?”

The scream tore through the valley like lightning.

Before I could stop him, he leapt.

A half-broken body with a fractured wrist, diving headlong into a hole in the world.

The fat man's head snapped up.

His face twisted into rage. He stomped the ground, and I could see a pulse of qi vanish.

A wall of earth shot upward mid-fall, catching the Iron Palm disciple mid-air like a net of stone. He slammed into it hard and slid down, coughing.

“TRAITOR!” He roared. “Han Chen, you useless bastard!”

"Renshu Bao... you conniving little—!"

The ground around him rumbled again. Cracks spiderwebbed from his feet outward.

“You were supposed to hold them!” The fat man barked, dragging the boy closer. His face was slick with sweat, visible even from here. “Now look at you! Crawling back with invaders at your heels!”

He pressed the knife closer to the boy’s neck.

Tianyi shifted. So did Windy.

But Jian Feng didn’t move.

“Stop,” he said, voice low but firm. “He’ll do it.”

Tianyi’s head tilted.

Windy hissed in frustration.

They didn’t understand why he was using a hostage. Why such a thing would incentivize us to stop.

If Jian Feng and I weren’t here, they would’ve torn through him without hesitation.

And maybe they would’ve been right.

“I said back off!” Renshu Bao shouted, dragging the boy with him as he began to retreat toward a crack in the far wall.

Han Chen—or whatever his name really was—struggled to rise, fingers digging into the dirt.

He didn’t look at me.

Didn’t ask for help.

He just kept crawling, dragging his broken body forward on sheer will, whispering under his breath.

“Yu Long. I’m here. Just hold on.”

My fingers brushed a vial from my belt.

The moment I touched it, the Refinement Simulation Technique snapped into motion; arcs of trajectory and optimal angles flared in my mind like lanterns in fog.

I didn’t hesitate.

With a flick of my wrist, the vial spun from my fingers like a thrown dart. It exploded right as it struck Renshu Bao square across the face.

The detonation wasn’t violent. It didn’t need to be.

A small, focused cloud of pale orange powder burst outward, flooding his nose and mouth.

He reeled back, hacking and sneezing uncontrollably.

“Windy, NOW!” I shouted.

The response was instant.

Windy shot forward like a loosed bolt, coiling up the man’s side in a single fluid surge. His tail looped around Renshu Bao’s wrist, and crunched.

Bone gave.

The blade clattered to the ground.

I didn’t wait for gravity. I dropped feet first into the pit, robes fluttering behind me like a dying flame. To hasten my fall, I activated the Rooted Banyan Stance, and dropped like a falling star.

My feet struck the ground hard, and I saw Renshu Bao thrashing around, fighting Windy off with his good hand. Despite being blinded and with one arm shattered, he raised his leg, as though to stomp as hard as he could.

I could feel a sense of alarm. Not mine.

A blue blur whipped past me.

Tianyi.

Her wings sliced through the space between them.

His leg severed clean from the knee down.

Renshu Bao screamed, a guttural, high-pitched thing that scraped the back of his throat raw as he toppled over sideways, clawing at his thigh.

The blood sprayed in erratic arcs.

He writhed, coughing, snot dripping from his nose, eyes wild and full of fear.

His words were slurred. Wet. Desperate.

“Wait! I—I can be of use! I know how—please—I can use my powers to—”

I looked at Tianyi.

She didn’t blink.

Her wings shimmered like glass blades catching moonlight, drenched in blood.

I nodded once.

She moved.

A single beat of her wings.

The next moment, Renshu Bao’s head rolled from his shoulders with a clean, fluid grace.

Silence returned.

His body hit the stone with a meaty thud.

Windy uncoiled and slithered back toward me, scales slick with blood.

The wind whistled down the shaft again, thinner this time.

I looked down at the corpse.

I felt… numb.

Tianyi had killed him.

But because I told her to.

My fault.

I knew she’d do it the moment I nodded.

That was the part that twisted my gut. Not that she did it, but that she trusted me enough to follow through without question.

I glanced at her now. She hovered in the air beside me, wings slowly folding back, her antennae curled low. She said nothing. Neither did Windy, who stayed by my side, tongue flicking once.

“Are you hurt?” I said, voice low.

They both shook their heads.

I gave a quiet nod and let it be.

For now.

Jian Feng stepped up beside me, his blade still slick, eyes sweeping the room.

“He tried to bring the cave down on us, with all his men fighting us off.” he said. “Almost succeeded. I got hit by a piece on the shoulder.”

He gestured toward the walls. The corridor behind them was blocked entirely, and the bodies scattered across the chamber told their own story: the last defense, thrown like dice against a losing hand.

“Looks like some of them were cultivators,” Jian Feng added. “Didn’t matter. Good call on bringing Tianyi and Windy. This would've turned out very differently otherwise.”

I gave a small exhale through my nose. “It’s the same back there. From the path we came; every tunnel collapsed. All the bandits are buried.”

A sound behind us interrupted the moment.

The Iron Palm disciple—Han Chen—was dragging himself across the stone, paying no attention to the blood, the corpses, or the people who just spared his life. His eyes were locked on Renshu Bao’s still-warm corpse.

He rummaged through the man’s robes like a starving animal, ignoring the cracked bones in his hand. Shoved aside scraps of parchment, cracked vials, a blood-stained pouch—

Then stopped.

In his hand was a pill. Dull, gray-green. Cracked at the edges. Not even sealed in wax or silk paper.

He stared at it like it was gold.

Then turned and crawled toward the unconscious boy still curled in the far corner.

I stepped closer, cautious.

He tilted the boy’s head up with shaking fingers and slipped the pill between his lips, coaxing him to swallow.

“What is that?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

Didn’t even look at me.

But I could already tell.

I crouched low beside the boy, placed two fingers against his neck, and narrowed my eyes. I opened the hem of his robes to take a deeper look.

Corruption. Demonic qi. Not heavy yet, but spreading. It bloomed beneath the skin like bruises painted from the inside, coiled around the ribs, pulsing through the meridians.

From a brief glance, I could surmise what it was.

Cheap qi-replenishment. Barely effective.

Enough to keep the boy’s core active. Enough to keep him alive.

But not to cleanse corruption. Just to delay.

And now the dots began to line up.

Han Chen hadn’t fought us for glory or coin. He’d fought for time.

He’d thrown in with scum like Renshu Bao not to gain power… but to preserve his brother’s.

I let out a slow breath.

Was it fate?

Or just stubborn preparation?

Either way, I had the one thing he didn’t.

I reached into my belt and pulled free a glass vial.

The Essence Purifying Elixir glimmered faintly in the moonlight.

I didn’t say a word.

Just uncorked the top, tilted the boy’s head gently, and let three measured drops slide beneath his tongue.

The reaction was immediate.

A ripple ran through the boy’s skin; first convulsing, then softening. The black threading beneath the flesh dimmed. His breathing deepened. Calmed.

The corruption wasn’t gone.

But now, it had something to fight against.