CHAPTER 267: THE RETURN

Author’s Note: Do Not Unlock Yet. Chapter Is Still Under Construction.

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"We merged with filth and became filth ourselves... is this the legacy we wish to pass on to the next generation?" She questioned them with a tone of deep rooted morality.

The Bai elders hesitated and then one of them stepped forward and bowed toward the crowd.

It wasn’t a deep bow but was enough.

"The Bai no longer stand with the Qin," Bai Yao stated.

The temple of politics that had chewed this town fell in on itself with a groan.

Qin Han tried to rally. "Treason—"

"Treason," Bai Xue said softly, "was selling our people for coin."

The Qin disciples who had followed orders out of habit took one look at the crowd outside the gate and re-evaluated the wages of loyalty. Swords lowered. A few clattered to the stone.

Qin Yao came back through the hole his body had made, hair in disarray, bronze glow still clinging to his skin. He looked at Tarkos, then at the people beyond the gate, and for the first time his gaze flickered. He was a man of the old school; he understood numbers. He understood timing. He understood when the river had changed banks.

He did not retreat.

"Uprising," he said, almost conversational. "Very well."

He stepped once and the tiles screamed. The weight of him hit, and half the front rank of would-be revolutionaries bent involuntarily. Bai Xue took one step forward, fan snapping open, seal slips flashing at her fingertips. Victor pushed himself onto one knee, spat blood, and stood. His ribs felt like a badly stacked shelf, but his legs still worked. His qi was a bowl scraped clean, but there was always one scrap left if you chased it around with your thumb.

"Stay down," Tarkos said without looking at him.

Victor grinned despite the taste of iron. "He’ll think I’m polite."

Tarkos made a noise that might have been a laugh.

Qin Yao raised both hands. The Mountain-River Seal bloomed, bigger than before, light etching the courtyard. It would crush. It would pin. It would set the world’s weight against anything that wasn’t him.

Tarkos walked through it as if through smoke. The tattoos across his back split into shapes that weren’t glyphs and weren’t animals and weren’t anything human, and the pressure parted for him like water around a blade. He hit Qin Yao in the chest with the heel of his hand. The sound that made was the opposite of the one his Unmoving Body had made earlier. It sounded... hollowing. Qin Yao’s glow guttered. The elder flew again, farther this time, and didn’t come straight back.

The other elders took that moment to remember they had a combined technique. Seal light crawled again, chains clattering, and reached for Tarkos. His head turned a fraction as if listening to music nobody else heard. He took a step, and the chains passed through where he wasn’t. His hand flicked, and Qin Han’s seal plate shattered. Another flick, and Bai Yao’s slip bled light and went dark.

Victor did not waste the breath he’d paid for. He cut the last of the chains binding his arm, slid past a disciple who thought courage was the same as speed, and put his blade to more productive use: tendon, tendon, weapon hand. He didn’t kill where he didn’t have to. He didn’t have the energy for the arguments that followed killing. He left men and women who had terrorized his town kneeling and looking at their hands and trying to decide who they were if they couldn’t hold a sword.

The crowd moved with the kind of discipline desperation gives. Ropes looped. Poles planted. The elders who weren’t paying attention found themselves with a peasant’s cudgel at their temple. The ones who resisted hard met Bai Xue, and the fan in her hand opened and closed and left little lines on the air that became deep lines on flesh.

Qin Yao’s shadow fell over the hole again. He stepped through, hair unbound, glow guttering and flaring. He was bleeding now, a thin line from the mouth. He lifted his hands—

—and Tarkos put him on his back with a flat, efficient strike that would have taken a lesser man’s heart out through his spine.

"Yield," the assassin said, voice quiet.

Silence again, this one longer. Qin Yao lay there looking up at a sky he’d owned for twenty years. His mouth twitched. He looked at the people at the gate. He looked at Bai Xue. He looked at Victor, who leaned on his sword like a man who had forgotten how to sit.

"This is not done," he said, and spat blood at his own boot rather than give anyone the satisfaction of seeing it on the stone. But when he stood, he did it without raising his hands. When he stepped back, it was the first step the Qin had taken in that courtyard in a year that wasn’t forward.

The sound that rose from the gate wasn’t cheering. Not yet. It was breath, held too long, finally let go.

Victor closed his eyes for a moment and let the ache wash over him. Every cut he’d made across Qin Yao’s body ached sympathetically in his own. He could feel the places where his Frost Bloom had bitten the elder’s meridians; he could also feel the price of forcing the domain into a world that hadn’t wanted it. His hands shook. He kept them steady by will.

Chen Wu shouldered through a knot of Bai youths to reach him, face split in a grin that looked like it hurt. "You’re insane," he whispered, voice shaking. "Thank you."

Victor snorted, then winced. "Don’t thank me yet. We still have to sort this mess."

Bai Xue stood a little apart, mask tilted toward him. "We will," she said. "And for today, the Bai stand with the town."

It rang like a gong. It felt like a beginning, not an ending. But it was, unmistakably, the moment the old shape cracked.

Victor breathed, and for the first time since stepping back into Lingyun Town, he let himself believe they could win the whole thing. He also let himself admit, privately, that if Tarkos hadn’t walked in when he did, Qin Yao’s hand would have punched straight through his chest and rattled around in the space where a man keeps his regrets.

He’s stronger than me, he thought, calm as a ledger. Not for long.

He grounded his blade, nodded once to Tarkos, once to Bai Xue, and then to the crowd. "This is your town," he said, voice raw. "Take it back."

---sss

"Unmoving Body," Qin Yao voice thrummed deep as an ancient bell.

A dense, earthen energy settled over his frame.

Footsteps. Many. Too many.

Victor looked up. The main gate of the annexed estate had been blasted apart. And through the jagged opening poured hundreds, then thousands of people.

Merchants, smiths, farmers, ex-guards—faces grim, eyes blazing. Lingyun Town had come. Not just to watch.

To reclaim.

Victor rose, sword in hand. Tarkos tossed him a grin and drew his curved blade. "Took ’em long enough."

Behind them, a flurry of motion. The elders gathered themselves—some bolting, others rallying, panic buzzing through their ranks. The lesser disciples backed away, swallowed by the wave of townsfolk now flooding the courtyard.

And then, cutting through the chaos, another voice:

"Enough!"

Several elders of the Bai lineage stepped forward. At their head—Elder Bai Rui, hair loose, robes torn from earlier battle. She held her sword out, turning it away from Victor, toward the Qin elders.

"We are done," she shouted, voice ringing clear, "being chained to your deeds! We annexed out of desperation—not to enslave our people or destroy this town!"

Another Bai elder—Bai Peng—stepped beside her. "We stand with Lingyun Town."

The split was brutal, immediate. Half the courtyard froze, trying to understand. The Bai family—small but proud—had chosen their side.

The people roared.

Victor’s lips curved upward. Finally.

Qin elders hissed like cornered snakes. "Traitors," spat Qin Han, holding his broken ribs. "You think the town will forgive your part? You think you can wash your hands so easily?"

Bai Rui’s expression was granite. "We will accept judgment. But we will not continue this path."

She raised her sword. "Bai Clan—protect the citizens!"

It exploded from there.

Tarkos dove headfirst into a cluster of Qin guards, cutting through them with efficient, elegant lethality. Victor waded into the oncoming wall of enemies, Shadow Crescent Strike ripping a swath through a line of spear-wielders. He parried another elder, flipped her blade, and kicked her backward off a balcony.

A lantern crashed to the ground. Flames spread across a pavilion roof. Someone screamed for water. A group of townsfolk—former blacksmiths from the east block—rushed with makeshift weapons, swinging padded hammers into crimson-robed Qin disciples. Arcs of mana, bursts of earth qi, slashes of raw killing intent—all overlapped in a tapestry of chaos.

Victor spun, sword carving a crescent of darkness that sucked light inward. Phantom Moon Slash ripped through a guarding wall, opening a path to the dais. He saw Qin Fei standing there—bloodless, clutching a concubine like a shield, eyes darting crazily.

"You. You caused this!" Qin Fei shrieked, finger shaking. "You won’t get away—"

Victor smashed him aside with the back of his sword. Qin Fei crumpled unconscious without ceremony.

"Consider yourself lucky," Victor muttered. "I don’t kill vermin."

He scanned the battlefield. He needed to find Qin Yao—if that monster got back up, everything would be over.

He didn’t have to look far.

Qin Yao rose from the wreckage, hair wild, robes shredded, aura screaming with fury. Blood dripped down his chin. He spat and broke into a sprint, palms surging with earth qi.

"So you want to play with grown men," he roared, gaze locked on Tarkos. "Let’s see if a shadow rat can withstand a mountain!"

He stomped, and the earth surged in waves. Tarkos simply leapt, riding the ripple like a surfer, then swung. Qin Yao’s palm met Tarkos’ blade—and cracked. His skin split open, blood spraying.

Tarkos smiled. "Cute."

Victor darted forward, adding momentum with Wind Glide, his body becoming a streak of pale light. Together—Tarkos up high, Victor low—they struck as one.

Victor’s blade sought joints—where Unmoving Body was weakest.

Tarkos’ blade hammered the qi lines directly.

A scream tore from Qin Yao. He staggered, his technique shattering like a broken mirror. His aura—once a mountain—crumpled like dust.

The remaining elders froze. Townsfolk surged. Bai clan warriors flanked.

And in that moment, the annexed family’s reign ended.

Victor stood over the fallen elder, breathing hard, sword pointed at his chest. "Lingyun Town," he called, voice loud, strong, commanding, "is free. If you wish to live, lay down your arms and submit to the judgment of the people!"

Weapons clattered to the ground.

The mob hesitated—but they obeyed. A murmur swelled, growing louder.

Bai Rui stepped forward. "We will answer. We will stand trial alongside the Qin. But this ends tonight."

Victor lowered his sword. Tarkos holstered his blade, eyes scanning for any lingering threat. None presented a challenge.

The people flooded the courtyard, tears and laughter and curses blending into a single roar of catharsis.

A hand touched Victor’s shoulder. He turned.

Bai Ting Ting stood there, face damp with tears she’d hidden for too long. Chen Wu and his father were beside her, alive, safe. Chen Wu nodded once, silently. Victor returned the nod. No words needed.

Xuan Qing would’ve loved this chaos, he thought absently. He smirked. "Maybe I’ll bring her next time."

He sheathed his sword and exhaled, feeling everything at once—exhaustion, relief, fading adrenaline.

Tarkos clapped him on the back. "Not bad, hero. Drink later?"

Victor eyed the shattered estate, the flames licking at the night sky, the people reclaiming something that had been stolen from them.

"Definitely," he said, smirking. "But first—let’s finish dismantling this rotten house."

Smoke bled into the evening sky as the last of the Qin banners were torn down from the shattered parapets. The courtyard stones were slick with sweat, blood, and the pulped remains of pride. What had begun as a single clash between Victor and the elders had erupted into a war that swallowed the entire annexed estate, and now—finally—silence spread like dawn.

Bodies lined the pathways: some unconscious, some groaning, some dead. Qin disciples knelt with their hands bound behind them. Bai disciples, those who chose to stand with the people, tended to the wounded townsfolk with shamed faces and trembling hands. Others of their clan—elders and lackeys who had sided with the tyranny—were herded toward makeshift cells or simply banished outright, stripped of their cores by angry cultivators. Qi crippled, foundations shattered, eyes wide with the realization that the town they once oppressed now held the hammer.

Victor stood in the center of it all, sword sheathed, chest rising and falling. His qi reserves were scorched down to embers, his limbs shaking, but he kept his back straight. The people were watching.

"Fang Chen!"

He turned. Chen Wen stumbled forward, tears clogging his throat. The young man’s face was skinnier now, arms new-threaded with wiry muscle, but those wide eyes were the same as the ones Victor had met in Lingyun Rest a year ago. Behind him, his father—Chen Guang—limped, leaning on a carved stick. They both dropped to their knees.

"No—don’t," Victor muttered, reaching down to pull them up. Chen Guang clasped Victor’s hands, wrinkled eyes wet.

"You saved my boy. You saved our home."

Shen Mu arrived next, the once-dignified manager of the Lingyun Trade Pavilion now covered in soot and mud. He bowed so low his forehead touched cracked stone. "My shop was a prison under their ’custodianship.’ You gave it back."

Around them, people gathered—blacksmiths with soot in their eyebrows, mothers clutching children, old cultivators with walking sticks, young ones with eyes full of fire. They surrounded him like a tide, voices overlapping:

"Thank you!"

"He’s the one who freed us!"

"Fang Chen! Fang Chen!"

Victor exhaled, the roar of their gratitude brushing his skin like heat from a forge. His system pulsed, and lines of light scrolled across his vision.

[ DING! ]

[ Regional Quest Complete: "Reclaim Lingyun Town" ]

[ Sub-Objectives:

— Expose the annexed family’s corruption ✓

— Liberate enslaved townsfolk ✓

— Topple the Qin’s domination ✓

— Restore balance to Lingyun’s economy ✓ ]

[ Rewards Granted:

450,000 Wisps of Qi

2 Legendary-Grade Treasure Chests

1 Mythic-Grade Technique Scroll (Random)

Bloodline Integration +2%

New Qi Art Unlocked: "Void Severing Thread"

Reputation with Lingyun Town: MAX (Exalted/Peak)

Title Earned: "Savior of Lingyun" ]

[ Hidden Achievement: "Topple a Clan Without a Clan" ✓ ]

[ Reward: "Fang’s Banner" (Unique Insignia – boosts allied morale and qi recovery in a 100 ft radius) ]

He skimmed, barely absorbing, as more flashed:

[ Fame Spread: "Whispers of the Void Swordsman" now known in adjacent regions. ]

[ World Ripple: Minor. Some factions have taken notice. ]

He blinked the windows aside. The system never slept, but right now the real world in front of him mattered more.

Tarkos leaned against a ruined pillar, arms folded, watching the crowd with a lopsided grin. "Congratulations," he muttered. "You just became a holiday."

Victor glanced at him. "What?"

"Listen."

The murmur swelled, unified, coalescing into a chant that rolled like thunder.

"Fang Chen Day!" someone shouted from the back. "The day we got our town back!"

"The day we stood up ’cause he gave us the guts to!"

"The day of independence!"

"Fang Chen Independent Day!" a woman yelled, voice cracking, but nobody cared—the phrase stuck. It ricocheted from wall to wall. People repeated it. Louder. Stronger. Laughing. Crying.

The old statue of Lingyun—the legendary swordsman whose likeness dominated the town square—stood silently beneath the moon. A man with his sword extended, left palm out, guarding, defying. Tonight, the stone looked almost alive under the torchlight.

"Erect another!" a blacksmith bellowed, hoisting his hammer overhead. "Right next to Lingyun’s!"

"The boy’s got moves like the old hero!" another cackled, clasping his grandson’s shoulder. "Mark my words—he’s a descendant. Has to be!"

A hush fell. In Lingyun Town, legend was as real as bread and water. If the people believed it, it was almost true already.

Victor rubbed his forehead. "I’m not—"

Shen Mu raised both hands. "Whether you are or not, young master Fang, you saved us. That is all that matters. Let us honor the living as we honor the dead."

The crowd cheered again, and the decision was made before Victor could shape protest into words. A small team broke off immediately—carving masters, stone shapers, rune carvers. They tore down one of the defaced Qin monoliths and hauled its shattered blocks to the square. Even in ruin, they saw raw material.

"Make him with that blade he used tonight!"

"No, no—make the qi swirl! The dark crescent he used!"

"He should stand beside Lingyun, not beneath!"

Victor pinched the bridge of his nose, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward. He didn’t like statues. Statues were targets. But: these people had been starved of heroes. If stones and names gave them the spine to stand next time, then let them build.

He turned to Chen Wen. "You’ll reopen Lingyun Rest?"

The boy nodded vigorously. "Yes! The kitchen’s in ruins, but—Father still has his recipes. And I remember how to serve the house special."

Chen Guang chuckled, a wet-sounding laugh. "Give us a week, and there will be noodles and spice stew flowing again."

Victor squeezed his shoulder. "Good. Make it better than ever."

Shen Mu bowed again. "As for the Pavilion—those guards are gone. The ledgers, I still have hidden copies. We will replenish stock, rebuild trust. Trade will be clean again." He lifted his head, eyes steady. "If you ever need a favor, our doors will be open."

"I’ll collect," Victor said lightly.

Tarkos whistled, rolling his shoulders. "My work here is done. Can’t stick around—too many smiling faces makes my skin itch. You know where to find me."

Victor nodded. "Thanks. For everything."

Tarkos shrugged. "You dragged me into it. Might as well enjoy the brawl." He paused, then smirked. "Besides, I couldn’t let you steal all the glory."

He flickered—one smooth step—and disappeared into the fractured streets.

Victor took a breath. The smell of smoke, sweat, flowers crushed underfoot, and old stone filled his lungs. He cast his senses outward one more time, confirming there were no lingering threats, no hidden assassins waiting for an opportune moment. The Qin power structure had collapsed. Those who didn’t surrender were dead or fled. The Bai who chose to remain were now allied, their elder heads bowed low, awaiting judgment.

By midnight, the bonfires had been lit in celebration across Lingyun Town. Performers improvised songs. Children ran in the streets, waving scraps of cloth like flags. Someone strung lanterns along the rooftops; another poured wine into shared clay cups. In the distance, chisels already began to chip at stone beneath the giant statue of Lingyun.

Victor’s system pinged one last time.

[ Reputation: Lingyun Town – MAX. You cannot gain more favor here. ]

[ Citizens will now fight and die for you without question. ]

[ Local Statues: 1 (Lingyun) → 2 (Pending Construction: Fang Chen) ]

He laughed softly under his breath. "That’s excessive."

But the warmth crawled up his chest anyway. He let himself enjoy it. Just for a moment.

Shen Mu tugged at his sleeve. "Come," he said. "We’ll clean what’s left of a booth and pour tea. You need to sit. You look like a candle burned at both ends."

Victor hesitated. He glanced once more at the night sky—at the faint shimmer of qi trails still fading, at the rooftops where archers once hid. At the gate where frightened townsfolk had once been dragged through in chains.

He breathed out the last of his tension and nodded.

"I’ll sit," he said, finally. "But only until dawn. Tomorrow, there are still embers to stamp out."

As he followed Shen Mu through streets reborn with laughter, the chant rose behind him again, carried on night wind and fragile hope:

"Fang Chen! Fang Chen!"

---sss

Victor’s day in the real world blurred by in a wash of obligation and sweat—weighted laps in the dome’s circulation pool, the sting of mana beams skimming past his ears underwater, lectures where instructors droned about battlefield triage and mana economization, then the dull scrape of mop heads and scrub drones humming across tiled academy floors. He burned through his punishment shift the same way he did everything else lately—fast, efficient, eyes already on the door. By dusk he was back under his sheets, helmet snug, mana signatures cloaked, Kairo nowhere in sight.

Darkness folded, pixels flared, and the world reformed around him.

He exhaled into the smell of old wood and spice broth. Lingyun Rest—reborn, reclaimed—breathed like a living thing again. The room Chen Wu insisted he take was simple: lacquered floorboards, a low cot by the window, a clay lamp still warm, a folded blanket waiting like a polite bow. Outside, the murmur of late-night patrons drifted up the stairwell: laughter, clinking cups, the rasp of dice on wood. Home, of a sort.

He sat on the edge of the bed, fingers flexing. For the first time in... he couldn’t even remember, there was no red countdown pulsing at the edge of his vision. No quest timer chewing a hole in his skull. No "urgent objective" pinging like a drill sergeant’s baton.

Silence.