Gai Jin punched the air. There was no qi within his fists, no power, only technique. His muscles though were refined over and over again, each limb could break hillsides and his full set of martial arts could flatten mountains, without qi.

With qi, he could shatter valleys. And though his strikes hit nothing but air, the impact was still tangible. He moved with such speed that the world seemed to pause as he struck.

In reality, his whole technique had been executed in less than a tenth of a second. Ten thousand strikes within the span of a blink.

He had moved himself to the Desert Mountains at the peak of the Great Desert Strip. These mountains were thin and tall, reaching a hundred miles into the sky. He now stood at the summit, a small plot of land about a mile wide.

Even that was too small for the entirety of his skill. This was where he had practiced back when he was just a young monk. He’d make pilgrimages here beyond his master’s eyes.

Anger flared and qi moved into his leg. Gai turned and struck the air and the wind howled in agony.

Anger was a constant companion of his. Sometimes there was sadness, rarely pity, but always anger. Always.

He stood still and breathed. A facade of calmness took over his soul. It was the calm of an unsheathed sword and the burn of an unlit pyre. It would only take one movement, one thought, one spark to light it again.

He carried himself and let his skin soak up the sun. How long had it been since he had felt this? A century, maybe two?

He had been locked away, buried deep beneath the earth with all those demonic creatures.

Bugs, animals, plants, and people who had fed from the corpses of the demons that hid below. Monks, they called themselves monks and yet they allowed such a hell beneath their lands.

The three dead demons lay beneath all of the five regions. The snake, the bat, and the man. The bat had been claimed by those blind bastards who mixed its blood with their own, and the snake’s poison had been studied and harnessed by the Hidden Viper Sect, though they were wise enough to separate themselves from the demon’s essence.

And the Bloody Fist Sect had been built above the demonic man. It was their job to wear away and destroy the evil qi that built up from that specific corpse. But they hadn’t. No, instead they had started to harvest the evil festering beneath the earth, mining the qi vein that was born of demonic blood.

It was wrong. They should have been constantly destroying the qi from such a monstrosity, but instead, they let it grow and in their greed, they gave way to monsters.

Those demonic beasts beneath the pit. They had tossed him there when rebelled.

They thought he would die.

He hadn’t.

For centuries he fought through their mistakes, killing hundreds of thousands of those creatures. In truth, he could have left that hell beneath the ground earlier, but he had stayed.

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He couldn’t let those demonic creatures burst into the surface. If they did then millions would die. The monks knew this. Gai Lu knew this. Yet he had let his greed consume him and risk the growth of these creatures for the spirit stones their ambient qi could produce.

As men of the virtuous path, theirs was the burden of the weak. It was their duty to protect the weak.

And even in anger, even in undying hatred, he could not let that burden go.

Gai Jin struck the air once more, breaking it with his hands.

The Bloody Fist was his technique. It was a body refining technique, one meant to destroy and build one’s fists. It was strength and beauty, but it was also misunderstood.

Gai found that every technique had two aspects. One was the physical aspect, the laws and meridian pathways qi had to follow to become p[ower. That was the fuel of the fire and the heat of it. That was the impact.

But the purpose was just as important. That was the man the fire warmed. And to the Bloody Fist, that purpose was perseverance. The fist was bloody because no matter the evil, it would not stop punching.

That was the way of the monk and the core of the technique, for goodness to triumph evil must be defeated.

So he had fought. His vengeance halted for the sake of his dao, his strength resolute, his fury unwavering.

He had eaten demonic meat to live, unable to find any plants within that deep abyss.

That was his path.

But now he was free, having sealed the corpse and killed all the demonic beings beneath the earth. And his anger burned brightly.

Gai Jin moved, with qi this time. All the elders within the five regions could sense him now. Let them. They could not beat him.

The mountain trembled beneath his feet.

How long had it been here? A thousand years? Ten thousand years? It wasn’t natural. A thing like this must have been the product of some technique or ancient battle.

The whole of the region was. From here he could see out into the wild and abandoned land beyond.

The Great Desert Strip was a scar upon the land. It was a great deep gash that cut through all qi and presence, reaching far beyond the region and into the lands beyond. It must have been made by someone far beyond the immortal realm.

It had been here before the demons were felled and it would outlast them yet. The Broken Isles of the Flowering Sword Sect were visible from here as well. The technique of their predecessors scarred their land beautifully and the dao of their technique. To anyone below the fifth rank, it would look like nothing more than a mess of islands but to someone of his sense, it was like a blooming field of flowers in the distance.

Closer to him on the same side of the Great Desert was the Raging River’s territory. There was Spring Mountain City. It was the most robust city within the region, being the place immortals and powerful out-of-region elders would rest, should they choose to come here.

With his eyes, he could see the buildings, even from thousands of miles away. He’d been there once, and strangely enough, very little had changed. He had been imprisoned when he was young.

But that was hundreds of years ago. All the mortal settlements had shifted and changed from where they once were, but the dwelling of cultivators seemed to stay the same.

Gai Jin struck again. The air screamed.

He was a dark-colored man, unlike his sister he had always been naturally tan and as he had aged, it seemed to be a persistent trait of his skin. But the skin on his limbs was different.

Traditionally the Bloody Fist technique was used only on the hands, but during his fight with those beasts he had learned to use it on his legs, his knees, his elbows, and even his feet.

His limbs were scarred and strong. The demons beneath his land were dead. The old man’s demonic corpse was sealed.

Now all that awaited was vengeance.

Gai Jin struck. His fists flowed with qi and clouds fled from the mountain peak with every move.

Once more thunder echoed for a hundred miles. Animals fled the mountain, from the smallest insects to the largest beasts. Gai waited, letting them all leave the land before finally, doing one strike to his strength.

Qi traversed through his body, from his three dantians to his fists. His minor dantians blossomed with strength and energy burst from his very being. Strength from the lower dantian, spirit from the middle dantian, and purpose from the upper dantian.

His fist struck the ground.

It was a silent strike, the sound of a small sack hitting the floor.

And the world turned silent for a second.

Then, the ancient mountain crumbled.

Gai Jin screamed. His sister was dead. His sister was dead and that bastard had killed her.

Fury overwhelmed his soul and the world of dust beneath him could do nothing to calm it down.