Gai Jin roared.

The ground beneath him blurred and his feet broke the earth with the weight of a mountain. He chased.

Gai Lu ran.

The man was afraid, but not as afraid as Gai Jin would have wanted. His master’s hand weaved an old sign and a talisman shattered. Instantly, he vanished.

This was how it had been for the past few days. Gai would search the lands scouring for the man, and eventually, he would find him. And then somehow the old man would find ways to escape.

This time it was a spacial talisman with secure teleportation. It was expensive but Gai Lu could afford the cost. He had been mining the spirit stone vein created by the demons for centuries now.

That was why Gai Jin had been in that cave for so long.

The Bloody Fist Sect had been established on that mountain for a reason. It was their purpose to destroy the remnant qi leaking from those ancient corpses. That had been their job since the very beginning.

And all the monks before him had pushed for that end, all except for Gai Lu.

That selfish monk had been tempted by the Hollowed Echo Sect. He had seen their children grow, and he noticed their wealth prosper. Those blind bastards managed to transform all of that demonic qi into something useful.

And maybe Gai Lu had been honest at first. After all, spirit stones were spirit stones, and the ones underneath Strong Fist City were clear of any demonic influence.

But that was like letting a wound fester and rot just to enjoy the fever on a cold winter night. Not all of that demonic qi dissipated into the ground. Some of it grew, some of it refused to change and those bits would gather and coalesce into something else, something new.

That was how the first of the Hollowed Echo Sect had been born, a lone cultivator tainted with demonic infestation. Gai Jin didn’t hate them. They were wrong, they were twisted, but they were still human.

Some would consider them demonic path cultivators merely because they carried a demonic bloodline. They were right in a way, but demonic bloodlines didn’t make for an evil man.

In truth, the word demonic meant nothing. The Demonic Path meant nothing. The Orthodox Path meant nothing.

And the Righteous Path meant nothing.

They were all words used to describe the system and not the man, this he knew better than anyone else.

Treating them like the definitions of good and evil was a fault he would never bend to.

His master had crumbled to that fault.

His master had killed his older sister to that fault.

His fury boiled.

A person’s path was more than just cultivation. It was more than mere practice. A person’s path was their very being.

None are demonic because they take, nor were any righteous because they gave.

Those were merely parts of your dao, tendencies, aspects, not defining wholes.

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What was Gai Lu? Virtuouse to some, yes, kind to many, true.

But the man had more greed and sin in his heart than any one of those blind assassins.

He was a fruit, ripe and clean on the outside, but infested and full of maggots within. The virtues he held so highly were nothing more than clothes, a facade. A mockery of kindness and a beautiful coat of paint hiding his rotten heart.

Rage. Righteous and infallible rage became too much for Gai Jin, and for a moment, he saw it.

He saw the path to eternity filled with red fists of violence. He saw what he was and what he could become. He saw vengeance and virtue, and he saw himself be the sword that brought the two together.

He saw his past, Li Fang’s death, and Lui Yong’s tears.

And suddenly the rage vanished, and there was only sadness left.

***********

Tai Lui was not a broken man.

Few knew what had happened, and no one but him knew the specifics.

But even if they did he was not a broken man, no, quite the opposite. He was a healed man.

The things that immortal had said were true. It wasn’t his pride that was the problem. Nor was it his dao, but rather how his dao worked.

His mind reached deep within his soul and searched every crevice of that dark place. He touched his dao, his being, the thing that was him and yet was not.

And he changed it. He saw it was too large, too strong. He saw it defined him in every way. He saw it was changing him rather than him changing it. It was like a heavy sword, unwilling to swing the way he wanted to and straining his very being.

The sword was sharp and strong, but it refused to move as he wished it to. It refused to change.

Tai Lui had always thought that a stronger dao meant a stronger cultivator and while that was true, stronger meant many things.

A diamond was hard but brittle. A sword needed a handle, lest the owner cut themselves while wielding it.

Tai Lui’s heart churned.

He had gone into secluded meditation after consulting with Gai Lui. The two had talked for hours without end, both contemplating the fight and learning from it. And Tai Lui had consulted the monk on the actions he should take to deal with Gai Jin.

The two had a long history. They had been enemies when they first met at an inter-sect tournament. Their last name and similar age ranges became the defining point of the tournament, and as if fated, the two had fought against each other.

Gai Lui had worn thick metal gauntlets and Tai Lui had used a heirloom sword. The clash between them had been tremendous, the audience had screamed and held onto their every move.

In the end, it had been a tie.

A lucky thing, Tai Lui thought. We would have never become friends otherwise.

Both men were powerful and both held their pride at their core. For Tai Lui, it was the only time he had seen those supposed men of virtue as anything more than fancy beggars.

Their daos bothered him. Peaceful, kind, giving.

To what end? For what cause? For what honor?

It had all seemed so pointless to him, to pray and struggle and read scriptures all day in shaggy clothes, even mortals had more face than that.

But then he had met Gai Lui, and he understood.

Then he understood the pride within humility, the reverence of the masses, and the throne of the meek.

The pride of Gai Lui was not had but given. His people worshipped him. His struggles displayed his resolve and his meditation on dull scriptures showed his care.

It was not a pride of strength or power. It was not something he placed upon the world, but rather something the world placed upon him.

Many would beg for his tutelage, some would pray to him. Men and women would come and throw themselves at his feet, all seeking the slightest bit of approval.

This was not Tai Lui’s way. Tai Lui sought power he could call his own, and obedience birthed from his strength.

He wanted the winds to bend at his command and the seas to dry by his thoughts. He wanted to blink away the sun and roar away the night.

Tai Lui wanted his strength to be, more than anything else, impossible.

He sought to be undefiable, and his Dao, his ever-crescent Dao should have aided him in that regard.

Tai Lui screamed as parts of his soul withered and bloomed.

It was necessary. To change himself was necessary.

And Tai Lui would not waste centuries with that process.

He could not trim the garden and wait for the next season. He could not prune the roses slowly.

He would cut them now, and he would feed them all they needed to bloom by spring.

Outside of the five sects, somewhere deep within the wilds, Tai Lui screamed.

The ground around him broke and qi flooded the area. Spirit beasts looked up with intrigue, some searching for a hunt.

But when the storm clouds gathered and the sky darkened, they knew this was not something they could interfere with.

And so the heavens stuck down, and the carp rushed upriver to leap over the Dragon Gate.