Gai Lui ran through the lands that were next to the Great Desert Strip. He was nervous, not so much about Gai Jin’s fury and more so about the immortal. He had enough wealth to make his plea be heard and enough to even be allowed shelter within the sect, he presumed.

He just didn’t know if the immortal would let him into the Great Desert Strip.

On the question of killing Gai Jin, well it was impossible. At least it was impossible to do so effectively. Gai Jin was a monster of talent, and with those movement techniques, he could flee and outrun whatever threats pursued him, as long as they were under the immortal rank.

It would take five fifth ranks above the seventh step to ensure his death, and it would take five more to prevent his escape. Gai Lui could pay for that, but how much more would it cost to keep his secrets?

If Gai Jin yelled with his qi, the truth would spread and Gai Lui’s shame would be known.

He should have killed him back then, back when he had initially figured it out, but how could he? Gai Jin was his child, his prodigy, his son.

His pride.

Even now he loved the boy the same way a farmer loved his champion bull.

Smart, capable, talented, and bright.

What a beautiful thing he had raised. He couldn't allow himself to kill it back then, so he had sent him to the demons to spare his hands of the shame.

His younger sister had escaped, the whore. Gai Lui would have killed her, but eventually the hunt for her would cost more than he had and by the time he had gained enough from the spirit mine to afford her death, she simply wasn’t worth it anymore.

She was just some strange prostitute. What could she have said to bring him down? What could she have done to touch him?

Nothing.

And had she said something, any minor insult, that would have given him an excuse to go publically kill her himself, regardless of whatever sect’s territory she had hidden in.

With her silence, Gai Lui thought he had won.

He had taken kindly to his rank and brought nothing but prosperity to the Bloody Fist Sect. He had helped people. Millions of people, from poor farmers to rich merchants. He had set up holy sites and temples in other sects territories, spreading the teachings of Buddha onward.

He was prideful, true. But pride was good. It was because of his pride he had done good. He remembered first cultivating the path of monkhood, his first steps and the compliments of his abbot. He remembered the rewards for his success, the admiration, the praise.

He wanted it.

A monk served the people and the people’s reactions were evidence of that. He cared about those underneath him. Virtue? Righteousness? How vague were these things. How stifled.

A man loved by his wife was a good husband. A king loved by his people was a good king. And a monk loved by humanity was a good monk.

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The weight of his actions were measured by none except those below. Their praise, their worship gave clearance to his actions.

Gai Lui was a good man most times, a great man even. But he had made mistakes.

No, he had taken risks. And one of those risks chased behind him. He had done the right thing within the moment, he believed. He had killed the whore, but so what? She was filth desecrating his holy city and tempting monks on wayward paths.

Her death was quick and painless. Her kind were shameful, disgusting.

What else was he to do?

His pride as a monk, as a cultivator, wouldn’t let her raise that child by herself. He was too much, too amazing.

Gai Jin should have thanked him for the action. Gai Lui had given him a chance at power, maybe even at immortality. For the life of a whore he had gained everything.

But Gai Jin didn’t see it that way.

Children often don’t, Gai Lui thought.

********

Gai Jin couldn’t read Gai Lui’s thoughts, but he could read his aura and for him that was enough.

There was fear, anxiety, sadness, betrayal.

Gai Lui felt betrayed. Gai Lui who had slaughtered his sister. Gai Lui who profited from a demon’s corpse. Gai Lui who had thrown him into hell for the sake of keeping his own hands clean.

And there was not a bit of regret there, but he dared to feel betrayed?

If rage was a man it would have been Gai Jin. He pushed, circulating his qi through his meridians. A familiar pathway, one slightly modified and improved, churned with qi.

This specific technique required control and immense concentration. It was a vastly modified version of the Monk’s Holy Steps.

The Monk’s Holy Steps was a pure movement technique, separate from any combat use, meaning that the meridians and lesser dantians it ran through were useful only for the use of movement.

Techniques shaped the cultivator, like the slow flowing of water carving out mountains, the flow of qi through one’s body optimized and refined those meridian pathways for efficiency. The Monk’s Holy Steps was a great movement technique, but the meridian pathway it created was stifled.

It was designed for speed and only speed. It wasn’t a mid-battle movement technique, it was an escape technique. And it was the greatest one the Bloody Fist Sect had.

What Gai Jin did next was both complex and simple, he ran with his hands as well as his feet.

The original technique focused on a person’s lower limbs, but Gai Jin had altered it to be effective with his hands as well, in pursuit of a more combat oriented technique.

He had wanted to empower his hands and run with his legs, giving his fists power while running. It didn’t compare to the Bloody Fist Technique, but it would have fixed the one problem of the technique.

But it could also be used like this, to run like an animal.

Gai Jin rushed. The altered technique cost twice as much qi, and it changed the whole rhythm of his run. He was also weaker and more vulnerable.

He looked like an unkempt animal, running after the monk with his scarred skin and matted hair. He kept on all fours, using each limb to propel himself off the ground and into the air.

The air fought him and the earth lost chunks of dirt as he dug at the ground with every step. Craters the size of house were the holes each step made and they grew bigger with speed.

He was as fast as a meteor, as deadly as a falling star. If they passed through a city now, all within it would burn.

But they both avoided civilians, though each monk had different reasons, and quickly they reached the edge of the desert area.

Gai Lui’s path was winding, but Gai Jin had kept up, if from a growing distance.

They had woven around the edge of the desert for a while before Gai Lui had burst in.

And to Gai Lui’s joy, he had not been stopped.

The Great Five Sects had seen it happen now. There were several confrontations amongst fifth rank and to all the powerful families, it would be wonderful entertainment.

The other four heads of the five sect had already set their attention to it and now, even from a distance, they were watching.

Earth turned to sand and the qi in the air thinned.

If Gai Lui wasn’t so busy fleeing he might have noticed that there was now qi with the land.

It took them half a second to reach the village. And the whole chase had only lasted just about seven seconds in total. The earth in most places hadn’t completely settled from their steps. The sky behind them carried a dust cloud that trailed back a thousand miles.

These were cultivators of course. Two beings on the precipice of Immortality. As slow and open as their fight had been to them, it would have seemed instant to a mortal’s eye.

It hadn’t even been twenty seconds since Gai Jin had called his old master a coward.