Gai Jin ran because realistically, that was the only thing he could do.

The qi from the three demon cores burst through him and he struggled to refine them as he fled on all fours.

How was this fair? How was this a tribulation he could beat?

That was what a lesser man might have thought.

But Gai Jin knew the world wasn’t fair. Victory could come right before defeat.

Fairness, he knew, was not a natural thing.

But still. Gai Jin had felt at peace. He had let his hatred go. He had… accepted things.

Why couldn’t he have a day or a year to make peace with that?

His dao was clear to him. His path was clear to him. He had lost himself and after hundreds of years buried deep beneath that cave, he had finally returned.

That was the hold then, the block in his path forward.

Gai Jin wondered if he would have become an immortal within the demonic cave had he let his anger go then.

Then the idea of demons using his tribulation qi popped up and he shuddered at the thought.

He looked over to his master running behind him. He felt sparks of anger and hatred, but there was no fuel left.

Even now, all he saw was a pitiful man.

As if he had heard his thoughts, Gai Lui roared.

“FIGHT ME, YOU SHAMEFUL RAT!”

But Gai Jin did not fight him.

Gai Lui approached, running even faster and even copying Gai Jin and circulating both the Monk’s Holy Steps and Bloody Fist Technique, though the combination did little for him.

Gai Jin had built out meridian pathways for the Bloody Fist Technique that ran through his whole body. That was why the technique gave him speed. But for Gai Lui, whose Bloody Fist Technique only powered through his fists, it was useless.

Then Gai Lui kneeled and dug his fists into the ground, barraging at him like a rabid gorilla.

Jin’s eyes widen in shock. He was imitating him. While Gai Jin’s Bloody Fist Technique and Monk’s Holy Steps had been altered to work throughout the entirety of his body, Gai Lui’s techniques only worked in the appointed area.

But now Gai Lui used them both in a child-like way, using his enhanced fist to dig through the dirt and his enhanced legs to push against the earth.

It was a butchery of arts, inefficient and damaging to both the technique’s efficiency and the user. But what did Lui care? He was dying and angry, and worst of all, he was shamed.

He could not allow it. To die like this or to live like this was not an option for him. He had to kill Gai Jin.

He did all he could to catch up, circulating the techniques at their highest levels. He ran through more qi in a second than he had throughout the first half of the fight. But it was no use. He had power, but pushing it through these techniques was useless.

You could have a donkey that never tired, but a horse would still outrun it.

He had all the fuel he needed, but no technique grand enough to use it. Even these techniques layered onto each other didn’t compete with Gai Jin’s altered speed. And though he was at the half step of immortality, that did not grant him power comparable to an immortal’s.

Half step was a measurement of how close he was to becoming one, not a definition of power.

And so he chased.

And Gai Jin ran, and then suddenly Gai Jin ran faster and faster. His golden feet glimmered off in the distance, and his robe shone beautifully even in the storm.

The treasures, he had run back to them.

“THIEF,” Gai Lui screamed. “SHAMELESS THIEF.”

Somewhere in the distance, an immortal snorted.

Then Gai Jin turned, sword in one hand, shield in the other.

Rage and wrath, fury and fire, pain and hatred, and worst of all shame.

Gai Lui felt all this and pushed. No more technique, only qi ran through his body. He shoved through all his meridians and… burst.

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The ground and air boomed as a crater of nothing blinked into where he had been. Gai raised the shield just in time, but still.

Lui punched.

The man’s muscles tore with the action but the tribulation qi healed them in an instant. His organs failed, died, and lived again.

Shame.

With all this strength and power, every second Gai Jin lived was an insult. A shameful mark of failure. He should have been able to wipe him with no effort, but somehow, the boy persisted.

The shield cracked and Jin flew backward into the ground, but his disciple didn’t falter.

Jin’s feet moved, using the force of the strike to run backward. He had managed to avoid damage.

“GAI JIN, I WILL HAVE YOU!”

Again he pushed the qi overwhelming him. It was wasted, rushing through him both hurting and healing him. He was spendthrift with power.

Another boom, another crack on the shield. This time Gai Jin swung his own sword at him, piercing the man deep in his heart.

Gai Lui smiled watching his disciple squirm.

Oh fate did love her irony, He thought

Bloody Fist Technique, Final Art, Barrage of Blood.

The shield shattered beneath his hands, and the death qi it contained blew out into the wind.

“Bow before me and die with some honor, Gai Jin.”

His disciple said nothing, but he wasn’t running now. Merely looking.

“What a good disciple you are,” Gai Lui added.

Then Gai Jin moved.

Technique moved with him. He struck at Gai Lui with accuracy and technique, but his strike fell like water on a brick wall. Useless.

Then the sword cut, flashing from his disciple’s robe with hidden strength, and then Gai Lui felt pain.

This time it was in his liver. He moved to grab Gai Jin but his disciple had retreated and swallowed down another set of demon cores.

Lui frowned. How many of those blasted things did he have? He should end this now, while he still had the upper hand.

He entered Gai Jin’s guard in an instant and felt another strike.

Lui grunted and grabbed at the sword, shattering the object in two. Had the boy seen him? No, he had merely predicted the action.

But even then, why did it… hurt?

Why was that? Was he running out of qi? No, he had too much to run out.

Then…what?

He sensed something, but before he could put it together, Gai Jin struck.

A punch this time, aiming for the almost healed cut of the blade, and this time it stung.

Gai Lui frowned and studied Gai Jin, but nothing had changed on his opponent’s face. But there was a difference. Yes, there was no rage there, no hatred.

He saw nothing but…Gai Jin.

The boy moved again… and… was he faster?

No. Lui dodged and struck Gai Jin’s stomach.

And…missed.

What was happening?

He felt at the healed cut. It still stung. This time he sent his senses deep within himself. The tribulation qi was still plenty. He wasn’t running out, then what?

His eyes opened wide.

“YOU DARE?”

He yelled. From his cut, he expelled bits of demon core. The black dust squeezed out of his wounds, but it was too little too late. It was foreign qi, how had he not sensed it?

Because all the qi within his body was foreign qi.

None of it was his own.

He tried to push qi into his arm, but then his dantian rebelled.

“What?”

Death qi, but when?

In the distance a bit of the broken shield glimmered, as if the artifact was taunting him from the afterlife. The broken shield had spewed all its qi into the area and he had been fighting in it.

Gai Jin had kept him here. Gai Lui was careless, taking in all the qi he could get and devouring it like a hungry animal and he had invited death qi into his dantian.

It clawed at him from the inside.

“YOU BASTARD!” Gai Lui screamed.

But it was no use. Jin was weaker than him, but with technique and the aid of the boots and the robe, he was just able to keep up in speed.

The death qi assailed him but Jin was able to clear his pathways. He had survived within the demonic cave after all.

Gai Lui rushed, running to Gai Jin and losing out to a barrage of attacks at the man. None of them landed.

All he needed was one good strike. He would fuel all his qi into it, if he could just get one good hit.

But Gai Jin knew that and merely waited.

Jin raised his hand and beckoned the old man.

He taunted him.

Lui rushed in anxious rage. Again he attacked but again he missed and Gai Jin was getting faster.

No, he was getting slower.

He swung he moved and stuck at Gai Jin’s head, but he missed.

Again, again, again, he tried.

But he was a man rotting from the inside out. He was dying.

And Gai Jin was not.

The qi within him was enough. There was a great amount of it still remaining, but what use was bread dipped in poison? The more of it he used the more quickly he would die.

But what else could he do? Desperation, hatred, and the slow impending shame.

“NO,” he screamed. But even the scream betrayed him. His voice was broken and pitched, the death qi eating away at his voice.

If it had been invasive, if it had come in from the outside then maybe he could push it out. But he had allowed it into his dantian and by the time he noticed, it had mixed too thoroughly with the tribulation qi for him to do anything about it.

Maybe if he had his own qi, his innate qi. Then maybe he could have known and stopped it earlier.

Maybe if he had just struck Gai Jin with all his might at the beginning, maybe then he could have won.

He flailed again and missed again.

Maybe if he hadn’t thrown Gai Jin into that cave and had just killed him.

Maybe if he had killed that younger sister of his.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe if he hadn’t killed Li Fang.

Maybe.

A world where Jin became a monk and Li Fang and Lui Yong stood by his side flashed before his eyes.

He wondered if he could have simply paid the girl to quit. He wondered what would have happened if he had just been kind.

But even then, he didn’t know. It was too late for regret, he would not waste his mind on it.

The battle lasted for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of aging, of rotting, of weakening, until Gai Lui was nothing more than a bag of bones swinging slowly at shadows.

And yet still Gai Jin did not strike.

You are not worthy of my hate.

It seemed that statement had held true. To Gai Jin, Gai Lui was simply not worth killing.

The old man collapsed, his body purple, his muscles gone, his skin sagging.

Teeth spilled from his lips, painted red with the color of blood.

And the old man fell onto his back, breathing his last.

Gai Jin walked over to him and raised his hands.

Death, Gai Lui dreamed.

Gai Jin clasped his hands together and prayed. He prayed over his master’s dying body. He prayed prayers of forgiveness and mercy. He prayed prayers of fatherhood and betrayal.

And he continued to pray while the old man struggled to breathe.

Gai Jin was a monk after all. That was his dao and he would follow it.