Mo Yuan, still shaking with rage, could do little more than watch as the shining spiritual barrier closed in on him from all sides.

Had he been mistaken?

The power of the Zhiming Mirror was capable of challenging the heavens themselves—until now, Mo Yuan had been unstoppable, Baidong Mountain’s cultivators fleeing or falling before him without fail. Now, though, Qin-zongzhu wasn’t showing a single sign of fear. To someone like him, who had lived more than a century and fully cultivated his jindan, Mo Yuan was nothing more than a minor annoyance, an insect that had scurried into his palace.

One that he could easily crush without a second thought.

Mo Yuan was surrounded on all sides. The barriers were locked firmly together, seamlessly encasing him as they approached, melding into one another with ripples and sparks like molten silver. Mo Yuan smashed his fist against the one in front of him, teeth tightly clenched, but it only continued to push him back, his feet skidding over the ground as he heard the faint crackling sound of the barriers approaching from behind, from the sides, from above.

He needed to calm down.

There must be a way to escape this.

“You still have a chance to surrender,” Qin-zongzhu said, “You’ll be given a fair trial if you do, heretic.”

Mo Yuan looked up at him, lip curling back into a snarl as his eyes flashed red.

A fair trial? How laughable.

He would be dead, at best.

Still, it was difficult to keep his wits about him right now. The barriers continued to encroach, slowing down even more with each passing moment. It felt like Qin-zongzhu was taunting him, not even considering him to be a challenge. He was giving Mo Yuan plenty of time for the hopelessness of his situation to settle in, for the fear of his inevitable death to drive him to madness.

And all of this without a single shift in his expression.

That was the worst part.

When Mo Yuan looked up, he expected to see cruelty in the clan leader’s gaze, but instead there was nothing. His expression was cold as stone, looking at Mo Yuan amid the approaching barriers without so much as a smirk. Qin-zongzhu did not delight in this cruelty at all…

He simply didn’t care.

The bitter reality of the situation struck Mo Yuan like a meteor from the heavens. For the first time since his ascension, he felt small, insignificant, like there was nothing he could do to evade his impending doom— like he was trapped on a small piece of driftwood amid a raging sea, and there was no way to stop the oncoming waves that wanted to thrash him to pieces.

It would have been easy to lose hope, as these final moments stretched on into an agonizing eternity.

But to Mo Yuan, this was not an unfamiliar feeling.

Though he was barely eighteen years old, he had already faced down his own death multiple times— whether in Baidong Mountain’s spirit caves, or fighting demons and monsters in the wild lands with nothing but a bamboo spear or an old, rusted blade. Even in the most distant, hazy memories of his childhood, before he came to Mengshan Temple, Mo Yuan had known fear, had known uncertainty.

For as long as he could remember, he had faced insurmountable foes— and this time was no different.

So, he steadied his breath and took a step back, even as the barriers continued to press in around him. He shut his eyes, bowing his head forward. There was no spirit vein beneath his feet to throw himself into and escape. There were no gaps in the barriers around him to slip through, and Qin-zongzhu had put up the first barrier before Mo Yuan’s crimson blades had a chance to even scratch him.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Whether the Zhiming Mirror had granted him power to cut his way through Baidong Mountain’s forces, or whether it was his own newfound strength that had done so, it mattered little. Until now, his foes had fallen or fled before him. Qin-zongzhu’s cultivation was higher than his, and there was no way someone like him would give in to fear— so of course he hadn’t laid down and died. Of course, Mo Yuan would still have to fight.

But he was not beaten yet.

He still had an advantage.

At first, Mo Yuan had thought that Qin-zongzhu was simply taking his time killing him, relishing in the power he held over the rogue cultivator that had been so arrogant as to attack Yinshan’s stronghold. Now that he had calmed himself, though, he found that wasn’t exactly the case. The barriers were not solid, but an intricate mesh of spiritual threads, weaving back and forth and across one another— and to move them in closer to crush Mo Yuan, those threads had to be unraveled and woven back again with each bit that the space inside shrank.

He let himself drop to his knees, shoulders slumped. He took the fear and anger and distress that he felt and allowed it to escape the confines of his chest, to shiver through the rest of his body— to show that fear was to show defeat, to show defeat was to make this foe believe he’d already won.

Just as expected, the advance of the barriers slowed once more. If Mo Yuan wasn’t going to fight back, then there was no need to rush. Qin-zongzhu could take his time.

“I will give you one last chance to surrender,” Qin-zongzhu said, his voice calm as the surface of a clear pool of water.

Mo Yuan took a shuddering breath, and lowered his head even further until his forehead touched the ground. Even the crimson blades clattered to the ground on either side of him— though he did not retract them into his body.

That was his second advantage.

He and his companions had only recently returned from the wild lands, and his vital weapon was newly forged. Neither his own capabilities nor the capabilities of his twin blades were known in the cultivation world— Qin-zongzhu would not realize that these twin blades, lying still on the stone floor, were far from inert.

“Please… if I surrender, allow my companions to go free,” Mo Yuan pleaded, softly, suppressing the anger in his voice and replacing it with fear and desperation.

The encroaching barriers came to a stop.

The space between Mo Yuan and those walls was so small now that he would not be able to stand back up to his full height, nor could he stretch out on the floor in any direction. At most, he had a few chi on each side as he knelt there with his forehead pressed to smooth stone.

“Those who have assailed my people and decimated my lands?” Qin-zongzhu replied, still calm as ever. “I cannot allow them to go unpunished.”

“This attack was my own doing,” Mo Yuan insisted. The barrier still hadn’t moved. He still had time. “They were simply following my orders.”

“Nonetheless,” Qin-zongzhu shook his head. “They too are in violation of the laws and principles of these lands. Had you wished for them to live, you would have never come back from the wild lands.”

“No!” Mo Yuan shouted, his eyes going wide as he looked up. “You can’t— I won’t let you destroy us!”

He pushed himself up as much as he could, as though he were about to charge at the barrier once again.

Qin-zongzhu flicked his fingers, and the barriers began to compress once more, faster this time.

But that was all Mo Yuan needed.

With a bright flash of red, the crimson blades leapt up from the ground, slashing into the corners of the barriers in unison, faster than the eye could see. In that same instant, Mo Yuan struck out with his palm, releasing a concussive blast of spiritual qi.

All he’d needed was the smallest of openings, the slightest of weak points.

As Qin-zongzhu unraveled and wove back the barriers, there was a brief moment in which they were not firmly fastened together. This weak point shifted around the barrier in a rippling pattern, one that Mo Yuan had watched in the moments leading up to the point that the barrier’s movement had ceased. Once he’d learned the pattern, he only needed to distract Qin-zongzhu, then make him start to compress it again.

A single thread, if cut in the right place at the right time, could unravel the entire cloth.

The barrier shattered under Mo Yuan’s palm-strike, and the twin blades shot forward mercilessly toward Qin-zongzhu.

As the sound of shattering glass filled Baiyu Palace’s hall, the great clan leader was suddenly taken aback and caught off-guard. It was a fraction of a moment, but it was enough for Mo Yuan to gain an advantage.

His fingers formed into a seal, he rose up from the ground, wreathed in crimson light as he flashed from one side of the hall to the other, behind pillars, from the floor to the ceiling. No matter what, he couldn’t stop moving. He couldn’t allow himself to be caught again.

Mo Yuan may have escaped that death trap, but the fight had only just begun.

Barrier-crafting was a defensive art, first and foremost. That Qin-zongzhu had used it in such an offensive way was unusual, but certainly not unexpected from a master of his caliber. There were two main things he could do now— continue trying to trap Mo Yuan and destroy him that way, or wrap himself in an impenetrable shield, so that no matter how hard Mo Yuan fought, he would never be able to land a blow.

Despite the new power Mo Yuan had gained, he would eventually exhaust himself, exhaust his reserves of spiritual qi, and lose the ability to go on fighting. As a newly-ascended Jiedan stage cultivator, he would reach that point long before Qin-zongzhu did. He couldn’t hope to outlast his opponent. He had to make sure that Qin-zongzhu’s attention stayed on capturing him instead of hiding behind his shield.

The greater part of the mountain’s defensive mechanisms had been disabled by the heavenly lightning, and the battle still raged outside. After Mo Yuan had taken out a number of their stronger foes, his companions were surely putting up a strong fight. When he’d arrived at Baiyu Palace, Qin-zongzhu had been in meditation— and from what he could tell with a sweep of his senses, it seemed the clan leader had connected his own consciousness to the mountain’s defensive arrays to try to get them working once more. His focus was split already between that and the fight before him.

It would make sense for him to shield himself now, but Mo Yuan had taken him by surprise with his sudden escape.

Even someone like Qin-zongzhu was still human, in the end.

Even he could be enraged— and when someone was enraged, they would hardly sit still behind a shield, waiting for their enemy to exhaust himself before crushing him.

No, they would want to crush their enemy immediately.

Mo Yuan evaded several spiritual blasts, his jaw tightly clenched. Even a single one would be enough to seriously injure him— and even though he would probably recover from such an injury, it would give Qin-zongzhu all the time he needed to end his life. He couldn’t afford to be hit.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Maybe he could use the same tactic he’d used before, at the courtyard. Distract, then attack from behind with the crimson blades… but Qin-zongzhu would already be expecting something like that.

He couldn’t even be sure that a single cut would be enough to take down the clan leader, even with his vital weapon’s capability— Qin-zongzhu’s boundary surpassed his own, it was just as likely he would be able to neutralize the effect before it could take hold.

But Mo Yuan also couldn’t try to flee. Qin-zongzhu had sealed off the great hall, and even if he hadn’t, the clan leader would no doubt pursue and annihilate Mo Yuan and all of those who followed him.

He owed it to them, and to Mo Lan who had died by this man’s hand, to fight until the end.

The walls of Baiyu Palace were dense with spiritual inscriptions, most of which were for protection and strengthening. If these inscriptions were broken, perhaps the backlash could do some damage… but Mo Yuan’s power wasn’t enough to break them.

Qin-zongzhu’s, however, was. All Mo Yuan needed to do was force his opponent to strike the weak points.

By now, Qin-zongzhu was furious that this insolent upstart had managed to survive for so long. Good. The angrier someone was, the less rational they became. This was just as true for a clan leader as it was for an ordinary mortal. He wouldn’t think twice when Mo Yuan paused next to one of the great stone pillars as if to catch his breath— he would simply point his spear forward and send a bolt of spiritual power directly toward Mo Yuan in hopes of killing him then and there.

Mo Yuan, of course, had expected that— he dropped to the ground, and at the same instant, commanded one of the crimson blades to fly up and deflect Qin-zongzhu’s attack off of it, separating it into two beams— one of which struck the pillar behind him, the other shooting across to strike the one across the room.

Every inscription had a weak point.

Once those weak points were broken open, the inscription crumbled, and the power contained within burst outward.

The pillars crumbled, and Mo Yuan, who had been huddled near the floor to avoid the spiritual backlash, kicked off from the ground and landed atop the falling pillar, driving it faster and harder toward his opponent below.

Qin-zongzhu raised a hand just in time to pierce through the pillar and prevent it from crushing him— but Mo Yuan had dropped back down to the ground in that instant and rushed toward him amid the cloud of dust and still-volatile energy. The crimson blade that he’d used to deflect Qin-zongzhu’s attack had fractured, a pain that Mo Yuan felt deep within his own core as blood spilled out from between his clenched teeth, dripping from his nose. He drew the shards of the broken blade back within his body, then summoned the one that remained to his palm. The arrowhead at its center sealed against his hand, while the blade itself stretched up along his extended fingers, turning his hand to a blade in an instant.

A bright, brilliant flash of light— silver-blue and blood-red— lit up the hall.

Mo Yuan had plunged his hand and blade through Qin-zongzhu’s body, just below his solar plexus. Before the clan leader even had time to react, he wrenched his arm upward, then drove it back down as he pulled it free. The threads of blood left behind in the wound, now linking him to the crimson blade, were woven into a thick rope.

For the first time, Qin-zongzhu’s expression changed, from that impenetrable calm to a look of shock and disbelief.

“You…” he choked out.

Mo Yuan glared down at him, the threads of blood grasped tightly between his fingers, shining the same crimson as his eyes.

“You are not all-powerful,” he growled, baring his teeth like a wild beast. “None of you great clans are— and if I am the one destined to teach you this, then so be it.”

Qin-zongzhu coughed up a mouthful of blood, trying to rise to his feet even though his torso had been torn nearly in two, his insides spilling out and his jindan flickering and jolting with unstable light. “You and all your kind will come to ruin,” he spat, his chin already stained red. “That is the inevitable fate of all those who defy the heavens.”

“If that’s so, then I’ll be more than happy to bring you with me,” Mo Yuan hissed. “If you wanted to live, you should have thought twice before laying your hands on my little brother.”

He wanted to make this man feel a fraction of the pain he’d caused Mo Lan— but if he waited too long, he might lose his chance, and if Qin-zongzhu somehow gained the upper hand, Mo Yuan would never get it back. So, without waiting another moment, he clenched his fist and unraveled the threads of blood. In an instant, the dust and the broken, scattered stone on the floor were submerged beneath a flood of crimson.

Qin-zongzhu choked out a cry of agony, more blood spraying from his mouth as he began to convulse, gasping out his dying breaths.

Even he, when so deeply wounded, was helpless against Mo Yuan’s sinister technique. Mo Yuan wished he would beg for mercy, beg for his life… he wished that he would show even the barest hint of regret… but to this person, Mo Lan hadn’t even counted as a human. Mo Yuan was sure that, in Qin-zongzhu’s eyes, he himself was also no different than a demon or monster that needed to be put down.

But he would not be the one put down today— nor would his friends.

The ones who died today would be those who had callously decided to kill a young boy for the sake of maintaining their power and control.

When one was furious, when one was enraged, they would not stop and think things through as carefully as when they had a calm head.

Mo Yuan, right now, was enraged— from his core to his extremities, consumed by volatile emotions, the only thought in his mind to kill his enemy, and to kill him now.

But there were consequences to tearing a jindan in two.

The moment Mo Yuan tore the killing blow into Qin-zongzhu’s body, the entire palace was consumed by a flash of blindingly-bright light, and Mo Yuan felt cold, then hot, then entirely numb. His ears rang so loudly that he thought his skull was about to explode into ten thousand shards, and unbearable pain rippled through his body as he collapsed to the ground.

The backlash from Qin-zongzhu’s death started a chain reaction. Some of the inscriptions had already been damaged in the fight, causing them to be broken at the sudden wave of unleashed power. These released their own stored power, causing further destruction all around until a good portion of the wall and the mountainside were blasted open, and several more great stone pillars had fallen to pieces on the ground.

Then, everything went completely silent— even the battle below ceased as the explosion rang out over the slopes of Baidong Mountain.

Mo Yuan had collapsed into the space between a fallen pillar and the dais, which left him just enough room not to be crushed by falling debris. The backlash rattled his consciousness and tore through his body, causing him to black out for a moment— but he had just survived being submerged within the spirit veins. It wasn’t long before his eyes opened once more, now having lost the red glow and returned to their usual deep amber-brown. His body ached, his ears still ringing, and his mind was spinning as he picked himself from the ground. He could still taste blood in his mouth, but the bruises and abrasions he’d received from the falling debris had already healed over, and when he tried summoning forth his twin blades again, he found that the one that had been cracked to pieces had mostly been restored.

The great hall of the palace was empty, save for himself.

He stared out the gaping hole in the side of the mountain, toward the smoke rising from the city below, fires flickering inside burning buildings as everything that could be consumed in flame was consumed. The battle still raged fiercely, with neither side gaining a definite victory.

Then, Mo Yuan turned back to look at the decimated hall, the great crater left behind in the stone floor, the broken inscriptions still leeching spiritual qi into the environment and the ominous aura of death that hung heavily over the entire place.

It was almost hard to believe, but when Mo Yuan looked down at his still-numb arm, which was soaked bright red with blood, there was no doubt about it.

Qin-zongzhu was dead. He had won.

He breathed a long, shaky sigh of relief, trying to ignore the sting of tears at the corners of his eyes. He still felt numb inside— whether from the backlash or simply the shock of the situation, he couldn’t say.

But his relief was short-lived.

A gust of wind whisked away the smoke from the battlefield below— and Mo Yuan suddenly saw that the rogue cultivators were not facing off only against the white and silver-clad cultivators of Baidong Mountain, but also an array of swordsmen wearing gold.

Reinforcements had come from Dayuan.

Dayuan’s Ruijian Pavilion was closest to Baidong Mountain out of the five strongholds. If they’d already arrived, who knows how many more reinforcements would eventually show up?

More than that, Mo Yuan could no longer guarantee his victory.

Though he had the Zhiming Mirror’s power on his side, these cultivators were not from Baidong Mountain, but had been sent by Dayuan’s Song clan. They wouldn’t fall before him so easily— and besides that, Mo Yuan was injured, still bleeding from his mouth and having difficulty even holding himself upright.

They couldn’t go on fighting.

He summoned his power once more, careful not to overexert himself, and flew down to the place where Qiu Wei was fighting. The ground was littered with corpses and stained with blood, and the entire city radiated with the echoes of the deaths that had occurred within it over the past days.

Seeing him approach, covered in blood and pale as a sheet, Qiu Wei quickly swung her sword to decapitate her foe before rushing to his side and trying to support him.

“Da-ge, what happened?” she cried.

Mo Yuan glanced up toward the damaged Baiyu Palace, then met the gaze of his second-in-command. He’d explain what happened later. Now, there were more pressing matters. “We need to leave now— these are not Baidong Mountain’s people. They managed to call for aid, and if we stay, all of us will die here.”

Qiu Wei hesitated briefly, but then nodded her head. “I understand.”

Mo Yuan, pained and anxious and exhausted as he was, nonetheless forced a smile onto his bloodied face. “We’ve still won today— but we must live if we wish to celebrate that victory. Now, go— tell everyone to gather in groups and flee in all directions, on foot and in the air, as quickly as possible.”

At that moment, though, there was a sudden flash of golden light. A figure atop a shining sword was fast approaching, heading toward Mo Yuan and Qiu Wei in the thick of the fighting. Mo Yuan’s eyes widened and he reached out to grab hold of a shield that had been dropped by one of their fallen foes.

“Watch out!” he called above the din of the battle, bracing the shield to take the blow from an oncoming sword glare. “Go!” he ordered Qiu Wei again. “I’ll draw their attention. We’ll regroup in the valley.”

“Yes, Da-ge!” Qiu Wei replied with an emphatic nod of her head before turning to rush through the battlefield and call the retreat. She moved swiftly— it wouldn’t take her long to get them out. Mo Yuan just needed to keep the attention of the person who had just appeared, just long enough so they could escape.

The pain in his body was growing worse and worse by the moment. Though he didn’t have any external wounds, to take the brunt of the backlash from a Jiedan-stage cultivator’s death was no small feat. His ribs were almost surely broken, and were not healing nearly as quickly as the bruises and cuts had healed, but he didn’t have time to worry about it.

There was something dangerous about this new opponent, even though he was young and didn’t seem to be very highly cultivated. He had barely surpassed the Zhuji boundary, and yet his swordsmanship was impeccable, and his determination beyond anything Mo Yuan had seen from the opponents he’d fought today…

Mo Yuan had just defeated a foe far stronger than he was.

It wasn’t without question that the same could happen to him, especially with his wounds and without the Zhiming Mirror’s maxim to aid him.

He didn’t bother summoning forth his blades. Right now, it would be smarter not to show his hand, just in case things got messy. He snatched up a sword from one of the fallen cultivators’ belts and stepped onto the blade, one hand pressed against his side. The Song clan’s young master had looped around to double back after Mo Yuan had deflected his attack— and now, Mo Yuan moved quickly to cut him off.

As he came face to face with the young, gold-clad swordsman, though, Mo Yuan realized that, in some ways, it felt like looking into the mirror. The determination, the drive, the slightly defiant flicker within their burnt amber eyes.

Mo Yuan felt like there was a very real chance he might die if he tried to fight now.

Regardless, though, he had to buy time— so he raised the shield from earlier, bashing it up against the gold-robed youth with a force that nearly had Mo Yuan himself falling from his sword.

That got his attention.

He allowed the young master to strike at him once— a mistake. The blow connected, that shining golden sword tearing a gash into Mo Yuan’s arm and forcing him to drop the shield. By now, though, Qiu Wei had already left, and the other rogue cultivators nearby had made for the cloud banks and the steep mountain slopes, most already vanished from sight.

Just a little longer…

Mo Yuan grit his teeth against the pain. The wound wasn’t healing very quickly. He’d already exhausted a lot of his energy. If he didn’t make his escape soon, he’d be cut down. He could only hope that he’d bought enough time for his allies to get out before even more reinforcements arrived.

He tried to stay out of reach, only trading blows once in awhile, just enough to keep a target on his back— but when they approached the slope leading up to Baiyu Palace, the blown-open wall on display for all to see, suddenly the gold-clad youth rushed forward, unleashing a palm strike that sent Mo Yuan falling to the ground and spitting blood. Had his cultivation been lower, he would have probably died from that blow. When he looked up, though, he saw a flash of gold streaking off toward the ruined palace.

Ah… so he’d managed to get him distracted after all.

He’d done his best. Qiu Wei was leading the retreat now, and Mo Yuan was too badly injured to go on fighting. With the little strength he had left, he summoned his twin blades and used them to fly over the edge of the mountainside, down into the cloud bank below, still dark and heavy with unshed rain.

They’d be hunted. That much was certain.

Qiu Wei was smart, so she’d know what to do to keep the others safe. Mo Yuan could leave them in her capable hands.

As for himself, in his current condition he wouldn’t be able to reach the valley. For now, he just needed to put as much distance between himself and Baidong Mountain as possible. Darkness was already pressing at the edges of his vision. He could only go a few dozen li before he had to land, and he could only walk a few steps before his legs gave out and he spat up a fresh mouthful of blood. It took a massive amount of effort even to drag himself into a small gap between the stones, where he pulled his ragged cloak around himself like a blanket and huddled there, knees drawn close to his aching chest.

He’d cultivated a jindan— with time and rest, he should be able to recover from these wounds without the need for further treatment. It would be easier if he were in the spirit caves, or if he’d had some spirit stones he could use to bolster his reserved power, but he’d just have to make do with what he had— himself, this tiny cave, and the cloak he could only hope would help to hide him should any patrols pass by. With the little bit of strength he had left, he raised his hand and drew a talisman, which he then fixed onto his own chest— a talisman that would hide his spiritual aura from anyone whose cultivation was lower than his own.

Then, he took a long, shaky, choked breath.

Qin-zongzhu was dead. Even though they’d had to retreat, it was still a victory— it was still proof that they weren’t to be taken lightly.

Whether this was good or bad for his future, and for the future of his companions, that remained to be seen.

For now, though, Mo Yuan no longer had the strength to remain conscious. The pain from his wounds and the exhaustion from the battle caught up all at once, plunging him once more into darkness as he lay curled within the mountain’s embrace.