Alex’s fist collided with Jin’s jaw, a solid, satisfying impact that shot a dull ache up through his knuckles and a vibration up his arm as though he’d hit a brick wall, the sting burning beneath his skin. He didn’t pull back immediately, letting the pressure linger, feeling the resistance beneath his skin. Jin’s head tilted just slightly, a look of puzzlement settling in his eyes as he studied Alex’s fist still pressed against him.

Jin lifted a hand, running his fingers along his jaw where the strike had landed. His brows drew together, not in pain but in curiosity, as he glanced down at Alex’s hand still curled tightly in a fist.

[2-hour mana cooldown ended. Skills now available for use]

Damn, a few more seconds and I could’ve allocated some strength to that punch, Alex thought, though a small feeling of satisfaction still radiated from his bruised hand. Alex immediately dismissed the notification.

“Ow,” Jin murmured, sounding more intrigued than hurt. He poked his jaw once, twice, then looked back at Alex, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and bewilderment. “Wait, that doesn’t hurt. Why doesn’t it hurt?”

Alex said nothing, his gaze locked onto Jin, his eyes unblinking. He dropped his hand back to his side, fingers flexing, and took a half step back, reclaiming the distance between them. His stance stayed solid, shoulders squared as if bracing for whatever Jin would say next.

Jin’s eyes widened to saucers and his brows rose, his mouth slightly ajar. “You didn’t use your world treasure?”

Then eyes flicked over Alex’s form, his gaze lingering for a moment. “You didn’t use your world treasure, did you?” He repeated the question slowly, carefully, each word dropping with deliberate weight. His eyes pursed with thought, studying Alex with a trace of interest as if searching for a clue, or some hint of power.

“You didn’t use it…” Jin said once more, the words now more to himself than to Alex. A brief silence settled between them, punctuated only by the faint crackling of lingering embers along the higher sections of the cavern's debris-wall. Jin’s gaze trailed from Alex's face to the scorched stone around them, and he raised a hand, brushing his fingers across the blackened marks etched into the wall.

“Impossible,” he whispered. He glanced around the cavern, then at the width and scale of the remnant of the spirit beasts' battle, a wall of debris as tall as any mountain, before turning back to Alex.

Jin’s brow creased, his gaze dropping to Alex’s fists and drifting over his stance. He took a step forward, his chin lifting slightly as though he were looking for something beneath the surface. “Then… how did you survive?” He looked around, taking in the blackened walls and scorched ground before turning back to Alex. His hands rested casually by his sides, yet his eyes were sharp, probing, and a smirk began to form, as if he already had an inkling of an answer.

Alex’s eyes darkened. He didn’t move, his posture rigid as stone, his hands hanging loose but controlled at his sides. He watched Jin, unblinking, his gaze steady and devoid of any sign of weakness or admission. He kept his eyes fixed on Jin, his jaw clenched tightly. “You’re right. I didn’t,” he said, his voice low and steady. His stance remained rigid, every muscle in his body tense with restrained anger.

Jin’s fingers grazed his jawline again as though in thought, then drifted back to his side. He paused, looking at Alex with an unreadable expression. “Did you make some kind of advancement with the spirit beast’s core? Is that how you survived?”

Jin paused as though another impossible thought had struck him. He looked back at Alex, his head tilting slightly with growing disbelief, his scrunched-up brow suggesting to Alex that he couldn’t even believe he was asking the question.

“Is the mother tigress alive?”

Alex’s mouth flattened. “She’s dead.” His answer was curt. He didn’t look away, his gaze firm as he watched Jim’s form.

“Where’s her corpse?”

Alex shifted uncomfortably, avoiding Jin’s eyes. He couldn’t answer that question because there was no corpse. But why should I answer him, anyway? He thought. The youth had betrayed him. Left him for dead. The only thing Alex owed him was nothing.

“Ah. I see.”

Jin, having misinterpreted Alex’s reluctance and apprehension, watched him. A faint, unreadable expression crossed his face before a mix of something between pity and understanding swept over his features, though he didn’t immediately speak.

“I understand the core brings certain… urges.” His words came finally, slowly, as though he weighed each one carefully. “But the others outside, they wouldn’t understand what it’s like to hold that power, to feel it coursing through every part of you.” His hand rested on the cavern wall, fingers brushing over the rough, scorched surface.

Jin’s hand fell from the wall, his gaze shifting to meet Alex’s. He looked around the cavern, taking a deep breath as though absorbing the remnants of the battle. “That power… it can be dangerous.” His words were steady, his face unreadable. “If you’re not careful, it’ll consume you. Or worse, turn against you.”

Alex’s eyes stayed locked on Jin’s, searching for any indicator of remorse, any sign that he regretted or even simply felt bad for the act of leaving them for all dead.

He saw none.

Alex’s expression hardened, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Save the lecture. I just didn’t run.”

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Jin regarded him, his expression calm. “We had no pact, Alex,” he said. “If you wanted my help, you should have said so.”

Alex’s fists clenched tighter. “We were companions.” His voice shook slightly. “Some things don’t need to be spoken.”

Jin raised an eyebrow, his head tilting slightly. “Why hold me responsible for something I never promised?” His shoulders lifted in a faint shrug, his face blank, as if dismissing the accusation as misplaced.

“Because you were there. And you left us to die” Alex’s voice was rough, his fists trembling slightly. “I would never have done that.”

Jin stood still, his gaze steady, his expression unchanging. He glanced around at the remnants of the cavern walls, where faint scorch marks traced the outline of their battle. “You judge me by your standards. And your standards are strange, Alex—Alien, even. Unfit for a cultivator.”

“My intention wasn’t to abandon you,” he said after a pause. His voice was calm. “I planned to circle back, but the cavern collapsed.”

Alex’s jaw clenched, his shoulders stiff. “If you’d stayed, we could have defeated her together. The others wouldn’t have died.”

Jin didn’t move. “The objective was to retrieve evidence,” he stated flatly. “Not to engage in unnecessary fights with a fire-wielding spirit beast in a fire Qi-infused den.” His gaze didn’t waver.

“Unnecessary?” Alex’s voice held a bitter edge. “There was no choice. If you’d stayed, they might still be with us.” His words cut through the silence, the accusation clear.

Jin shrugged. “Each person must keep themselves among the living,” he replied, his gaze steady, without apology. “We made no pact. If we had I would have assisted. I’m sure the other two had pacts of their own.”

Alex’s mouth tightened, his expression a mix of anger and disbelief. “A pact? Is that how you live with yourself?” His voice was thick, each word forced through clenched teeth. “If I can’t rely on you in matters of life and death then what use are you to me? To any of us?"

“The answer is none. You hold no value, Jin. You hold no worth, to me or to anyone this way. Not because you’re powerless, but because you refuse to have anything resembling honour. You cannot be trusted. You bring nothing.” Alex’s fists unclenched slowly, his shoulders lowering with a deep exhale.

“They’re dead because of you.”

Jin’s head tilted, his eyes lingering on Alex’s turned profile, his mouth pulling into a small, unreadable line. “His presence was like that of a fallen god, corrupted by his own ambition,” he murmured, his words barely audible. “In taking power, he lost his humanity; in losing humanity, he found power.”

Alex’s gaze snapped back to Jin, his hands clenching again. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” His voice had an edge to it, the irritation visible in the tense line of his shoulders and the slight furrow of his brow.

Jin shrugged, his face blank as he met Alex’s gaze. “Just a saying,” he replied, his voice smooth, almost dismissive. His shoulders relaxed as he looked back at Alex, waiting, watching.

Alex scoffed, a bitter sound escaping his lips. “A saying? Don’t give me that.” He took a step closer, fists clenched tight. “I survived without you and your sayings, Jin. Save them.”

A heavy silence settled between them. Alex’s shoulders lifted with each slow breath, his gaze never leaving Jin. Without a word, he turned, his footsteps crunching over the rubble as he walked toward the cavern exit.

Jin stayed where he was, watching Alex’s retreating figure. He didn’t call after him, didn’t offer any parting words. The distance between them grew, silent and final.

Neither man looked back, each step separating their paths further.

***

Alex’s boots struck the cavern floor with steps heavy with anger as he moved through the widening cavern. His mind replayed Jin’s betrayal, his disgust with the cultivators who valued their lives above loyalty, and his disdain for the entire martial empire they served. They were unworthy, Alex thought, every one of them. Dependence on pacts and oaths to stand with their allies—a strangeness he couldn’t understand, nor forgive. A warrior’s honour shouldn’t need words; it should flow through his blood. He swore to wipe them all out—Jun Li and Lui Xan were the first and second, and if he crossed him more directly,

Perhaps Jin would be the third.

The cavern was filled with signs of recent battles—claw marks, cracked stones, impacts and debris. But strangely, Alex encountered not much more.

No signs of life. No creatures. No corpses.

Only blood.

The cavern split into sections, but he followed the constant trail of blood Qi he sensed and saw drifting through the atmosphere. At first, the trails of blood Qi curled through the air, winding like threads of dark silk. Soon, it grew concentrated, a thick torrent that made it hard to breathe. Alex inhaled deeply, the metallic scent sharp in his nostrils, each breath filling his lungs with the taste of iron.

Summoning blades along his arms, Alex climbed the cavern walls stealthily, intent on avoiding discovery by whatever lay at the centre of the flow. Most likely the Phoenix, pulling in vast amounts of torrential Qi,

Enough to make even the defeated fire tigress baulk.

The cavern opened suddenly, revealing a massive crater below. Its jagged edges twisted outward, rocks splintered and splayed as though shattered by an impact beyond measure. The ground’s fractured and scarred inward toward the centre, he observed, kneeling to touch the scarred rock. Almost as if a meteorite the size of a small district had crashed into it, he thought with curiosity. Spikes of hardened blood jutted from the ground, glowing with intense Qi, almost too bright to look at. Some resembled stakes, while others took the form of jagged obelisks, arrayed around the altered landscape in a pattern that reminded Alex of an imperial formation.

The formations twisted upward and inward, sharp and angular, like skeletal trees clawing at the empty air above.

He saw shapes and shadows among the red light cast by the spikes. A congregation of blood creatures.

“Damnit’” he whispered. There were too many to face alone, far too many. Each one was far too strong to tackle in even small groups. But he couldn’t turn back, not with an Elder apparently wanting him dead on the outside.

Reconnaissance it is, then, he decided.

Moving carefully along the edge, Alex took in the creatures pacing below. They prowled the crater’s depths, their bodies shifting in the intense red. Some moved on four legs, large and hunched with bulky forms, their movements heavy and deliberate. Others moved like men, still animalistic, yet, their bodies carried an intensity that gave Alex pause.

In the heart of it all stood a towering phoenix of blood and fire, majestic, its wings held in a display of fierce beauty. It stood bright even from a distance, ablaze with dripping fire—or was that blood? From so far away, Alex couldn’t tell.

Across from the phoenix, a figure stood gesticulating in anger. Alex’s gaze focused, noting the man’s solid build, broad shoulders, and the strange limbs he bore. Where human arms should have been, the man had crystalline limbs of hardened blood, each edge sharp and beastly. ,

The man stood firm with his stance unyielding as he engaged in a heated argument with the majestic beast. Judging by the misty aura of blood that surrounded him and reacting to his every move, the man was clearly a cultivator.

The Little Demon of Winding Bloods, a name that carried weight and fear across the entire region.

He doesn’t look so ‘crippled’ to me, Alex thought, summoning his soulbound blade not just for the skills and stats it granted, but for the feeling of wholeness that carrying a weapon brought him.

Foundation Establishment. Alex’s breath tightened. He was looking at a cultivator an entire stage above him, a power that could destroy without question.

Alex inched closer.