Kirin floated in the air, his face an unreadable mask as he looked down at Gen and the others. But his eyes… they held a low, distant shine, as if a second consciousness was peering through them from a vast and impossible distance.
***
Far away, in the floating palace of dark stone and alien alloy, Xian and his wife stood before a smooth, liquid surface that was not a mirror. It showed the aftermath of the battle: Gen standing in the crater, the smoking light of the Second Door around him, Kirin floating above.
Xian's wife leaned closer, her melodic voice soft with a new tension. "Is that the Immortal's son?"
Xian nodded slowly, his obsidian eyes fixed on the image of Gen. A subtle, almost imperceptible change passed over his serene features—a flicker of intense, analytical interest. "He would likely be the single greatest obstacle to our design in the future."
"Then why not remove him now?" she asked, knowing Xian would never hesitate at any act that served his ends.
Xian's perfect lips curved into a small, cold smile. "Taking such a formidable adversary now would… dilute the point I am trying to prove. A weed pulled too early teaches no lesson about the resilience of life. A rival crushed before he understands his own potential teaches no lesson about the futility of the old path." He paused, his focus intensifying on the distant Kirin. "Let us give him a choice. A final, clear one."
He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they shone with the same distant light reflected in Kirin's gaze miles away. "Allow me to speak," he murmured, the command crossing the vast distance not as sound, but as an imprint of will.
***
Back in the destroyed landscape, Kirin's posture shifted subtly. The arrogant, predatory grace was overlaid with something else—a profound, unsettling stillness. His voice, when it came, was still Kirin's, but the cadence, the weight behind the words, was utterly different.
"You have all grown quite a lot since we last met," the voice said through Kirin's lips, the tone conversational, almost approving.
Gen lifted his head, brow furrowed in confusion and disgust. "Do we know each other?" He searched his memory, finding no trace of this man. "How could that even be possible?"
"It is not important if you remember," Kirin's mouth replied. "I merely wish to offer you clarity. There is still time. You can join the right side. You can see the name of Jiang rise again to the sky from which it fell." The gaze swept over them, lingering on Yuan's broken form. "You have seen the power Yuan wielded. His brother, Yun, has grown even further than this. The path to reclaiming what you have lost does not have to be a solitary climb."
At that, Lorel's frown deepened. She stepped forward, placing herself slightly ahead of Gen. "Gen, don't listen to him."
Chubbs, leaning heavily on Lorel for support, looked at Gen. A strange, conflicted expression crossed his bruised face. After what they had just endured, after seeing the gulf in power, anyone would feel a flicker of temptation at such an offer. But would Gen?
Before Madame Su could speak, Gen answered.
He looked up at Kirin, his jaw set. In his mind, a storm of frustration boiled. *First it was that 'other me' in the tower. Now it's this puppet. Do they all think I am so desperate? That I have no faith in the Wheels my father taught me?*
No. The vow formed in his heart, cold and hard as the bones now reinforced within him. *I will rise. But I will do it only with what my father left me. The Wheels of Destiny. My own strength.*
"Whoever you are behind that mask," Gen said, his voice cutting through the tense air, clear and devoid of doubt, "you better stay there. Do not cross my path again. Unless you want to end up like Yuan here." He gestured to the crater with his bloodied chin. "I will rise back to the sky. And I will do it with nothing but my own strength."
Kirin's face—or the will controlling it—smiled. It was a smile of genuine, chilling amusement. "We shall meet again."
Then, the strange light faded from Kirin's eyes. His own consciousness snapped back into place. Without another word, his body dissolved into a beam of condensed, shimmering light and shot into the western sky, vanishing into the bright night before anyone could react.
Madame Su gritted her teeth and shot upwards, a pained streak of grey, but Kirin was already a speck, then gone. He was simply too fast.
***
Only moments later, the air hummed with a new energy. A group of a dozen cultivators arrived on a wide, formal platform of polished wood and gleaming metal. They were led by a severe-looking elder in the deep blue and silver robes of the Li Family. Their auras were sharp, disciplined, and wary.
"State your purpose for causing such chaos so near the Li Family estate," the elder demanded, his voice like cracking ice.
Madame Su landed awkwardly, favoring her wounded arm. "We were attacked. By an agent of the Bliss Palace."
The elder's frown deepened into outright skepticism. "The Bliss Palace would never be so brazen as to operate within the Four Kingdoms, let alone in a kingdom overseen by our family. You are lying."
A young cultivator beside him, handsome and clearly arrogant, eyed their bedraggled group with disdain. "They look like vagrants who stumbled into a fight they couldn't finish."
Gen, the light of the Eternal Body now fully receded, leaving him looking exhausted and bloodied, took a step forward. "Why would we lie?" he said, his voice flat with fatigue. "Look around. See for yourselves." He gestured to the scorched, cratered earth, the shattered trees, his own torn robes and Chubbs's bruised form. "Our best fighter is injured right there."
At that moment, a figure pushed through from the back of the Li Family platform.
Lia Kai.
Her eyes, wide with alarm, scanned the scene and landed on Liang's unconscious form under the tree. Without a word to the elder, she leapt from the platform and rushed to his side, her movements swift and sure. Seeing her, Gen felt a genuine, unexpected sigh of relief pass through him. *She'll know what to do.*
The elder watched this breach of protocol, his expression growing stormier. "You will follow us," he decreed. "The gates of the Salvaged Peaks are temporarily open to all for the impending spectacle of Varja's fight. But you are not permitted to cause any further disorder within our borders. Is that understood?"
Lorel and Chubbs both managed small, weary nods. "We will abide by the rules," Lorel said, her voice firm despite her own injuries. "We seek no trouble."
The younger cultivators watched them with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. The arrogant one who had spoken nodded to Lorel, his tone slightly condescending. "You may ride on our platform. It would be faster."
Lorel politely shook her head. "I do not mind staying with my friends." Her refusal was simple, final.
The young man scoffed. "As you wish." With a final, sweeping glance at Gen, he turned away.
Madame Su, conserving her last dregs of strength, conjured a smaller, simpler disk of solidified air. One by one, they boarded—Gen, Lorel, Chubbs, and Madame Su lifting Liang's limp form with Lia Kai's help. They rose once more, a battered, silent group, and followed the official Li Family platform as it turned and flew east, toward the jagged, looming silhouettes of the Salvaged Peaks.
On their own modest disk, Gen sat beside Liang, staring worriedly at his friend's pale face. In his heart, a mantra beat with desperate intensity: *You better not die, you fool. She's right here. Don't you dare die.* Liang was the only friend his own age. The only one who had followed him from the Jiang Mountain, through everything. Gen dared not imagine what he would become if that thread were cut.
Liang lay with his head on Lia Kai's lap, her fingers gently checking his pulse and channeling thin streams of gentle, diagnostic Qi.
On the other side of the platform, Lorel and Chubbs sat in heavy silence, their gazes equally filled with worry. Chubbs muttered softly, trying to lighten the gloom, "Do not fret, my lady. He is a tough man. And he is in… capable hands now."
Lorel nodded, but she was too confused, too preoccupied to play along. Her eyes kept drifting to Gen, who had not glanced at her once since the fight ended. Was he still angry? Or was he simply too consumed by fear for his friend? A genuine, complicated admiration stirred in her heart, mixed with a faint, lonely ache. He was fiercely loyal. Just not to her.
Time stretched, thin and silent. No one spoke. The only goal now, etched in pain and exhaustion, was to reach the Salvaged Peaks of the Li Family. And to hope it was not already too late.