Gen found himself standing on hard, cold stone. The air was thin and carried the sharp scent of ozone and wet rock. The violent, stomach-lurching pull of the portal was gone, replaced by an immense, silent pressure.
He was on another mountain. But Buqu was nowhere to be seen.
Around him, a dense, white fog clung to everything, reducing visibility to a few dozen paces. It was a world of muted greys and echoing silence. The only landmark, the only source of orientation, was a powerful, pulsing light emanating from a peak far above—a dull, iron-grey radiance that cut through the mist like a cold beacon. **Forged Destiny**. Buqu was up there. They must have been separated in the chaotic transit through the portal.
Gen tested his limbs, massaging his forearm. It ached dully, a deep bone-ache, but it was whole. He was lucky. **Forged Destiny** had not landed fully; its edge had only grazed his spirit with its intent. If it had connected physically, he would have been unmade, just like Master Ting.
A soft shimmer of light coalesced to his left. Shelia appeared, her form more defined than usual, her eyes like chips of polished amber locked on the distant, grey light.
Gen didn't say anything. She hadn't appeared during the fight with Buqu, not out of fear, but perhaps because she wasn't ready. After all, involving herself in a battle of that scale carried a high chance she'd be forced to leave his body, or worse, have her domain extinguished entirely. He hadn't asked for her help, hadn't even mentioned her, maintaining the fragile autonomy she had always fought to keep.
"Gen," she said, her voice a low hum in the quiet. "There is another Old Monster-stage Milky Beast on this mountain."
Gen blinked twice, turning to her. "Are you sure? Then what is this place?"
"I cannot be certain," Shelia replied, her gaze still fixed upward. "But if I am right, this must have been the back-plan the Lost Triangle set in case Buqu miraculously survived."
Gen nodded slowly. The pieces clicked into place. "That might be why Juxian left earlier, before the fight even started." He knew his friend well. Juxian wasn't scared of impossible odds. He had been *preparing* an alternative all along.
"Even if that is the case," Shelia said, finally looking at him, "I do not know all the details. We have to find your friend Juxian before we get the full story."
"I'll lead the way," Gen said.
They began to move, descending from the rocky outcrop and pushing deeper into the mountain's fog-shrouded interior. Here, Gen had to rely on his senses more than his eyes. The white fog was unnaturally deep and pervasive, dampening sound and distorting direction. Using his mastery of **Shidao**, he sent out fine, probing threads of will, manipulating the dense, moist air to feel the shape of the terrain, the contours of cliffs, the presence of voids. It was like navigating by touch in a world of cotton.
Rapidly, he mapped the area. And rapidly, he understood the grim reality.
Buqu was up there, seriously wounded, but he had not died. Gen had a wild guess as to why. Buqu's domain spell was fundamentally different from Nix's. Back on the Lost Triangle's mountain, Buqu had said he had *always paved his own path*. It was highly possible that **Forged Destiny**, at its core, was a spell that could reconstruct fate at the last moment for its caster. A final, desperate forge to ensure survival. But even weakened, Buqu still conserved more than half his strength, perhaps more. This was not like the arrogant, critically wounded Nix in the Forgotten Realm.
This time, Gen knew he would need more than luck and circumstance. He would need to give everything he had left, and then find something more, just to have a chance.
The search took time, the oppressive fog weighing on their spirits. But eventually, Gen's **Shidao** senses brushed against a familiar, solid aura—like bedrock given human form.
He found Juxian perched on the edge of a sheer cliff, staring with a cold, unreadable expression toward the pulsing grey light of **Forged Destiny**.
Gen walked to stand beside him. "How does it look?"
Juxian didn't turn. "Bad for us, Gen." His voice was flat, heavy. "My Grand Pa is not like the other Milky Beasts. After they attain the Old Monster stage of evolution… they have a very short lifespan. He is on his last breath."
Gen's fist clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white. Hearing it aloud, he could finally piece everything together. Juxian's Grand Pa, had proposed to shorten his already dwindling life even further, just to give their world a chance. *How many more will have to die for this?* The question was a silent scream in Gen's mind. He stared into the fog, his jaw tight.
Juxian turned to him then, his expression sad but unyieldingly firm. "We do not count the dead until the goal has been achieved. That can cloud judgment, Gen." He said it cleanly, without reproach, stating a simple, brutal fact.
Gen felt the guilt like a physical blow, but Juxian was right. Counting the dead now—Varja, Ting, his father, Duo Yi, so many others—would only paralyze him with the weight. He could not afford that weight. Not now.
Juxian had already started moving, picking his way along a narrow, invisible path along the cliff face. What could Gen do but follow silently behind his friend?
They used their **Jingdao**, reinforcing their feet and fingers to find purchase on the slick, near-vertical stone, navigating the treacherous terrain with a cultivator's grace. The fog swirled around them, alive and breathing.
Until they reached a broader, rocky plateau.
And there he was.
Buqu was not resting. He was kneeling, one hand braced against the stone, his head bowed. His divine robes were tatters, his body a tapestry of bloody gashes and deep, hairline fractures that glowed with a sickly internal light. **Forged Destiny** was planted in the ground beside him, the massive axe looking like a tombstone. It seemed too heavy, even for him, to hold continuously.
As they arrived, his closed eyes snapped open.
With a grating effort that echoed in the still air, he dragged himself upright. His movements were labored, each one costing him dearly, but the aura that began to seep from his broken form was still a crushing, palpable nightmare. It was hard to believe this was a heavily wounded being.
"Well played, mortals," Buqu rasped, a bloody smile on his cracked lips. "I clearly did not see the trap coming."
Gen stepped forward, his fists balled at his sides, his whole body thrumming with controlled fury. "Buqu. You shall pay for what you did. This time, there will be no end until one of us goes down."
Juxian raised a fist, the air around it hardening with the **Jingdao of the Agile Mountain**, a dense, unshakable pressure. "My dream was always to test my strength against those so-called Divine Generals. Those who held our world in their hands under the weight of the Damocles." His voice was like grinding stone. "Buqu. Let us see if your fists are as heavy as the swords up there."
Buqu laughed. It was a wet, painful sound, but it rolled across the plateau like thunder. His aura *spread*, not in an explosion, but in an unfurling—a born nightmare given form. It was so powerful, so dense, it warped the fog around them into twisting, panicked spirals.
Despite being armorless, bleeding, and broken, Buqu still looked as imposing as a mountain they could never dream of climbing. He reached for **Forged Destiny**, his fingers closing around the haft.
But as he began to lift it, the mountain itself moved.
A hand descended from the clouded sky above.
It was a simple, open-palmed hand, falling slowly. But it was so massive it blotted out the grey light, its fingers the size of ancient pines, its palm a plateau of its own. It moved with a slow, inevitable grace, and the pressure it exuded was not just physical; it was the pressure of *domain*, of absolute ownership.
Buqu froze, deeply. Not in fear, but in recognition of a power that demanded his full attention. He sidestepped quickly, pivoting out of the hand's shadow with a pained grunt, shooting upward into the sky and leaving **Forged Destiny** where it stood.
High above, the fog coalesced, pulled apart by the motion. And Gen could see it.
A massive being made of condensed power. An ape, the size of a titan. Its fur was the color of storm clouds and aged granite. Each breath from its nostrils and mouth sent out great plumes of the dense, white smoke that filled the mountain—this wasn't natural fog. It was the titan's exhalation, a camouflage for its location.
The Ape Titan's voice was the sound of avalanches given thought. **"IN THIS DOMAIN… I HAVE ABSOLUTE CONTROL. DIVINE GENERAL… YOU SHALL MEET YOUR DEMISE HERE."**
It spread its arms and clasped them together in a single, sweeping motion, before Buqu could fully react.
***THWUUUMP.***
The impact was a deep, concussive *thud* that squeezed the air from the plateau. The sonic boom that followed ripped the cloudy smoke apart in a matter of seconds, clearing the air around the peak.
Gen and Juxian, forced to shift their weight against the shockwave, shot into the sky. They both unleashed their **Jingdao**—Gen's a sheath of inward-focused, light; Juxian's a brighter, golden hue, the unyielding light of the Agile Mountain covering his skin like living stone.
But their focus was on the titanic struggle before them.
From between the Ape Titan's crushing palms, a raw, defiant roar tore through the air.
"**THIS… THIS IS THE POWER CLOSEST TO JIANG I COULD FIND! FINALLY!**" Buqu's laugh was a mad, exhilarated thing.
His arms, trapped within the titan's grip, condensed with an even deeper, more desperate light. The energy of **Forged Destiny**, now divorced from the weapon, spread around his forearms like molten, grey metal. With a groan of straining will and cracking stone, he *pushed*.
Under Gen and Juxian's shocked stares, the Ape Titan's mighty arms began to tremble. Then, with a sound of shearing granite, they were forced apart.
Buqu hovered in the space he had created, his eyes blazing with white-blue fire in the center of the clearing sky. He was bloody, broken, but burning with a will that refused to be extinguished.
Gen had learned from Shelia that Milky Beasts at the Old Monster stage were the strongest within their own domain. He was witnessing it first-hand. In this place, this Titan Ape was not inferior to Jiang himself.
And Buqu was fighting it. Not to flee. But to *forge* his victory.