Jiang Wuyu knelt, bleeding, one eye ruined, his body trembling with exhaustion. Yet even now, his voice was steady, almost soft—meant for someone far away.
"I guess… I won't be able to see your future, Zhenyu…" he muttered under his breath, barely audible over the crackle of lightning and scorched wind. "But I'll make sure you live it."
His hand tightened around the vial.
Without hesitation, he popped the seal and drank.
The effect was immediate.
A sickening sound echoed from his chest as veins bulged violently across his neck and arms, glowing violet-black. His muscles swelled grotesquely, his spine crackling as he convulsed—then straightened. He rose like something reborn, taller, broader, far more monstrous.
His face twisted, no longer human.
Lines of unnatural Qi etched across his flesh like claws. His eye socket didn't just bleed—it steamed.
Lu Zhenhai's hand was already halfway through the incantation for his Thundering Sky Cage technique, but he froze. His pupils shrank. That Qi—he recognized it.
"Wait… that's—!"
His mind raced.
The Umbral Bloom Elixir.
A forbidden creation. A cursed stimulant born from the shattered arts of the Deathpetal Sect, known for infusing life-altering demonic compounds directly into cultivators' marrow. The sect had been obliterated by the empire nearly a century ago, their research burned and sealed beneath the Violet Edicts.
Lu Zhenhai's breath caught in his throat.
"Impossible," he thought. "That recipe was supposed to be gone… how the hell does he have it?"
His expression darkened.
"Don't tell me… he has ties to them—to the Deathpetals? That sect was supposed to be extinct!"
Ahead of him, Jiang Wuyu exhaled sharply, mist rising from his skin as the ground beneath his feet began to crack.
The chase had ended.
Now came the storm.
Jiang Wuyu let out a guttural scream that shook the air, a roar born of rage and madness. His monstrous frame blurred forward, leaving deep, spiderweb cracks in the ground with every step. Lu Zhenhai drew his bow without hesitation, lightning wreathing his fingers as he released arrow after arrow in a blazing storm of azure light.
The first bolt struck Wuyu square in the chest—yet before the sound of impact even faded, the wound bubbled, sizzled, and knit itself closed with unnatural speed. Another arrow punched through his thigh; the flesh trembled, then reformed, as if time itself had rewound.
But still Lu Zhenhai didn't falter.
"Xie Lang!" he shouted sharply, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Get away from here and head back to the mine! Your master should already be done with my brother—GO, NOW!"
He already knew—no matter how deadly his aim, he could not bring Wuyu down fast enough before he reached the boy.
Lightning roared from his bowstring, forming arrow after arrow in a seamless blur. Each release split the air with sonic cracks, forcing Wuyu to twist, leap, and slam through exploding shockwaves. Still, the brute plowed forward, shrugging off direct hits that would have annihilated lesser cultivators.
Lu Zhenhai's feet slid back in the dirt as he unleashed his Tempest Volley, a rapid-fire storm of arrows so fast they blurred into a wall of crackling thunder. Sparks rained across the battlefield, and each arrow that missed scorched black craters into the ground.
Wuyu smashed through it with brute force—arrows sticking in his flesh before being pushed out by that unnatural healing.
Lu Zhenhai's eyes narrowed. "ENOUGH."
The air thickened with a sudden stillness before his bow began to hum violently, the lightning along its limbs turning blinding white. He drew to full length, the string groaning as if it would snap.
"Rank 2 PEAK TIER TECHNIQUE: DRAGONPIERCER SEVERING SHOT!"
The arrow flew like a Dragon, splitting the sound barrier in a burst of thunder. Wuyu threw up his arm to shield himself. The moment it struck—
BOOM!
The world went white for an instant.
When the dust cleared, Jiang Wuyu's entire left arm was gone, obliterated from the shoulder down in a spray of ash and violet-black blood. The wound steamed furiously, healing just enough to stop him from collapsing, but not enough to regrow the limb instantly.
Yet before Lu Zhenhai could ready another shot, Wuyu's remaining hand shot forward like a viper.
A blur.
When it stopped—Xie Lang was in his grasp, Wuyu's massive fingers wrapped tightly around the boy's throat.
The brute's lips curled into a blood-soaked grin.
"shoot and I'll break his neck long before your arrows can take my life," he growled.
Lightning still crackled across Lu Zhenhai's bowstring, but his stance shifted—deadly, yet restrained. This was no longer just a battle. It was a standoff.
Lu Zhenhai's face was pale, his breathing uneven. That last strike had cost him dearly. A peak-tier Rank 2 technique… and he was only at the mid-stage of Rank 2. Two whole stages separated his cultivation from the technique's intended mastery. The price was immense—his Qi drained like a breached dam, his body screaming in protest.
Still, there had been no choice. If Xie Lang hadn't been here, he could have dealt with Jiang Wuyu at his own pace. But fighting while protecting someone else was nothing short of fighting while crippled.
Jiang Wuyu's snarl cut through the air.
"XIE TIANHUN! I HAVE YOUR DISCIPLE IN MY HANDS—AND I WANT TO MAKE A DEAL IF YOU WANT HIM BACK IN ONE PIECE!"
Before Zhenhai could even curse, a deep, thunderous boom rolled across the camp. Dust burst from the ground. A figure blurred into view—Xie Tianhun, blood splattering his armor… though none of it was his own.
In one hand, he held Lu Heng by the neck. The man's Golden Carnage form was gone; only his battered human form remained. Lu Heng's lips curled when he saw Xie Lang in Wuyu's grasp.
"Good. I don't have to go to the second part of the plan and run away without the demonic beast's corpse."
Tianhun's gaze turned to Jiang Wuyu, his eyes burning with a killing intent so sharp the air seemed to tighten.
"What do you want?" he asked, voice low yet filled with rage.
Lu Zhenhai didn't speak. There was nothing left to explain. He had fought with everything he had—had even crippled himself with that last technique—and still, in just a few short minutes, he hadn't been able to kill the man.
"He used the Umbral Bloom Elixir," Zhenhai finally said, his tone flat but heavy. "Even after using a peak-tier technique, I was only able to take his left arm… and his eye."
Tianhun didn't need the explanation—he had already recognized the marks of the Deathpetal Sect's forbidden creation. In fact, he had been the one to tell Zhenhai about the sect's atrocities in the first place.
The elixir's effects still throbbed in Wuyu's veins, violet lines pulsing across his skin like living veins of lightning.
"What do you want, boy?" Tianhun asked again, his voice carrying the weight of an executioner's blade. "Answer me. I don't have enough patience as an old man."
Before Wuyu could speak, Lu Heng coughed and smirked.
"We want the demonic corpse and the core to go with us. We also want you to let us go far enough—only then will we release Xie Lang."
"Yes," Jiang Wuyu added coldly. "That is what we want."
Tianhun's eyes narrowed. His grandson's life hung in the balance. That fact alone made the decision for him.
"I want you both to swear an oath," he said, his voice cold as tempered steel. "Not to harm him in any way—so long as I do exactly those things, and only those things. Anything beyond that, and I will kill you both."
His tone sharpened further.
"That is… if you want your son to die, Wuyu."
The words landed like a blade against Wuyu's throat. His face tightened. He understood the warning well enough. The empire had been watching his clan for years, and they likely knew more about his child's condition than he dared to admit. The fact Tianhun even hinted at it meant one thing—he had already guessed the truth.
And Jiang Wuyu's expression, dark and unsettled, was all the confirmation Tianhun needed.
Lu Heng, who had been thinking about asking for more, decided against it after seeing Jiang Wuyu's expression. Since Jiang Wuyu might betray him somehow without breaking their oath—because he was the one who held the ticket to their escape, Xie Lang—Lu Heng kept quiet. Tianhun then ordered the soldiers to keep watch on the students and the Jiang clansmen, who could not believe that their patriarch, who had just been preaching justice, was now killing them alongside others to get to Xie Lang, just so he and Lu Heng could run away. None of what they had claimed earlier about being betrayed or protecting others was true, and as they stood there, they regretted not having fled alongside the other students and clansmen during the battle between Lu Zhenhai and Jiang Wuyu.
Tianhun then laid out his conditions.
"I want the oath to include that you will not harm my disciple in any way, shape, or form, nor instruct others to do so. You will let him go after you've gone far enough from our reach, and I can promise I will not send anyone after you until I find Xie Lang. But after that, you will be hunted down, and I'll make sure to rip the spines from both of you demonic cowards."
Lu Heng, who was released from Tianhun's grip, didn't care about the threat. He and Jiang Wuyu formed the oath, then started to run away after knocking Xie Lang unconscious without harming him in any way. Jiang Wuyu carried Xie Lang on his back as they disappeared into the distance as they returned to mine to get the demonic corpse then leave, with neither Lu Zhenhai nor Lu Heng following.
"Lu Zhenhai, where do you think your brother will head to?" Tianhun asked.
"I don't think he'll be anywhere I know about. He's much smarter than that, so I really can't say. But from our investigations, Jiang Wuyu must be heading toward his clan, and I think he'll try to leave that place with his son after accomplishing whatever he wants," Lu Zhenhai replied.
Tianhun was silent for a moment before speaking.
"There are two reasons why Jiang Wuyu would do all of this—one for himself, and the other for his son's sickness and crippling condition. I can assure you, he isn't doing it for himself."
"And why do you think that?" Lu Zhenhai asked.
"What I didn't tell you about the Deathpetal Sect," Tianhun said, "is that they had two recipes for the Umbral Bloom Elixir. One was the perfect version—it required the lives of innocents, which is a cheap price in the eyes of demonic cultivators—but its effects weren't as mighty as what Jiang Wuyu displayed. For him to survive a peak-tier Rank 2 technique, especially after being hit by other Rank 2 techniques and fighting both a demonic beast and you for some time, tells me what he used wasn't the perfect version, but rather an older or incomplete one. My guess is the older one."
He let the words sink in before continuing.
"The older recipe was flawed but granted more raw power and healing abilities at the cost of everything. The Deathpetal Sect's members were fanatics—mad people who would give their lives for the cult. That elixir was a suicide brew perfect for those kinds of followers. The perfect version came later, and when it did, the sects and the empire destroyed it together. I'm sure he doesn't have it. I can only guess he isn't planning on living much longer, so this must be for someone else—unless whatever he wants to do can heal him from the Umbral Bloom's effects, which is nigh impossible. As far as I remember, not even Lady Yuelan, the Imperial High Healer and the greatest master of the healing arts in the empire at that time, could cure it… and I'd say not even the one holding that title today can."