Snow fell in silence so complete it swallowed sound.
Wei Lian stood shoulder to shoulder with the battered survivors, his breath thick with blood and steam.
Their robes were frozen stiff in places, torn to rags that revealed angry purple bruises and scabbed wounds.
No one spoke.
Some watched the ground, eyes empty.
Others flicked glances at the bodies that had already been cleared away.
The wind whistled between buildings with a low, keening moan.
It rattled old wooden eaves and made banners crack like whips.
Icicles dangled like daggers, dripping with slow menace.
Mu approached them from the central hall.
His black robe flared with each deliberate step, the hem dragging snow like ash from a dying pyre.
He stopped a dozen paces away, arms folded, face utterly still.
His eyes swept them slowly, taking in the slouched shoulders, the bruised faces, the haunted eyes.
He watched them like livestock at market, weighing and dismissing most in a single breath.
Snow landed on his bald head and stayed there, ignored, as if even the cold didn't dare touch him.
He let the silence stretch until it felt suffocating.
Until even the wind seemed to quiet, listening.
Wei Lian breathed slowly, eyes half-lidded but unblinking.
Mu finally spoke, his voice flat and heavy as a gravestone.
"You survived the canyon."
"That was the first proof you belong here at all."
"But it wasn't a reward."
The words hung in the freezing air, heavy and without mercy.
A few disciples shivered, breath fogging in sharp bursts.
One coughed, spitting blood into the slush at his feet.
Mu's eyes flicked toward the smear of red, then away.
"You bled to stand here."
"That means you paid the barest price for the chance to pay more."
Wei Lian watched him with empty calm.
Inside, his Qi churned, hot and slow, the Human Root pulsing with quiet hunger.
Beneath it, the Chaos Root slumbered like a dragon in a deep cave.
Mu gestured north with one thick finger.
Beyond the training yard, rooftops sagged under white weight.
But above them all, a single tower stabbed into the gray sky.
Its walls were black stone veined with pale ice, each block older than memory.
No banners flew from its peak.
Windows stared blankly outward like dead eyes.
The wind howled around it, tearing loose drifts of snow that spiraled like wraiths.
Even at this distance, the building seemed to swallow light.
A cold promise of secrets and death.
Mu's voice dropped, forcing them to listen harder.
"That is the Blackwind Archive."
"It is our sect's heart."
"Our treasury."
He let the words fall like stones in a well.
The disciples shifted, some leaning forward unconsciously.
Others swallowed hard, eyes flicking with fear or greed.
Wei Lian tilted his head slightly.
The tower watched them all without blinking.
It felt alive, patient, hungry.
Mu continued, voice like grinding rock.
"Six floors."
"Six levels of truth and lies."
"Six thresholds of power you are not ready for."
He raised one thick finger.
"First floor: Basic Arts."
"The foundation. The root. Crude but necessary."
"Any peasant with time can learn them."
A second finger.
"Second floor: Refined Paths."
"Techniques for the proven."
"Your first taste of true power."
A third.
"Third floor: Advanced Styles."
"Secrets taught only to the inner sect."
"The line between disciple and corpse is thin here."
Mu's face stayed blank as stone.
"Fourth floor: Sect Treasures."
"Arts that demand blood. Souls. Sanity."
"Things worth killing for."
His eyes narrowed to slits.
"Fifth floor: Forbidden Paths."
"Twisted things."
"Techniques that defy the world and unmake the user."
He let the wind roar before speaking again.
"Sixth floor."
He paused, breath steaming.
"Not for you."
"Not for any but the Patriarch himself."
Silence fell like an executioner's blade.
No one moved.
Even Jin Xiu, leaning on his stone like a throne, held still.
Wei Lian's gaze stayed on the tower.
Snow landed on his lashes and melted in hot rivulets down bruised cheeks.
Inside, Qi pulsed slow, controlled, cold.
Mu's eyes swept them all like a butcher selecting meat.
"You want power?"
"Prove you can handle a child's share before you ask for a man's."
"Prove you can survive your own ambition."
He turned slowly, pointing at them all.
"You get one floor."
"The first."
"One chance."
The words cracked like a whip.
Some disciples looked relieved, sagging in place.
Others burned with hate or hunger.
Jin Xiu's grin returned, slow and sharp.
He licked blood from his teeth, watching Mu with greedy eyes.
Wei Lian didn't react.
He just breathed.
Long, slow, measured.
He felt every cut, every bruised rib.
He remembered the canyon.
The poison vines.
The spikes.
The blood.
He remembered the voices screaming at him to break.
He hadn't.
He wouldn't.
Inside, the Human Root burned steady.
Refined.
Controlled.
But hungry.
Beneath it, the Chaos Root slumbered, vast and expectant.
It pulsed with promise.
A whisper that the tower's limits were jokes waiting to be broken.
Mu's voice dropped low.
Deadly calm.
"Tomorrow you enter."
"Choose carefully."
"Waste this chance, and you'll crawl in the dirt until you die."
He turned without ceremony, boots crunching away through the snow.
Assistants moved to dismiss them, voices hushed and hurried.
The wind picked up again, tearing at robes and hair.
Wei Lian stayed standing long after the others began to shuffle away.
He watched the Blackwind Archive through the falling snow.
It watched him back.
He felt the weight of his promise settle deep.
Bloodied fingers curled at his side, cracked and raw.
He let them.
Because tomorrow wasn't for mercy.
It was for taking what was given and learning how to steal the rest.
Even if he had to do it alone.