The sun slipped through the holes in my thatch roof and dragged me awake.
I made my bed, washed my face, and went through the motions of preparing for another day of training.
These days, I make my living as a broker. A quiet profession, but profitable. If you needed medicine for chi drain, I knew where to find it.
If you wanted a discount on a new chariot, I could slip you a voucher.
If you were some lovestruck young master who wanted to impress a girl with a spirit beast, I'd arrange the sale.
Everyone in K'unlun needed connections, and I made sure they paid me to provide them. Alchemists, archivists, wandering merchants, even the occasional rogue Immortal Weapon's disciple passing through after braving the Heart of Heaven.
But all that fame carried risk. I'd fought in the Trial of Heaven wearing a carefully constructed mask, but I was no fool. The lack of K'unlun chi, my height, my build, the trace of my spirit veins, it wouldn't take a genius to put the pieces together.
So, every morning, I ran to the Zhao clan's abandoned yard to train.
At first, it was only me. Sword in hand, mud underfoot, breath steady. My sword and me only. It was strange how quickly I fell in love with it.
I liked it that way.
But nothing stays unnoticed in this city.
One morning, a boy sat on the broken wall, watching without a word, like a crane not knowing why the human gives its bread to the goose and the squabs.
The next day, he returned, this time with a stick to mimic my practice. Soon another joined him. A servant who had only ever carried water. Then a girl whose hands were scarred by the forge.
They weren't chosen by sects. They weren't all that talented. They were the ones K'unlun had written off.
Their attempts were a bit clumsy at first. Crooked swings, stances that collapsed after a breath. One even tried spinning and tripped on nothing.
Still, they came back.
Again.
And again.
Each day, their forms grew less crooked, their footing less shaky.
I never invited them, but by the tenth day of watching one boy grit his teeth and hold his ribs just to try again, I gave in.
"Widen your stance," I told him. "If you want to stand upright tomorrow, ground yourself today."
His face lit up like I was a martial master.
By the end of the week, there were eleven. Children, servants, even a half-ruined warrior who claimed he'd once studied under Thunderclap Hall. They argued among themselves, compared strikes, and asked endless questions.
"Shouldn't we train faster?" one of them asked once.
"Speed without control is just falling faster," I said. "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast."
They groaned, but they listened.
By the month's end, the yard was no longer silent. Sticks cracked against the air, voices shouted with each swing, bodies hit the dirt and pulled themselves up again. The ruined space of the old Zhao clan's ground before its makeover felt alive. The Trial of Earth was on its way.
Of course, crowds gathered. Servants on errands, vendors passing by, even a few young masters who came pretending to scoff but lingered longer than they meant to. I think some realized I was the masked swordsman that beat that kid on the first round.
One finally let his pride do the talking:
"Ha! Do you fools think swinging sticks in a yard makes you a warrior?"
I didn't bother looking at him. I only slid my blade into its sheath and said, "Come at me."
He rushed at me with a sabre, wearing a face of disbelief. I parried his slash and knocked him down with a pommel. He ate dirt, and got back up with a missing canine.
The crowd laughed at him instead. He left red-faced, and fewer tried to mock us after that.
Still, eyes lingered. Not all of them belonged to common folk. I saw the way some men studied too closely, took notes, and whispered before leaving. Elders' eyes. Clan eyes.
The kind of eyes that measured things for consequence.
One night, after the yard finally emptied, the drunk warrior remained. He stared at the dirt for a long while before speaking.
"You've heard what they call this place?" he asked.
I shrugged. "Another insult, probably."
He chuckled, voice rough. "They call it the Beggar's Sect. Because here, people come and go and beg the heavens for a better life."
I said nothing, but the words stayed with me.
He packed up his booze and left.
After my disciples did their time, the moon shone clearly. Under a peach tree, I sat down and reflected on the past month.
I watched the falling leaves gracefully descend through the air. It did nothing to the silence.
Before my reincarnation, I would've welcomed it. My life was too fast-paced to leave space for moments like these. And I would have no one else but myself to accompany me. The life of a spy begins in the shadows, works through the shadows and dies in the shadows.
I saved the world from Casimir-effect explosives that could collapse every country nearby. I saved a third of the human population when three experimental neutron bombs were set off by an extremist group in the Indus River, the Panama Canal and the Amazon Basin.
But tonight, with the yard empty and the children gone, I felt the absence press against me. It was evident and filled the thin air with something foreign to me.
Like something deep down, you always knew it was there, and now its absenteeism was deafening.
It seems I understood that extremist's point now. The little children, the recovering lotus junkies, the servants and slaves, their will to beg the heavens for a better fate, their want and hunger to reject the destiny they were presented with, it filled my month with something more than just company.
When I would work as a broker, some martial artists would treat me with xenophobia, after realizing I had no qi. Thinking I was a mistake.
But these children, these servants, these outcasts; they begged the heavens each day to see them differently. And in their sweat, in their persistence, I realized something.
I didn't have to walk this road alone.
My rebellion against the fate shackled on me by the elder god isn't something I have to carry by myself. The burden was lighter when others carried their own beside me. If I wanted to go fast, I could go alone. If I wanted to go far, I'd need some people.
I rose, my sword in hand, and let the thought settle. Under the pale moonlight, I breathed deep and began to move. Not in the patterns of any sect, nor the drills of any elder.
A sword to rebel against the heavens.
It wasn't elegant. It wasn't beautiful. It was cruel. It was a bastardization of tradition. It was a true indictment of my original swordsmanship.
And as I moved, the air shifted. The night deepened, the world hushed, and I felt something vast stir above me. The heavens bent, not to make me kneel, but to witness.
To witness the birth of a true demon.
Chi, raw and endless, poured down with the weight of sky and silence. It seeped into my bones, into my veins, into the hollow the world had sworn would remain empty.
I stood in the ruins of the Zhao yard, sword raised high, and felt the heavens themselves yield. The final thrust of my sword dance marked the end of my performance.
That night, beneath the moon, the Hao Sect, and its informal existence, was given definition.
A shining light. A rebellion against misfortune. Against injustice. Against suffering. Against misery. Against death.
Chi, raw and endless, poured down with the weight of sky and silence. It seeped into my bones, into my veins, into the hollow the world had sworn would remain empty.
I stood in the ruins of the Zhao yard, sword raised high, and felt the heavens themselves yield.
I name it the True Inhuman Divine Revolt. It wasn't a cultivation technique or a martial art. It was, in my own definition, the process of embodying rebellion against the skies and all that it holds and represents. My body, empty of chi, but capable of holding it, was immediately empowered with chi.
This is my blade. There is none like it, and it is mine.
Sword hand low stance.
My blade is my rebellion, my defiance, my truth.
Upwards turning slash.
Without my blade, I am nothing. Without me, my blade is silent.
Low stance.
Together, we are the end of chains and the birth of fire.
Thrust.
I swear upon the heavens above:
I will not bow to fate, I will not yield to shadow.
Strike and rise.
Where tyranny rises, I will cut.
Strike and turn and strike.
Where despair festers, I will burn.
Dive thrust then rise then slash.
The world shall know: I am revolt.
The blade is revolt.
And in revolt, the divine shines.
Slash.
I am now free. This is my creation. It belonged to me. It belongs to me.
Will LVL. 4 -} Will LVL. MAX
New skills unlocked:
True Inhuman Divine Revolt LVL. 1
Art of rebellion against the Powers-that-Be and the Order-of-Things.
Martial Synthesis LVL.1
Product of Basic Swordsmanship MAX, Processing MAX, Consciousness MAX, and Resonance MAX.
The ability to blend multiple styles or principles instantly, creating custom techniques on the fly through real-time processing and perception of a martial art's presence.
Chi Harmonization LVL.1
Product of Consciousness MAX, Will MAX, Resonance MAX.
Full control over internal arts and energy. Able to channel energy from the environment or other fighters.
Rift Attribute LVL.1
Product of Conditioning MAX, Processing MAX, Resonance MAX
Each hit or near-miss teaches the body and mind a lesson, automatically adjusting stance, timing, and force to reduce vulnerability.
It seems my enlightenment did much more than just give me chi. It gave me the skill to break through the bottleneck I've been stuck on since I maxed out my skills.
It also alerted all the martial artists in the area.
A shining light, I said. The heavens took it too literally.
"Who turned on the sun?!" a guy getting up from his sleep in a nearby brothel.
Suddenly, a blur from the north of the city whipped towards me, glowing in blue.
As it got closer, I realised.
It was just a crazy old man.
An old man with a sword, shouting, "DEMONNN!"
"What the hell?", I exclaimed.
The old man hit the ground like a missile, and the yard crumbled like paper. He stood menacingly for a second with his back towards me as he slowly got up, eyes glowing in a ruthless deep blue.
He pounced on me, sword held high, screaming and hollering.
I barely got mine up in time, and I managed to block with my newly gained chi.
Scratch that, my posture broke midway. The sound made from the swords clashing made a shockwave that resounded across the Zhao Clan.
And in that moment, I saw.
His chi flowing across his body. His muscles and blood and tendons and joints and skin and organs and everything laid bare but somehow I was seeing normally.
His spiritual veins blinked like nerve lining in a brain.
Distracted, he punched me across the face, and my skin broke. I was sent across the clan yard, breaking through some fences into their dung-filled mule stables.
"You abomination! Who sent you! How dare you mock the heavens with that dance afoul!"
He screamed with disgust I only saw when a guy got served a ratburger in a restaurant in Philly.
My ribs shattered and my eyes strained with the information it was processing, it overwhelmed me.
What the fuck. What the fuck. What. The. Fuck. WHAT THE FUCK!!!
"Show me your true face, demon!"
"Motherfucker! I was just trying to have a quiet night, old man!" My face busted, winced even more when I frowned. My tears falling down my once beautiful, beautiful face stung my skin.
All my tranquility and serenity from my enlightenment transformed into full fight-or-flight mode instinct.
"Who even are you, friggin' lunatic!" I shouted with missing teeth and a raspy voice.
He didn't answer. Instead, he went for a chi-empowered thrust to my abdomen. I forced myself to roll away even though my ribs and my stomach and my liver and my whole torso would hate me in the process.
His sword art was magnificent, and behind it, I saw the essence. Master martial artists that I met during my broker stint seemed to perform things through force and breakthroughs.
I never saw one like it. It was a sword of understanding. Instead of rebelling against the heavens and demanding a new fate, his sword was filled with frustration fended off, rage quelled.
He understood how the heavens worked and then broke through.
He didn't force it through a pill or an achievement.
I could only appreciate that for half a second though as I dodged it. I stood up and slashed away.
With the first, I circulated my qi to move my torso and in turn, the rest of my limbs. The second hurt a bit less. Third, I managed to get a proper foothold out. Fourth, I managed to force the both of us out of the stables.
"Impossible…" muttered the elder.
"Am I not dying fast enough for you?" I was choking on my blood when I managed to force that out.
By the fifth, I was predicting his slashes. After the sixth, I froze and dropped to the ground.
The old man held back the tip of his sword at the final moment.
"How did he do that? He understood…" the elder under his breath, not having even broken a sweat.
"His spirit veins should be blank, and his circulatory system of qi is thinner than an ant's. This is a kind of ungiftedness that only comes every thousand years. But he's gotten this far somehow."
"Isn't this the vessel I've been waiting for all this time?" the man's eyes flashed with a perverted glint.
Even though I was nearly unconscious, I could hear his increasing hyperventilation.
I felt his fingers, imbued with pure heat and yang and thermal energy, piercing the skin under my collarbone.
"You're not a demon. You're a vessel. You'll walk the path of my teachings, and only then will you be worthy of rebellion."
And the world went dark.