The day before the duel was for cowards to pray and champions to sharpen their steel. For Jin Wei, it was the slow, grinding passage of hours toward his own execution.
He stood in the Tianshu Academy's public practice hall, a cavernous space filled with the murmur of chanting and the rustle of scrolls. The air smelled of fresh ink and quiet focus, a scent that now made his stomach clench with acid dread. He held a brush, his knuckles white. Before him lay a pristine sheet of practice paper.
He tried to master a single, simple character: 'Ward' (防). It was a basic defensive glyph, a foundational technique. His mind knew the strokes, but his hands refused to obey. His spiritual energy, shallow and weak, wouldn't coalesce.
With a surge of desperate will, he brought the brush down. The stroke was too heavy. Ink splattered across the paper like black blood, ruining the character before it was half-formed. A small, ugly blotch of his own failure.
A few students nearby glanced over. Smirks flickered across their faces before they turned away, their silent judgment louder than any insult.
Useless. It's all useless.
"This is pointless."
Lin's voice cut through his haze of self-loathing. She stood beside him, arms crossed, her expression a mixture of frustration and deep worry. She didn't look at the ruined scroll, only at the desperate set of his jaw.
"You should forfeit," she said, her voice low.
"Never," Jin Wei bit out, grabbing a fresh sheet of paper.
"This isn't a game." Her tone sharpened. "Sun Jian favors the Fire-aspected arts. Do you know what that means? His ink doesn't just mark you. It burns. It sears the characters into your skin, leaving scars that never fade. I've seen men crippled by it."
The warning was practical, a plea grounded in brutal reality. But Sun Jian's triumphant smile flashed in his mind, a vision of him walking away from an empty dueling platform. The whispers of coward would follow Jin Wei for the rest of his life.
He met her gaze, his own eyes hard and unyielding. "I won't give him the satisfaction."
Lin stared at him for a long moment, the concern in her eyes hardening into resignation. His pride was a wall she could not breach. "Then you are a fool." Her voice clipped with disappointment. She turned and walked away, leaving him alone with his ink, his fear, and the crushing certainty that she was right.
The orthodox path offered him no victory. It offered only pain and a more profound disgrace. He was utterly, completely alone.
***
Night fell, swallowing the academy in shadows. In his small room, Jin Wei stared at the blank wall, the hours ticking away like a death-watch beetle. Lin's warning echoed in his mind.
It burns.
He had one choice. One path left.
His movements were stiff, his muscles tight with a terrible resolve. He knelt, reached under his cot, and drew out the heavy, cloth-wrapped bundle. He unwrapped it slowly. The inkstone was a void in the dim lamplight, a block of polished night that drank the warmth from the room. His hands trembled as its surface met his skin. A deep, unnatural cold sank into his bones.
The certain humiliation of defeat, or the soul-devouring cost of this forbidden power. He chose the unknown.
He poured a few drops of water onto the stone's surface and began to grind the inkstick. The sound was a harsh, dry scrape, impossibly loud in the silent room. A faint scent, like ozone after a lightning strike and old dust from a forgotten tomb, filled the air. With every rotation, the cold intensified, seeping from the stone into his soul.
He needed a defense. A word. Shield was too passive. Ward was a proven failure. Armor was mundane, a physical concept for a metaphysical attack. He needed something more. Something absolute. A word that was not just a defense, but a declaration of defiance.
His mind settled on it. The character for 'Unbreakable' (堅). Solid, unyielding, absolute.
His gaze swept the room and landed on a small, smooth river stone he kept on his windowsill, a simple grey rock from years ago. It was worthless. Humble. Perfect.
He placed the stone before him and dipped his brush into the ink. The liquid was thick and unnaturally black, clinging to the bristles. He took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing away the image of his mother's blank face. He poured all his will, all his desperation, into the tip of the brush.
He began to write.
Each stroke was an agony of concentration. He painted the complex character onto the stone's smooth surface, his hand moving with a precision he could never normally achieve. As he completed the final, decisive stroke, the ink flared with a soft, internal light for a single heartbeat. Then it sank into the stone, vanishing completely.
The rock in his hand suddenly felt heavier, impossibly dense.
At the same instant, a spike of pure agony lanced through his skull. Not physical pain. The pain of excision. A memory ripped out of him, torn away by the roots. He saw a flash of a laughing face, a boy with a chipped front tooth, felt the phantom warmth of a shared secret whispered behind a willow tree. Then, nothing. The face was gone. The name was gone. The warmth of friendship vanished, leaving a hollow, aching void.
He sat frozen for a long moment, the horror taking time to find its voice; only when his breath returned did the grief arrive.
A certainty chilled him to the marrow: a piece of his life was gone forever. He had his defense. The price was immediate, and it was devastating.
***
His hand shook as he held the river stone. It was just a rock. But it was also a tombstone for a friendship he could no longer remember. Was the sacrifice worth it? He had to know.
He snatched the sharp calligraphy knife from his desk, its steel edge gleaming. He held his breath and dragged the blade across the stone's surface with all his strength.
A high-pitched screech tore through the silence. The knife skidded off the rock, the steel blade scoring a bright line on itself. The stone remained pristine. Not a scratch. Not a whisper of a mark.
It was unbreakable.
A wave of relief, cold and sharp, washed over him. It worked. The power was real. He had a chance. But the relief was instantly chased by a throb of pain from the fresh wound in his mind. He clutched the stone, the proof of his monstrous bargain, and stared at his own haunted reflection in the dark window.
The duel was hours away. He had his defense. He could stop Sun Jian's fire.
Then a realization struck him, cold and horrifying, with the force of a physical blow. A terror colder than the inkstone, sharper than the sacrificial knife, dwarfed everything he had felt before.
He had prepared a defense for himself.
But what if Sun Jian's first attack wasn't aimed at him?
What if he aimed it at his sister, watching from the crowd?
----
Drop a Power Stone—may your day be as unbreakable (不壞) as Jin Wei's will.