The training hall was silent, save for the soft, rhythmic breathing of two dozen adolescents seated in the perfect lotus position. Morning light streamed through the high windows, illuminating faces pinched in concentration. This was the daily ritual: hours of silent Ki circulation, the foundational practice for any martial artist.
Among them, Jin Tie sat with his eyes closed, the picture of compliance. Internally, however, he was counting the seconds until he could escape.
This was the Early Stage of Ki Manifestation? A stage others spoke of with reverence? To him, it was a glorified, state-mandated nap where you had to think about your breathing. The very idea of sitting still for hours, consciously guiding the flow of energy through his body, was a special kind of torture. It disgusted him. His mind itched for movement, for a puzzle to solve, for anything other than this monotonous internal vigil.
While the others around him strained, their auras flickering with the effort of pulling in the world's ambient energy—a noisy, chaotic mix of elemental ki that required intense mental refinement—Jin Tie's experience was fundamentally different.
His technique, the one only the Clan Head knew the origin of, was called The Monad's Breath. And it was, in every sense of the word, cheating.
He wasn't doing anything. He wasn't struggling or pulling or refining. The Monad's Breath simply placed his Primordial Monad Gate into a state of perfect, effortless resonance with the silent, foundational layer of existence. It wasn't an act; it was a state of being. While others were downstream, desperately filtering muddy water to get a clean drink, Jin Tie's gate was a pristine wellspring, drilled directly into the pure, underground aquifer.
The highest quality, most fundamental "Source Ki" naturally coalesced within him. It wasn't a flood, but a gentle, inexorable seepage of pure potential. One effortless breath for him was worth ten of the laborious, sweat-drenched refinement cycles the others were performing. His efficiency wasn't in speed, but in an impossible, direct access to the source of all power.
And he couldn't care less.
What was the point of such a magnificent cheat code if it still meant you had to waste a perfectly good morning sitting on a cold, hard floor? The sheer, staggering purity of the energy gathering within him was of little importance. It was just… energy. It didn't make the process any less boring.
A part of him, the part that was terrifyingly smart, understood the implications. This was the key to power that could shake the heavens, the kind of foundation upon which legends were built. His father's Heavenly Lightning was a spectacular firework; his own Primordial Monad was the gunpowder factory.
But another, much louder part of him, the part that valued pastries and naps and his sister's smile above all else, simply sighed. Just a little longer, it whined. Then you can go find Yue and see if the new batch of candied hawthorns has arrived.
So he sat, a vessel of unimaginable potential, filled with the world's most pristine energy, his greatest ambition being for the session to end so he could go bother his little sister. The irony was as lost on him as the Ki was pure.
The Monad's Breath was, as ever, doing all the work. A gentle, inexorable tide of Source Ki continued to seep into Jin Tei's core, utterly without his input. He was mentally composing a compelling argument for why afternoon naps were a more advanced form of ki cultivation than this tedious sitting, when he noticed it.
The ray of sunlight he'd been using as a timer, the one slowly creeping across the polished wooden floorboards, didn't just dim. It died.
A deep, unnatural shadow fell over the entire training hall. The serene morning light was snuffed out in a heartbeat, replaced by the bruised purple and grey of a sudden, violent storm. A torrential downpour hammered against the roof, a deafening drumbeat that shattered the hall's meditative silence. The other disciples' concentration broke, their eyes flying open in confusion and fear. This wasn't right. The sky had been clear moments ago.
Jin Tie's own eyes snapped open, not with fear, but with a sharp, prickling annoyance. Great, he thought, now it's going to be muddy.
His gaze, along with every other disciple's, was drawn upward through the high windows. And there, standing in the heart of the tempest as if it were his personal throne room, was a man.
He hovered effortlessly in the sky, his dark blue robes untouched by the lashing rain. His features were majestic and utterly alien, with eyes that glowed with the chilling light of a deep-sea trench, and two small, obsidian horns curling from his forehead. He looked down upon the Jin clan manor not with malice, but with an air of detached, clinical observation, like a man surveying an anthill.
The horned man sighed, a sound that carried over the roar of the storm and held a weight of immense boredom. He smiled. "What an unlucky bunch of mortals."
He was holding a small, shimmering mirror in his hand, his gaze flicking between it and the manor grounds. His eerie smile widened. "There she is."
In his study, Jin Long's head jerked up from his wife's lap. The abrupt and total shift in the weather was a physical wrongness in the air, a violation of natural law. But it was the presence—a colossal, suffocating pressure that descended without warning—that froze the blood in his veins. It was a power so far beyond the Profound Concept stage it was laughable.
And it was moving. Fast. Not towards him, the clan head, the strongest warrior here. Its trajectory was deliberate, unerring, heading straight for…
Yue.
The world blurred. The Heavenly Lightning within Jin Long didn't roar; it screamed, compressing into a single, impossible point of speed. He became a bolt of light, the very air cracking in a supersonic wave as he abandoned his study, shattering the wall between him and his destination in his desperation.
He arrived in his daughter's courtyard not a heartbeat later, the scene before him searing itself into his mind.
The horned man stood calmly, the storm raging around him but leaving a perfect circle of stillness where he stood. Before him, the very fabric of space was torn open, a void of deepest indigo that whispered of infinite cold and silent stars. And there, within that void, was Jin Yue. She floated peacefully, her eyes closed as if in a deep, untroubled sleep, a small, serene smile on her face as she was drawn further into the abyss.
"NO!" The word was ripped from Jin Long's throat, a raw, thunderous denial that shook the very foundations of the manor. He lunged, every ounce of his world-shaking power focused into one desperate, saving grab for his little girl.
The world had shrunk to the space between his outstretched hand and his daughter's vanishing form. Jin Long, a man whose name was synonymous with power, became a force of pure nature. The Heavenly Lightning within him didn't just surge; it detonated. His body became a blinding spear of golden-white energy, the air itself ionizing and screaming in protest as he crossed the courtyard in a timespan too small to measure. Every concept he had mastered, every iota of his profound strength, was focused into that single, desperate lunge. He would grab her, he would tear that void apart with his bare hands—
The horned man didn't even turn.
He simply flicked his wrist backward, a casual, almost bored gesture, as if swatting a gnat buzzing too close to his ear.
There was no colossal impact, no thunderous clash of energies. It was a negation. The universe itself seemed to reject Jin Long's existence in that moment. His cataclysmic charge, enough to level a mountain range, met an immovable, unfeeling force. The Heavenly Lightning, a power that commanded the sky's fury, was snuffed out not with a bang, but a whimper.
Jin Long felt his ki shatter. His bones screamed. The world became a blur of violent, uncontrollable motion as he was flung backward like a discarded ragdoll. He crashed through the courtyard wall, then the main training hall, then the eastern archives. Stone, wood, and priceless scrolls disintegrated around him, each impact a dull, distant thunder. He finally skidded to a halt in the ruins of a guest pavilion half a li away, his body buried under tons of rubble, his world reduced to dust, pain, and a ringing silence.
From the heart of the devastation, a voice cut through the chaos, clear and utterly nonchalant, as if commenting on the weather. "Patience, mortal. It's not your turn."
Before the dust could even settle, before Jin Long could muster a coherent thought through the shattered mosaic of his mind, the air in front of him shimmered. The horned man stood there, pristine and untouched, his dark blue robes without a single smudge. He looked down at the broken clan head, his blue dragon eyes devoid of any emotion—not hatred, not triumph, not even curiosity. It was the look one gave a stone on the path.
Jin Long tried to push himself up, his arms trembling, blood dripping from a gash on his forehead, mingling with the dust. The sheer, absolute power this being had just displayed wasn't just superior; it was from a different dimension of existence entirely. His mental state, the unshakable confidence of a peak master, was crumbling like a sandcastle before a tsunami.
The horned man spoke, his voice calm, almost conversational. "Blame the heavens and your legacy. I sincerely do not enjoy doing this." The words were an apology, but the flat, disinterested tone made them sound like a recitation from a dull textbook.
As he spoke, a subtle shift occurred in the raging storm. The torrential rain, which had been hammering the entire Jin dynasty lands, began to change. Each individual raindrop, millions upon millions of them, suddenly solidified. They turned from liquid water into perfect, crystalline shards of ice, each one the color of a deep, malevolent indigo shade.
It was a transformation that happened in the space between one heartbeat and the next, a silent, horrific command issued to the very elements.
And then they fell.
Not as rain, but as a sky-born blizzard of daggers.
The screams began instantly. Not just from the central manor, but from every corner of the Jin territory—from the training grounds, the bustling markets, the quiet gardens, the humble homes on the outskirts. A chorus of terror and agony, sharp and short, as the shades of ice fell indiscriminately, piercing through roofs, through armor, through flesh and bone. The sound was a horrifying tapestry of shattering glass and dying cries, woven together by the relentless storm.
Jin Long, lying broken in the rubble, could only stare, dumbstruck. His mind, already reeling, simply broke. What… what kind of power is this? This wasn't a martial art. This wasn't ki manipulation. This was… decree. A whim of a god, casually rewriting reality and ending thousands of lives as an afterthought. His legacy, his strength, his clan—all of it was rendered utterly, pathetically meaningless.
The horned man began to walk towards him, his steps slow and measured on the debris-strewn ground. He was a predator who knew the hunt was over. Jin Long didn't even have the will to flinch. He was already mentally defeated, his spirit extinguished by the sheer scale of the atrocity.
The horned man didn't break his stride. With a lazy, almost artistic swing of his hand, as if flicking a piece of lint from his sleeve, he conjured a long, slender spear formed from the same shade of ice. It was beautiful and deadly, humming with a faint, crystalline song.
It moved.
To Jin Long, it didn't seem to move at all. One moment it was forming in the air, the next, there was a sensation of absolute, transcendent cold blossoming right between his eyes. There was no pain, only a final, shocking clarity as the world dissolved into infinite blue. The spear pierced through his forehead, through his skull, and anchored itself deep into the stone beneath him, pinning his head to the ground.
The horned man reached his body. He stood for a moment, looking down at the slain powerhouse. He made another subtle gesture, and a shimmering, golden stream of ki—the condensed, lifelong cultivation of Jin Long, master of the Late Profound Concept Stage—was drawn out from the corpse. It swirled in the air like captured sunlight before being absorbed into the man's palm.
He tilted his head, a faint, almost imperceptible flicker of appraisal in his alien eyes. "The purity ain't that bad," he remarked, his tone still utterly nonchalant, as if he'd just sampled a mildly interesting vintage of wine.
Then, he vanished.
The oppressive, world-ending pressure lifted instantly. The dark clouds, their purpose served, simply dissipated into nothingness. The sun shone down once more upon the Jin dynasty, brilliant and warm, illuminating the horrifying stillness. It shone on the glittering, shade-blue ice daggers embedded everywhere, and on the terrible, silent peace that had descended.