Longwei was beginning to realize that Blood cultivation had its own fighting style.
It wasn't like that of sect techniques, it had no formal stances, no elegant forms perfected over centuries. It was raw and aggressive with very strike aiming to kill. Every defense incorporated a counter and with it was no wasted movement, no honor and no mercy.
Lian Xue came at him like a storm.
Her sword was everywhere at once high, low, feinting left and striking right. Each slash carried blood aspected Qi that tried to leech through his defenses, draining his cultivation even when he blocked successfully.
Longwei fell back on his Celestial Sword training. The forms Zhou Chen had practiced with him for years, the techniques he'd mastered before his fall. They saved his life in the first exchange with muscle memory guiding his body when conscious thought would have been too slow.
But they weren't enough.
Lian Xue had killed 73 people, meaning she'd fought countless battles and absorbed countless techniques. She moved like someone who'd died and learned from it.
"Better!" she called out, pressing her advantage. "You actually have some skill! But it's too clean, too formal. Your sect training is showing!"
Her blade cut his shoulder, it wasn't much but enough to draw blood and the wound burned. He felt his Qi being siphoned through the cut, feeding into her sword.
"That's her specialty," he noticed. Every wound she causes drains cultivation. Death by a thousand cuts, each one weakening me while strengthening her.
By the side Mei was desperate to help but the rules held her back
"Longwei!" she called out. "The voices! Use them!"
The voices... The 200+ resentment-cursed souls screaming in his head every waking moment.
One of the Tier 2 techniques he'd unlocked: Resentment Channeling. Weaponizing the contamination and turning curse into weapon.
But using it roots the voices deeper, making them harder to cleanse.
Lian Xue's sword slashed across his thigh. Another burning cut with more Qi siphoned away.
He had No choice.
Longwei stopped defending and began attacking. Channeled every screaming voice in his head into a single Yang-enhanced strike.
The psychic assault hit Lian Xue like a physical blow.
She staggered, ayher confident smile faltering. "Whoa.."
He used the momentary advantage, with a palm strike to her sternum, that carried Yang energy with the weight of 200 dying curses. Bingwen's rage, Frostwind's hatred and all the souls they'd consumed before death.
Lian Xue's defense cracked.
She leaped back, with blood trailing from her nose. "You're using resentment attacks? Already?" She laughed, she seemed delighted. "Most blood cultivators don't learn that for months!"
"I'm a fast learner."
"Clearly." She wiped the blood away, her expression shifting to something more serious. "Fine. No more playing around."
Her cultivation brightened Core Formation Stage Two at full power. The cave shook with it's ceiling rocks falling. The blood-red Qi around her intensified until it looked like she was bleeding light.
"Blood Arts: Crimson Tide."
The technique hit like a tsunami.
Red energy flooded the cave but it didn't attack directly, it just fill every space, every crack. Longwei felt it pressing against his skin, seeking entry trying to invade his meridians and drain him from within.
"This is why they call her Blood Lotus. She doesn't just fight, she drowns you."
He countered with Yang energy, creating a sphere of protective fire around himself. The Crimson Tide hissed and steamed where it touched his defenses but it kept coming patiently, relentlessly.
She's stronger than me in raw power. Core Formation Two against my Four should favor me, but she's been at this stage for months maybe years.
I just broke through two days ago, my foundation is still unstable.
Mei's Yin energy began flooding into him again, and since it wasn't attacking Lian Xue, it didn't violate the rules. It was simply reinforcing Longwei's defenses with her ice mixing with his fire, creating something more resilient and powerful.
"That's clever," Lian Xue admitted. "Partnership cultivation during combat, I've heard of it but never seen it. Your bond must be strong."
"Strong enough," Longwei replied
"Let's test that."
She changed tactics.. Instead of attacking Longwei, her Crimson Tide surged toward Mei.
Not a direct assault, that would break the rules but blood Qi seeping through the cave floor toward the ice phoenix, trying to contaminate the ground she stood on and force her to burn energy maintaining her position.
Clever and effective.
Mei's ice formed barriers but the blood Qi flowed around them like water, seeking for any little gaps patiently.
Longwei had to choose: maintain his own defenses against Lian Xue, or help Mei?
He chose Mei (duhh)
He extended his Yang sphere to cover her as well, meaning now he was defending both of them against the Crimson Tide.
His Qi reserves plummeted.
Lian Xue smiled. "There it is, the weakness. You'll sacrifice your own advantage to protect her. Every. Single. Time."
She attacked while he was distracted.
Sword flashing in, not directly at him but at the exposed gap in his defenses. The blade cut deep into his side, between his ribs seeking his lung.
Longwei twisted in pain as the sword barely missed his lung but carved through muscle with blood spraying
More importantly: Lian Xue's draining technique activated through the wound and he felt his cultivation being sucked away and pulled through the cut directly into her blade again.
She's going to drain him dry.
Mei let out a scream. "WEII...."
But Longwei made a decision.
He didn't pull away from the blade, instead he leaned into it.
Grabbed the sword with his bare hand, ignoring the way it cut his palm. Held it lodged into his side, trapping it.
"What are you..." Lian Xue tried to pull back.
He didn't let her.
Instead, he channeled Yang energy down the blade using her own weapon as a conduit, flooding her with fire and fury.
The technique backfired spectacularly.
His Qi was pouring into her through the sword. Her draining technique reversed, suddenly pulling his energy faster than she could process. Too much, too fast and too contaminated.
Lian Xue's eyes went wide, as ahe tried to cut off the connection and release the sword...
But it was too late.
Longwei's Yang exploded inside her cultivation base, raw power and resentment detonating like a bomb.
Her Core Formation Stage Two cultivation destabilized.
She screamed... Probably the first genuine emotion other than predatory amusement he'd seen from her.
Longwei released the sword stumbling back. The wound in his side was catastrophic, he could even feel his lung filling with blood but Lian Xue was worse.
She collapsed to her knees, coughing. Blood dripping from her mouth, her nose, her eyes. Internal damages. Her cultivation base thrashing like a wounded animal.
"You..." she gasped. "You used yourself as bait. Suicide technique..."
"Not suicide if it works," Longwei replied, but he could barely stand. Mei was there immediately using ice to try sealing his wounds, trying to keep him conscious.
Lian Xue looked up at him and for the first time, he saw... respect.
RESPECT.
"I underestimated you," she said quietly. "Won't... happen again..."
She collapsed completely, not dead, he could still sense her Qi signature, she was just unconscious.
The Ladder notification appeared:
```
CHALLENGE VICTOR: Shen Longwei (Rank #7,392)
CHALLENGE DEFEATED: Lian Xue (Rank #8,234)
ABSORPTION AVAILABLE
Victor may absorb defeated blood cultivator's accumulated power
Warning: Target is unconscious but alive
Killing blow required to absorb
Choose: MERCY or ABSORPTION
Timer: 60 seconds
```
Sixty seconds to decide if he'd kill an unconscious woman.
Mei's whisper: "Wei... She tried to kill us and she has murdered 73 people. She'll hunt us again if you let her live."
She was right. Every logical, practical reason said: kill Lian Xue. Absorb her power. Jump ranks massively. Eliminate a threat.
BUT.
She was unconscious and already defeated, she was no longer a threat at this moment.
Killing her now wouldn't be self defense, It would be execution. Murder.
The line. Where is the line?
And with the bond, he could feel Mei's conflict. She was arguing for killing Lian Xue, but she didn't actually want him to do it. She was testing, seeing what he'd choose.
He'd notice she had tendencies to put him to test randomly.
Or maybe I'm just projecting. Maybe she genuinely thinks I should kill.
Thirty seconds.
Lian Xue's sword lay beside her, within arm's reach. One strike. Quick death. Absorption. Power.
The voices in his head were screaming mixed messages, some demanding her death, some pleading for mercy, some just screaming incoherently.
Twenty seconds.
Wuji created this system and created these rules. The Ladder wants me to kill her.
But the system doesn't control me, not yet Atleast.
Ten seconds.
Longwei picked up her sword.
Mei tensed up.
He drove it into the ground beside Lian Xue's head firmly.
"No," he said.
The Ladder notification changed:
```
MERCY CHOSEN
Lian Xue (Rank #8,234) SPARED
Combat concluded: VICTOR without ABSORPTION
Rank unchanged
Reputation impact: +HONOR, -RUTHLESSNESS
Note: Defeated blood cultivator now has DEBT to victor
Debt may be called at any time
Warning: Other blood cultivators may see MERCY as WEAKNESS
```
The crimson barrier dissolved. Combat was over.
Longwei collapsed beside Mei. The cut in his side was bad, possibly fatal without treatment.
"You're an idiot," Mei said, but her voice was gentle. "You know she'll come for us again."
"Maybe, or maybe she'll remember I spared her when I could have killed her." He coughed blood. "Besides, the Ladder says she owes me a debt now. That might be more useful than absorbing her power."
"Or it might get you killed."
"That too." He managed a weak smile. "But I held the line, that has to count for something."
She kissed him on the forehead. "You're still an idiot, but at least a good one."
"I'll take it."
Behind them, Lian Xue finally moved, her consciousness was returning slowly. When her eyes finally opened, they found Longwei immediately.
"You spared me," she said in confusion. "Why?"
"Because you were beaten. Killing you then would have been murder."
"Murder?" She laughed. "You stupid idiot, what?"
"That's the difference between me and you."
Lian Xue stared at him for a moment in silence. Then she struggled to sit up shakingly, her cultivation was a mess... would take days, maybe even weeks to recover from the internal damage he'd caused.
"The Ladder says I owe you a debt," she finally said. "That's... new, I've never been in debt before. I Always made sure to kill or be killed, clean endings."
"Will you honor it?"
"I don't know." It was an honest answer. "My instinct is to recover, then hunt you down and finish this. But..." She touched her chest, where his Yang had nearly destroyed her core. "You could have killed me and you chose not to."
"And?"
"And I don't understand people who make impractical choices." She stood still shaking, and retrieved her sword from where he'd planted it. "So I'm going to think about it, about this... honor thing you're trying to maintain."
She limped forward a little then paused.
"Fair warning, new blood. Other blood cultivators won't be as impressed by your mercy, they'll see weakness. Target you specifically because you won't kill defeated enemies." She glanced back. "You're making the Ladder climb harder on yourself."
"Then I'll climb slower, but as myself."
Lian Xue shook her head between admiration and exasperation. "We'll see how long that lasts. The Gathering is coming six months from now, every blood cultivator ranked #1,000 or above has to attend. You're close to that threshold, another few big kills and you might qualify."
"What happens at the Gathering?"
"No one knows, no one who's attended has ever talked about it publicly." Her eyes glittered. "But I've heard rumors, something... something that makes all the killing worth it."
She limped out of the cave into the dawn light.
"See you at the Gathering, Shen Longwei. If you survive that long."
Then she was gone. Movement technique, despite her injuries.
Longwei and Mei sat in the cave, both wounded and exhausted.
"Did you make the right choice?" Mei asked quietly.
"I don't know, but ask me when she either honors the debt or tries to kill us again."
"That's not reassuring at all."
"Nothing about this fucking path is reassuring."
He checked the Ladder ranking:
```
Rank #7,392: Shen Longwei
Kills: 5
Status: ACTIVE
Bonds: 1 (Mei Xuefeng - 87%)
Reputation: MERCIFUL WARRIOR (Rare trait)
Debt Owed To: 1 (Lian Xue - Blood Lotus)
Threat Assessment: UNKNOWN
New Achievement Unlocked: FIRST MERCY
Reward: Technique revealed - "Debt Binding"
Description: Blood cultivators who owe you debts can be compelled to honor them through the Ladder
Warning: Compulsion breaks the debt and creates permanent enemy
Recommendation: Use sparingly
```
"Just Great," Longwei muttered.
Mei chuckled. "Only you could find a way to weaponize mercy."
They spent the next hour trying to treat his wounds (their wounds really.)
And deep down, Shen Longwei in his pain asked himself a Question:
"Was The Power Worth It."