Chapter 30: The Flawed Legion
Recovery was a battle against echoes.
Feng lay in a small, stone cell—his new "quarters"—for two days. The chaos wasn't just energy; it was psychic shrapnel. Fragments of mad god-dreams bounced inside his skull: visions of continents flexing like muscle, the taste of magma-blood, the sound of a planet's core slowing like a dying heart.
His Dao worked slowly, digesting the invasive memories. He wasn't just consuming tribulation anymore; he was performing spiritual surgery on himself, extracting foreign nightmares before they could rewrite his own story.
On the third morning, the door opened without a knock. Chapter Master Shard entered, followed by two Broken Blade members—a woman with metallic silver hair that moved like liquid mercury, and a man whose skin was transparent, revealing slowly swirling organs of light.
"You are functional," Shard stated. It wasn't a question. "Your reduction of the Maw's output, however minor, proves your flaw has utility. You are now a Probationary Blade of the Shattered Star Alliance. These are your assigned squadmates for surface operations: Vex, and Lum."
The silver-haired woman, Vex, gave a sharp, humorless smile. "The chaos-eater. Heard you puked up rainbows for a day."
The transparent man, Lum, merely observed, his internal lights pulsing softly. "Your spiritual signature is… layered. Like a tomb with many occupants."
Feng sat up, his body still aching in unfamiliar ways. "Surface operations?"
"The Alliance does not just guard the Maw," Shard said. "We project power. We secure resources. We eliminate rivals. And we hunt other Flawed who might be of use… or who might draw the wrong kind of attention. Your first mission: a Reaver warband to the south has been capturing Flawed and selling them to a neutral auction house. We want those Flawed. Retrieve them. Vex and Lum will assess your combat viability outside the pit."
A test. Of course. His worth in the chaos was one thing. His worth in the brutal, mundane violence of the Wastes was another.
"And my companions?" Feng asked.
"They remain here. Under… hospitality. Their safety is tied to your performance."
An hour later, Feng stood at the canyon's main gate, outfitted in simple, dark Broken Blade leathers. Vex carried a whip that seemed to be made of solidified mercury. Lum held no visible weapon.
They moved into the Glass Plains under a bleached sky. Vex set a punishing pace, her liquid hair flowing behind her like a banner.
She's testing my endurance, Feng thought. Seeing if the Maw left me weak. He matched her, step for step, using the rhythm to further settle his churning spirit. The storm-pride in him refused to show fatigue.
Lum floated more than walked, his feet barely touching the obsidian. "The Reavers are led by a man called Gristle," he intoned, his voice echoing slightly from his hollow chest. "His flaw is kinetic absorption. Blows make him stronger. He has collected seven Flawed: a fire-breather, a bone-shaper, a weaver of minor luck, and others."
"How do we want them?" Vex asked, glancing at Feng. "Alive is preferable. But the Alliance would rather have dead Flawed than Flawed in enemy hands."
Feng understood the subtext. How ruthless are you?
"Alive," he said. "They might be useful."
Vex smirked. "Sentimental."
"Practical," Feng countered. "A live Flawed can fight for you later."
They found the Reaver camp in a rare jumble of basalt pillars. It was a filthy nest of hide tents and stolen goods. Eight Reavers, including the hulking Gristle, who looked like a pile of scar tissue given human shape. The captured Flawed were chained to a central post—a pitiful group, their strange features marked by fear and exhaustion.
Gristle was laughing, drinking from a horn, showing off by letting one of his men punch him in the gut. The blow landed with a thud, and Gristle's body seemed to swell slightly, his aura growing denser. "Again! Feed me!"
Kinetic absorption. He turns force into fuel. Feng analyzed coldly, the Enforcer's focus layering over his vision. A perfect defense against brute strength. But what about force that isn't kinetic?
Vex didn't believe in stealth. "Broken Blade!" she shouted, her voice ringing off the pillars. "Release the captives. Or become examples."
The Reavers scrambled for weapons. Gristle turned, a wide, nasty grin splitting his face. "Blades! Come to donate to my strength!"
He charged, not at Vex, but at Feng, the new face, perceiving him as the weak link.
Feng stood his ground. He let Gristle come. The Reaver's fist, capable of shattering stone, aimed for his head.
At the last second, Feng didn't dodge. He didn't block. He stepped inside the punch, letting it graze his shoulder. The impact was jarring, a burst of pain. But more importantly, it was contact.
As Gristle's kinetic energy tried to flood into him, Feng opened a channel—not to absorb it, but to redirect it.
He used the principle he'd learned in the Maw: severing and redirecting connections. He took the force of the punch and, instead of letting it be absorbed or suffering it, he funneled it down through his own feet and into the ground.
The obsidian at his feet cracked in a spiderweb pattern. Feng skidded back a foot, his shoulder throbbing, but he was unharmed. Gristle's grin faltered. He hadn't gotten stronger. The energy had just… vanished.
"What trick—" Gristle began.
Feng didn't let him finish. He closed the distance. He didn't throw a punch. He placed his palm on Gristle's chest.
And he fed him a different kind of energy.
He pushed a thread of the Forgotten God's sorrow into the Reaver.
It wasn't kinetic force. It was pure, undiluted emotion. The profound, divine grief of loss and eternity.
Gristle's flaw was useless against it. The sorrow sank into his scarred heart, bypassing his physical defenses. His eyes went wide. The brutal joy of battle, the pumping adrenaline, the cruel certainty—all of it was drowned in a sudden, overwhelming ocean of sadness. He remembered every loss he'd ever caused, felt the weight of every life he'd crushed, not as guilt, but as infinite, impersonal melancholy.
He staggered, dropping to his knees, a sob tearing from his throat. He wasn't hurt. He was disarmed. Utterly.
Vex's mercury whip snapped out, disarming two Reavers with precise, brutal strikes. Lum simply… appeared behind another, his transparent hand passing into the man's chest. The Reaver screamed as his inner light was violently synced to Lum's rhythm, his heartbeat going arrhythmic before he collapsed.
The fight was over in seconds. The remaining Reavers, seeing their invincible leader weeping on the ground, broke and ran.
Feng looked down at Gristle, who was now curled in a fetal position, whispering apologies to no one. The god-sorrow was a weapon of devastating, non-lethal precision. It left no mark, but it shattered the will to fight.
He withdrew the emotion, pulling the heavy sorrow back into himself. It was heavier now, tinged with Gristle's petty brutalities. A stain.
Vex looked at Feng, her earlier smirk gone, replaced by calculating respect. "Efficient. Not our way, but efficient."
Lum stood over the freed Flawed, his internal lights pulsing gently, assessing them. "The captives are intact. Their flaws are stable."
The fire-breather, a young man with smoldering hair, looked at Feng with desperate hope. "You… you saved us. Are you with the Broken Blade?"
Feng met his eyes. "Yes. They offer a place. But the price is your flaw, turned into a weapon for them."
The bone-shaper, an older woman with chalk-white fingers, lifted her chin. "Better a weapon with a handle than a curiosity in a cage. I will come."
One by one, they agreed. Seven new Flawed. A squad. A resource.
As they marched back to the canyon, Vex fell into step beside Feng. "Shard will be pleased. You retrieved the assets and demonstrated a unique tactical ability. The sorrow-weapon. Can you use it often?"
Feng felt the cold, deep lake inside him. "It has a cost. To me. I carry what I use."
"All power has a cost," Vex said dismissively. "That's the first thing you learn in the Wastes."
Back at the Broken Blade fortress, Chapter Master Shard received the report in her stark chamber. She listened, her porcelain face impassive.
"Seven new Flawed. Minimal casualties. Gristle neutralized without mortal injury." She focused on Feng. "The sorrow. You wield the Tear's power."
"A fragment," Feng said. "It's… persuasive."
"It is a strategic asset," Shard corrected. "We will factor it into your role. You will lead this new squad. Designate them. Train them. Turn them into a unit. They are your responsibility. Their failures will be yours."
Feng understood. He was no longer just a probe to be thrown into the Maw. He was being given a command. A leash made of other people's lives.
He looked at the seven rescued Flawed, gathered in the courtyard, looking to him with a mixture of fear and nascent loyalty.
The Broken Blade sees them as tools. I see them as… reflections. Each one a different kind of flaw. A different kind of hunger.
He had entered this den of wolves as a potential sacrifice.
Now, without wanting it, he was building a pack.
And in the depths below, the wounded world-soul dreamed its angry, tectonic dreams, unaware that the tiny, hungry flaw on the surface was slowly, surely, gathering the means to take a much bigger bite.