Blossoming Path

The moment the black-eyed Envoy swallowed the seed, the sky dimmed.

A soundless shockwave pulsed out from him. The air trembled. The ground cracked. Every thread of qi around us bent toward him like trees in a hurricane.

And then... silence.

All around the battlefield, the cultists fell back.

Even the other Envoy, the scarred one, took a single step back and raised a hand, warding off his own followers with the back of his palm.

The message was clear.

Leave him.

I stood frozen. Heart hammering.

The black-eyed Envoy hadn’t moved. Not yet.

His skin rippled. Bulged. Something beneath the surface twisted, like vines wrapped around muscle, like roots bursting from too-small earth. His veins blackened, branching in grotesque patterns up his neck, over his face. It was compounded by a series of revolting snaps and cracks.

Then he screamed.

A rending of sound and sanity that tore through the battlefield like a splitting mountain.

And he moved.

He didn’t lunge. He exploded. A blur of pulsing limbs and hunger crashing toward the nearest thing—

Ren Zhi.

I ran.

But before I could get two steps forward, something slammed into the earth between us, kicking up a curtain of dust.

His weapons were drawn, but not raised. His expression was grim.

“You stay back,” he said. “You don’t get to die yet.”

I skidded to a stop. “What—”

His gaze flicked to my storage ring. So that’s what this was.

I clenched my jaw. “Then take them,” I said. “If that’s what you want. I’ll give you the Phoenix Tears if you leave.”

He didn’t even flinch.

“No. The time for negotiation has long since passed. Your village dies here. All of it. The youngest is lost. We can't command him anymore. The seed broke his mind.”

His voice cracked then. Just once.

A single line of red slipped from his eye.

“He won’t stop,” he said. “Not until he’s dead.”

And then he raised his blades.

“Which means you’re next.”

I moved before his sentence ended.

The scarred Envoy's swordbreaker came down in a diagonal arc with no wasted motion.

I slid underneath it, breath hitching as the hunk of iron carved through the air where my skull had just been.

Too close.

I couldn't follow up. The only thing keeping me ahead of him was movement. Flow. Instinct.

I dipped low and kicked off the ground, flames flaring at my heels as I weaved past his second strike, using my Heavenly Mantra Flame in tandem with Floating Cloud Steps. His weapons screamed as they collided with the soil, sending shrapnel flying from the impact. Even that could have taken off a limb if I hadn’t turned my shoulder just in time.

He followed without pause.

Every swing was a wall. A guillotine. A strike meant to kill.

The only reason I was still breathing was because of what we’d done earlier; switching opponents, staggering the flow of battle. Xu Ziqing’s strategy. My follow-through. Tianyi and Windy. All of us had bought this fragile window by forcing the enemy into fights they couldn’t optimize for.

But even now, it was unraveling.

The sounds behind me had changed. Not just the clash of blades and qi, but screams.

The black-eyed Envoy, who had become nothing short of a mindless beast, was ripping through our lines. The force of his presence alone bent the battlefield.

Only hunger remained.

Ren Zhi was the only reason we weren’t all dead already.

A roar split the air; wind screaming, trees buckling. My ears rang from the sudden shift in pressure.

A hurricane erupted at the center of the field. I caught a glimpse: Ren Zhi standing with arms extended, hook sword spinning like gyres. The force he summoned threw friend and foe alike into the air, breaking the momentum of the rampage. A desperate measure to scatter the board.

But it wasn’t enough.

I dodged another strike. Fear trembled down my spine, but my feet moved before I could think. Reflex. Muscle. Panic.

Too much.

My thoughts—too many thoughts.

I’d been running multiple streams of thought since this fight began; controlling vines, planning movement, reading opponents, syncing with Tianyi and Windy. A dozen calculations per breath, each one threading through my parallel thoughts.

Now it snapped.

Pain bloomed through my skull.

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A splitting headache detonated behind my eyes like a spike driven straight through the center of my brain. My knees buckled.

I froze. Just for a second. A single breath.

CRACK!

The swordbreaker struck me in the side.

My arms instinctively crossed in front of me. Qi surged. Rooted Banyan Stance flickered to life, my legs digging into the earth.

It wasn’t enough.

The strike crashed into me like a Wind Serpent's tail. My guard shattered. The shock traveled through my limbs and tore into my ribs—crack-crack-crack—as I flew.

The air left my lungs before I hit the ground.

I rolled. Skidded. Dirt and blood streaked in my wake. Everything ached.

I tasted iron.

No time to breathe.

Three cultists were already on me; laughing, howling, their weapons soaked with blood. They didn’t care who I was. What I had.

Just that I was down.

I had nothing.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think.

My mind went blank. My muscles refused to respond. My thoughts, once parallel and ordered, collapsed into a single, blinking panic.

I could feel Tianyi and Windy, still fighting. Still alive.

Ren Zhi and Xu Ziqing were holding what remained of the line, but the black-eyed Envoy was in their ranks now; splitting them open like rotten fruit.

No one could reach me.

No one would make it in time.

I closed my eyes.

But I didn’t die.

Steel clashed.

A sudden clang rang out above me—shrill and jarring. My eyes snapped open in time to see a spear haft shatter against a cultist’s claws, buying me a heartbeat. A second blow followed—this time from a thick axe that cleaved straight through the cultist’s collar, driving him down with a scream.

And then—

“Fall back to him! Cover Kai!” a voice bellowed.

I knew that voice.

Xin Du.

Another clash rang out, and I saw him; lean, breath ragged, blood dripping from his brow, but moving with brutal precision. His blade was crimson from tip to guard. He pivoted, parried, and opened a cultist’s gut in one motion.

A clang of heavier metal followed.

Wang Jun crashed through the chaos like a wall of iron, armor dented and scratched but holding firm. He drove his shoulder into another cultist, knocking the man clean off his feet, then stomped down with a crunch.

Behind them were dozens.

Villagers.

Spears, swords, hammers from the forge. Armor hastily strapped on. Some trembling, others calm.

Lan-Yin’s voice cut through the haze. “Kai!”

A heavy satchel flew through the air.

I fumbled up, catching it with my good arm just before it hit the ground. My hands were numb. My body screamed in protest. But I tore it open.

Dozens of bottles. Powders. Vials. I recognized every one.

My handwriting on the labels. My hands had made these.

My eyes locked on a certain pill carefully stored at the bottom.

The Golden Drop.

I took it out and swallowed.

Warmth exploded through my core like molten sun. The pill flooded my meridians, stitching qi through my damaged nerves. Not enough to heal. But enough to move.

“Go!” I rasped. “You’re not supposed to be here! Don’t let their deaths be for nothing!”

But Wang Jun turned, blood smeared across his jaw.

“We didn’t come to die,” he said, voice thundering. “We came to fight.”

He turned back to the chaos.

“To protect.”

And then they charged.

A line of villagers behind him, crashing into the cultists with grit and desperation. Li Wei's arms shaking as he held his blade like a chisel; Tie Niu swinging a barbed hook with both hands; names and faces I’d grown up with... now screaming in defiance.

It should have been triumphant.

But all I could feel was a pool of dread.

The cultists didn’t care. Their madness thrived on resistance. They shifted. Adjusted. And struck.

I watched Tie Niu scream as a claw pierced his side. Another man, a refugee from Pingyao, ripped in half with a single move. A dozen gone in moments. Then another wave.

My pulse roared in my ears. The pill gave me strength—but it wasn’t enough.

Not for this.

I reached into the satchel and started throwing.

Toxic gas. Alchemical fog spread across the field in a sickly green plume. Lines blurred as I maximized it's spread within the cultist ranks and minimized within ours. I added thick red powder; pepper-based suppressant. Coughing erupted. Eyes watered.

A second mixture followed. Vines erupted, wrapping around legs and arms, dragging some down.

Still not enough.

My Manifold Memory Palace groaned. I pushed harder. Called on combinations I’d only simulated. Tossed flasks that shouldn’t have been stable. Ignored the pain blooming behind my eyes as I burned every remaining ounce of focus. Even the scarred Envoy, who held a degree fo resistance to most of my concoctions, couldn't help but pause and narrow his eyes, stopping his march.

Think. Faster. Tighter trajectories. No waste.

A bamboo seed bomb, hurriedly constructed midair. It exploded into hardened stalks that pierced the battlefield like spears.

I didn’t think.

I moved.

Pulled essence from my ring; the last of my Bloodsoul Bloom reserves. Instinctively layered them with flame, condensed into a palm-sized orb. I activated the Alchemical Nexus around my hand and refined it in real time.

Tick. Tick. Throw.

It landed dead center in a group of cultists and detonated.

Shrieks followed. The battlefield cracked.

I stood. Chest heaving. Blood streaming from my nose, my ears.