The clouds churned as if choking on ash. The ruined plateau, once sacred training grounds, was now deathly silent. Jian Wuxin stood with one foot planted firmly in cracked stone, his bare hand holding the air like a sheathless sword. Across from him floated Elder Morokai, the dreaded Inquisitor of the Black Demonic Sect, his three inner worlds hovering behind him like orbiting dooms.
A standoff layered in thousands of unspoken moves.
Jian's thoughts:
Three Daos. Three inner worlds. He's not suppressing them—he's merging them. Decay to weaken my body. Chains to trap my options. Mirror to reflect my own instincts back at me.
Frostveil's aura pulsed, her twin Daos of Ice and Soul vibrating in sync. Her eyes flicked between the elder's spinning realms.
"He's patient," she murmured, "but not cautious. He believes in overwhelming power."
"I can respect that," Jian said. "Even if it will get him killed."
Morokai smiled, and the air behind Jian turned black. Chains of pure void lashed out from nowhere. Jian barely ducked, rolling forward as the links struck the air and turned it brittle.
"Chains bind all things," Morokai said softly. "Even the concept of resistance."
Jian's foot dug into the ground as he countered.
> "Nothing can bind what no longer breaks."
He struck with a Dao-infused palm, cutting through a dozen phantom chains mid-air. The stone beneath him shattered, his arm trembling.
That was heavier than I expected, he thought grimly. These aren't bindings—they're expressions of inevitability. He's not trying to trap me. He's trying to conclude me.
Frostveil moved.
She blurred forward, a phantom of mist and silver, her body spinning as a circle of frost etched itself beneath Morokai. Her fingers wove glowing sigils of soul energy mid-air. For a moment, the mirror Dao behind Morokai flickered.
Morokai hissed. "The soul is sacred! You dare—?!"
"I dare," Frostveil whispered.
> "Soul Technique: Everfrost Annihilation."
The sigils ignited.
A spectral blizzard erupted, but there was no cold. No wind. Only stillness.
Jian felt it before he saw it—his soul recoiling as if it recognized the power. Not a freeze of body. Not even of mind.
A freeze of identity.
Morokai's left arm fell limp, frozen from the inside out. His flesh cracked like porcelain. But his chains shot out and stabbed into his own mirror realm, redirecting the technique back toward Frostveil.
"Reflected," he snarled.
The frozen soulstorm reversed course, slamming toward Frostveil.
Jian screamed. "Frost!"
She spun and shattered the returning technique with a spike of her soul, blood running from her eyes.
"I anticipated the mirror."
Barely, she thought, as her legs trembled beneath her.
Jian exploded forward with an aura like a silent scream, his killing intent condensed to the size of a single breath. His fist met Morokai's ribs, driving him through one of his own inner worlds. The mirror cracked.
But Jian coughed blood immediately after.
That wasn't just backlash… He embedded decay inside the reflection. I attacked him—and touched rot itself.
Morokai's grin widened, though it was now tinged with pain. Blood dripped from his mouth.
"You think you fight me," he whispered, "but I'm just a vessel. My Daos fight through me. I've already died a thousand times in cultivation. What is one more wound?"
"You talk too much," Jian spat, pressing his palm to his chest and forcing his Qi to mend the spiritual corrosion.
No choice. Need to escalate.
He reached inward—not into meridians, but into his soul sea, where his sword techniques were etched like calligraphy across the walls of memory.
> "Sword Form No. 7 — Heaven Severance."
The sky dimmed as all light focused around Jian's body. Not gathered—obeyed.
Frostveil fell to one knee, clutching her chest. "The technique… it cuts too much," she whispered. "Even existence wants to step aside."
Jian dashed, body low, technique loaded.
But Morokai anticipated it.
He spread his arms, forming a tri-seal.
> "Triple World Barrier: Entropy Lock!"
Decay, Chains, and Mirror fused into a single prison of Qi and law. Jian slammed into it mid-strike—and was caught.
His body froze in place.
His sword aura rippled once—and then shattered.
"No!" Frostveil screamed. "That wasn't supposed to—!"
"Don't panic," Jian muttered, caught mid-air, conscious inside the entropic lock.
Internal monologue:
He layered time into it. It's not just space—it's entropy as a concept. Each second I remain, I lose not just Qi… but will.
His body was slowly turning gray.
But Frostveil stood tall now, aura rising again.
"Don't break," she whispered to herself. "You're more than memory."
> "Soul Dao: Final Mirrorbreak Snow."
A spear formed from ice and soul flame. She threw it not at Morokai—but at herself.
It hit her heart—and shattered.
And the soul echo rebounded toward Morokai's mirror realm, this time unreflectable, because it came from inside his own projection.
The mirror world cracked again.
And in that moment—Jian moved.
He blinked from entropy's grasp, emerging behind Morokai.
> "You rely too much on your world."
He placed one finger behind Morokai's neck.
> "But I come from a world where we had to fight without one."
He pushed.
Morokai's body spasmed, his three worlds imploding behind him.
The elder crashed into the dirt, eyes wide with disbelief, Qi leaking from his wounds like a broken dam.
Blood coated Jian's arms.
Frostveil collapsed next to him.
Neither of them looked at the body.
Because both knew—
This was only the first.
The heavens would send worse.
And Jian Wuxin would have to become more than a sword.
He would have to become a storm.