Teng Zong, still holding the severing blades, stumbled forward, his sabre clattering against the rough stone of the Rift as it slipped from his grip. His breath caught as he stared at the woman crumpled before him, her skin grey and speckled with iridescent petal sap. He had expected contempt, fury, indifference—anything but this brittle collapse. His hands instinctively reached out, catching her before her skull struck stone. She felt feather-light, dried parchment over hollow bone. His fingers brushed the cold skin of her cheek. "Wuyan?" His voice was a strangled whisper, the name tasting foreign on his tongue after so long. The sight of her, so utterly broken, ignited a desperate, forgotten spark within him. He felt a sudden, irrational urge to protect her, to reverse whatever horror had just transpired. Before he could pull her against his chest, her palm cracked against his cheekbone. The strike was thin, fueled entirely by spite, yet it rang loud in the cavern. Her eyes, though glazed with pain, blazed with a fierce, chilling disdain. Her voice, raspy and thin, cut through the din of the fate-beasts like ice. "Don't touch me." She pushed herself away from him, leveraging her elbow on the ground, a fresh trickle of blood escaping the corner of her lips. "Ten Phoenix Feathers, Teng Zong. For the privilege of seeing me bleed on this accursed floor. Pay up, or avert your gaze. My suffering is not a spectacle for the indigent." Teng Zong froze, his hand still stinging, his mind reeling. Phoenix Feathers? Now? As she lay dying? The sheer audacity, the cold, unyielding pride even in the face of death, was incomprehensible. He stammered, "Wuyan, what—what are you talking about? You're hurt! Let me—" "I am always hurt, fool. Your continued existence is a wound. My price stands." Her gaze, sharp as broken glass, pinned him. He found himself utterly bewildered, his concern for her clashing violently with her absurd, transactional demand. He looked down at the twin blades in his hand, then back at her, speech deserting him. "The audacity to demand such a toll for observing her collapse," Baili Chen muttered under his breath, stepping closer. He observed Teng Zong, the grand protagonist, caught between genuine horror and utter confusion. It was the perfect moment. With a movement so fluid it bordered on illusion, Baili Chen reached out. His fingers, trained in a thousand petty thefts, slid like silk over Teng Zong's forearm. The celestial blades, still held loosely by the bewildered former fiancé, were expertly plucked away without a sound. Teng Zong was too engrossed in her bizarre extortion to notice the slight shift in weight, the almost imperceptible tug. The fate-beasts, emboldened by the lingering scent of shredded soul-essence and the sudden lull in the fighting, surged forward. Their forms, a grotesque mimicry of the parasitic narrative they defended, snarled and clawed. One, a many-eyed arachnid woven from shattered dreams, lunged directly at Wuyan. Before it reached her hem, a slab of crushing pressure slammed into the creature. It disintegrated into dust, its shrieks swallowed by the sudden, profound silence that descended upon the Rift. Yan-Zhun stood tall, his silhouette a towering darkness against the corrupted light. His eyes, usually pools of serene obsidian, now burned with an inferno of contained fury. Tendrils of pure, unadulterated Supreme Deity aura radiated from him, not in a gentle flow, but in sharp, vibrating waves that tore at the very fabric of the Abyss. The air crackled with raw power. He did not shout. He did not need to. His presence alone was a command. Every fate-beast in the vicinity recoiled, their monstrous forms shrinking, their snarls turning to whimpers. The very ground seemed to vibrate with their terror. With a single, sharp gesture, Yan-Zhun swept his hand, carving a path through the retreating horde. "We depart." His voice was low, resonant, holding an implicit threat that brooked no argument. Baili Chen, tucking the relic against his sleeve, moved to her side and extended an arm. She pushed herself up, refusing his aid directly but leaning heavily on the sheer force of will that still propelled her. Teng Zong remained frozen on his knees, stunned and empty-handed, watching her retreating shadow. Back within the relative sanctuary of Canghai Peak's command center, the air was cold and still. Wuyan sat rigid against the high-backed chair of her main console, examining the retrieved instrument. The artifact was forged from a metal that seemed to absorb light, its two blades intersecting at a knot of twisting, interconnected threads. "The inscription..." she murmured, tracing a finger over the intricate patterns etched into the hilt. Her eyes, though weary, sharpened. Baili Chen leaned closer, reading over her shoulder. "'To sever the woven, the wielder must offer thread of their own. A soul's strand for a life's untangling. The binding price, paid in essence.'" A heavy silence descended. The meaning was clear. The tool demanded a sacrifice, a piece of the user's very spirit, to slice the pervasive cords choking the realm. Her own soul, already splintering beneath the Void Lotus, could withstand no such toll. She laid the iron implement upon the polished stone table, her gaze quiet and calculating. "A perfect trap. To save the world, one must offer a life. And my life... is already pledged to sealing the sky." Her voice was devoid of self-pity, simply stating a cold, unyielding fact. Yan-Zhun stood by the heavy archway, his back to them, observing the swirling miasma outside the window. He turned slowly, his expression unreadable. Without a word, he walked to the table. His pale hand closed around the artifact's dark grip. He lifted them, the dull metal gleaming faintly in the dim light, and slipped them into the folds of his robes. His gaze locked onto hers, cold and unwavering. He would bear the curse himself.

Extortion in the Abyss