The Patriarch's gaze, sharp and venomous, fixed on Cui Yuchen. The boy stood at the edge of the Blood Altar, his simple grey robes a stark contrast to the crimson-stained stone, his presence radiating an impossible, untainted calm amidst the fleeing panic. Zhiyin, a jewel-toned speck, vibrated gently on Yuchen’s collar, her soft, resonant hum a steady counterpoint to the distant screams of the escaping attendants.
“You,” the old master's voice, raspy from his recent, violent consumption, tore through the air like ripped silk. “You are the blight, the disruption. The source of my sect’s undoing, yet you dare stand here, whole and pure, mocking my Evergreen Perfection.”
Yuchen met the elder’s furious stare with an unwavering gaze. He felt no anger, only a profound weariness. The other sweepers had vanished into the mist-shrouded paths beyond the altar, their desperate flight carrying the faint echoes of their relief. He alone remained, a quiet barrier between his elder's rage and their brief freedom. Zhiyin’s hum intensified, a low, encouraging melody that settled a deep peace in his core.
A withered hand shot out, not in a fist, but an open palm, fingers splayed wide as if to grasp the very air around Yuchen. A suffocating pressure, heavy as a mountain, descended. The ground beneath Yuchen’s feet cracked, sending fissures spiderwebbing across the altar stone. He felt his bones groan, his lungs compress, but he did not move. He simply focused on the pure, unblemished stillness within him.
With a sound like split bamboo, Yuchen’s skin parted, not with pain, but with an internal luminescence. A thin, translucent layer peeled away from his form, separating from his outstretched arm. It was a faint, pearlescent film, gossamer thin, yet imbued with deep spiritual currents. This was his endurance, his resistance to physical duress, now shed as an unblemished, cast-off shell. It drifted down, catching the red glare, before settling on the altar’s rim with an inviting warmth.
The old man's bloodshot pupils flared. Greed, a familiar, insatiable hunger, consumed his expression. He recognized the unmistakable aura of profound vitality, a pure Dao-remnant he had only ever dreamed of. This was not a flaw; this was the distilled core of unwavering fortitude, refined beyond measure. He lunged, his hand snatching the shimmering film from the stone before it could dissipate. He brought it to his lips, his eyes gleaming with mad triumph, and swallowed it whole. A shock of heat coursed through him, momentarily clearing the haze of his failed ritual.
“Foolish boy,” the master rasped, a new vigour in his voice. “You shed your might, and I absorb it! This is true culmination, the power of assimilation!”
He lunged again, a blur of motion, his fist striking Yuchen’s chest with the force of a battering ram. A dull crack echoed as Yuchen’s ribs protested. Yet, instead of stumbling, Yuchen stood, his body glowing with a deeper, richer light. Another layer of his being, a crust of quiet resilience, fell away from his torso. This one was a deeper, burnished gold, humming with the quiet heft of unyielding form. It floated serenely for a moment, an undeniable beacon of robust health.
Zhiyin’s hum on Yuchen’s collar shifted, taking on a playful, almost mischievous tone. It was a melody of delighted anticipation, a private jest between the cicada and her quiet companion.
Fengjian roared with exhilaration. “Again! You empty yourself for my glory!” He snatched the golden husk, ignoring the youth's bruised ribs, and devoured it with ravenous zeal. An intense flood of vital breath surged through his meridians, pushing back the encroaching rot from Gao Renxue’s ruined foundation. His gaunt cheeks seemed to plump marginally, his eyes regaining a sliver of their former keenness. He felt the pure, untainted fortitude settle into his own damaged framework, mending, strengthening, becoming him.
The Patriarch began to laugh, a harsh rattle bouncing off the crags. “You are a spring, Yuchen! A spring of endless replenishment for my own divine form! You thought to escape, to hide? No, you are merely a living offering, a self-purifying draft for my final ascension!”
He continued his onslaught, not with skill or strategy, but with frenzied haste, aiming for any part of Yuchen’s body. Each strike, each blow that would have shattered a lesser person, caused Yuchen to glow with an inner fire, to shed another layer of his being. His fear of harm, his sense of personal vulnerability, his quiet anxieties – each fundamental aspect of his mortal self, now cast out as an imperfection, loosened into a distinct, radiant husk. A deep indigo shell, glowing with the clarity of a calm mind, floated away after Fengjian aimed a crippling blow at his head. A vibrant crimson flake, pulsing with the warmth of an unburdened heart, spun free after a strike to his core. Each was a piece of Yuchen’s discarded mortal form, not broken or destroyed, but simply relinquished, transformed into an object of pure, irresistible Dao-fruit.
The Patriarch, his eyes wild with avarice, did not hesitate. He moved with a speed born of sheer gluttony, snatching each husk the moment it parted. He crushed the indigo mind-clarity between his teeth, gulping it down like honey. He tore at the crimson heart-warmth, swallowing with a ravenous, guttural choke. Each time, a surge of refined breath coursed through him, a temporary high that further fueled his delusion. He felt invincible, limitless. This boy was not just shedding flaws; he was shedding the very components of true, immortal being! And he, the grand leader of Shrouded-Pine, was consuming them, making them his own.
But with each successive husk, a subtle shift began to occur. The initial invigorating jolt gave way to a heavier, more viscous sensation. The clarity he felt was fleeting, quickly replaced by a dull pressure behind his eyes. The renewed force in his limbs began to feel less like his own, and more like a foreign, unmanageable burden. His body, already compromised by decades of forced cultivation and the consumption of Gao Renxue’s tainted dross, was struggling under the sheer, unadulterated purity it was being forced to absorb.
“More! Give me more!” the Patriarch shrieked, his voice losing its human quality, becoming a hungry croak. His once-regal robes strained at the seams, stretched taut across a rapidly swelling frame. His skin, once sallow, now took on an unnaturally taut sheen, as if too much stolen life was trying to burst forth from too small a vessel. He continued to strike Yuchen, each blow less precise, more like the flailing of a man drowning in his own avarice.
Yuchen stood, serene and unblemished, each impact simply triggering another tranquil molt. He felt lighter, purer, as if the very concept of pain was being stripped away from him. Zhiyin, perched elegantly on his collarbone, stretched her delicate wings. Her hum, once a gentle melody, swelled into a full, symphonic trill. It was a song of triumph, a mocking, gleeful anthem that danced on the cold air of the Blood Altar. It celebrated not violence, but the elegant, inevitable unfolding of karma. Fengjian, now a grotesque parody of his former self, stumbled forward, his limbs thick and uncoordinated, his eyes fixed on the next radiant husk that drifted from Yuchen’s form. His entire being was a bloated, distended vessel, engorged with centuries of another’s discarded mortal frailties, now compressed and purified into irresistible, overwhelming treasures. He reached for the latest offering – a delicate shell gleaming with the wisdom of letting go – his fingers spasming, his breath rattling, as his body, gorged beyond all capacity, began to seize and harden from the inside out.