Wei Zhan’s left leg screamed with every frantic stride, a dull, aching throb in his crippled sinew that echoed the panic tightening his chest. Rotting wood planks buckled underfoot, kicking up plumes of acrid dust from the Iron Cauldron slums. He cut a sharp corner past a towering heap of discarded spirit-forged scrap, the metallic scent of rust and decay thick in the air. Two figures, cloaked in the midnight blue of the Wei Clan’s elite guard, stepped out from behind a rusted forge tank, their daggers drawn.
“Off-season contact rules, Section Three, Subsection Alpha!” Zhan bellowed, skidding to a halt, a desperate indignation ringing in his voice. He braced himself, hands up, palms open, a pose more suited for a regulated sparring match than a chase through a refuse-choked alley. “You can’t engage a non-combatant without a formal challenge issued through the Martial Registry. This is a clear violation of fair play!”
The lead tracker, a hulking brute with a scarred jaw, simply grunted. His companion, leaner and quicker, flicked a wrist. A gleaming, obsidian-dark blade, sharp enough to part air, shot from his sleeve. It wasn’t a challenge; it was an execution.
Zhan flinched, twisting too slow. The blade grazed his shoulder, a searing line of pain blossoming across his skin. He stumbled back, colliding with a mountain of rusted iron and shattered cultivation tools. A jagged shard of Gluttonous Rust, a sword hilt snapped from its blade, bit into his palm as he fell, crimson welling around the corroded metal.
“Agh! Foul!” Zhan cried, more outraged by the apparent disregard for rules than the wound itself. “No close-quarters weapons in a pursuit scenario! This is amateur division!”
From the splintered hilt in his hand, a voice, ancient and rasping, erupted. “Amateur division? You call *that* sloppy footwork and theatrical flailing a proper defense, whelp? Gods above, even a blind yak could dodge a cleave like that. You’re lucky that rust-eaten scrap I’m stuck in is hungry.”
Zhan blinked, staring at the hilt. “Who… what in the Nine Hells was that? Did that piece of metal just insult my agility?”
“Your agility is a crime against nature, boy!” the voice snarled again. “And my name, you uncultured gnat, is Old Man Gou! Now, stop gawking and *fight*! Or do you want your meager blood to go to waste?”
The leaner pursuer lunged again, his blade whistling towards Zhan’s chest. Before Zhan could react, a strange, hungry pulse emanated from the severed pommel. A shimmering, ethereal maw, barely visible, opened at the corroded tip of Gluttonous Rust. It snapped forward, not towards the assassin, but towards his weapon. With a jarring *shriek* of tortured metal, the obsidian blade vanished, devoured whole, leaving only a bewildered grip in the killer's hand.
A surge of unfamiliar power, warm and vibrant, slammed into Zhan. His veins thrummed with Qi, potent and raw, a stark contrast to the usual sluggish trickle through his ruined channels. It felt like a thousand tiny suns igniting within him, lending strength to his limbs, clarity to his mind.
“What in the…?” the thug stammered, staring at his empty grip.
“Qi infusion!” Gou barked, a note of grudging approval in his voice. “Don’t just stand there, you overgrown oaf! Give him a proper send-off! A *real* collision, not that pathetic excuse for a block you were attempting!”
Zhan’s jaw set hard. Qi! A charge! His manual, the ‘Compendium of Athletic Excellence,’ always emphasized the importance of a well-timed, legal takedown. This wasn’t *legal*, not with the off-season rules violated, but perhaps a *defensive* check was permissible in self-defense. And the Qi… it felt incredible. A new interpretation of an ancient technique. He grinned, a fierce, reckless glint in his eyes.
He burst forward, a blur of motion the ambushers hadn’t anticipated. The hulking brute raised his fists, but Zhan dipped low, a feint, then surged upwards. His Qi-infused arm coiled, a whipcord of power, and he unleashed a brutal clothesline strike that caught the lead brute squarely across the throat. The man choked, eyes bulging, and flew backward into a stack of scrap, collapsing in a heap of groans and clanging metal.
“Illegal play!” Zhan roared, spinning to face the second guard, who was still reeling from the loss of his blade. “That’s a definite yellow card, possibly red! Intent to injure, blatant disregard for opponent safety!”
The second guard, stunned, barely managed to register Zhan’s approach before a Qi-charged shoulder slammed into his chest. He gasped, ribs protesting, and crumpled to the ground, unconscious before he even hit the dirt. Zhan stood over them, chest heaving, the foreign Qi slowly settling.
“Ha! Not bad, for a cripple,” Gou grudgingly admitted. “Still, form was atrocious. Back foot lagged. You’ll pull a hamstring with that kind of follow-through, you buffoon.”
Zhan ignored him, already turning, his earlier outrage replaced by a cold dread. He had to get back. Xia. He sprinted through the now-empty alleys, the adrenaline fading, leaving behind only the gnawing worry for his sister.
He burst into their crumbling shack, the air thick with the scent of medicinal herbs and the quiet, shallow breathing of his sister. Wei Xia lay on her straw mat, her face pale, her lips tinged blue. He knelt beside her, his hand reaching for her wrist, searching for the faint pulse. That’s when he saw it. A network of faint, glowing lines, like hairline cracks in porcelain, snaking just beneath her skin. They pulsed with an alarming, irregular rhythm.
He knew those lines. Her inner energy conduits, the very pathways of her life force, were shattering. He saw a fresh, spiderweb crack appear near her collarbone, expanding visibly even as he watched. A choked gasp escaped him. No. Not yet.
“Old Man Gou! What… what is this?” Zhan’s voice was a desperate whisper, his gaze locked on the fragile lines marring Xia’s skin. “She’s… she’s getting worse, isn’t she?”
“Worse? She’s a walking corpse, boy!” Gou’s voice, for once, lacked its usual bluster, replaced by a grim clarity. “Those inner vessels are collapsing. The Wei Clan’s stolen bloodline is exacting its final toll. She has, perhaps, two weeks. Three, if the gods are feeling generous, which they rarely are.”
Zhan’s throat tightened. Two weeks. “Is there anything? Anything at all?”
“There is one thing,” Gou said, a low rumble. “The Grand Martial Ascent. The Vermilion Crane Pavilion’s grand spectacle. The prize is the Soaring Phoenix Vitality Pill. A legendary panacea, capable of reforming shattered channels, mending ruined cultivation. It could save her.”
“The Grand Martial Ascent?” Zhan repeated, the name echoing in his mind. He’d heard of it, a brutal test of skill, renowned for its cutthroat competition. “But that’s a regulated circuit event, isn’t it?”
“Regulated?” Gou let out a dry, rattling laugh. “It’s a gladiatorial bloodbath, boy! A free-for-all where the strong feast on the weak, and the rules are written in blood and ambition. They call it a tradition, but it’s just a glorified slaughter to entertain the high-and-mighty.”
Zhan stood, his gaze hardening. He looked at Xia, then at the broken hilt in his hand. “A bloodbath, you say? Well, we’ll just have to make sure we follow all the proper protocols. As long as the referee is watching, we’ll be perfectly fine.”