Huo Shanliang made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat.

  "You're not worthy," he said casually. "Try again."

  "Kill me with your strongest art," Wu Hao stated, trying to sound confident. "Otherwise you'll join Xing Zhao in Hell."

  "You think you can -" Huo Shanliang asked, sounding genuinely surprised, before he let out a peal of laughter.

  When it faded, he stared again at Wu Hao. The look on his face still somewhat amused, but it was clear that Wu Hao had lost his interest.

  "Ah, I see," Huo Shanliang said. "You've grown overconfident."

  He shook his head.

  "You are crippled," he reminded Wu Hao. "Even uncrippled, you struggled against someone I could defeat in my sleep. And yet you think you can be a threat to me?"

  Wu Hao summoned what little bravado he could.

  "That's what Xing Zhao thought," he said. "He thought I wasn't a threat, either."

  Something inside him cringed at the way he sounded, but he resolved that he could apologize to himself later. He'd made his decision, and he'd known that it'd meant death.

  But if he were to choose his death, then he'd pick the one that he could get the most results from.

  If a Sky-tier martial art had given him a Sky-tier martial art, would being killed with something even rarer result in him being given something equal to that? Probably. It was worth trying, at the very least.

  Paralyzed, crippled, and broken, there was nothing else he could get out of this situation. The idea that he could try to convince Huo Shanliang that he would join the Cult anyway felt awkward, impossible, and repugnant.

  He had had enough being a tool.

  Huo Shanliang studied him for a moment, then inclined his head. "As you wish, then. Let's go."

  In one step he appeared next to Wu Hao, and in that same breath he placed his hand on Wu Hao's shoulder. Then his foot moved again in a pattern that dizzied Wu Hao's eyes, and then they were ripped through space in a frenzy of speed.

  If the previous movement technique had been a gentle walk, this had none of that. Only now did Wu Hao realize that Huo Shanliang must have supported him in some way, helped him cope with the dizzying effects of the movement art.

  There was none of that now. Wu Hao was torn along with each rapid step, feet flying from the ground. His shoulder was nearly torn from its socket. Tears leaked from his eyes at the sheer sense of speed. Even the gentle breeze was turned into a razor-sharp wind at the speed they were going, inflicting gashes on his skin.

  It only took four steps to arrive, even though it felt like a small eternity, and Huo Shanliang let him fall to the ground contemptuously. Wu Hao bit the dust and landed on his arm. He bit back a scream.

  "Stand," he ordered. "Otherwise I'll make you stand."

  Wu Hao glared up at the man with hate in his eyes, but all he received in return was a scornful look.

  On one arm, he tried to push himself up to his feet, clenching his broken arm to try and keep it from moving, but he couldn't. There just wasn't enough strength left in him. He'd given everything that he'd had to kill Xing Zhao, and now he was utterly empty.

  Huo Shanliang sighed, then flicked two fingers at Wu Hao. Before he could even try to guard at whatever the other man was doing, he found his body clambering to its feet stiffly and violently. He tried to resist, but there was nothing he could do, and qi that wasn't his poured through his meridians and gave his limbs just enough strength to move.

  Some more of Huo Shanliang's qi blazed, but this time it wasn't directed at Wu Hao. Instead it bubbled up, then refocused around his mouth, knotting itself into a symbol that Wu Hao couldn't recognize.

  "All trainees!" he shouted, the sound lound enough that Wu Hao could almost feel it ripple across him. "A demonstration will now take place! Assemble at the training ground!"

  Wu Hao tried to remain standing as the qi that had been used to keep him upright began to bleed away, and he made a decent effort for how torn up he felt. Though, at this point, the fact he was standing at all was a minor miracle.

  Meanwhile, shapes had begun to pour out of the camp. Some arrived one by one, others arrived in clumps, but all of them wore the same uniform - white, sometimes stained with blood, but all of them with the red eye symbol displayed prominently.

  "So few?" Huo Shanliang asked, then looked around. "Explain, Ling Yu."

  One of the women present grimaced. She was lean with muscle, with a spear strapped across her back. Immense bruises were visible through the patches in her uniform, even moreso when Wu Hao noticed that the tip of her spear had been chipped and looked a single solid blow away from breaking.

  "We were ambushed by a group of orthodox martial artists on our way back, sir," she explained. "Among them was the so-called Righteous Fist."

  Huo Shanliang's eyes narrowed.

  "Did you kill him?" he asked.

  "Regretfully," she said, "No, sir. We brought down his entourage, but in the process he killed several of ours in retaliation."

  He responded with a sigh.

  "A day of ups and downs," he murmured. "Well. We will hunt him down like the dog he is, eventually."

  "Yes, sir," Ling Yu responded, then bowed. "If it would please you -"

  "You will be part of the squad," Huo Shanliang interrupted. "Assuming you advance sufficiently."

  Ling Yu bowed again, then rose slowly.

  "Onto the demonstration, then," Huo Shanliang said, and slid both of his daggers out of their sheaths.

  "You're in luck," he said, studying the daggers as they caught the light above. "Not many get to witness this."

  Wu Hao said nothing, but simply prepared himself as best as he could. On every level, he knew that he stood no chance. There had been a gap between him and Xing Zhao, but that been a gap that he'd been able to somewhat bridge through planning, experience, and luck.

  Again, though, emotionally - he felt he had to try. He couldn't let himself end like this. If he had to choose to die, then he'd die standing. He'd spend his last breath, again and again, on a last stand.

  "I want a weapon," he stated. "A knife."

  Huo Shanliang nodded, then turned to someone in the audience.

  "Grab one of the knives used for instruction from storage," he ordered.

  "Yes, sir."

  A few flickering steps later, the boy had returned, with a knife in hand. He walked fearlessly up to Wu Hao, then offered it, blade first.

  Wu Hao took it with his left hand, feeling its weight rest awkwardly in his hand.

  "You know the etiquette for a duel?" Huo Shanliang said, but Wu Hao just shook his head. Huo Shanliang tsk'ed, twirled one dagger in thought, then sent qi coursing through the air. It took hold of Wu Hao, forcing him to stand up straight. His broken arm was ripped from where he'd been cradling it to his chest to instead stretch to his side, and Wu Hao screamed at the pain.

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  A few amused whispers greeted the sound, and Huo Shanliang tsk'ed again.

  Another movement of Huo Shanliang's fingers and Wu Hao's neck bent, banging his chin against his chest as his head bowed. The rest of his body followed suit as he was puppeteered into a bow so deep that he nearly teetered over, and after a few frantic breaths his back was wrenched up again and he was forced to stand straight again.

  Huo Shanliang had only bothered to give him a small nod.

  "Introduce yourself," he commanded. "I am Huo Shanliang, third aide to the Bone Demon of the Order of Divine Power. I am a first-grade martial artist."

  Wu Hao clenched his teeth, but when Huo Shanliang's eyes narrowed again and he extended a hand, he realized he would either speak or be spoken for.

  "I am Wu Hao," he said, through gritted teeth. "Deathsworn 721 of the Red Dawn Sect."

  More whispers from the audience. They didn't bother to hide their voices from Wu Hao, though, and from what he could tell most of their comments revolved around asking each other who the Red Dawn Sect were, and when they realized that no one knew, they shared small smiles and a few more jokes at his expense. He saw Ling Yu's nose rise fractionally, as if trying to physically look down on him.

  "And your rank?" Huo Shanliang asked, though he had to know already. This was just theater.

  "Third-grade," Wu Hao said.

  "That was before you were crippled," the missionary replied. "You're worse than a mortal, now."

  Wu Hao's hands clenched. He wished that he'd managed to steal that knife. He wished he'd managed to escape earlier.

  But wishes were just that. The facts were what they were.

  He moved just a little bit, figuring out how much range of motion he had left. Every movement jostled his broken arm, though, and he had to fight back a scream with every bump. With a grunt of effort he managed to clench it to his chest again, which helped just a little bit.

  That left his left hand, the hand that he'd never used to hold a knife before. It felt awkward, clumsy and heavy in his fingers, but he forced himself to grip it tight.

  "Watch," Huo Shanliang instructed, projecting his voice so everyone could hear him. "In a real fight, you won't have as much time to maneuver, of course, but for the purposes of this demonstration I'll perform the move slowly."

  He raised his left dagger, lowering his right dagger as if the two had to remain in balance. Then he brought forth his qi.

  It poured from him in what might as well have been physical waves, buffetting Wu Hao's skin and senses like storm winds. He had to grit his teeth and lean in to not get blown away, and he felt it pull at his rags. He couldn't smell anything except that scent of Huo Shanliang's qi, tasted it on his tongue, saw nothing except that lustrous grey that had formed into an aura of power around the other man.

  The qi pulsed once or twice, before Huo Shanliang began to pour it all into his daggers. They still faintly glowed with qi, though, the grey jetting out occasionally as the amount of qi threatened to overwhelm what even the high-quality steel was capable of containing. None of it spilled, instead just running along the edge in a display of control that Wu Hao wouldn't have been able to manage.

  "White Demon Art," Huo Shanliang declared. "Whirling Moonlight Slash."

  He held his twin daggers up, blades parallel to the ground, and began to draw them together in a circular motion that'd see them collide together. They moved slowly, but it felt delicate. Qi trailed from each of the daggers, like a beautiful silk shroud draped over them that billowed softly in the wind.

  There was a hint of beauty to it, and Wu Hao found his breath catching as he watched, grip on his knife growing less sure as he did. In that moment, nothing existed except for those two daggers.

  The shroud lunged forwards and detached from the dagger's edges, where finally they quit their achingly slow movement. They shot forward, and Wu Hao had one moment to wonder at why it looked so similar to what the Rending Dagger Art was supposed to look like before abruptly he felt it bite into him.

  Then he felt nothing except a moment of surprise as his vision soared and spun in the air.

  One beautiful stroke.

  That was all it had taken to end Wu Hao's life this time.

  In the middle of a step, before he'd even been able to really see what was happening, the Moonlight Slash had cleaved his head from his shoulders, torn his limbs apart, and carved an enormous cross into his chest. Any of them would have easily have killed them.

  Together they had obliterated him.

  Then he didn't think anything anymore.

  He woke up again, stumbling in the middle of a step as his feet were suddenly given simultaneous, conflicting orders to stop and to continue. His grip on the mountainside was instantly lost as his arm, still in the grip of believing it was broken, snapped back to his chest and left him hanging, mid-climb, with one hand barely maintaining its grip.

  Wu Hao breathed in, marvelling at how sweet it felt to be able to breathe without pain again. The absence of pain was so immense that it made him lightheaded, all nerves twitching as if trying to adjust to the reality that he hadn't crippled himself yet.

  His right arm touched his chest. He could feel the filter there, obviously, but he couldn't feel the hole where his heart had been. His core wasn't doing well - still starved of qi, still chained by the filter - but it wasn't utterly ripped apart.

  Having checked that he still lived, he turned his attention to the blue box that was staring him in the face, and froze.

  His fingers lost their grip as he gaped, and it was the sudden jolt of his feet slipping from the small foothold he had to wake up him up from his wide-eyed surprise. He slid backwards and his hand reached out reflexively and grabbed at the wall.

  Finding that his previous perch had slid ever so slightly out of reach, he exhaled as quickly as he could and summoned up just enough qi to drive his fingers into the mountainside and create something to hold on to.

  He hung there for a moment, the breath driven out of him, and already he was beginning to feel the strain on his fingers.

  Wu Hao had climbed this path before. He would climb this path more, in the future.

  Now he just had to figure out if he wanted to avoid the next obstacle in his path or burst through it again.