Uncle Bai's eyes narrowed as they walked up. He'd already started handing out missions, it seemed: a group of deathsworn walked away after receiving their orders. Wu Hao could feel the man's eyes on the pin, which he'd hastily pinned onto his rags on the way over.

  Qi erupted from him - a thick, oily thing. It smelled like wine, though concentrated and bitter. Wu Hao could feel it press down on him, trying to force him to kneel, but the intent wasn't entirely there. He'd felt bloodlust before, but this time it felt less distinct, felt less like an order that he couldn't disobey and more like a request of sorts.

  He swayed a little bit under the pressure, but remained upright. 726 didn't fare so well, shaking once next to Wu Hao as he had to fight not to fall to his knees.

  "You're late," Uncle Bai grunted. "You had better have a good explanation."

  "A challenge, sir," Wu Hao said cautiously. "For the privilege of being a Brother."

  "You won," Uncle Bai said. "Where's this challenger of yours, then?"

  "It's him, sir," Wu Hao said.

  A tendril of qi sprang forwards and pulled 726 forwards, bringing the other boy fully into the tent's light so Uncle Bai could get a good look at him.

  There were no real outer signs, but Uncle Bai must have been able to see something, or maybe he heard the aching way that 726 breathed after Wu Hao had smashed his fist into the other boy's solar plexus. In either case, though, it was clear that what he saw was disappointing to him, because he shook his head once.

  "Pathetic," Uncle Bai growled. "You thought you could rebel against your Brother? You think we made a mistake in appointing him?"

  One of Uncle's hands grabbed the wine bottle, which sloshed around noisily.

  "Uncle," 726 tried, but Uncle Bai scowled and 726's words died on his tongue.

  "Don't speak," Uncle Bai said. "I'll decide your punishment."

  Again, though, 726 couldn't stop himself from speaking. There was none of the usual vicious glee that ran through his qi when he was punishing someone; now there was only panic, though not without some hatred threaded through. Wu Hao didn't have to guess twice who that was directed at.

  "Uncle -"

  "Shut up!" Uncle Bai roared. "You're not even a Brother. How dare you speak to me?"

  "721 challenged me," 726 explained, almost falling over himself in his haste to speak. "Before that, I was a Brother. He defeated me, but it was because -"

  Before Wu Hao had managed to even see Uncle Bai move, his mace had already descended, slamming into 726. It crashed into his neck sideways, and with a loud crack of broken bone he was thrown from the tent entirely, rolling once.

  His last words hung in the air for a moment longer, like he was about to finish his sentence, but he never would. From the angle his neck was turned, Wu Hao was fairly certain that 726 wouldn't get back up in this life. His chest rose once, then fell, and Wu Hao heard a soft rattle of breath. It didn't repeat.

  Uncle Bai's mace was still extended where it'd slammed into 726. Wu Hao turned his head, and it was only now that Wu Hao got a good look at it.

  It was a nasty and brutish heavy weapon, even for a mace. Spikes protruded from its blunt end and even its tip, but at the same time they looked like actual thought had been put into where and how to place each of them to inflict the maximum damage. Rust flecked onto almost every spike and made it clear that the weapon had seen actual use beyond just having killed 726 in a single blow.

  Blood and gore flecked one side of the weapon, and Uncle Bai placed it down so that the mace's head rested on the floor beside him. He didn't let it go, and if he cared that gore might drip down onto the tent floor, he didn't show it in the slightest.

  "So," Uncle Bai said, and then he let that silence stretch. His qi simmered back down under the surface, locked away within his body, but Wu Hao could still feel its stench hang in the air, still nearly taste it on his tongue, could still see the mace.

  Wu Hao fought not to swallow. It was one thing to realize that the man in front of you was a killer without remorse, another thing entirely to see it. Could Wu Hao have blocked that? If he'd been expecting it and had his filter open, then his answer might have been "maybe". Otherwise - no.

  "Yes, Uncle?" Wu Hao said, forcing his voice not to shake.

  "You're a new Brother, then." Uncle Bai's eyes seemed to hold a spark of interest, for the first time. "You challenged him and won?"

  "Yes," Wu Hao said, and then when Uncle Bai's eyes squinted at him hazily, Wu Hao almost tripped over himself to add, "Uncle."

  "Why?"

  Wu Hao's mind went blank. Because he needed a different mission? Because at this point there was nothing that getting killed at the latrine would teach him?

  No, he decided. Uncle could not be allowed to know about the repeats. Wu Hao had no idea if that could be wrested away from him, but Father and the Uncles would not stop torturing him until they'd found some way to do so, if they knew.

  What did that leave, then? Something like the truth, he supposed.

  "726 was incompetent," he blurted. "He was cruel. Cruel in ways that would make us unfit for service to the Red Dawn - to Father."

  All of that was true, but somehow with 726's corpse lying outside the tent and with Uncle Bai staring him down, all he felt was an ice-cold panic, the same as 726 must have just felt, that only slightly eased when Uncle leaned back in his chair. It creaked loudly and Uncle scowled, but Wu Hao couldn't detect anything in Uncle's qi that was a tell-tale sign that he'd attack.

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  Wu Hao still had the knife, but in confines this tight, he'd only have time for a single attack if Uncle decided to smash him out of nowhere, the way he'd killed 726.

  "You're wrong," Uncle finally said. He lifted his jar and guzzled from his wine, as good a sign as Wu Hao had ever seen from the man. "It's one of the lessons we teach everyone who becomes a Brother."

  "Yes, sir," Wu Hao said, attempting to fill the gap in the conversation. He couldn't help his tone from sounding just slightly questioning, though.

  He wondered what it would be, though. A cultivation technique? Some secret about the sect that no one else was allowed to know unless you were one of the trusted few? The truth behind why the Sect had been founded?

  "Might makes right."

  When Uncle had wiped his mouth, he continued and said, "Cruelty is a leader's privilege. He was not wrong for being cruel. Hell, not being cruel is the same as weakness. If you can't even be cruel, you're worse than worthless."

  "I don't understand," Wu Hao said slowly.

  Uncle Bai made a vague sort of gesture.

  "To become a martial artist," he said, "you've got to be cruel to yourself. That's a common enough saying. However, you've got to be ten times as cruel to others as they are to you. Suppress all others before you, or they'll do the same to you."

  Wu Hao said nothing. Was that really true?

  "Everyone has cruelty in them," Uncle Bai said slowly. "So why don't those fools of the orthodox sect dare to express their innate cruelty? Either they're too cowardly or they're too weak to withstand the consequences."

  His eyes swept out to beyond the tent, where 726's body still lay in the trampled grass.

  "He was too weak to face the consequences," Uncle concluded. "His only mistake was being beaten. All the rest, I don't give a shit about. We do not need weakness in the Red Dawn."

  Wu Hao could only nod.

  "Have someone clean that up," Uncle Bai ordered. "And teach each of your new charges the consequences of being weak."

  "Yes, Uncle," Wu Hao said, trying to not sound like he was rushing through his words. "Of course. I shall never be weak. I shall never disappoint you or Father."

  "Good," Uncle Bai said. He rethought this for a moment, then leaned and beckoned Wu Hao forward.

  On nervous feet, Wu Hao approached the creaking rattan chair.

  "And remember," Uncle Bai said. "You may have a higher position now. Privileges. But remember who holds your leash."

  He tapped one finger against Wu Hao's chest, just above the skin where his filter lay.

  "It's me," Uncle Bai said. His tone was quieter, but the threat was loud and clear. "It's Father. If you ever show us even a single sign that you're not what we want you to be..."

  Wu Hao nodded. "I understand completely, Uncle."

  "Good," Uncle Bai said again. "Remember. Might makes right, and our fists dwarf yours."

  Once again, Wu Hao could only nod, but then a thought struck him like a thunderbolt. Before he managed to second-guess, he'd already spoken.

  "How is that any different from the Demon Cult?"

  He paled, but Uncle Bai didn't seem to notice at first. He only shook his head.

  "The Demon Cult?" he asked. "In that, they're not wrong. There's a lot we could learn from -"

  Uncle Bai paused in the middle of speaking. A thought was running through his mind, and as Uncle Bai followed that thought to wherever it would lead him, it was clear that he did not like it. With each passing moment, a faint stench of wine began to spread through the tent.

  "Uncle?" Wu Hao asked uncertainly.

  "How did you know?" Uncle Bai asked. Anger took over his face like a cloud slowly turning a day overcast.

  The wine jar shattered as Uncle Bai rose to his feet. The mace lifted from the floor and flicked up, landing over Uncle Bai's shoulder.

  "You little bastard," Uncle Bai said. He seemed almost to grow as his qi came boiling up to the surface again. Wu Hao blanched, trying to take a step back, but Uncle wove his qi in a way that Wu Hao couldn't follow and spoke.

  "Stop," he growled, and Wu Hao's feet dug into the floor.

  He pulled and pulled, but his body refused to obey his commands. It was as if Uncle had marched in and, with a single word, had smashed Wu Hao aside in his own mind and taken control of him.

  "We never taught you anything about what the Demon Cult believes," Uncle hissed. "Are you defective?"

  "Uncle," Wu Hao said, haltingly. "I'm not -"

  "Shut up!" Uncle roared, spittle flying. Wu Hao would have cringed away, had his body still been under his control. "How did you learn, maggot? Is that why you decided to challenge your Brother, huh?"

  "I -" Wu Hao tried to say, hoping something that sounded reasonable would follow. Dreams - no. Visions - no. Talking to someone - no. What else was there? What could he say? He tried to force the knife out of his sleeve but it caught in the cloth and no matter how much he tore at it, Uncle's command made his fingers clumsy at best.

  Uncle's fist clenched around his mace, and he lifted it higher. His oily qi began to stream upwards, up to the mace itself, coiling around it like a snake ready to strike.

  "Guardian Naga Mace Art," Uncle's voice hissed. "Grand Hammer!"

  Wu Hao managed a single step forward, and then he was crushed utterly flat before he could do anything else.