Wu Hao bent down, sinking to the rough mountain ground as he awoke again. The taste of ash remained with him, inside of him, and even though he knew on a rational level that there was nothing that came back with him except memories, he still breathed heavily. He had to force down the temptation to scrape his tongue clean.

  Ke Shuang, he thought bitterly. The name was etched forever in ash into his mind, now. He'd died before, but the ways in which Ke Shuang was killing him hurt the most. Not just on a physical level, but there was a mental component to it too, transforming his entire body into ashes from the inside out.

  He grimaced, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and stood up slowly.

  What next, then?

  The appearance of Ke Jiaming made it clear that that mission was a dead end. Worse, it was a dead end even more difficult to resolve than the original had been. He could try another mission, but a cold certainty gripped him. At the end of each of those paths lay the same ending. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but always it'd end in the same way.

  Death.

  Waking up again, struggling to get even an inch further than he had the last time, trying to pull lessons out of nothing.

  Death.

  For a moment he considered fleeing, even without a destination in mind, just running away from the camp, from the Red Dawn Sect, from death. He could survive, even if it was just for a while. He had a vague idea of where to forage, of where the other deathsworn would be and how to avoid them.

  But the weight of the filter in his chest reminded him that just because he had no physical chains didn't mean that he had none. It would kill him as surely as his lungs burning to ash or his heart being pierced. He could survive that now, but then he would be functionally crippled, in the mountains, where wild animals roamed and the night air would quickly freeze him to death.

  Free in theory, shackled in practice.

  It said a lot that he was considering it anyway, just to be gone even if it was for a moment, but then reality refused to stop reasserting itself.

  There was something else, too. He'd never before known why Uncle Bai had been sent on that mission, but now he knew. For whatever reason, Ke Jiaming had set up the entire prisoner transport in order to test the Red Dawn Sect. Father had sent Uncle Bai to accomplish it, and while he presumably usually succeeded, this time Wu Hao had caused it to fail.

  It didn't yet explain why they'd been sent to take the hill next to Huo Shanliang's camp, though. Was there in-fighting between the Heavenly Demon Cult? He didn't know for sure, but what other reason could there be for aiding the Heavenly Demon Cult at the same time as sending them to take a camp down?

  He had half of the answers, but that was the only question that still remained with him now. He needed more than that, though. Wu Hao needed questions, he realized: he needed something to strive for, something that gave this endless parade of deaths a rationale, something to work towards.

  But when Ke Jiaming had sent Ke Shuang to kill him, he'd also killed Wu Hao's motivation. The both of them were walls that he couldn't scale, that he couldn't try to plot a way around.

  Breath began to come shallower and shallower as he tried to find a way out of this spiral, out of this fatal labyrinth that gave him a single day and then butchered him again and again. What was left? What other options hadn't he explored yet? What -

  A slap to the face rocked his body as he nearly fell, snapping out of his thoughts as his neck snapped to the side.

  "Walk," 726 barked, having arrived next to him at some point while he was thinking.

  Wu Hao, head still to the side, squinted his eyes and slowly craned his neck back. The slap had hurt, but it'd also allowed him to channel the entire torrent of emotions down into something smaller. Something more manageable.

  Anger. Not at 726 - though at him as well - but at the entire situation he was trapped in.

  He raised one hand in the Heavy Fist Art and drew the other back. 726 stared at him with blank eyes but Wu Hao knew him, could almost literally see the thought hit him that Wu Hao was challenging him. Anger rose with it, ready to spill over.

  "I challenge you," Wu Hao said quietly. He'd attacked with sneak attacks before, but he needed more, now. The march would take too long, and running with this storm of panic and rage running through him would be torture.

  This'd be a welcome enough distraction.

  "I accept," 726 hissed, beginning to raise his fists as well, but that was already too late.

  Wu Hao buried his left fist as deeply as he could in 726's gut. He heard a scream of anger and wondered whose voice that was, but moments later he realized it was only his own.

  726's fists stopped, flying back down to hold his belly even after Wu Hao's left fist had already drawn back. Wu Hao could have ended it, could have turned his fist so that the knuckles were facing up and slammed an uppercut into 726's chin where he was weakest, but he didn't.

  Instead, he stepped back and waited, letting 726 get some semblance of his breath back and bring his fists back up. He was faster about it, this time, and the scent of pine came in spurts as he brought his qi forward.

  This time he didn't try to speak, but his fist lashed out, qi flying along with it in a clumsy approximation of a technique. Wu Hao managed to dodge it with just a short burst of qi the moment that he saw 726 tense to let the punch fly, sharpening his senses to the point where he let 726's hand scrape by his cheek.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Then, letting his qi slip away again, Wu Hao stomped on 726's feet. His left hand, still clenched into a fist, slammed into 726's ribs, and Wu Hao felt the impact deep in his bones. There was something satisfying about that, right now, the feeling of hammering something down. 726 stumbled, breath robbed from his lungs for the second time, and Wu Hao didn't let up.

  Again and again, he punched out, abandoning the Heavy Fist style. All he wanted was to feel something, anything at all physical, and if that was pain so be it. He screamed something, his fists hit, again and again and again, slammed into skin and flesh and bone -

  726 collapsed, falling forward slightly so that Wu Hao's raised arm was caught underneath him while he was preparing for another punch. The result was almost something like a hug, before he let 726 slump to the ground.

  He was breathing hard, and his fists stung like he'd tried to punch rock, but he felt empty and hollow inside, whereas before he'd felt too full of emotion to even think straight.

  Feeling unsteady, he shook his head, inhaled deeply, and wiped his aching hands on the other boy's rags. The others were staring at him, their emotions surprise most of all, but he detected fear in there as well - fear of what he might do to them.

  "726 is no longer Brother," Wu Hao said. He was about to bend down and claim the pin for himself, but then stopped.

  Did he care at all about being a Brother? No, he decided.

  "Whoever wants it takes it," he said. "I don't care. Just make sure it's not 726."

  He walked off, feeling the stares hit his back. He felt their surprise in their qi signatures, but he was beyond caring. A few hours more and he'd have his answers.

  And with that, hopefully he'd have his next steps, because without a goal to work towards, he felt distinctly like he was walking lost in the dark where monsters lurked.

  In the end, when they'd nearly arrived he'd slowed his steps, a little curious despite everything, and 729 had walked past with a slight limp, a black eye, and the white Brother pin on his rags. In his wake were 720 and 723, each with their own bruises and injuries, but without a pin of their own.

  732 - Ye Qingfeng - didn't seem to have participated, and 726 never showed up at all. Wu Hao wondered, but told himself it didn't matter.

  With or without 726, his destination hadn't changed.

  Father's tent was still the same, although he only remembered approaching it once - to try to talk to Father and bring up that they'd die, if the plans weren't changed. That entire period felt hazy, dream-like.

  No, Wu Hao corrected: a nightmare, and one that was still dragging him along.

  The Honor Guard still surrounded the tent. They weren't free from the tasks that the others were required to, but the tasks they were set were different. Things the rest weren't trusted to do alone, without being surveilled by a Brother. The white stripes still showed prominently on their black clothing, the same shade as the pins that the Brothers wore, as did their daggers.

  Wu Hao remembered killing one of the Honor Guard for those knives, and how Father had found him out. He still wasn't sure how that had happened, but at this point he was beyond caring. It was yet another way of dying, and death was death was death, regardless of whose hands it was delivered by.

  During the day a different contingent of boys was guarding Father's tent. As with all deathsworn they were indistinguishable from each other except their eye colours, but Wu Hao inhaled once and felt a mix of qi. Cardamom from one boy standing nearby, something that he didn't recognize for the boy on the other side of Father's tent flap, and a bunch of other things that he couldn't untangle from the general mix.

  But in all cases they carried undercurrents of Father's qi, with the thick scent of cinnamon stamped onto each of their cores. Maybe it was a seal of approval, or maybe it was a sign of how heavily he'd made them his. He almost thought that he could see it, swirling past, feeding back to Father sitting in his tent. Father himself, though, he couldn't detect. He apparently kept a tight rein on his qi unless he needed it.

  "Stop," 589 demanded. Wu Hao didn't even need to look at the dogtag to remind him of who the other boy was; he had memories of stalking 589 from shadow to shadow, dying at his hands, of killing him and throwing his corpse into the latrines.

  "I'm to see Father," Wu Hao said.

  "On whose order?"

  "I have something to tell him," Wu Hao said, instead of answering.

  "Tell it to us," 589 said. He was surprisingly easy to read - his face gave away nothing but his qi spoke for him, seething with emotion constantly. Irritation ran through it in spikes in irregular bursts.

  Wu Hao wondered how he'd ever thought that was a talent of his, instead of the result of being a sensor.

  "I have something to tell him. And only him."

  "Any information passes through us first," 589 said, stepping slightly closer.

  Wu Hao didn't step back, instead nearing even closer as well, until he and 589 were practically touching. Until recently he might have simply left, but desperation had given him both courage and the realization that whatever happened wouldn't matter for long.

  "Do you think Father appreciates being made to wait?" he asked, tone quiet. "If I tell him that you have delayed an important message..."

  589 flinched, and Wu Hao wrestled down a smile. He felt the other boy's anger spike, a deep frustration.

  "Come in," Father's voice snapped from within the tent, apparently finally taking notice that they were bickering outside his tent. Wu Hao didn't buy it, though. Father would have long since been listening.

  "Will you disobey?" Wu Hao asked quietly. "Father has asked me to come in. Do you intend on preventing me from fulfilling Father's orders, 589?"

  He smiled at 589, whose irritation spiked in response even as he slowly moved to let Wu Hao pass.

  Without another word, Wu Hao walked in.