Wu Hao took another step, dodging the unstable set of rocks that would send him off balance. He'd done it so often now that it barely even required conscious thought, which was good because mentally he was focused on trying to digest what he'd learned from his last death.

  First there was the new fragment that he'd learned from the system. The third move of the Rending Dagger Art was a move called the Twisting Edge, a series of quick slashes that targeted every weak point in the body - the tendons, the throat, the face. In theory it would kill even with the first slash, but in practice each slash flowed from the next so that they could be executed in quick succession if even one was blocked or just missed.

  The downside was that each slash required as much qi as the Long Hook, and that he'd already run out of qi from two Void Rips and a few aborted attempts at a Long Hook. He just didn't have the qi necesary to execute the entire sequence.

  Which meant that he needed either better control over his own qi or he needed more qi. Preferably both, but he knew no exercises that would let him improve his control and no one who would teach him.

  And, on the other hand, he knew where to get more qi. It had been inside of him all along, and he'd already had it unlocked once before. It'd be simple to unlock it right now.

  It'd lead to his death, but was that any different from dying against the cultist the previous few times? He supposed it was, in the reward he could get, but beyond that there was nothing he needed to fear.

  Wu Hao felt at the edges of the filter. He knew that doing that might make it erode faster if he prodded it too hard, but so long as it didn't erode before the fight, then it didn't matter. The filter felt relatively solid, still more or less intact from when it'd been reinforced during cultivation guidance the day before, as everyone else saw time.

  Still, he hesitated, and thoughts kept dogging at him throughout the rest of the evening, the night, and the morning.

  Finally, when they arrived at the battlefield, he'd decided, and the smearing of the mud on his face and all over his body only made his decision firmer.

  He didn't have another choice. Whatever else was true, there would be no escape from Father unless he found a way to break the filter and survive, and there was no better way of learning more about the filter than breaking it and looking at the pieces and what the results were.

  Even if that caused him to die, he had a few deaths left in him before he'd give up trying to escape.

  There had to be more to life than this. He would see it.

  "We go," 726 said, and began to raise himself to his feet.

  Wu Hao tensed, before all the tension drained from him and cold certainty set in. He exhaled, inhaled, exhaled again. That felt important. He jumped to his feet, with none of the laborious carefulness that 726 or the others were employing.

  Then, before 726 could do more than remind them of the plan or tell them to massacre everyone in the camp or even just glare at him, Wu Hao grabbed a mental fistful of qi and drove it inwards, down towards his core.

  He formed it into a spike, pushing it against the brittle filter that had kept him chained down for years now. It'd have needed reinforcement something a few hours from now, but he'd been worrying away at it every so often so that it'd already begun to warp. It hadn't leaked anything, which was interesting but not all that relevant right now.

  The spike fell, and though it was an image that existed only in his mind he watched it fall, before it hit the filter and stopped in its tracks. It lingered for a moment, its tip lingering at one of the weak spots that he'd identified in the filter.

  With a burst of mental effort, he hammered it down and cracked open the filter.

  The rush was incredible. Power burst into all of him, not instantly but in tides of qi that rushed through all his veins, like a riverbed that had been dry for years finally receiving water, like a man dying of thirst being given water, like a piece of a puzzle falling into place.

  But he could feel, at the same time, that he was unravelling at the seams. Receiving all the qi that had been locked away felt good, but at the same his meridians weren't prepared to handle the influx and were being torn apart. He could feel his body destroying itself, not just little by little but in great bursts of qi that tore through his meridians.

  A thousand little aches disappeared that he'd had so long that he hadn't even felt them anymore, but every moment that the qi tore through him introduced new ones. Every movement felt simple and natural but also like he was a balloon, struggling not to pop. Every single one of his senses came alive and the world felt vibrant. He could see so much more than he could before - could feel the imperfections in the way that the knife was crafted, could feel the cold seeping in through every gap in his rags, could smell the stench of his surroundings.

  He could feel his qi straining against the knife, trying to flow through it but being rejected by the lifeless metal if it wasn't directed into specific forms. It was searching for a conduit and he knew that, with a little guidance, he could push it through and form a Void Rip.

  Wu Hao was dying, but he'd never felt so alive.

  "What -" 726 said, the sound coming through clear and crisp, but Wu Hao's enhanced senses picked up a faint stench of rot and a feeling of wrongness. It felt like something tying in on itself, a knot in an invisible thread that was making itself readable to him now. It was an incredible example of qi control, far finer than anything he himself was capable of.

  But he'd spotted it all the same. He grinned, carried on a high of finally having real control over his body even as he was losing control over the torrent of qi.

  Instincts suddenly supercharged by qi screamed at him, and based on nothing else Wu Hao pushed a boatload of qi through his feet and threw himself into a high jump that sent him arcing high over the gully. Everyone in the camp would be able to see him, but that didn't matter.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  A knife-wielding blur appeared where he'd just been, then resolved itself into the cultist, having executed a combination of a movement technique and a thrusting, piercing stab - the same one that'd taken Wu Hao's life last time. The cultist stared up at him, as did the other deathsworn. They hadn't even realized that there was an enemy in their midst, then when they realized what was happening they began to react.

  Some dived away, others jumped forwards. 723 slammed into 732 and both fell into the mud, limbs entangled. Another swipe of the knife and 723 was crippled, his legs torn through by a single slash.

  Wu Hao reached the apex of his jump and began to fall, landing on his feet loudly as mud splattered from his landing. He could feel the impact lancing through his legs with shivers of pain, but then the qi washed through him again and he could feel the pain disappear again only to make itself known elsewhere only moments later, a sudden swell of power behind his shoulders that itched with the need to move.

  He threw himself forward, howling a wordless challenge, so caught up in trying to ride the tiger that he'd unchained that he didn't have time for words or reason. His arms moved as his foot thundered down into a haphazard stance, and then he pumped as much qi as he had into a monstrous wave that slammed into his knife and formed into a barely-there loop.

  "Rending Art," he shouted. "Void Rip!"

  The qi that erupted from his knifepoint couldn't be called a thread. It was more like an entire curtain of qi had blasted out of his knife, and he felt only a momentary emptiness inside of him as it soared forwards, not the usual horizontal rip but instead vertical, as if he was trying to cut the cultist in half lengthwise.

  It rushed forwards at breakneck speeds, not the usual crawl, and the cultist's eyes widened as it neared.

  One of his feet leaned back just a little bit and he disappeared into another blur to dodge that abruptly stopped as he slammed head-first into 723, who was lumbering forward to try and keep him still.

  "Hold him down!" 726 roared, and as Wu Hao's strongest ever Void Rip tore a long furrow into the gully they all sprang forward, trying to pile onto the cultist.

  Wu Hao exhaled once - watched as 723, 729, 732 and finally 720 died, stabbed by the cultist so quickly they hadn't even registered they were dead - inhaled again - and unleashed another Void Rip, less massive but equally potent.

  It roared forwards picking up speed as it went and Wu Hao grunted in pain as qi bubbled up to his throat and damaged it, breathing out a bloody mist that was tinged with his own qi. A deep, impossible pain tore through his core and Wu Hao grimaced.

  Then he followed the blast of qi that he'd unleashed, bounding after the Void Rip by pushing his qi through his feet in a clumsy approximation of a movement technique.

  The cultist brought more of his own qi out and his knife lanced out, intercepting the Void Rip in its middle and tried to move it off to the side, attempting to block it using his own power, and Wu Hao appeared next to him in that instant, feet stumbling through half a step as he landed wrong.

  But he was there, and his knife was out, and he was ready to kill.

  He poured more of that overflowing qi into his hands and felt the blood vessels burst, purple spots appearing in his vision as he tore himself apart for power.

  "Rending Art," he mumbled, and coughed out more blood as he spoke. "Long Hook."

  Qi sprayed from the knifetip, forming into a long extension that looked razor-sharp. Strands congealed wrong and formed into barbs. Illuminated by the vaguely silvery qi that made up the Void Rip, Wu Hao caught his own reflection in the cultist's gaze as the other man turned to catch him, eyes wide with surprise before settling into a grim determination.

  The knife launched forward at the same time as the cultist made the snap decision to change his attempt to block into a slash, knife curving into a long silver slice that aimed for Wu Hao's throat.

  There followed a frenzied blur of action as Wu Hao moved on instinct more than any training he'd ever received.

  Both of their knives flashed, giving up all notions of defense to just inflict as much damage as they could. Both their voices entwined into huffs of pain and grunts of agony as a scratch landed, as flesh was cut into, as their bodies were stabbed. Neither of them moved from their spots, trapped by something neither could define.

  And then Wu Hao's qi began to gutter out. He choked back a sob as three more slashes landed across his torso, joining the countless others already there. The pain inside of him was so much worse - a searing agony erupted every time he moved, blood was leaking from his mouth and his nose and running like tears from his eyes.

  His time was over.

  As if to punctuate that, a knife pierced through his chest, destroying his right lung and cracking several ribs. Wu Hao's own knife slipped from his numb fingers and slipped to the ground and disappeared into the mud.

  Everyone else was already dead.

  The cultist panted for breath. Scratches littered his face, his grip on his knife had loosened, and his left arm looked almost tattered, with how many times Wu Hao must have carved into it.

  And he was staring at Wu Hao with astonishment in his eyes. In that gaze, Wu Hao found a lot of emotions. Relief, surprise, and though it was faint, Wu Hao saw an emotion there that he couldn't remember ever having seen before.

  Respect.

  Wu Hao grinned, through bloodied teeth, and reached out.

  "Each time," he rasped, "one step further."

  He clenched a hand and raised it slightly, though he had to force himself into doing it; he didn't actually have the feeling in his hands anymore and the rest of his body was beginning to feel cold and numb and dead.

  "And one day," he said, "I'll reach you."