Wu Hao stared at the hand. He felt...

  He didn't know how he felt. Emotions ran through him that he couldn't identify, and the few he did know were so twisted into knots that he didn't know what to make of them. All he knew was that he felt, and that he felt a lot of it.

  "What?" he rasped.

  "Didn't I make myself clear?" Huo Shanliang said. "Decide."

  Silence fell over the tent, though Wu Hao's mind was struggling to come up with something coherent to say.

  "What - " he coughed, cleared his throat, resumed - "How?"

  A flash of annoyance crossed Huo Shanliang's face.

  "I would have told you this," he said. "If you hadn't interrupted me."

  Wu Hao winced, but then Huo Shanliang smoothed out his expression.

  "I will personally teach you the Ivory Demon Arts," Huo Shanliang said. "You have no idea how much of a honor that is - others from the Order would kill for the opportunity. They are superior by far to whatever else you cultivated before this."

  "Why?" Wu Hao asked.

  "You fought Xing Zhao," Huo Shanliang stated. Again, something was irritating him, but Wu Hao didn't know what. "I only taught him from a distance, and he only learned my distillation of the Ivory Demon Arts, nonetheless. But... You won."

  Wu Hao nearly asked who that was, before he shut up instead. It became clear to him if he thought it through just a little more, though. Xing Zhao had been the cultist at the gully. He made a note of that, not really knowing how to feel now that he knew that the man he'd been referring to as just "the cultist" might have been an actual person, rather than a daily nightmare of steel and rent flesh.

  Taking his silence as pride or something like it, Huo Shanliang continued: "Do you know how many could have done that? There are perhaps a dozen who could, throughout the provinces. Geniuses, scions of the most powerful clans in the main lines of succession, the rare disciples of hidden masters, perhaps."

  Huo Shanliang leaned in. "None of them," he said, at a lower tone, "could have done it with only a single dagger and with your utterly trash foundations. Not alone. Not without an inherited technique of some kind."

  Wu Hao frowned. Discomfort had begun to rear its head most of all through the mix of emotions he was feeling, and he was beginning to realize why.

  There was a hunger in Huo Shanliang's gaze. Not interest, not respect, but only hunger.

  He still didn't see Wu Hao as human.

  "You overcame the wall in front of you," Huo Shanliang said. "In turn, maybe you can help me overcome mine. Help us overcome ours."

  "What?" Wu Hao asked again, jarred by the sudden shift in topics.

  "What do you know of martial artist ranks?" Huo Shanliang asked. "Little, I presume."

  "I know all six of the ranks," Wu Hao said. "Third-rate, second-rate, first-rate. Then master, transcendent, and finally Sovereign."

  Huo Shanliang waved a hand. "Yes, yes. Some use grade instead of rate; it doesn't matter. Let us go beyond simply the names. What do you know of the ranks themselves?"

  Wu Hao shook his head. That had been all.

  "It is simple enough to go from third-grade to second-grade," Huo Shanliang said. "Equally so for the second-grade to the first-grade. Achievable with enough effort, enough resources, enough time, unless you're horribly untalented. The first step is the hardest. Being able to take that step is what marks you as a superior being."

  He coughed, then continued. "If the boundary to become a martial artist separates a mere mortal " - the condescension he managed to pack into that word was incredible - "into a martial artist, then the second boundary is that which separates a first-grade martial artist from a master."

  "How so?" Wu Hao asked.

  "To become a master, you need something more," Huo Shanliang said. "Something that sets you apart. Something that resonates with the very core of your being. You must understand yourself on a fundamental level."

  He leaned back and looked at Wu Hao.

  "You will help me," Huo Shanliang stated. "What you have shown me today - I felt inspired in a way I haven't for years. You stood at the edge of death to kill. For the sake of power, you would even die."

  An odd look crossed his face.

  "I want that," he said. His tone had grown more feverish with excitement, but Wu Hao only felt a chill run down his spine. "No - I will be that. You will study under me, and in so doing I will learn everything that caused that moment. Once I do..."

  "... you'll become a master?" Wu Hao whispered.

  "Perhaps," Huo Shanliang said, in a way that showed his confidence that it would. "Perhaps."

  "What do you even actually believe?" Wu Hao asked, and if Huo Shanliang was displeased that Wu Hao hadn't shown any more reaction than that he hid it well.

  "Power," Huo Shanliang said. "Pure power. There is no morality without power to do as you see fit. There are no laws without power to enforce them. Everything man has built, they've been able to gain purely from having power. But we martial artists - even in an age where we're far more powerful than most mortals - we refuse to truly use that power."

  He waved a hand, as if demonstrating.

  Everything that Huo Shanliang said, everything he promised - he only promised power.

  Not a better life. Not a chance for revenge against Father, although Wu Hao still didn't know if that was what he wanted. Not a chance to escape the constant killing and dying. There was freedom there, but only the hint of freedom - the idea that power itself would make him free, regardless of how or where or who he was.

  Just 'power'. That was all.

  The thought of that gully remained with him. He'd physically escaped it, but no matter how much he tried he couldn't escape the feeling that he was still there, still facing down a cultist of the Demon Cult. Maybe it was a conversation and not a fight, and maybe this one was far more powerful than the last had been, but in the end the situation was still the same.

  Besides, he'd seen exactly how much the Demon Cult had cared for Xing Zhao. He hadn't received a burial, either; as far as Wu Hao knew he still lay in pieces, face down in the mud.

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  If he took Huo Shanliang's hand, nothing would change except that he grew more powerful. He'd been drunk on power before and all it'd resulted in was him dying, repeatedly.

  This wasn't an offer; this wasn't charity; this wasn't an apprenticeship.

  This was another attempt to make him as a tool.

  "I will make you -" Huo Shanliang was saying, as if he was realizing that he'd lost his grip on Wu Hao. He was speaking, faster, louder, as if he was about to reach the heart of his argument.

  "No," Wu Hao tried to say. But it came out far stronger than he'd intended to: instead of just a firm refusal, it was a shout, halfway to a scream: "No!"

  Huo Shanliang stopped. He seemed confused, more than he seemed offended.

  "What?" he asked.

  "No," Wu Hao rasped. "I won't join the Demon Cult."

  "I offer you power," Huo Shanliang said, quietly. Dangerously, although Wu Hao was past caring. He stared Huo Shanliang in the eyes, meeting their dark red shine, and found them devoid any humanity whatsoever. "You realize you're courting death?"

  "Before, I was a tool," Wu Hao said. "Now you're offering me godhood. I would like to be human, for once."

  Huo Shanliang said nothing, but then pushed his chair back. He stood up slowly, almost mechanically, and frowned down at his chair before pushing it just a little further so that it stood in one line with the desk.

  "Good," he said. "Good!"

  Then he began to pace, muttering slightly to himself. Wu Hao only caught fragments - "a shame", "if not for Luo Daxiu", and other things he couldn't begin to make sense of.

  As the other man was distracted, though, Wu Hao moved his legs quietly, testing out how much he could still move. He only felt more pain, though, and no guarantee that he'd even manage to rise to his feet. He suspected that he'd been too hasty in rejecting Huo Shanliang outright, rather than trying to slip out afterwards.

  Nonetheless he'd made his bed, and now it was time to see if it would be his grave.

  He grimaced, preparing himself to stand, to take hold of Huo Shanliang's daggers, and to finish this. Attempting to stand worked, though he had to bite down on his teeth not to release growls of pain. His legs felt like they were being boiled alive, with how much sheer agony was radiating from every nerve, but nonetheless they would still do as he told them to for now.

  Then, though, he tried to touch the handle of one of the daggers, and a backlash of qi ran through his system like a riptide current, pulling him under in an instant. The same instant that he'd touched it - or maybe even a second before - power had shot through his arm like the type that Huo Shanliang had sent forcing through his meridians just an hour ago.

  His arm snapped up, controlled by that flood of qi to clench itself against his side. It moved so quickly and without caring about his body that he felt something snap and give. This time, he didn't manage to stop the grunt of pain.

  "Hmm?" Huo Shanliang muttered, then glanced over. "Ah."

  He waved a hand, and the pressure that Wu Hao was feeling from the qi that'd burst through his arm didn't stop but only increased. Now, though, it didn't wander aimlessly - it aimed to paralyse him, manipulating his muscles to force his feet to slam together and his knees to bow, so that he once more fell into the chair. His jaw snapped shut with a loud, audible click that sent more dizzying waves of pain through Wu Hao's head.

  Helpless again, he stared at Huo Shanliang, who still hadn't moved other than waving a single hand.

  "Idiot boy," Huo Shanliang sighed. "You didn't even know about the owner protection on high-class weapons?"

  He took a step closer, inspecting Wu Hao as he sat there, seething.

  "No, I suppose you didn't," Huo Shanliang said, answering his own question. "I would have taught you, you know. Mmm. Offered a chance at Heaven, you jumped feet-first into Hell."

  "Mm," Wu Hao protested. "Mmm!"

  "Shut up," Huo Shanliang said casually, waving another finger, and with that the rest of Wu Hao's ability to speak was taken away, too, so much that he couldn't even murmur. He had to breathe through his nose to get any air at all, and every harsh breath brought with it the scent of dried blood.

  Memories of Uncle Liu came up again and Wu Hao had to fight for what little composure he could muster, forcing himself to stay calm. But every movement he tried to make as he shook just reminded him that he couldn't move at all, and when Huo Shanliang had locked away his ability to speak he'd also forced Wu Hao's gaze to stare at the daggers on the table.

  Too late he'd seen the symbols carved onto them, blood-red lines that covered the leather sheaths from top to bottom. They still sparked with qi every so often, the same qi that'd paralyzed him earlier.

  "I'll study you later," Huo Shanliang promised. "One way or another, alive or dead, you will become another stepping stone for my rise."

  Wu Hao tried to thrash around, but all movement was sealed. Tears threatened to spill from his eyes and blood bubbled up to his throat, and he wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. He'd given so many lives and he'd finally succeeded, only to end up here anyway?

  A bell tolled far in the distance and Huo Shanliang was broken from his reverie, head snapping up in shock.

  "Lot of work to be done," Huo Shanliang murmured, and raced over to the table, taking hold of both daggers. He lifted them easily from the table, without suffering from the paralysis that'd ruined Wu Hao's escape attempt.

  "Tell me, how would you like for me to kill you?"

  He looked at Wu Hao, who tried to speak but found it impossible. With a quick motion Huo Shanliang took control of Wu Hao's body from a distance and let the qi that kept him from talking drop from his face and settle around his neck, ready to choke him.

  Wu Hao took a few deep breaths, and then Huo Shanliang casually backhanded him.

  "Speak," he said, with no change in tone. "Before I decide."

  Swallowing blood and fragments of teeth, Wu Hao looked up.

  Death, again. But at least now he was offered a choice. He supposed he'd have to consider this progress.

  "Let me die at the Heavenly Demon's hand."