Yu Di didn’t expect the beam from the diamond at first, but then realized that these people were too petty. If he died during this incursion, then there would be nothing lost on their part. Except he wasn’t planning on dying.

  Yu Di wasn’t sure if it was pure luck or karma, but he saw Fu Homei running toward him at full speed. Her face was contorted in pain and disgust.

  “Senior Fu, what brings you here?” he asked.

  “Shut up.” Fu Homei grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away toward the back of the fortress.

  Yu Di knew where they were going. He had swept this area many times before in his quest to leave this fortress. It was the exit the inner sect disciples took to carry out missions for the sect.

  "What's going on?"

  "Grandfather is trying to kill you as an enemy of the sect," Fu Homei said. She dragged Yu Di into the tunnels.

  “You’re helping me because of the Qi contract, aren’t you?”

  The woman nodded again.

  “Well, that and I’m not stupid. I know that if you die, that Qi contract will simply rebound and kill me.”

  “Your grandfather knows this?”

  Fu Homei grimaced.

  “Some of us are expendable. He's got plenty of other grandchildren. He also won't say it, but he feels disgraced that I got tricked by someone as weak as you.”

  That was fair. Yu Di didn’t tell anyone that he was cursed either. It wasn’t until he tried everything else before begging his former associates for help, practically on his hands and feet. That’s where he got the stupid idea for dual cultivation.

  “You’ll be safe here,” Fu Homei said.

  Yu Di wasn’t sure about that. Despite the wall between him and the diamond, there was still a pressure pushing down on him.

  “Senior Fu, how much does your grandfather prize you?”

  “Enough to not kill me," Fu Homei said. "I am one of the few grandchildren that has reached core formation."

  Yu Di grabbed Fu Homei and dove down on top of her.

  A large laser beam cut through where they were just standing.

  Curse unlocked: .2% lifted.

  Yu Di cycled Qi into his eyes to see the laser of Qi cutting through the entire top half of the dark place. It came from the large diamond still in the sky. And yes, it still had a beam directed at his chest.

  Fu Homei pushed Yu Di off.

  “Sorry,” Yu Di said. “I’ll apologize further later if you require it, but now we run.”

  Yu Di scrambled to his feet before running down the corridor with Fu Homei in tow. He felt the pulse from the diamond again.

  “Down.” Yu Di plopped to the ground, dragging Fu Homei with him.

  Another laser beam of Qi tore through the corridor.

  “I have to ask before we keep running.” Yu Di got up.

  “He doesn’t care about me, okay?” Fu Homei said. “Is that what you wanted to hear? He would throw me away as easily as a used slipper if he could get something out of it.”

  “No, that’s not what I was going to ask,” Yu Di said. There was a lot of resentment going on there, but another time. “I wanted to know where this corridor goes before I run into another trap. The last thing I want to do is die here with you.”

  “It leads outside of the sect. This is where core and inner disciples go out of the sect to carry out their missions.”

  Yu Di got up and ran again, holding Fu Homei’s hand. He noticed that the second beam didn’t lift his curse anymore, despite continuing to save the child’s life.

  Another thing to think about if he made it out of there alive.

  Yu Di smelled it before he saw it. Fresh air that came from outside. It pushed against the stale air within the corridor. The small trickle of air ran along his face.

  Freedom.

  It was here this whole time?

  All he needed to do was go back and grab Yu Lin. Then they would be…

  Another Qi beam cut close to where Yu Di stood. He swerved at the last second to avoid the beam. Good thing he held onto Fu Homei as she moved with him.

  “Do you not sense the beam?” Yu Di asked as they got up again.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “The diamond is not targeting me,” Fu Homei said. “If you leave me here, I’m sure it will stop putting me in danger.”

  That was right.

  Yu Di didn’t think about that. He let go of Fu Homei's hand.

  “Thank you Senior Fu. I’ll try to repay you somehow. Please be sure to take care of my daughter.”

  “Good luck.” Fu Homei crawled away.

  This time Yu Di felt the diamond switch targets to Fu Homei. He made his fingers into a claw and used a pulling technique. Fu Homei dragged across the dragged floor and landed on top of him.

  Seconds later, a beam struck where Fu Homei was.

  “It’s after you now,” Yu Di said. “Run.”

  The pair got up and ran the rest of the way to the exit of the corridor.

  Yu Di felt the diamond power down. It was no longer targeting their general direction.

  Were they finally safe?

  Yu Di stopped.

  The corridor ended in a sheer cliff that went so far down that his demigod body might not survive without any Qi reinforcing it.

  Right in front of them, Grand Elder Fu stood on his cane as he hovered in the air. He crossed his arms, the protective runes glowing on his emerald tunic.

  “You two better explain yourselves,” Fu An said.

  Yu Di smiled, cupped his hands, and bowed at the waist.

  “This servant greets Grand Elder Fu.”

  “Why are you two trying to leave our sect? Were you colluding with the enemy? Were you the ones that let them in?”

  Fu Homei stood forward.

  “Grandfather, we were—”

  “Silence.”

  “Honorable Grand Elder Fu, we were running away when we noticed that the large diamond targeted us,” Yu Di said. “As I am an upstanding member of this sect, I’m not sure why the controller would target me.”

  Fu An glared for what felt like four seasons.

  “The diamond targets enemies of the sect.”

  “I’m sure that if Grand Elder Fu is here, then that means the true enemies of the sect have been repulsed. If you go back to the large welcome hall and ask anyone there, they would tell you that I did everything in my power to help them.”

  Fu An made a disgusted face before spitting down into the steep, steep cliff.

  “I know. That’s why you’re still alive. I came here to check to see if you were meeting with the enemy. There is evidence that someone let them in.”

  “As you can see, all we were doing was running away from the diamond’s targeting.” Yu Di opened his arms out. The sleeve of his tunic had a large hole in it. Apparently he wasn’t as nimble as he thought.

  “I’m keeping an eye on you,” Fu An said. “If I find out that you helped the enemy in any way, I will make sure to give you a most painful death.”

  He turned his staff around and flew upwards over the sect.

  Yu Di gasped as he collapsed to the floor. He checked to make sure that the diamond was indeed not targeting him anymore. He only glanced over to Fu Homei a brief second in case it targeted her.

  Not that he cared for her, he didn’t want to be collateral damage.

  “Thank you for trying to help me,” Yu Di said.

  “If it wasn’t for that stupid Qi contract, I would never have bothered,” Fu Homei muttered.

  That was right, but something bothered him.

  “All I asked was that you protect me and my daughter,” Yu Di said. “I never told you to risk your life to protect me. And if the diamond killed me in one shot before you got to me, that wouldn’t be a failure to protect me. Yet you threw yourself in front of me. Why?”

  “Why? It’s because it would be a shame if that little girl lost her father.” Fu Homei dusted her tunic off. She pulled out a white fan and threw it into the air. It expanded into a large fan right at her feet. “I know what that’s like. The worst part? He died for that foolish old man I call a grandfather.”

  Fu Homei flew away on her large white fan. A cool breeze followed her wake.

  Yu Di took a deep breath. It was the first free air he had been able to breathe since joining this sect. He was used to being stuck in cramped spaces, looking for his next level. But he realized that part of his life was over. He didn’t want to do that ever again if he could help it.

  Of course, he could just jump from here.

  Yu Di peered down the sheer cliff below him. He was certain that with a certain item on his body, he could fly out of there with ease. But then he would be abandoning his daughter.

  He couldn’t do that.

  So Yu Di turned around and walked through the secret corridor. Now that he had time to enjoy the walk, he examined the walls and more importantly, the holes that the blue diamond made when it blasted him.

  The first thing he noticed was that the blue diamond was very inaccurate. Either the person controlling it was an amateur or the diamond was so low quality it couldn’t track something as simple as Qi signatures.

  Yu Di laughed.

  It was probably both. How they ended up with the blue diamond is a mystery or sheer dumb luck, but there’s no way anyone who could get such a diamond would be so inexperienced as to misuse it.

  So what he had were cultivating monkeys. Someone found a large blue diamond emitting a strong Qi and they built an entire base around it. It didn’t seem like they had a fundamental understanding of the Dao.

  Yu Di paused when he looked at one of the reliefs on the wall. He took out his jade tablet and pushed more Qi into it than usual. It glowed a light green.

  Current Power: Realm 1, Stage 1, Level 6 (Qi condensation)

  Remaining Lifespan: 13 years, 5 months.

  Current Status: Cursed (10.1% lifted)

  Overall Power: Fourth Realm, End Stage, Peak level

  Yu Di wasn’t really looking for information, but it did worry him that he was losing months of his life faster than he’d like. However, he wondered what it meant to have about ten percent of his former power back.

  Yu Di lifted the jade tablet to the relief on the wall. It showed a large dragon coiling around a pagoda. Its claws holding on to two large pearls.

  This looked very familiar to him. Where had he seen this relief before?

  That’s when it hit him.

  Yu Di knew where he was.

  This former bandit fortress didn’t remind him of the first sect he joined. It was the first sect he ever joined. But how could that be?

  The sect leader back then had ascended along with him when he figured out a way to push everyone ahead. There was no one left here. Who is Sect Leader Gu?

  Gu Zhi. That name rang hollow in his mind.

  Yu Di had met so many people in his more than a century old lifespan. The only ones he clearly remembered were those closest to him. Most of the time, he would call people simply senior or junior.

  Whoever Gu Zi was in his past, he’d have to figure it out later. Right now, he had to plan for the future. That future included securing Yu Lin’s place at the top of this sect and possibly toppling that foolish Sect Leader.

  The sect might be a monkey’s den, but Yu Di was going to make sure that his daughter would be the princess of the monkeys.