The moon climbed high. The Eternal Yin Orchid Sect slept peacefully.
But in Haotian's sea of consciousness, war raged.
The golden battlefield groaned under the force of his fists. Blood streamed from his mouth as he slammed strike after strike, pushing through Alter's merciless drills.
"Again!" Alter barked, his voice thunderous. "The Fourteenth won't wait for your body to catch up!"
Haotian roared, golden veins flickering across his body. His fist tore upward in another Celestial Vein Rupture — and his meridians exploded. His body twisted, blood bursting from every pore. He staggered, fell to his knees, and collapsed face-first into the cracked ground of his consciousness.
Alter's eyes narrowed. "That's death in a real fight. You'd already be gone."
Haotian's golden eyes cracked open, blood running down his face — but a faint grin tugged at his lips. "…Not yet."
He reached into his sleeve and withdrew one of the newly-refined pills. The golden sphere gleamed with runes, humming with raw vitality.
He swallowed.
BOOOOOOM.
The effect detonated instantly. Golden light burst from his veins, flooding every inch of his body. Torn meridians stitched together in seconds. Crushed marrow reshaped. Shattered bones reformed with a sound like rolling thunder. The blood soaking him evaporated as if burned away by divine fire.
In a breath, the broken husk of his body was gone — replaced by flesh so steady, so reinforced, it looked as though he hadn't suffered at all.
Alter's brows rose, his usually stern expression breaking for a moment. "…That pill…"
Haotian flexed his hand, his fist tightening with renewed strength. "Eighty percent healing efficiency. Flesh, marrow, meridians… all restored. Enough to make me whole in seconds."
He rose, steady as if he had never fallen. His golden eyes blazed. "Now I can keep going."
Alter smirked, sharp and approving. "So you've rewritten alchemy too. Good. Then there's no excuse." He stepped forward, his aura rising like a storm. "The Fifteenth Strike awaits. If you can stand, you can fight."
Haotian grinned despite the blood still drying on his lips. "…Then let's go again."
The library's jade doors closed softly behind Haotian as he stepped back into the courtyard. Whispers followed him like a shadow.
"Two million pills…"
"All perfect grade…"
"Is he even human?"
Haotian ignored the murmurs, his golden eyes calm. He had more texts to transcribe into his Golden Text Library, but there was still time before dusk. He walked slowly along the stone path, enjoying the rare quiet—until a heavy, rhythmic clang reached his ears.
He paused. A forge?
For a moment, he debated. Then he smiled faintly. "Still early. Why not." He turned his steps toward the sound.
The forging and weapons hall opened before him, filled with the heat of flames and the ring of hammers. Sparks burst in showers as blacksmiths shaped glowing metal. The air stank of molten ore, sweat, and spirit fire.
Haotian leaned against a pillar, watching in silence. His gaze flickered over the smiths' motions, their formations etched into the furnaces, their spirit hammers glowing faintly. After only a few breaths, his judgment was calm, certain.
"Quite accomplished," he murmured. "But still crude."
Then chaos struck.
One of the younger blacksmiths cried out, staggering back. The origin flame in his furnace howled, suddenly surging beyond control. The fire bulged outward, licking at the walls, consuming spirit ore in wild fury.
"Cut the chi line!"
"No, dampen the core flame!"
"Too late—it's going to explode!"
The blacksmiths rushed, hands glowing with suppression seals, but the flame only roared higher, sparks spitting like lightning. Panic spread through the hall. If the furnace blew, half the building would go with it.
Haotian sighed. Such a fragile formation to bind an origin flame. Unfortunate.
He raised his hand lazily and flicked his fingers.
A web of golden sigils snapped into existence around the furnace. The flame howled—but the formation clamped down instantly, compressing it like an iron cage. The roaring blaze shrank, stabilized, and settled into a controlled, steady burn. The hall quieted, the panic fading into stunned silence.
Haotian exhaled softly, as if disappointed. "Weak formation lines. That was inevitable."
But his words did not go unnoticed.
From the far end of the hall, an elder approached quickly, his forge robe darkened with soot. His eyes narrowed sharply as he looked at the golden lattice still glowing faintly over the furnace.
"You there," the elder said firmly, his voice carrying authority. "What did you just do? That fire was on the brink of exploding—and you contained it with a single flick."
The blacksmiths around him all turned, their gazes locked onto Haotian with a mix of awe and suspicion.
The elder stopped before him, his expression hard. "Explain yourself. What did you do to my forge?"
The forging hall was silent, save for the crackle of the now-stabilized furnace. Blacksmiths stood frozen, their tools forgotten, eyes fixed on the young man who had tamed an origin flame with a flick.
The elder stopped in front of Haotian, his face grim, voice low. "Explain yourself. What did you do to my forge?"
Haotian glanced at the furnace, then back to the elder. His tone was calm, almost too casual. "Your containment array was flawed. The formation lines were shallow and the anchor nodes uneven. With origin flames, that's dangerous. So I drew a stabilizing lattice, equalized the chi flow, and locked the flame to its core."
He said it as though describing how to pour water into a cup.
The elder blinked. Around him, several blacksmiths gaped. One muttered, "…Equalized the chi flow? With one flick? That would take a dozen seals—"
The elder's expression darkened, his eyes narrowing. He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Don't play games with me. I've worked that forge for twenty years. What you just did is impossible. No apprentice, no master, no Sovereign blacksmith could have stabilized that blaze in an instant."
Haotian tilted his head, his golden eyes faintly amused. "Impossible? Then perhaps you simply haven't learned enough."
The words were calm, not mocking — but the elder flinched all the same.
"You…" he began, his voice tight. "Are you suggesting I lack skill?"
Haotian folded his arms. "You're skilled. I watched your men work. Your hammering rhythm, your fire control — accomplished. But your formations are still crude. They're fit for Saints, not Sovereigns. No wonder your furnaces struggle."
A murmur rippled through the hall. The younger blacksmiths glanced at each other, torn between offense and awe.
The elder's jaw tightened. "Then what would you do differently?" he demanded.
Haotian raised a hand again. Golden light flickered across his fingertips, forming a lattice of symbols that hung glowing in the air. He shaped them casually, like an artist sketching with light.
"These are Ninefold Binding Lines," he said evenly. "Anchor them at three depths, with mirrored resonance. The fire won't surge beyond its core again. With that, you could harness origin flames for divine metal without risk."
The elder's eyes widened. "Ninefold Binding… with mirrored resonance…?" He stared at the glowing lines, recognizing concepts he'd only ever seen in broken fragments of ancient forging texts.
Haotian let the symbols dissolve with a wave, his tone returning to calm dismissal. "It's nothing special. Just common sense, really."
He turned as if to leave.
The elder's voice caught in his throat. His pride warred with awe, but at last he bowed, deeply, his forehead nearly touching the soot-stained floor.
"…Please. Teach us."
The entire hall froze, then erupted into whispers, stunned that the proud elder of the forging hall would lower himself so openly.
Haotian paused, looking back, his golden eyes softening just faintly.
"Perhaps. But not today."
With that, he walked toward the doors, his robes trailing lightly behind him — leaving the entire hall stunned into silence.
By late afternoon, the Eternal Yin Orchid Sect hummed with unease. Whispers darted through courtyards like startled birds, disciples speaking in hushed tones, elders moving with urgency.
When Lin Xiangyin returned through the mountain gates, violet robes brushing against the stone, a cluster of elders awaited her. Their expressions were tense, eyes flickering with something between awe and fear.
She stopped, her voice cool. "What happened while I was gone?"
The forge elder stepped forward first, soot still clinging to his sleeves. He bowed low. "Sect Master… in the forging hall, the origin flame surged out of control. We thought the furnace would explode. But the Moon Lotus Pavilion's Senior Brother—Haotian—stabilized it with a single flick of his hand."
Xiangyin's brows lifted slightly. "Stabilized… with one flick?"
The elder nodded, voice trembling. "Not only that… he drew a formation in the air. Ninefold Binding Lines, mirrored resonance. I believed such a thing only existed in broken fragments of ancient scrolls. He completed it perfectly, and spoke of it as though it were common sense."
Xiangyin's composure wavered, her heart tightening. Forging too? Just how many crafts does this boy carry in his hands…?
Before she could press further, another elder hurried into the courtyard, scrolls clutched tightly. He dropped to one knee, breathless.
"Sect Master! The alchemy hall. Last night, Haotian entered. He did not touch a cauldron. With a single clawed hand, he drew the essence out of dozens of herbs and fused them midair. Then, with hand seals, he split the sphere into dozens more and engraved runes onto each. By dawn…" The elder's voice cracked. "…by dawn, he had refined over two million Sovereign-tier pills."
The courtyard stilled, the words falling like thunder.
The first elder staggered. "Two… million?"
The kneeling man bowed lower, forehead nearly to the ground. "All at perfect grade. Not a single failure. One million were given to the alchemy hall for distribution. The other million remain with the Moon Lotus Pavilion."
For a moment, Xiangyin could not breathe. Her violet eyes widened, trembling faintly. The composure of a Sovereign, honed over centuries, faltered under the weight of the truth.
Forging formations lost to time… and now alchemy that rewrites the very limits of creation. Two million perfect Sovereign pills, gifted away as though they were nothing.
She pressed her fingers tightly against her sleeve to steady herself, her voice barely above a whisper. "…Just how far do your hands reach, Haotian?"
The Frost Jade Tree glimmered faintly in the distance, its light catching in her shaken eyes.
Xiangyin's hand tightened on the scroll she held, her knuckles pale. The reports of the forge and alchemy hall still rang in her mind like a thunderstorm. She exhaled sharply and turned to one of the attending disciples.
"Find him. Now. Bring Haotian to me."
The disciple bowed deeply. "At once, Sect Master." He vanished in a blur of light.
An hour passed.
Xiangyin sat in her pavilion, tea cooling on the table beside her. Her foot tapped faintly against the floor — a rare show of impatience from the Sovereign Sect Master. Finally, footsteps echoed. The messenger returned, bowing low.
"Well?" Her tone was clipped.
The disciple swallowed. "Sect Master… we searched the Moon Lotus Pavilion. He is not there. None of the Pavilion disciples have seen him since morning. We searched the training grounds, the bathhouse, even the alchemy hall again. There is no sign of him."
Xiangyin's brows knit together, her violet eyes narrowing. "Not there?"
The messenger kept his head bowed. "It is as though he vanished."
Her fingers drummed against the armrest, sharp and quick. First he overturns the forge. Then he leaves two million pills like spare coin. And now he slips away as though nothing binds him here…
Her voice was low, but firm. "Keep looking. I will speak to him tonight. Do not fail."
The messenger bowed again and retreated quickly.
Scene Title: The Quiet Library
Unbeknownst to the entire sect, Haotian sat in silence deep within the Eternal Yin Orchid Sect's library. The great hall stretched endlessly, walls lined with jade shelves and glowing scrolls, their faint light spilling across polished floors.
Haotian was cross-legged at a low desk, a mountain of tomes surrounding him. His golden pupils flickered like lanterns, glyphs rising from each page he turned, dissolving into light and flowing into the depths of his Golden Text Library.
Page after page, volume after volume — manuals of sword law, treatises on spirit formations, notes on sovereign dao pathways. Each absorbed instantly, each rewritten silently in his inner world.
Around him, the air was utterly still. No attendants dared intrude, for his presence radiated an unspoken weight — not the ferocity of his strikes, not the thunder of his battles, but the solemn silence of someone drinking in the lifeblood of knowledge itself.
He paused only once, setting down a tome and murmuring quietly to himself.
"…The path of pills, the path of blades, the path of steel… all different rivers. But rivers flow into the same sea."
Then he reached for the next book, unhurried, calm, as if the sect's storms had nothing to do with him.
The walls of books bore silent witness.
And while the sect scoured every courtyard for him, while Xiangyin seethed with restless questions, Haotian sat alone — quietly rewriting the future in the library's shadows.
Night fell, and the library's lanterns burned low. Haotian finally closed the last tome, golden script dissolving from its pages into his inner world. His body ached, but his eyes remained steady. He returned to his chamber, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes.
In an instant, he was back on the golden battlefield.
Alter stood waiting, arms crossed, voice like steel. "Back again? Good. Tonight you'll push deeper into the Fifteenth. Thousand Cross Fang isn't speed alone—it's the will to split yourself a thousand ways without shattering."
Haotian's aura blazed, his afterimages splitting, fists hammering from all sides. The battlefield screamed with the storm of blows. His bones cracked, his veins tore, but still he roared, pressing further.
Then—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A sound, faint but insistent, echoed through his consciousness.
Haotian's golden eyes widened. Someone's at my door.
The battlefield trembled. His body was ripped out of his sea of consciousness.
He gasped awake in his chamber—just as the backlash struck.
CRRRACK.
Agony tore through him. His muscles shredded, his bones splintered, blood gushed in rivulets. He bit down hard, stifling a scream, but a muffled groan still slipped through clenched teeth.
Outside, footsteps halted. A voice sharp with alarm: "What was that!?"
Before he could recover, the door exploded open.
Xiangyin strode in, sovereign aura flaring—only to stop dead.
Her violet eyes widened, her breath caught.
"By the heavens—"
Haotian knelt on the floor, his robes soaked scarlet. His skin hung in tatters, muscles torn open, bone gleaming through, his abdomen ripped so deeply that even his organs glistened in the lantern light. Blood pooled around him in thick streams.
Xiangyin gasped, rushing forward instinctively. "Hold still, I'll—"
"Stay."
His voice was hoarse, ragged, but firm. He raised a trembling hand, halting her. With the other, he pulled a golden pill from his sleeve — one of the Sovereign-grade restoratives he had forged himself.
He swallowed.
BOOOOOOM.
Light erupted from his veins. His body shook violently as the pill ignited, golden radiance pouring through his meridians. Flesh knit together before her eyes, bone sliding back into place with audible cracks, organs stitching and reforming. The Undying Dragon Body Sutra flared in harmony, cycling the healing ability to its peak.
Before Xiangyin's stunned gaze, the impossible happened: in mere moments, Haotian's broken, bloodied body was whole again.
His breathing steadied. He opened his golden eyes, calm, as though nothing had happened.
He looked up at her. "Sect Master. What brings you to my chamber so late at night?"
Her lips parted, but no words came at first. She had never—never—witnessed a recovery like this. Her hands trembled slightly, and for the first time in centuries, she forgot her composure.
Finally, her voice cracked out, urgent. "…What is this all about, Haotian? The alchemy hall incident. The forging hall. And now this—" her eyes swept the blood-stained floor, still wet with proof of what she'd seen, "—this madness you put your body through. Tell me the truth."
The lantern light flickered against bloodstains still wet on the floor. Xiangyin stood rigid, her violet eyes locked on Haotian, her composure stripped bare by what she had just witnessed.
"Tell me the truth," she pressed, her voice trembling but sharp. "The pills. The forge. This—" she gestured to his still-healing body, "—this torment you put yourself through. What are you hiding?"
Haotian's gaze lowered. For a long moment, silence stretched between them. He breathed once, twice, the weight of exhaustion heavy on his shoulders.
Finally, his lips moved. "Alter."
Xiangyin blinked. "Alter?"
Haotian nodded faintly, his golden eyes lifting to meet hers. "Inside my sea of consciousness. He's training me. Every night. The techniques he gives me… they are not martial arts meant for mortals. They break me. Rip my body apart, down to my marrow. That is why you find me like this."
Xiangyin's heart pounded. "…So that's why you need the pills."
"Yes." His tone was calm, but the admission was raw. "The alchemy hall incident wasn't pride. It was survival. The pills I had weren't enough. The Undying Dragon Body Sutra heals fast, but it cannot keep pace with Alter's training. I needed something greater. So I created it."
He paused, exhaling. "As for the forging hall…" His lips curved into the faintest, tired smile. "…That was curiosity."
Xiangyin's brows knit. "Curiosity? When an origin flame nearly exploded in your face?"
Haotian shook his head. "Not idle curiosity. My dao demands it. The Dao of the Universe. To walk that path is to look at everything — alchemy, forging, formations, martial arts — and seek the harmony that binds them. The forge drew my eye because the flames were flawed. My dao won't allow me to ignore such things."
His voice softened, but there was steel beneath it. "I don't play at being a blacksmith. Or an alchemist. Every path I step into becomes part of my dao. And if I must endure hell every night to bear the weight Alter gives me… then I will endure it."
Xiangyin stared at him, her chest rising and falling, her mind a storm. She had expected arrogance, excuses, perhaps some proud declaration. Instead, she was given the truth: quiet, unshakable, terrifying in its simplicity.
Her lips parted, words caught in her throat. "…You bleed yourself to death every night… just to carry someone else's teaching?"
Haotian's golden eyes burned steady. "Not someone else's. Alter's. He's my other self. My shadow. His battles are written in my blood, and now I must be strong enough to face what he once faced."
He leaned back slightly, the faintest trace of weariness in his voice. "If I fall, the sects fall. If I stand, they live. That is why I bleed."
The room fell silent, save for the faint hiss of the lantern. Xiangyin's hands trembled at her sides. For the first time in centuries, she had no answer, only the hollow echo of awe and fear.