Wu Hao gripped his knife as tightly as he could, the pain buried away from his conscious mind by the sheer mass of qi that had revealed itself just now. He stared at it, though it looked not much different from a sun in his eyes, expanding as the sigh reverberated through the clearing.

  A deeper cold than Wu Hao had ever felt tore outwards, from the single centerpoint where the figure stood. Each of the leaves that it touched froze instantly, ice breaking out of the once-brown leaves. The puddle of blood that Uncle had spilled froze over, and snow began to twirl down slowly from a clear sky.

  And it kept getting colder and colder. Wu Hao had felt cold before, but those feelings seemed like the cold of a summer day waiting to warm up compared to the sheer chill that tore at his mind and body both.

  Space cracked and shattered from the epicenter of the qi and a man appeared there.

  He looked not dissimilar from Ke Jiazhong, except that whereas Ke Jiazhong wore the orange of the Diancang Sect, he wore only pure white. He looked about 50, thin but with wiry strength, in an expensive robe. His hair, like his clothes, was white - not the white of old age, but a white so deep that it was tinged blue.

  His expression was desolate like a wintry plain, his mouth set into a severe line, his green eyes limpid and focused on nothing in particular.

  "First Elder," Ke Jiazhong shouted. "What are you -"

  "Shush," the elder spoke in response. His voice was quiet but it carried easily. "I will get to you, martial nephew."

  He waved a hand, a long spear appearing in his hand as if from nowhere. He shook it, once, then thrust out lightly at the carriage.

  Several of the porters made panicked noises, faces pale, dropping their spears as they tried to run for it, but they couldn't even turn. Eyes wide they tried to pull their feet from the frozen ground, but their sandals refused to move, ice spreading across their ankles like a living thing.

  They were turning into ice statues.

  "First Elder," Du Linglong pleaded. "Please. These men are on our side!"

  "Do you still not understand what's going on?" the First Elder rebuked her. "I've thought this before, but you truly aren't a good match for my nephew, Du Linglong. However much of a genius at cultivating you may be, those who do not understand the ways of the world are first to fall."

  Du Linglong tried to resist, peach qi flaring into intricate patterns surrounding her, but however much she struggled, she couldn't move.

  Ice rushed forwards, clumping together with snow to form an icicle that looked sharper than most swords, shearing off part of the carriage's side. It rushed inside with mammoth force and there came a short squeal of metal being loudly torn and twisted.

  "Come out," the elder commanded. "You've been cramped up in there long enough."

  Ash burst out of the carriage, and moments later Ke Shuang followed it. His ash infected the snow falling on him, white and grey mixing into a sodden mess that stained the ground beneath his feet. His eyes stared outwards slightly, showing no surprise to see the elder there, and then he started to step forward.

  His bare feet crunched forward on the sodden ground, the slippery ice, the freezing snow, like he was striding across a well-decorated palace floor. He stopped next to Uncle, eyes travelling over him as if wondering what this stain was doing on his red carpet, turned, and looked around at everyone else quite literally frozen in place.

  With one move, the elder had taken complete command of the situation. Wu Hao, still somehow standing, now had little option except to stand, the ice holding him in place.

  "Who are they?" Ke Shuang asked. His qi reflected disgust as his eyes flickered over the people gathered there. He still stood next to Uncle, unfrozen. A glint of cruelty surfaced in his eyes as he looked at Du Linglong and at Ke Jiazhong, but that was all.

  "Some sect who requested clemency when we sent an emissary," the elder said calmly. "The Red Dawn. Their elders didn't seem promising, but they had men, or so they claimed, who would obey any order."

  Uncle tried to mumble something at that, eyes wide, the ice cracking as his fat body shifted in an attempt to break free, but all it did was bring the elder's attention to him.

  "You there," the elder said. "You disappoint me. This was a simple test. All you needed to was hold off two martial artists for a bit while your men - boys - free a prisoner in a cage made to be destroyed. Instead, your deathsworn are worthless. They don't even listen."

  The elder shook his head, brought his hands forward from where they'd been clapsed behind his back. "You have failed. We have no more need for you."

  "Wait -" Uncle said, raising a hand while new ice crept up his shoulders, but he never got to finish his plea.

  The elder clicked his fingers, a pulse of qi blurring through the clearing so fast that Wu Hao couldn't even track it with his eyes, and loud crackling snaps rang out throughout the clearing. Eyes wide, Wu Hao's head spun to see the statues begin to shatter into fountains of freezing blood and gore, collapsing into shards and fragments and remnants of what had once been people. The porters, the other deathsworn, none of them were spared.

  Even Uncle died instantly, the ice surging up his chest and sealing his throat shut, then exploding into gore.

  Wu Hao could only focus on Ye Qingfeng, standing stock-still in the distance, watching the other boy's eyes stare into his, and Wu Hao reached out a desperate arm. What he was hoping for he didn't know - trying to rescue him, trying to give him a last gesture of compassion? Neither of them could move, but Wu Hao thought that Ye Qingfeng was trying to mouth something.

  With a final expression of anguish Ye Qingfeng's qi spasmed, once, twice, a faint scent of wet grass bursting desperately free, and then he exploded into shards just like all the others.

  The snow that had fallen was stained a dark red, shards of ice crashing back down into the clearing. The only ones that were still alive were Wu Hao, Du Linglong, and the three members of the Ke family.

  After the explosion of sound, which sounded so loud that Wu Hao could feel something in his ears strain at the impact of the crackling, a long silence fell over the clearing. The elder didn't withdraw his qi, so snow continued to fall until a thick white coat covered even the corpses.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Wu Hao's head swam. Nothing seemed real to him all of a sudden, but something in him refused to simply give in or give up. He forced his head up again, staring at the elder.

  "Who are you?" he rasped. Each word misted into the air.

  The elder raised an eyebrow, and next to him Ke Shuang's hand raised slightly. He made as if to walk forward and Wu Hao tried to shuffle backwards instinctively, only to find that the ice still held as tight a grip on his feet as they had before the massacre.

  "Me?" the elder said, staring at Wu Hao. "I'm the First Elder of the Diancang Sect, Ke Jiaming, also called the Moonlight Sovereign. You are wondering why I've kept you alive, I presume."

  Wu Hao rasped a few more breaths, feeling that his lungs seemed to ram into his ribs with every breath, like his body was rebelling against him.

  "You have a rare spirit," the elder said. "Rare is the martial artist who dares to take on a second-rate martial artist, as a third-rate. It's something that cannot be cultivated, only born. That deserves a reward, I should think."

  He motioned, and an invisible hand forced Wu Hao's chin up to look into Ke Jiaming's green eyes.

  "Doesn't it?" Ke Jiaming asked, studying Wu Hao. What he found there, Wu Hao didn't know, nor did he much care.

  "You," Wu Hao breathed, misting the air. "You're part of the Heavenly Demon Cult, aren't you?"

  A long silence as the cold pressed down on everyone's hearts. There was only the faint sound of breathing to be heard, the faint crackling of the ice leaves whenever enough snow fell on them that they cracked and fell to the ground.

  Finally, Ke Jiaming sighed again. Next to him Ke Shuang wore an odd little smile, like he was in on some private joke.

  "Really," the elder said. "You young people and your desire to always state the obvious. But you're wrong and you're right, in a way."

  Wu Hao shuddered, but Ke Jiaming didn't elaborate further. Instead, he looked almost nostalgic as his lips twitched into a wry smile.

  "Years of planning to bring down my elder brother. Years of hiding who I am, what I wanted. Pushing things along quietly in the shadows, aching for the light to finally die. This is not the welcome I had hoped for."

  "First Elder?" Ke Jiazhong sputtered. "You're - "

  "Yes," Ke Jiaming admitted. "This is not how I expected you to find out."

  "But you gave us this mission in the first place!" Ke Jiazhong shouted. "Why -"

  And then his face paled as a realization wracked him.

  "Yes, this was part of the plan," Ke Jiaming responded, not looking away from Ke Jiazhong, whose hands were trembling on his sword. "I've changed my mind about the slave. Kill him."

  Ke Shuang nodded. "Yes, Master. And - as to them?"

  "Yes," Ke Jiaming mused. "Them."

  His eye fell on Du Linglong, who had collapsed to her knees, both legs frozen into deep ice. Her hands still rested atop her sword, clutching it to keep herself from falling over.

  "You cannot be allowed to live. You know why, spawn of the Sword Sovereign."

  She swallowed, trembling hands pushing on top of her sword to try and bring her back to a standing position.

  "My grandfather may be dead," she said through chattering teeth. "You can kill me here. But every true martial artist will resist your cult until their dying day. The Wudang, the Diancang, the Shaolin - all of them will find out what you've done, and they'll kill you and the Heavenly Demon, the same way they killed him during the last war."

  Ke Jiaming sighed.

  "Stupid to the end," he stated, shaking his head. "And you, martial nephew? You are my blood, and the most talented of your true brothers. You need not die here. Reconcile your differences with my disciple and you may yet live."

  But in turning to Ke Jiazhong, he'd turned his back to Wu Hao. Even Ke Shuang had looked away from Wu Hao, more interested in seeing what his brother would do than the boy they both considered basically already dead.

  Seizing the only opportunity he had left, Wu Hao cracked open the filter, feeling the qi burn through his veins. The pain cleared his mind at the same time as it clouded it. He forced qi through his feet and, when that proved not enough to crack the ice, forced more through it until he felt his feet almost begin to shatter, veins struggling to carry the strain of that much.

  Then he detonated it, throwing himself up and above into a single uncontrollable bound. He felt a tearing sensation as his skin was ripped forcefully free from the ice, felt pain erupt from his legs that even the chill couldn't numb as his feet were torn apart, and then he was flying forwards, knife extended in a last attempt to strike.

  Without even looking, Ke Shuang raised a hand, ash swirling up from around him as if carried on a twisting breeze, spinning itself into a shield in front of him and Ke Jiaming. Wu Hao slammed into it, as hard as any rock wall could have been, and fell back into the cold snow.

  His legs were a red ruin, his knife was still stuck in the shield, and there was only a single crack in the ashes that widened as Ke Shuang observed him without altogether much interest.

  He'd failed, again.

  "Did you think I was as weak as that second-rate martial artist?" Ke Shuang asked, all-black eyes staring down at Wu Hao. "Challenging him was brave. Challenging me is idiocy. Master spoke of giving you a reward, didn't he?"

  Ke Shuang flickered forwards, steps carrying him through the shield as it dissolved again into a black cloud of fog that settled onto Ke Shuang's shoulders like a general's mantle.

  "Here," he said, hand still raised as he stopped in front of Wu Hao. "The only fitting reward for fools."

  The last thing Wu Hao saw was Ke Jiazhong turning to Du Linglong, hands gripping his sword. The ice left his feet, melting as if in a summer sun, and he began to move slowly, almost stumblingly. A single tear tracked across Du Linglong's face as she stared at Ke Jiazhong, but it soon froze over.

  And then Ke Shuang's finger came down and there was nothing.

  Nothing but ashes.