Chương 2: The Sect Master's Last Stand

Ch 2: The Sect Master's Last Stand A familiar blue light unfolded in front of me before I'd taken three steps from the window. EMERGENCY LEGACY MISSION Protect Your Mother Your mother has been captured by members of the Blood Moon Sect. Failure will permanently alter the future. Reward: Synchronization +5% Mission Rank: A, Time Remaining: Unknown I stared at it. Protect... Mother? My fingers curled without my permission. Something tightened in my chest, sharp enough to catch me off guard. No. She wasn't my mother.

She belonged to Len Fan.

This body, these memories, this family. None of it was mine. The room went quiet around that thought, and then a memory rose to answer it anyway: a graceful woman brushing hair back from a boy's forehead.

"You've worked hard today, Fan'er." A tall man correcting the angle of a wooden sword behind him, stern in his words and unmistakably proud in his eyes. Birthday candles. Laughter at a family dinner table. A child running through the sect grounds while his parents watched. They weren't my memories. They felt real anyway.

"... You're wrong," I said quietly, to no one.

"They aren't strangers." My heartbeat picked up, loud enough to hear. This body, these memories, this life, they were mine now, whether I'd asked for them or not. The people who had laughed with Len Fan were laughing with me. The people who would grieve for Len Fan would grieve for me.

"No," I said again, firmer.

"They're my parents. I already lost one family. I refuse to lose another." I didn't wait for the thought to finish. I was already moving. The corridor outside had come apart into panic. Disciples sprinted past carrying swords they barely knew how to hold. Elders shouted orders that half the runners weren't listening to. Formation Masters threw up defensive arrays with hands that shook. The whole sect moved like a hive someone had put a boot through.

I made it as far as the courtyard before two armored guards planted themselves in my path.

"Young Master, you cannot leave!" one said, dropping to a knee.

"The battlefield is too dangerous the Sect Master's orders were clear. We're to protect you even if it costs us our lives."

"Move," I said, and kept walking. Neither of them budged.

"Please understand," the other said.

"If anything happens to you, we can't face the Sect Master." If this had been my old body, I could have brushed past them without slowing down. This one was ten years old and had nothing behind it. Force wasn't an option, not yet. Then a violent pressure detonated somewhere beyond the wall, close enough that I felt it in my teeth. Two auras had collided out there one sharp and steady, like an unsheathed blade; the other wild, feral, hungry. Both guards turned toward the sound on reflex.

I took the one heartbeat they gave me and slipped between them.

"Young Master — stop!" I didn't look back. Smoke thickened with every corridor I crossed. Disciples carried the wounded past me toward the medical hall. Some screamed. Some had already stopped. Buildings burned on both sides of the path, and the sect I'd admired from my window less than an hour ago had become something else entirely. I broke into the outer courtyard and found him. Father stood alone amid a field of corpses, white robes soaked through with blood that wasn't only his own, sword held in both hands.

Cuts covered nearly every inch of him. He was still standing anyway like a mountain that had decided, for no particular reason, not to fall yet. Across from him, a giant nearly three meters tall grinned with a mouth full of crimson-veined skin and glowing red eyes. An iron mace rested across one shoulder like it weighed nothing.

"So this is all the great Heavenly Sword Sect can offer?" the giant said.

"I expected more." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Father's grip tightened on the sword. Blood ran down the blade.

"As long as I draw breath," he said, "you will not take another step." The giant laughed and vanished faster than any ordinary Blue Knight had a right to move. My pupils narrowed. Faster even than that. CLAAAAANG. Steel met steel hard enough to throw a shockwave through the courtyard, scattering the nearest disciples off their feet. Len Fan's memories surfaced on their own. Father —> Len Xuan — had never wanted this life.

He'd wanted to be a scholar; he preferred old books to old wars, strategy to slaughter, and yet talent had made its own decision about him regardless. Despite never fully devoting himself to the Martial Path, he'd still reached the Blue Knight Realm, one step from Golden. In this empire, that alone was enough to command armies. And still, he was losing ground. BOOM. Another collision sent him sliding back across broken stone, fresh blood spraying from a new wound. The giant's grin widened.

"You've grown weaker," it said.

"The rumors were true. Since your father's disappearance, your blade's gone rusty." Father wiped blood from his mouth.

"Perhaps. But one dull blade is still enough to kill a beast."

"I'd like to see you try." They vanished again, and the courtyard dissolved into a blur of afterimages no ordinary eye could follow. Mine weren't ordinary. Through the Eyes of Apex, every motion resolved clean and slow footwork, breath, the angle of every strike, the shift of weight before every counter. Father wasn't losing because his skill had failed him. He was losing because his body had already spent everything it had, on enemies I hadn't even seen yet, long before he'd reached this courtyard at all.

A quiet notification confirmed it in the corner of my vision. EYES OF APEX —> ANALYSIS COMPLETE Enemy: Blood Moon Sect Elder Knight Rank: Golden Knight Threat Assessment: Extremely High Recommended Action: Retreat Golden Knight. That explained everything. Father was fighting one realms above his own just to keep this monster on the mountain a few minutes longer. The giant's crimson aura erupted outward like a tide, and several disciples collapsed from the pressure alone.

"DIE!" it roared, and brought the mace down in a single, final arc. Father didn't dodge. He closed his eyes instead.

"... Finally," he murmured.

"So this is the limit of my sword." His free hand brushed the flat of the blade, and for one heartbeat the entire battlefield went still no wind, no motion, nothing but a thread of blue light gathering around the edge of his sword. Not ordinary Qi. Sword Intent, pure and absolute. An old elder dropped to his knees nearby.

"The Sect Master's forbidden art" Father opened his eyes. They were calm. Unshaken. He raised the blade.

"Heavenly Sword Sect's Ultimate Art," he said." Asura's Wrath." The mountain shook. Blue Sword Qi spiraled around him like coiling dragons, his robes snapping in a wind that wasn't there a second ago. Blood still ran from every wound on his body, but his grip never wavered. A single slash split heaven and earth. The giant's pupils shrank. He raised the mace a heartbeat too late.

The sword passed clean through it, and for a moment nothing happened at all until a crimson line opened across his shoulder, and his entire arm, mace and all, hit the ground in an explosion of blood and a scream that shook the mountainside. The disciples erupted.

"He did it! The Sect Master won! We're saved!" For the first time since the invasion began, hope came back into the courtyard. I wanted to feel it too. I truly did. But the Eyes of Apex never left the battlefield, and something in me still felt wrong. Father's sword slipped from his fingers. Clang. His knees buckled every drop of Qi in his body had gone into that one final strike, and there was nothing left in him now but exhaustion.

"Protect the Sect Master! He needs a healer!" someone shouted, and the guards beside me finally let their shoulders drop.

"It's over," one of them whispered.

"No," I said. The word left my mouth before I'd decided to say it.

"... It's not over." Cold crawled down my spine. Pain lanced through both eyes at once, and blue veins spread out from my temples as the world changed around me — every living person suddenly wrapped in visible threads of Qi, blue and purple and gray and gold, every aura laid bare at once. Except one. Hidden. Silent. Standing directly behind my father's shadow, where no elder in the courtyard could sense a thing. A blade of pure black slid free of the empty air. An assassin.

"FATHER!" The scream tore out of me before I could stop it. Every head in the courtyard turned toward me at once.

"Move! Behind you there's someone there!" The elders frowned. A guard grabbed my shoulder.

"Young Master, calm down. There's no one—""I SAID HE'S THERE!" I pointed, desperate.

"Please. Believe me." Nobody moved. To every eye but mine, there was nothing behind my father at all only him, standing alone, spent and bleeding and still smiling faintly at the sky. My heart slammed against my ribs. No. Not again. Not another family I couldn't protect. Father turned. Our eyes met across the ruined courtyard mine glowing faint blue, my face white with terror he'd never seen on me before. For one instant he hesitated. Then he trusted me. Without asking why. Without a flicker of doubt.

He twisted his body on instinct. One heartbeat too late. SHHKK. The black blade flashed once through the air, and blood scattered like rain across the stone. Silence swallowed the courtyard whole. Something rolled across the blood-soaked ground once, twice, three times and came to rest against my foot. Father's eyes were still open. Still gentle. Still looking toward me, as though even now, even like this, he needed to be sure his son was safe. The sword slipped from my hand. Clang. No words came.

My lips moved, but nothing came out of them.

"... F—" I tried again.

"... Father?" The world went completely, utterly silent.