As if waiting for that exact moment, the presence of Long Kongzi expanded. The aquamarine cast of the sky trembled; cracks spread like webs, rubble fell over in tons, and the sound of a sharp inhale stilled the sky.

‘’Spread.’’ Spiritual Link barked.

‘’No more hiding!’’

A storm picked up above and the shadows of his two wings cast the island in darkness.

The entire dome came crashing down. Zhang Cai flashed past falling ice, cleaving through some while advancing towards Long Kongzi. One glance at the demonics revealed their fine state—though heavy and gigantic, their demonic-improved strength enabled the folk to shatter them with ease.

They drew apart, each going to five different directions, while Spiritual Link remained standing at the center.

‘’There you are.’’

Zhang Cai manifested his Blue Lotus. The incoming claw split air and wind and crushed through all layers of protection, sending him flying back. He rolled along and stood up, only to receive a tail strike overhead.

The bitch of a worm was going too physical this time.

Zhang Cai blocked with his blade, hilt in both hands, and the smashing tail buried him down to his knees. Before it lashed again, he leaped out of its range and took out his faulty flying sword.

He sped up and up, gathering dozens of pulls of Qi on his blade and left fist. Long Kongzi roared after him and soared. He had little practice with the faulty sword between his training sessions, so it took him a few wasted pulls to get on top and fly away.

Spiritual Link raised his hand below him and muttered. Gleaming blades of blood coalesced into crescents over his bare shoulders and shot upward.

‘’Cowards!’’

Long Kongzi dodged the blades aiming his bare stomach and dived back down. Zhang Cai turned around then and let out a yell, sending a crescent shower of Qi down on the xian’s armored head.

‘’Do you think us a fool!’’ He roared and suddenly twisted his body. As if made of rubber, Long Kongzi’s serpentine torso and tail expanded around the Qi, the blade of water blocked by his robust back. ‘’Do you think us blind!?’’

A mighty roar rose from its belly and an aquamarine sphere of frost started to come into being. It did not aim at Zhang Cai, however.

‘’It was us who gave you formations! It was us who gave you fire! It was us who taught you Qi!’’

Zhang Cai, his heart beating, dove like a hawk upon the Xian. If that thing hit the island, all would be over for them. The island did not have the foundation to support that heavy of a strike without time.

‘’A pentagram of power, Blah! Down with your sacrifices!’’

Zhang Cai had well over thirty meters between him and the Xian. He pushed more Qi down the blade, and over his blade started casting Blue Lotus. If for a moment he could distract it—

‘’No!’’

The sphere descended at supersonic speed over the Spiritual Link. Anything before its path froze, splinters of ice raining upon the entirety of the island. The gargantuan ball of Qi crashed, then, onto a silver flicker and exploded.

‘’You insects!’’

Zhang Cai’s fist struck home right over Xian’s horned headpiece. His fully-charged Current Fist shot forth, emboldened by his momentum, and hundred pulls of Qi wreaked havoc in his arm as it shot through the armor into the skull of Long Kongzi.

One second after, he got blown away by a claw, his Blue Lotus all but destroyed. The next second, Zhang Cai watched Long Kongzi spasm.

At the third second, Long Kongzi let out a most miserable wail, thundering across the strait. Qi of the air and water responded to his pain, deflecting it like an echo chamber throughout the skies.

That was only the first burst, and he had to move quickly.

Commanding the blade, he started diving towards the Spiritual Link. With the last bit of the barrier spent, he had no more protection, and his existence was vital for the plan itself. The rest, they doubted Long Kongzi would aim out of sheer spite.

And right they were—Long Kongzi’s roar reached a new height in loudness.

‘’YOU WRETCHED SLAVE!’’

His eyes bloodshot, Long Kongzi’s wings clapped upon the sky. Blood poured out of his eyes and ears, trickling down his snout clogged with foul green and red. Thunderous flaps of his wing brought him closer and closer to Zhang Cai, now racing towards the island at full throttle.

Zhang Cai felt his back sting. One look behind and he saw another sphere of aquamarine, bigger than the last yet still being charged. Consequences damned for him, Long Kongzi seemed hell-bent on destroying Zhang Cai even if it cost him some meridians.

That was not good.

He cast a glance to the Spiritual Link. The fellow shook his head, though the wound between his eyes seemed larger.

‘’Not yet?’’

Subtly, though with great difficulty, Zhang Cai changed his course towards the left. He rounded Long Kongzi and shot back up. Cold bursts of wind grazed his robes, tearing them apart and scratching his back bloody.

‘’Is it still not ready!?’’

The sphere was already thrice the size that froze the sea across hundreds of meters. He doubted he could survive even with two Blue Lotuses.

Then he felt something poke his back. One look down— the Spiritual Link nodded at him.

Zhang Cai made a sharp turn and dove again, incensing Long Kongzi even further. The Xian seemed disoriented, not able to keep his figure in sight. It took him a moment to follow Zhang Cai down, and then Long Kongzi breathed down his neck.

A scarlet glow rose from five corners of the island. From where the demonic hounds stood, aquamarine roots shot out, as thick as four cedar threes, and clamped at the four limbs of Long Kongzi. The last root, aimed for the head, circumvented and chose to pull the tail.

That was not good.

Long Kongzi thrashed around, trying to break the roots that supported the entire island. He let out incomprehensible grunts of beastly nature. Zhang Cai found his heart squeezed from terror.

The aquamarine sphere prevented them from shutting its snout close, and now about to burst off, which if not prevented meant they all could go down with the Xian.

‘’Can I read its rhythm?’’

But there was no water in it. His Qi sense showed the ball like a vacuum, siphoning Qi from Long Kongzi, who in turn seemed like an empty river bed to the rain that was natural Qi. There was no stop, nor rhythm to it. The worm just pulled whatever he could and stuffed it inside his technique.

That moment of inspection proved enough as a fault.

Zhang Cai’s vision went white. There was nothing, just eternal pure gleam of Qi. Then he felt pain. Immeasurable pain uncomparable to what he felt in his entire life time. His limbs burnt, his orifices burnt, his insides burnt. A cold unlike any other, as if a fire, ravaged through his Blue Lotus and his entire being.

The Qi from his dantian exploded forth in an attempt to purge it, yet got crushed by the opposition. This caused another shock as he fell from the flying blade to the frozen sea. Each attempt to cleanse his body from the foreign Qi sent jolts of pain up his spine and tore at his brain.

Then he heard another wail, coming from Long Kongzi.

His survival instincts enabled him to pry open his eyes, and he watched the frozen roots expand once more. They shed the ice over them while pulling the Xian down from its mighty altitude. Long Kongzi himself seemed miserable; his snout choked of blood, his orifices bled, and even his beautiful scales seemed to freeze at his own strike. Zhang Cai felt it—the Xian had destroyed more meridians than it hoped and went into shock from pain.

Then he cast a helpless look down and found the island crushed beyond recognition. Split into seven pieces, the roots exposed like a network of webs across each land struggling to stay afloat on the rocking sea. The demonic hounds all seemed frozen in place, some missing limbs, yet still maintained a sense of control over their assigned roots.

Spiritual Link stood the most safe, for anything that might strike him Zhang Cai had blocked. Even then he sank alongside the island, shooting him a deathly pale gaze.

He, too, was afraid.

Zhang Cai watched him move two index fingers up, and two pulls of demonic Qi shot inside him.

For a moment, Zhang Cai’s heart stopped beating. Was he betrayed?

The answer came lightning quick. The third force striked at the ice-attuned Qi of Long Kongzi with ferocity. The demonic Qi was unlike any force Zhang Cai ever saw; too violent, too blood-thristy, too eager for conflict. Then he focused inside, ignoring the world for the better.

His dantian shook with each push, and Long Kongzi’s Qi got cut off through their combined efforts. When the last speck of it disappeared, the demonic Qi stopped. Zhang Cai quickly enveloped it within his own and pulled it into his dantian. Without opposition, he absorbed it, converted it into his own, and opened his eyes once more.

‘’Trash! Wretched beings! Slaves, INSECTS!’’

Zhang Cai regained control of his limbs, barely able to squeeze both hands and toes, and circulated his Qi. Bit by bit, though, in a matter of seconds, he crashed down into the sea together with Long Kongzi.

‘’I am a son of Ice! YOU CAN NOT DEFEAT ME!’’

Enveloped by his domain, he found another source of confidence. He swallowed his underwater breathing pill and swam towards the sinking part of the island where Spiritual Link stood. The pill would grant no more than three minutes, barely enough to get out.

Yet as he thrashed forward, Long Kongzi’s head snapped at him from above. He caught Zhang Cai between his fangs, crushing his left leg.

Zhang Cai let out a bubbled scream and turned around. He struck with his Current Fist, using it to go past the sea’s obstruction, and hit the bloodied teeth.

His body failed him, and it did nothing more than crack the fang. Zhang Cai struck again, then again, all the while pieces of the island sank further around them. He saw from the corner of his eyes one of the roots pull back and wither, and one of the demonics vanished from his Qi sense.

Then another, and another. Three of them died while he was stuck for these two minutes. Long Kongzi, meanwhile, swallowed large swaths of water, spasming at each clattering of his teeth. It had too great of a vitality, and too great of a body to drown in such little time.

Zhang Cai despaired as another one of the demonics died, and only two roots kept the Xian from moving up. It struggled, stretched the roots around his legs, thrashed at them to crack pieces of it. The chains binding his hind legs sank him further.

Then Zhang Cai’s time was up, and he too started swallowing water. He used most of his Qi to stop himself from swallowing it, letting the Xian chew his leg to pieces.

‘’I won’t die.’’ he repeated to himself, letting out bubbled screams at each bite. ‘’I won’t die!’’

Another minute passed, and Zhang Cai felt the last demonic die. There was only him, the barely faint presence of the Spiritual Link behind, the blank-eyed Long Kongzi, and the single root that kept him from flying above.

Zhang Cai felt his mind go blank at the pain. His vision swam through showers of snow, an old man with white eyes, two children, and two siblings. His Qi no longer circulated, and water flowed freely into his lungs.

As if an infinity passed amidst that cold and silent space, where he heard one last whisper.

‘’Mother...’’

His leg came free, then someone tugged at him. His eyes open, he saw the Spiritual Link pry open his lips. A pill went through his throat with the water, and then it flowed no more. A few seconds passed as his dying mind woke up, and he watched Long Kongzi’s still body float down to the dark abyss below.

He could breathe now. But that revelation did no good—he met eyes with the Spiritual Link, to his benign kind smile, and found him but a simple old man and no more in his being.

‘’You...’’ First he had no words. Then he hollered. ‘’Why!?’’

All around him, amidst the pieces of the broken island, Zhang Cai noticed hungry eyes of fish. Sharks, whose name he learned from Spiritual Link, and dolphins and octopuses and swordfish and many more as well. Their beastly instincts kept them away, but none of them peered their gaze apart from the sinking Long Kongzi.

Zhang Cai ignored them and clawed his way up. He brushed shoulders with broken trees and roots and rocks, all the while his heart sped up in its rhythm. Through his Qi sense, he felt Spiritual Link weaken further and further.

‘’Why!?’’ He shouted, unaware of his turmoil. The Spiritual Link’s eyes, however, remained shut. He had no more presence, nor any reaction. Only, unknown whether from coincidence, the old man’s hands brushed parts of Zhang Cai’s hair.

Zhang Cai cleaved a part of the island before him with his blade and swam through its middle. With fury he shot up and ascended. Top of his head peeked out of the water with the Spiritual Link.

He dragged the old man up and screamed at him.

‘’Aren’t you supposed to be demonics!? Aren’t you supposed to be evil, bloodthirsty maniacs!? Why did you save me!? Why would you save me!?’’

His eyes burned with tears. ‘’Why do you act as if you are human!?’’

He let out a primal wail coming from deep down his heart, ravaged by the storm that someone had just sacrificed his life for him. The man or his allies had no relation to him, and he once stood against the likes of him, yet the old man still chose to save his life.

‘’What the fuck do I believe in...’’ he cried. ‘’What the fuck is even right!?’’

The brewing storm in his heart hure more. It hurt infinitely more than his battered body.

He cried to himself, holding the lifeless body of the old man close to his bosom. A thousand thoughts went in his head. Six lives were lost for him. If he had not come back to the island, none of them would have died. There would be no need for their home to be destroyed, for their lives to be taken away.

Why did it matter if they held sentience or not? He spoke with them still. He had meals with them, trained with them, fought with them and against them. They had a rhythm of their own to themselves. They were alive. They led lives of their own. Demonic, pure, orthodox, unorthodox—why did one’s manner of cultivation matter?

If a demonic could lay his life as an orthodox could do, what separated them at heart?

These jumbled thoughts, held back by his lack of knowledge of the cultivation world and obstructed by the clouds of grief, could not reach a satisfactory point. He kept repeating questions, not answering them by himself, only shedding tears and feeling his emotions sinking deep into the reaches of his heart. There was a shadow cast over his heart and dantian.

A few minutes later he stopped. As he wiped the last bits of his tears, a single bolt of thunder slapped his hand away from the Spiritual Link. Pale, eyes bloodshot, he saw the body disintegrate into particles of light. Then there was no more evidence of the old man’s existence.

Zhang Cai raised his head and saw a pair flying above him. One was a girl hidden behind a veil, floating through the aid of a flying sword—the other an old woman of strong features, stepping bare feet onto the skies.

In her hand, a ball of thunder crackled, then blinked out of existence. To Zhang Cai’s Qi sense, she seemed like the world itself.