"Do you not regret it, Dugu?" Sitting at the huge throne, the old man turned his shining red eyes towards the young man standing next to his grace.
Hesitant, he stuttered to say a word. Only after calming his mind down did he answer. "It has been a span of 8 moons, old man. What is there to regret?"
The Ten Millennial Supreme Demonic Lord leaned back with a sigh, then let out a soft, little giggle. "One day you'll learn... Learn what you should."
Li Dugu raised his gaze towards the ceiling a little, his brows relaxing. "You sure do speak mysteries."
...
Li Dugu bowed, his posture impeccably polite. "I greet Master Shen."
A strong hand landed on his shoulder, its weight both firm and familiar. "Rise, little Dugu."
"Thank you, Master Shen," Dugu said, straightening up.
Before he could even take a full breath, the sharp shhnk of metal piercing earth made him flinch. Master Shen had driven his blade into the ground between them. The great sword stood there, quivering. Dugu could only stare, his mind stunned into silence.
"Do you know the purpose of your presence here, Dugu?" Master Shen's voice was low, devoid of its usual warmth.
"No, Master. I have yet to reach a realm where I might grasp even a glimpse of your intent."
"I didn't mean it like that, you idiot." Master Shen pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling a sigh of profound exasperation. He jerked his thumb toward the center of the training ground. "Sit. The formation circle. Now."
"Ah... Yes, Master."
...
"Now," Master Shen intoned, and the word seemed to hang in the air, heavy with intent. "All is in readiness. The channels are open. The energy gathers. I have prepared everything."
"Wait! What is all thi—"
"Silence!" Master Shen's voice was not loud, but it cut through the air like a blade, its command absolute. "The ritual begins. Do not give your inner demons a voice."
Li Dugu obeyed, squeezing his eyes shut. Darkness yawned before him, then swirled into something else entirely. A vast, star-dusted expanse unfolded within his consciousness, a universe contained within his own mind.
"Do you see it?" came the master's voice, distant yet clear as a bell. "Your sword."
Dugu's mental self scanned the infinite space, finding nothing. "No, Master," he whispered, his real throat dry. "Not yet."
...
The void did not yield a sword. Instead, it shivered.
The star-dusted expanse twisted, not with violence, but with a sickening, familiar warmth that made Dugu's soul ache. The stars reconfigured themselves, not into a weapon, but into the faint, smiling lines of a face he had not seen in years.
"Dugu... my little Dugu... is that you?"
The voice was a ghost, a perfect echo from a past he had sealed away. Before him, shimmering with the light of a thousand distant suns, stood the unmistakable form of Wang Renchang. His godfather. His hero. The man he watched die.
Li Dugu's mental form recoiled. This was a cruelty his demons had never before conceived.
"F-Father...?" The word escaped his consciousness, a fractured and desperate thing.
...
Outside the mental domain, the physical world betrayed his turmoil. A single tear traced a clean path through the sweat on his cheek. His breathing, which had been steady, became a ragged, shallow thing. His hands, resting on his knees, clenched into white-knuckled fists.
Master Shen's eyes narrowed. He saw the tear. He saw the tremor that wracked the boy's frame. This was no simple illusion; it was a heart demon, the most dangerous kind.
"Dugu," the master's voice cut through, low and urgent, a anchor thrown into a stormy sea. "What you see is a leaf on the water. It has depth and shape, but it is not the river. Look through it. Find the current beneath."
...
After three days of relentless focus, the inner demon had been subdued. Its whispers had faded, leaving behind a profound and steady silence within Li Dugu's consciousness.
A deep, cleansing breath hissed between Master Shen's teeth, a sound of pure satisfaction. He looked upon his disciple, not with mere approval, but with genuine awe.
"Great job, Dugu. This ritual once took me an entire winter to complete. You have surpassed my expectations."
The praise was like warm sunlight after a long frost. Dugu felt a flicker of pride, but it was quickly tempered by the immense focus still required to hold the void stable.
"Now," Master Shen's voice shifted, becoming firm and intent. The time for praise was over; the time for learning had begun. "What do you see? Tell me exactly."
Li Dugu, his eyes still closed, his form still seated within the formation circle, spoke. His voice was not his own, it was deeper, resonant, echoing with the power of the mental realm.
"Master... I do not see a weapon."
He paused, his mind struggling to interpret the vastness before him.
"I see... the idea of them. The essence of conflict and protection given form."
"I see a river of blades, countless Jian straightswords and Dao sabers, their edges gleaming like a school of silver fish swimming in unison. They are not still; they are alive, moving with the intent to slice and part."
"I see a forest of polearms, Ji halberds and Qiang spears, their forms rising like ancient trees. Their tips are not metal, but condensed points of piercing will, thrumming with the promise of reaching across distance."
"I see a galaxy of projectiles, needles like fine silver rain, feathers not of a bird but of lethal fletching, and spinning wheels of throwing axes. They hang in the void like constellations, waiting for the thought to release them and find their mark."
"I see the hidden daggers, the Mei Hua Biao, plum blossom darts, swirling like petals in a reverse snowstorm, each one a promise of a surprise strike."
"It is not an arsenal, Master," Dugu said, his voice filled with awe. "It is a... lexicon. A library of ways to cut, to thrust, to break, to kill. And at its heart... there is a emptiness, a silence that calls to me. It is the space for the one I am meant to wield."
He fell silent, the vision overwhelming in its complexity and grandeur. He was not looking at weapons; he was looking at the totality of war itself, and it was both terrifying and beautiful.
Master Shen's grin was fierce and triumphant. "Good. You do not see with your eyes. You perceive with your soul. The 'Heartforge Armory' is now open to you. You have not found a sword, Dugu. You have found the source from which all swords are born. Now, reach into that silence at its heart. Call forth what is already yours."
...
How? He felt a moment of panic. Did he simply wish for a sword? Would a Dao saber not suffice? Should he mimic the elegant jian he saw others wield?
The moment he tried to choose, the entire lexicon trembled. The river of blades churned violently; the forest of polearms swayed as if in a gale. A throwing axe shot past his mental form, its edge singing a warning. He was an outsider trying to command a language he did not speak.
He was doing it wrong.
He remembered the lesson of the inner demon. He had to look through the choice to find the truth beneath.
He stopped trying to select. He stopped thinking of weapons entirely. Instead, he stilled his mind and reached into that central silence not with intention, but with identity. He offered not a request, but his own essence: his grief for his godfather, his defiance in the face of the demon, his unwavering will to walk the path of a cultivator.
The silence responded.
It did not give him a weapon. It reflected him.
From the heart of the emptiness, a shape began to coalesce. It did not form from metal, but from the very light of the void, drawing in the concepts of the armory around it.
It was a Jian, a double-edged straightsword, the gentleman of weapons. But it was unlike any other in the flowing river. Its blade was not silver, but a deep, smoky grey, like twilight given form. Along its length, faint lines swirled, not patterns of craftsmanship, but the ghostly, shifting image of the starry expanse itself, as if a piece of his own consciousness had been folded into the steel.
Its guard was simple, unadorned, yet it seemed to absorb the light around it. And its pommel…
The pommel was a smooth, dark orb. And within that orb, a single, faint point of light pulsed with a slow, steady rhythm.
Thud... Thud...
It pulsed in time with his own heartbeat.
This was not a sword he would wield. This was a sword that was a part of him.
His mental hand closed around the hilt.
There was no shock of power, no violent surge of energy. There was only… rightness. A perfect, seamless connection.
The sword was an extension of his arm, his will, his very soul. He knew, without knowing how he knew, that this blade would never be too heavy, never too light, and it would never fail to answer his call.
In the physical world, the air in the training ground grew heavy. The dust on the floor ceased its stirring. Master Shen's eyes widened a fraction.
A shimmer of light, the color of twilight and starlight, began to manifest in the air before Li Dugu's chest. It elongated, solidifying from the hilt to the tip, until the very sword from his soulscape hung in the air, thrumming with a soft, resonant hum that vibrated in the bones rather than the ears.
Li Dugu's eyes snapped open.
They were no longer just his eyes. They were the eyes of a boy who had faced his heart and passed the test. And within them, reflected in the depths, was the faint glimmer of a starry sword.
He didn't look at the sword floating before him. He already knew it. He simply reached out, and his fingers curled with innate familiarity around the hilt. The hum ceased, the energy settling into a dormant, potent stillness.
He looked at Master Shen, not with pride, but with a profound, newfound understanding.
...
Not five hours after obtaining his soulbound blade, its weight a comforting ghost at the edge of his perception, Li Dugu stormed the Heavenly Demonic Cave.
He did not announce himself. The swirling demonic energy at the entrance parted before him as if recoiling from the newfound, starlit sharpness that now clung to his soul. He found the Demonic Lord seated upon his throne of obsidian and bone, as if expecting him.
"Old man!" Dugu's voice echoed, no longer just that of a youth, but layered with the resonance of the void. "What am I?"
The Ten Millennial Supreme Demonic Lord's shining red eyes flickered open. He took in the boy's form, the unsettled dust on his robes, the feverish light in his eyes, the way the very air around him seemed to vibrate with unsheathed potential. A slow, razor-sharp grin spread across his ancient features.
"Second-rate Martial Practitioner..." he mused, the title a deliberate, teasing understatement. "You've grown once again. That ritual leaves its stink on the soul. I can smell it on you."
"Stop the dilly-dally!" Dugu demanded, taking another step forward. The shadows in the cave seemed to lean away from him. "What. Am. I?"
The Demonic Lord uncoiled from his throne with a grace that belied his age. He stood, not as a king before a subject, but as a sculptor before his most intriguing, unfinished work.
...
"Who am I to say...?" he replied, his voice dropping to a whisper that slithered through the cavern. "A label from my lips is just a word. It would be a cage."
He descended the dais until he stood before Dugu, looking down at him not with condescension, but with intense curiosity.
"You should be the one to answer yourself truly." He leaned in slightly, the hellish light in his eyes flaring. "What exactly do you think you are? When you faced your heart demon, what did you see? When you grasped that blade, what did you feel?"
Dugu's defiance wavered. The question struck deeper than any physical blow. His master had asked what he saw. This old demon was asking what he was.
"I-I—" he stammered, his newfound certainty crumbling under the weight of the existential query.
"I do not want the answers from your lips," the Demonic Lord interrupted, his voice softening into a sound like grinding stone. "I want the answer from your heart. The one it already knows but your mind is too frightened to speak."
He placed a single, cold finger against Dugu's chest, right over his pounding heart.
"One day, you will stop asking others and finally understand it yourself."
He paused, letting the silence and the pressure of his finger hang in the air before delivering the final, devastating title.
...
"Asura."