The Bridge stretched on like a vein of glass, its blue light pulsing faintly beneath their boots. Mist pressed against both sides, swallowing the sea, so that it felt like they were walking not over water but through the sky itself.
The first skirmish broke out before an hour had passed.
Two disciples—one from Frost Tide, one from Cloudveil—spotted a cluster of spirit stones half-fused into the Bridge's surface. They lunged at the same time, words rising into shouts, shouts into shoves.
Steel hissed free.
Before the blades could meet, a ripple of qi struck like a hammer. Both Northerners were thrown flat onto their backs, sliding across the Bridge until their weapons clattered away.
At the center of it stood an Azure Dragon disciple in azure robes trimmed with silver, his stance loose but unshakable. His qi still shimmered in the air, the aftershock of his palm strike humming through the crystal.
"Pathetic," he said simply.
"Stay out of it!" Liu Cheng of Frost Tide roared, scrambling to his feet.
The Azure Dragon disciple's gaze sharpened. In an instant, he vanished. The next moment, his foot pressed lightly against Liu Cheng's chest—not enough to kill, but enough to pin him to the glowing surface.
Gasps rippled across the Northern lines.
"You signed the pact," Elder Longji's voice cut across the Bridge, calm and iron-hard. "No Northern blade shall rise against a Western one. No Western blade against the North. If you want a treasure—earn it. But spill blood on this span, and the Azure Dragon Sky Sect will end the fight before it begins."
The words carried the weight of finality. None doubted he meant them.
Shuyue's heart hammered. She saw the clenched jaws of Cold River disciples, the narrowed eyes of Glacier Gate, the fury radiating from Frost Tide. Humiliation pressed like ice around them.
Beside her, Jun Tao of Moon Lotus muttered under his breath. "Why should we let them command us? This is our sea, our Bridge."
Shuyue's lips tightened. She didn't answer. Because deep down, the truth was undeniable: the Azure Dragon disciples weren't bluffing. Their power radiated from every calm stance, every unhurried movement.
Even the Bridge seemed to favor them. Where their boots touched, the blue light brightened.
At the back of the Northern line, Haotian watched in silence. His arms were folded, his posture loose, as though none of this concerned him. But Shuyue, standing close enough, noticed something no one else did: his hand flexing once against his sleeve, like a predator twitching its claws before the strike.
He wasn't cowed. He was waiting.
For what, she didn't dare imagine.
Tension crackled on the Bridge like static before lightning.
Every treasure that gleamed out of the mist became a new fault line. A crystal shard shaped like a dragon's tooth. A bloom of ice-lotus sprouting from the glassy surface. A beast's fang petrified into qi-rich stone. And every time, disciples from different sects lunged at once.
Steel clashed, tempers flared—until the Azure Dragon disciples moved.
With the ease of seasoned predators, they cut across the Bridge, intercepting duels before they began. A shove here, a palm strike there, always fast and merciless, until Northern disciples staggered back, humiliated, forced to swallow their rage. The pact had teeth, and the West made sure no one forgot who enforced it.
The murmurs grew louder. "Why do they get to decide?" "We'll have nothing left at this rate."
It was during one such clash—Cold River and Frost Tide over a cluster of qi-stones—that the moment came.
Both sects drew at once, blades half out of their sheaths. Azure Dragon disciples shifted immediately, ready to intervene—until Haotian stepped between them.
"Wait."
His voice wasn't loud, but it carried. The tension bent toward him like iron toward a magnet.
Masked, calm, he raised a single hand. Then he curled it into a fist, opened it flat, then raised two fingers.
"Rock. Paper. Scissors."
The Bridge fell silent.
The Cold River disciple blinked. "What?"
Haotian tilted his head slightly, as if bored. "Settle it. Rock beats scissors. Scissors beats paper. Paper beats rock. Two hands, one chance. Whoever wins, takes the stones. Loser shuts up."
For a beat, no one breathed. Then a nervous laugh broke from one of the younger disciples in the back. Someone else scoffed. The Azure Dragon youth with the silver cord smirked like it was the funniest insult he'd ever heard.
But Haotian's gaze didn't waver. "Or keep swinging swords until the West slaps you both down again. Up to you."
The Cold River disciple glanced at his Frost Tide rival. Both hesitated, then—almost sheepishly—they raised fists.
"One, two, three—"
Fist. Two fingers.
Scissors cut paper.
The Cold River disciple sighed, lowered his hand. "Fine. Take it."
The Frost Tide boy blinked, then snatched the stones with a grin. The watching disciples broke into startled laughter.
"Did that just—work?" whispered Yan Mei of Cloudveil, incredulous.
"Looks like it," muttered Wei Rong of Glacier Gate.
The laughter spread, louder now, sharp-edged but real. For the first time since stepping onto the Bridge, the tension cracked.
Haotian smirked beneath the mask and stepped back into the crowd, saying nothing more.
But from then on, when disputes flared, disciples glanced not to their elders or even to the Azure Dragon envoys—They looked at Haotian.
And slowly, impossibly, "Rock. Paper. Scissors" began to settle the fights.
The West didn't stop it. They didn't need to. The absurdity was working, and in its shadow, Haotian's presence only grew larger.
The Bridge had a new rule. Not written in any scroll or pact, but whispered, laughed, and—strangely enough—obeyed.
By the third day on the Bridge, the shimmer of wonder had worn off.
The road no longer looked endless. It felt endless. The glowing veins beneath their boots pulsed like a heartbeat, and with every mile the mist grew thicker, curling into shapes that whispered at the corners of vision.
Yet the Bridge gave rewards—scattered, glittering temptations that lured disciples into reckless pursuit.
A stretch of crystalline pillars, each holding a gem pulsing with elemental qi.A frozen pond where lotus blossoms bloomed, their petals exhaling spiritual fragrance.A fissure in the surface that breathed out raw energy, thick enough to condense into spirit pearls if gathered quickly enough.
The contests came sharp and fast.
Disciples dove for treasures, only to clash against rivals who had seen them at the same instant. And just when blades threatened to be drawn, someone would mutter—half laughing, half serious—"Rock, paper, scissors?"
And more often than not, they obeyed.
It started as a joke. But it spread like fire. Duels were decided with fists and fingers, laughter breaking tension before blood could spill. Even the Azure Dragon disciples—smirking, disdainful—found themselves pulled into it.
And when Haotian played, he rarely lost.
Again and again, he threw rock against scissors, paper against rock, scissors against paper—always at the right time. Treasures slid into his hands as though fate itself bent to his choices.
"Uncanny," muttered Wei Rong of Glacier Gate after watching him win yet another prize."Not uncanny," said Yan Mei of Cloudveil, eyes narrowed. "Rigged. He has some trick.""Then why can't you beat him?" Wei Rong shot back.
The whispers grew louder, traveling Bridge to Bridge.
"He never loses.""It's like he already knows what you'll throw.""Saints above… is he blessed?"
Shuyue watched in silence, her heart a storm. Each time Haotian smirked behind the mask and walked away with yet another prize, her chest tightened—not with resentment, but with something sharper. Something like dread.
The Bridge tested more than greed.
Beasts emerged from the mist, warped things with scales like glass and eyes glowing from within. Some fought with predictable ferocity. Others burst apart mid-battle, erupting into showers of corrupted qi that clung to skin and bit into meridians like acid.
Once, a serpent with frost-white scales writhed on the surface, roaring as disciples hacked at it with blades of qi. Midway through the fight, its veins darkened. Black lines crawled beneath its skin, pulsing. The roar twisted into a scream that didn't belong to any living creature.
The serpent's body convulsed—then split open, sprouting a second head wreathed in shadow.
Disciples fell back in horror.
"What the hell—?" Jun Tao of Moon Lotus gasped, eyes wide.
"Corruption," Haotian said flatly. His spear lanced forward, piercing the serpent's blackened core with surgical precision. The beast shrieked once more and collapsed into steaming mist.
Silence followed.
"What… what was that?" Yan Mei's voice shook.
Haotian's mask turned slightly toward her. For a moment, it seemed like he might explain—but then he shook his head once."Not now."
He wiped the spear clean against the Bridge's glass surface. The mist hissed where the black blood touched it, leaving faint scorch marks.
And Shuyue, watching closely, saw it—the faintest grimness in his eyes behind the mask. Not surprise. Recognition.
He knew what this was.
The Bridge was no longer just trial and treasure. Something else stirred beneath, something that did not belong.
And Haotian alone seemed to know how deep the shadow went.
By the fourth day, no one laughed at Rock-Paper-Scissors anymore.
Not after what they had seen.
The serpent's mutation still haunted every step. Disciples walked with shoulders hunched, eyes flicking at every ripple of mist, every hum beneath the Bridge. The treasures still glittered, but fewer reached for them. What good was a pearl if a beast grew a second head to rip you apart before you touched it?
Clusters of whispers followed the Twenty like shadows.
"That snake… its veins turned black.""I swear I saw runes crawling under its skin. Runes.""Not runes—seals. Breaking seals.""Don't say that. Don't even joke."
On the fifth day, when the Bridge shuddered as though something vast had stirred beneath it, fear spilled into the open.
At a rest stop marked by a circle of crystalline pillars, disciples gathered in tight groups, voices sharp with panic.
Liu Cheng of Frost Tide slammed his palm against a pillar. "This isn't natural! Beasts don't just grow heads out of nowhere. Something's poisoning them."
"Poison?" scoffed Wei Rong of Glacier Gate, though his voice was strained. "No poison does that. Did you see its blood? It burned through the Bridge."
Yan Mei of Cloudveil folded her arms, her voice low. "And the marks. I saw them, even if you didn't. Black runes, glowing, like… like chains snapping."
The murmurs turned into a rising tide of fear. Some disciples clutched charms. Others stared at the mist, as if expecting it to spit out another monster at any moment.
Through it all, Haotian stood apart, leaning on his spear, silent. Shuyue's eyes kept finding him, frustration mounting. Finally, she stepped forward, her voice sharper than she intended.
"You've been quiet long enough. You knew what that thing was."
Dozens of eyes turned on him. The Bridge seemed to hum louder, as if demanding his answer too.
Haotian raised his head, the mask catching the cold glow. When he finally spoke, his tone was flat, stripped of any pretense.
"It's demonic qi."
The words landed like a blade.
He went on. "The serpent wasn't poisoned. It was corrupted. Something beneath this Bridge is bleeding into the beasts. That black you saw wasn't infection—it was seal-break. A prison loosening."
Shocked silence stretched, broken only by the wind whining through the crystalline pillars.
Wei Rong's face drained of color. "You're saying… there's a seal under us? A real one?"
"There's no other explanation," Haotian said. "You've all seen it. You just didn't want to admit it."
Liu Cheng shook his head hard. "No. No, that's impossible. If something like that were here, our sects would have known—"
"Would they?" Haotian's voice cut sharp, almost mocking. "If the seals were buried deep enough, hidden long enough, ignored long enough? Tell me—how many of your elders looked down into the abyss and told you it was just mist?"
No one answered.
Even the Azure Dragon disciples, who had stood aloof until now, shifted uneasily. One muttered under his breath, "We were warned this might happen…" But Elder Longji's sharp glance silenced him at once.
Shuyue's breath caught. Warned? By who?
But Haotian was already turning away, his words lingering behind like frostbite.
"This isn't the end. It's the beginning. If you don't want to die screaming like that serpent, start listening."
The disciples stared at him, their fear sharper than ever—but now it had a shape.
Not beasts.Not rivals.But something sealed beneath the Bridge, waking in the dark.
The sixth day on the Bridge felt heavier than the last. The mist clung to their robes, thick with the stench of qi gone wrong. Every beast they faced grew stranger—eyes too many, veins too black, bodies warping mid-battle as though something unseen gnawed at them from within.
And every time Haotian spoke, the others turned away.
"This is no accident," he said flatly as they regrouped at a cracked span of glowing crystal. "The corruption is spreading faster. If we don't prepare, it won't matter how strong we are. We'll all be swallowed."
Yan Mei of Cloudveil crossed her arms. "Or maybe you just want us scared, so you can keep walking off with treasures while we hesitate."
Liu Cheng of Frost Tide snorted. "We've lost none of our own yet. Don't preach like a dying old man."
Even Wei Rong of Glacier Gate, more cautious than the rest, muttered, "You sound like you want us to believe a children's tale."
The Northern disciples turned their backs, refusing to hear more.
Haotian's gaze swept them once, unreadable behind the mask. Then he exhaled softly, as though he had expected this.
Without another word, he crossed the span toward the Azure Dragon disciples.
They stiffened instantly, hands brushing weapons as he approached. Their leader, the silver-corded youth who had mocked the North on the first day, narrowed his eyes. "What do you think you're doing?"
Haotian stopped a few paces away. His voice carried clearly, calm but unyielding.
"If the North won't listen, then I'll speak to those who will."
The Azure Dragon disciples exchanged wary looks. One muttered, "Why should we believe you?"
Haotian raised a hand to his mask. The leather straps scraped as he loosened them, his movements slow and deliberate. Then he pulled it free.
The mist seemed to pause.
For a heartbeat, silence reigned. Then one of the Azure Dragon disciples gasped, color draining from his face. "Haotian…?!"
Another stumbled forward, voice breaking. "It's you—our Saint Son!"
The words ripped across the Bridge like thunder.
One by one, the Azure Dragon disciples dropped to their knees, their arrogance gone in an instant. "We greet the Saint Son!" Their voices rang in unison, shaking the Northern disciples more than any roar of beast.
Shock rolled through the North.
Liu Cheng's face twisted in disbelief. "What kind of joke is this?"
Wei Rong's hand clenched his sword hilt. "A spy… all this time?"
Yan Mei's voice shook with fury. "You lied to us."
But the Azure Dragon disciples kept their heads bowed, their loyalty unquestionable.
Haotian stood tall, mask in one hand, his eyes cold and resolute. His voice cut through the uproar:
"I was injured, and somehow ended up here in the Northern Continent. I joined the Moon Lotus Sect because they took me in. But before that… I was a disciple of the Azure Dragon Sky Sect."
But Shuyue stood frozen, her breath shallow. The words Saint Son echoed in her mind, sharp and distant, like a bell tolling from across the sea. Her hands trembled faintly, and something heavy pressed in her chest.
She didn't understand it. The heart-seal dulled the edges of her emotions, blunting what might have been clarity. Instead there was only a hollow ache, like a wound she couldn't see.
Why… does it hurt to hear this?
Her eyes followed Haotian as he stood tall without his mask, his presence commanding both awe and resentment. A strange chill slipped through her veins, but she had no words for it.
Haotian's gaze swept across them all, Northern and Western alike. "Believe me or not, it doesn't change what's coming. The seals beneath us are breaking. If you keep bickering like children, none of you will make it off this Bridge alive."
The Bridge thrummed beneath their feet, as though answering his words.
For the first time, his warning carried weight—not because he'd spoken it, but because Azure Dragon knelt at his feet, their voices declaring him Saint Son returned.
The North could no longer ignore him.
The Bridge rang with shouts, disbelief echoing across the crystalline span louder than any beast's roar.
The Azure Dragon disciples remained kneeling, heads bowed in reverence. Their proud postures had melted away into absolute loyalty. Their voices rose in unison, fierce and unwavering:
"Our Saint Son has returned!"
But the North erupted in outrage.
Liu Cheng of Frost Tide slammed his fist against the Bridge, shards of crystal scattering. "Do you expect us to believe this? That the masked shadow at our side was all along the Saint Son of Azure Dragon?"
Yan Mei of Cloudveil spat her words like venom. "You deceived us. You stole a place among the twenty under false pretenses. You made us trust you."
Even steady Wei Rong of Glacier Gate shook his head, disbelief etched into every line of his face. "If this is true, then all the more reason not to trust you. You belong to the West, not to us."
The Bridge shook with clashing voices. The North spat outrage, the West roared loyalty. Haotian stood between them, his qi pressing them all to silence when anger flared too high.
When the Azure Dragon disciples drew close, reverent and shaken, Haotian's voice lowered urgently. "What of Lianhua?"
The silver-corded youth bowed. "She waits still. Her pregnancy is steady, guarded day and night by the Four Saint Dragons. The Sect Master swore no harm will touch her or the child."
Relief flickered across Haotian's face, softening his features for the briefest instant.
Just beyond the circle, Shuyue heard the words.
Her chest tightened, her pulse stumbling. Pregnancy… wife… a child waiting in the West… The phrases pressed against her mind like stones. She felt her heart twist, sharp and unfamiliar, but the seal blurred it into confusion.
Her breath grew shallow, her fingers numb at her sides. She did not know what she felt—sorrow, loss, anger? The heart-seal refused her the answer. All she knew was the ache that spread through her chest, heavy and cold.
Why does it hurt like this?
But no clarity came. Only silence, a hollow weight she could not name.
She turned slightly, lowering her gaze, though she didn't understand why she couldn't bear to look at him then.
Haotian stood at the center of the storm, unflinching. Mask in one hand, spear in the other, his gaze swept the shouting disciples.
"Think what you want," he said, his voice carrying steady and sharp. "But I won't waste breath convincing you. The seals beneath us are weakening. When they break, it won't matter if you're North or West. Either you listen, or you die."
The Bridge rumbled faintly, as if answering his words, a low vibration beneath their boots. It silenced some, but not all.
Yan Mei stepped forward, eyes blazing. "Easy for you to say, Saint Son. You have an entire sect behind you. What do we have? The North has only itself. And if you expect us to bow to you—"
One of the Azure Dragon disciples rose sharply, qi flaring. "Mind your tongue! He carries the bloodline of the Four Saint Dragons—"
Steel hissed as a Glacier Gate disciple drew his blade. "And we carry the pride of the Nine Northern Sects. Don't think you can order us like your pets."
For a moment, the Bridge teetered on the edge of civil war.
Haotian's qi pulsed, sudden and heavy, pressing down like the weight of a mountain. "Enough."
The word cracked like thunder. Even the mist seemed to recoil.
Disciples staggered back, clutching their chests under the pressure. For a heartbeat, no one dared move.
Then Haotian lowered his spear, his voice quieter but sharper still. "The enemy beneath us doesn't care about your pride. Keep squabbling, and you'll be the first to die when it rises."
His eyes lingered on the Northern disciples, then shifted briefly—unintentionally—toward Shuyue. She had turned her face away, but he caught the tremor in her shoulders. The sight hit him harder than he expected, though he said nothing.
Silence settled heavy over the Bridge. The divide remained, wide and bitter, but for now no one dared break it further.
The North burned with betrayal.
The West glowed with vindication.
And Haotian, standing between them, bore the weight of both.