By the time the third missing disciple was found, it was already too late.
He was discovered at the edge of the cultivation grounds — eyes open, body cold, no signs of injury.
No blood. No broken bones.
Just… empty.
As if something had drained the soul right out of him.
And etched into the dirt beside the corpse was a single, jagged mark.
A claw.
---
Jiang Xuan stood before the body in silence, arms folded, his face unreadable.
Behind him, elders murmured. Inner disciples whispered. Lin Tao hovered nervously a few steps away.
"He's not even marked by qi," one elder muttered.
"No signs of poison or talisman backlash."
"It's like he was erased."
"Do we… report this to the Grand Pavilion?"
Elder Wen didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on Jiang Xuan.
And Jiang Xuan?
He was staring at the claw mark.
He didn't remember drawing it.
Didn't recognize it.
But something inside him stirred.
It felt like a signature.
---
Later that day, Yao Xi watched from a distance as Jiang Xuan walked through the main courtyard.
His expression was calm.
Too calm.
No one else noticed.
But she did.
The way he no longer blinked when he passed a corpse.
The way shadows seemed to bend slightly when he stepped near them.
The faint crackle of heatless qi in his wake — cold, thick, wrong.
It's accelerating.
She needed to slow it down.
But how?
She couldn't kill him. Not yet.
And warnings meant nothing to someone who didn't even know what he was becoming.
So instead…
She'd test him.
---
The challenge came that evening.
Not from her.
But from the sect.
An announcement was made: a surprise duel event in the Outer Arena.
Public, voluntary, for reputation and honor.
And rigged.
Because the moment the gong rang, three inner sect disciples stepped into the ring together — cloaked in spiritual pressure, grinning like wolves.
One of them pointed at Jiang Xuan, who was watching quietly from the upper steps.
"Come on, Demon Boy. Let's see what you really are."
The crowd froze.
Even the elders didn't stop it.
Not this time.
It was a message:
"We don't fear you.
We want to break you."
---
Jiang Xuan stepped into the ring without a word.
The three circled him like vultures.
Yao Xi watched from the edge of the crowd, hand on her sword.
This wasn't just a duel.
It was bait.
A trap to corner him into revealing what lived beneath his skin.
The one thing they didn't understand was:
There's no pushing a storm.
It comes when it wants.
---
"Last chance to kneel," one of the three sneered, swirling fire around his fingers.
Jiang Xuan didn't blink.
"Try."
The fireshot came fast.
He dodged.
Then everything changed.
---
He didn't move like a disciple anymore.
He moved like something that had danced through battlefields and didn't care for rules.
One twist. One step. One strike.
CRACK.
The fire user dropped, unconscious, ribs shattered.
The second leapt forward with twin blades — Jiang Xuan caught both at once with a twist of his wrist and drove a knee into the man's gut so hard the air whooshed from his lungs like a popped bellows.
The third hesitated.
Too late.
Jiang Xuan's eyes flashed faint red.
Just for a second.
The air froze.
And the last fighter dropped his weapons and backed out of the ring, trembling.
---
Silence.
Then the crowd erupted.
Not in cheers.
In fear.
Some shouted. Some whispered. Some didn't speak at all.
Because they had seen it.
That flicker.
That color.
---
Yao Xi closed her eyes briefly.
It was starting.
And soon… they would all know what she already did.
That Jiang Xuan wasn't a hero.
Wasn't a prodigy.
He was the calm before the end.
----
The next morning, the Sect Assembly convened.
It was rare for the outer, inner, and elder halls to meet in the same space. But fear had done what tradition never could.
Disciples lined the steps of the sky hall in silence, faces pale.
Jiang Xuan stood before them, arms folded, gaze calm as ever.
He didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
Everyone had seen the match.
The way he fought.
The red flicker in his eyes.
The fear he left behind.
---
Grandmaster Yao's voice echoed through the hall.
"Jiang Xuan," he said, tone even but hard. "Three inner disciples are recovering from injuries. One will not walk properly for a year."
Jiang Xuan said nothing.
"You were provoked. That much is clear. But your response… was excessive."
Jiang Xuan looked up, eyes flat. "Should I have waited until they killed me?"
A stir moved through the crowd.
Elder Wen's lips twitched, barely visible.
Grandmaster Yao's fingers tapped the armrest of his seat. "No. But there is a difference between survival and spectacle."
"I didn't ask for either," Jiang Xuan replied.
---
From the crowd, whispers:
> "They fear him."
"They want to control him."
"Is that even possible?"
Yao Xi stood at the edge of the outer ring, her arms crossed, watching him closely.
She didn't speak.
Not yet.
But she would.
Because if the elders made the wrong move…
He wouldn't break.
He would burn.
---
That night, the lanterns in the mountain dimmed early.
No one said why.
Even the spirit beasts in the forest fell silent.
Yao Xi made her move.
She left her quarters dressed in black, sword hidden beneath her cloak, steps silent as snow.
She wasn't going to kill Jiang Xuan.
She was going to look.
See what he was hiding.
See if the seal was truly weakening.
And if it was…
She'd act.
Even if it meant breaking the fragile peace she'd built.
---
Jiang Xuan was meditating when she entered his quarters.
He didn't turn.
Didn't move.
But he spoke.
"You shouldn't be here."
She shut the door behind her. "I had to know."
"Know what?"
"If you've already started to lose yourself."
Jiang Xuan slowly opened his eyes.
No flicker. No red.
Just quiet exhaustion.
"Why do you care?"
"Because if you turn… I'm the only one who can stop you."
His eyes met hers.
For once, no sharpness. No smirk.
Just silence.
And then—
"Are you afraid of me, Yu Mei?"
She didn't answer right away.
Then:
"No. I'm afraid of what's chasing you."
---
The room fell quiet.
Then Jiang Xuan leaned forward, voice lower than a whisper.
"I didn't want this."
Yao Xi's voice was quiet. "You think I don't know that?"
"I didn't ask to be born under that moon."
"None of us ask for the nightmares we're given."
He touched the side of his neck, where the mark pulsed faintly.
"I feel it every night. Like it's knocking. Like it wants out."
She stepped closer, expression tightening.
"If it breaks through, people will die."
"Then kill me before it does."
She flinched.
"I'm serious," he said.
Her voice cracked. "Don't ask me that."
---
She turned to leave, hand on the door.
Behind her, his voice broke the silence.
"Yu Mei."
She paused, but didn't turn around.
"You're not here just to stop me… are you?"
A long silence. The kind that hides too much.
Then she said, softly—
"No. I'm not."
And she walked out.
----
Elsewhere, beneath the Forgotten Pavilion at the peak of the mountain, Elder Wen opened an ancient scroll.
The paper crackled with age.
On it, a sketch — faint lines of a beast with a thousand mouths and no face.
Below it, a name:
"Demon God — Xuanlun."
And next to that, a seal mark.
The same one on Jiang Xuan's neck.
----
End of Chapter 8