The spear struck like a wolf biting down. The phantom jaws widened at the last instant, swallowed the whole shield face, and clamped shut. CHOMP! The spear followed through with a hard, direct impact—no flourish, just weight and line.
CRACK! SHATTER!
The seven-colored shield fractured like glass, plates breaking into bright shards that turned dim as they spun away. The backlash of its collapse kicked back through Wang Zhen's frame. He coughed blood, breath hitching, vision tightening at the edges.
His spiritual energy was gone, but his control wasn't.
He used Fragments of Thread of Laws and stacked them:
"Energy Displacement"—a fragment to push part of the incoming divine force off the line, bleeding it sideways instead of into him. "Strength"—a fragment to harden his forearms and shoulders, turning his bones into a short wall. "Shattered Time"—a fragment to drag the moment a fraction longer, slowing the spear's entry by a blink.
Inside that stolen blink, he pulled eight more fragments into place—small reinforcements to scatter edge, dull the bite, flex the angle, and keep his center steady. Not pretty. Not clean. Enough.
The wolf phantom went out the instant those lines met it, like a lantern snuffed by a wind that knew its name. The spear itself still came on—cold metal, perfect point—stripped of omen but not of killing.
Wang Zhen crossed his arms into an X, set bone behind flesh, and took it.
PCHIK!! PIERCE!
The point punched through both forearms and drove on. It entered his chest high and right, lanced his lung, and tore a line through air and cloud as it hurled him backward. The spear pierced completely through Wang Zhen's right chest. The world behind that path was wrecked—clouds torn aside, ground below flensed raw along the corridor the spear had carved.
The weapon didn't linger. It snapped free, spun end over end, and flew back to Jin Fan's grip like it had never left. As it settled into his hand, the solid halo behind Jin Fan's shoulders faded. The black half-halo above his right side vanished, clean as a lamp pinched out dark.
Wang Zhen's chest rose once, deeper than before. A dark hole bloomed under his ribs. He exhaled, and blood slipped from the corner of his mouth in a bright thread. He coughed once—short, rough—then steadied, eyes still set on Jin Fan across the air.
...
Wang Zhen hung in the air on will and a thin thread of law. His spiritual energy was gone; only the Fragment of Thread of Law of Levitation kept him from dropping. The divine energy left inside him by the spear crawled through his meridians like poison. His vision pulsed, edges gray, then black, then back again. He dipped an inch, caught himself, and forced his body still.
"Old man," he said, voice rough, "what do you think? I took your killer move. Will you go back on your word and kill me?"
Jin Fan's spear rested easy in his hand, the wolf phantom long faded, halos gone. He watched Wang Zhen for a breath, then chuckled low. "Alright, alright. I'll let you go. Jin Shang won't chase either."
Wang Zhen let out a slow breath. Some of the tension left his shoulders. He reached into his ring, pulled out a small red-white pill, and tipped it past his lips. It dissolved fast. Warmth spread through his dantian like a thin coal catching fire. Not much—but enough. His channels steadied. About five percent of his spiritual energy crawled back into use, just enough to secure the Levitation fragment and seal the worst bleed in his chest.
He straightened, though his right side still shook. "Old man Jin," he said, forcing the words even, "may I take my leave now?"
Jin Fan gave a small nod. "Go, get lost," he said.
Wang Zhen dipped his chin in return. He tightened the Fragment of Thread of Law of Levitation holding him, turned his body along the wind, and pushed off. WHOOSH! He moved in a clean line, not fast—just sure—skimming the high air past the corridor of torn cloud and the gouged earth below. Blood marked the path behind him in thin drops that the sky swallowed quickly.
He didn't look back. The fragment of Levitation held him steady. The thin coal of energy kept the light on in his core. Beyond the ruined land and the last shreds of broken cloud, the horizon opened—gray, wide, and empty.
He flew on.
...
Meanwhile.
Jin Shang appeared beside Jin Fan in a ripple, eyes fixed on the torn horizon where Wang Zhen had vanished. His jaw worked once. The red-black haze of battle was gone, but the edge in his stare remained.
"Ancestor," he said, voice tight, "why did you let him off? He killed my one and only daughter."
Jin Fan didn't answer at once. He watched the empty sky, as if listening to whatever the wind carried back. When he finally spoke, his tone was calm.
"I said I'd let him off," Jin Fan replied. "And I will. But many in our family won't. Disciples. Elders. Old friends who owed Xiyue a favor. They will not let him rest. He killed a direct descendant of my Jin family. The price for that is being hunted by thousands."
Jin Shang's breath hitched. Surprise flickered across his face, then settled into something more guarded. "What?"
"Not because I command it," Jin Fan said. "Because that is how much everyone loved Xiyue. You wanted to strike him down now. That would end it too cleanly. Let the world carry the weight for a while."
Jin Shang's hands tightened, then loosened. He looked down at the ravaged strip of earth the spear had carved, at the clouds still torn in a straight corridor, at the faint thread of blood drying in the air far away. He ground his teeth once, then let the breath out slowly.
Jin Shang bowed his head for a moment. Grief sat heavy on his shoulders, but discipline kept his spine straight. He turned to his ancestor, cupped his fists, and bent slightly at the waist.
"I was foolish to question ancestors' ways."
...
Two days later, a small stone cavity hid beneath a tangle of bushes and low trees. In that cramped pocket, Wang Zhen sat cross-legged, back to rough rock, breath thin and steady by force. He looked worse than when he'd faced Jin Fan's strike—clothes torn to threads, blood dried in dark patches along his ribs and arms, fresh bandage lines where he'd sealed punctures in a hurry. The right side of his chest rose a shade slower than the left.
He listened first. Wind in leaves. Insects. The faint scrape of boots on stone somewhere beyond the brush. Voices carried on the breeze, clipped short by caution.
"I shouldn't have trusted Jin Fan," he murmured under his breath. "He said he'd let me off—and he did. But the elders and disciples of the Jin family are out searching for me in force."
He shifted a fraction, winced, and pressed a palm to his side. "And I barely have recovery pills. When Xiyue saw my biggest secret, I rushed the kill. Didn't pack what I needed for after."
He let the thought settle without self-pity. Regret was a tool if it adjusted the next move; dead weight if it didn't. He closed his eyes and smoothed his breathing. The fragment of Levitation lay quiet and thin over his body, not to float—just to lighten pressure on torn muscle and rib. Masking techniques layered over his skin and aura, folding scent and sound into the cavity's stale air. Even at arm's length, a passing Soul Formation would feel only stone and damp.
Outside, shapes moved through streaks of light. A dozen Jin family disciples swept the slope in a slow line—pairs at the edges, fours at the middle, elders trailing to read what young eyes missed. They'd chosen a sensible pattern: one circle tight, one wide, eyes on canopy and ground both. Warding papers flashed dull red, then faded as they passed over thick brush. A barrel-chested elder touched a compass once, frowned, and shook his head. "Nothing," he whispered. "He must be nearby. How dare he kill young lady!"
"He can't hide long," another said. "Ancestor will guide us."
Wang Zhen listened until the voices slipped thin. His pulse held steady.
-
Wang Zhen felt the pressure building around his hideout like a slow tide. More footsteps each hour. More whispers cut through the air. More metal brushing against bark. Staying meant getting stuck here.
"I should get out of here," he murmured.
The cavity was too tight to crawl out without noise. He gathered a thin coil of spiritual intent, fixed a point just beyond the brush, and blinked through the stone's mouth—short, controlled, the kind of step that left no aftertaste if you didn't force it. He reappeared in the weeds outside.
He didn't take to the sky. Flying would draw eyes. He kept low and moved through trees, using trunk and shadow for cover, masking web thinned to stretch what little energy he had.
A Jin family disciple stepped out from behind a stump with his back turned. Wang Zhen's fist rose and fell once—clean, quiet. The man dropped into the grass with a breath that didn't finish.
"WANG ZHEN IS HERE!" The shout snapped the quiet like a branch. Another disciple had seen the motion from ten paces off and pointed, eyes wide. Steel hissed. Boots hammered roots.
"Tch." Wang Zhen pivoted and ran, slipping between trunks, bounding over a low log, taking the slope in three strides. He didn't look back. The only safety left was distance.
Leaves slapped his shoulders. WHOOSH! He cut right toward thicker cover—
A blade slid out of the bushes from his left like a thought becoming real. He twisted, but the angle was too tight. The sword's edge kissed the back of his hand as he raised his arm, slicing a clean line into skin. Hot sting. Warmth slicked the grip in his palm.
An elder stepped into view, balanced and quiet, sword already drawing back to set the next line. His eyes didn't blaze; they measured. He'd picked the side path, the shade, the silence, and waited for a runner to pass close enough that the first cut would be free.
Wang Zhen shifted weight to his back foot, slipped just outside the elder's reach, and felt bark catch his sleeve as he brushed a trunk. More shouts rolled up the slope. The hunt had found a pulse.
He set his jaw, gathered what the body would give, and ran harder, the trees closing around him like doors he had to open one at a time.
-
Wang Zhen was chased day and night by the Jin family for more than a year. After a year, the relentless pursuit lasted way too long without a single confirmed sighting, and many began to believe he had perished somewhere in the vast lands. Yet others whispered a different tale—that Wang Zhen survived, lurking in the shadows, quietly waiting for the right moment to exact his revenge on the Jin family. This uncertain legend grew, stitched together by hopeful enemies and fearful friends alike.
Years turned into decades, decades into centuries, and centuries became millennia. Over two thousand years passed without Wang Zhen reappearing. The great names in cultivation—sect leaders, elders, and powerful figures—slowly accepted the reality: Lord Heavenly Law-Wang Zhen has truly perished. His name faded from the lips of most, reserved now only for old tales and whispered myths.
In the world of cultivation, where life spans could stretch beyond imagination, even such a long silence could be brushed away by hope. But as the millennia slipped by, the truth settled like dust—the man who had once shaken the foundations of the Jin family was lost to time, a memory carved into the history of a forgotten age.
----TO BE CONTINUED-----