The taste of himself still lingered in his mouth.
His regenerated arms functioned perfectly: flexing, gripping, moving with precision. Yet they felt borrowed. Worn like gloves over something that wasn't quite him anymore.
Ship of Theseus. Except in this case, he was the ship. His tongue. His arms. How many more limbs would he have to eat before he stopped recognizing himself?
Shai Jura almost laughed at the absurdity.
His hand trailed along the stair rail as he descended deeper into the obsidian palace, wandering without direction, though he knew what he needed: Sindra, or any high-ranking cultivator vulnerable to blackmail.
He had made a fool of a royal in the city, a commoner defiant against the commands of a cultivator.
But the palace sprawled empty around him. No servants, no guards, no cultivators. There was no life in the castle except for himself.
The silence was wrong, clearly unnatural.
He defied a royal, and defiance meant death.
Yet he was still alive.
As Shai Jura passed through many empty chambers, he reached a vast hallway where an elderly man stood before the paintings lining one wall, hands clasped behind his back.
Shai Jura stepped from the shadows, revealing himself.
"You there."
His voice carried across the hall.
"Where's Sindra Imuat? Or the other clan heads?"
"Hm?"
The old man turned from the painting, a sly curve to his lips.
"Why, they're all just beyond that door."
Shai Jura's gaze shifted to the door, then to the old man who blocked the path.
"So that's your game? Kill me in secrecy?"
He met the old man's eyes—
No. Not just an old man. The Imuat clan head himself.
"If you wish to pass through that door, why don't we play a game?"
"Is that so? Who do you think I am?"
Shai Jura's voice rose.
"Do you really expect me to fight a veteran cultivator? Let alone one of the strongest in this region?"
Shai Jura clenched his hands as he spoke.
"You're not who you seem to be. A drunk landing a blow on my grandson. That can't be possible."
The clan head stroked his grey beard, slowly stepping forward.
"It was through pure luck alone. That's it."
"Then how do you explain that?"
The clan head pointed at Shai Jura's hands.
"Sindra blew your arms clean off. Yet here they are. I have reason to believe you are more than what you say you are."
Old bastard. Screw off.
Is what Shai Jura wanted to say.
But he held his tongue.
"Whatever impression you have of me... You are mistaken."
"I will see for myself."
The clan head vanished mid-sentence.
Transpositional manipulation! He's behind me!
Shai Jura threw a blind punch backward over his shoulder, his fist connecting with something solid, the elder's knuckles.
"Very interesting!"
The clan head laughed, his footsteps retreating across the floor.
Shai Jura spun around, his eyes widening as an obsidian boulder hurtled toward his face.
Leaning back, he deliberately let gravity pull him beneath the boulder's trajectory, only for the floor to erupt as an obsidian pillar launched him upward, straight into its path.
The impact lifted him off the ground, suspending him midair.
Earth Arts?! He predicted the lean-
Shai Jura twisted, rolling clear of the pillar.
Shit!
The boulder caught his shoulder with a wet crunch.
Grinding. Fragmenting. Bone tearing apart inside, not clean but jagged.
His shoulder screamed at him, sending nauseating waves of pain radiating through his arm.
Blood soaked his sleeve, fabric clinging to his mangled flesh. His vision tunneled, and he gasped raggedly for breath.
"Why aren't you using any arts? This is a serious battle! Or am I not strong enough for you?"
The clan head's laughter bounced off the walls. He was toying with Shai Jura, holding back a vast reservoir of power.
Swoosh!
Another boulder launched from the wall, Shai Jura barely dodging. Then three more, converging from different angles.
"Hah. Hah."
He breathed heavily, his mind foggy.
"You want power then?!"
Shai Jura rushed towards the old clan head, who also decided to match his aggression.
The pinnacle of cultivation? I can give you it.
Shai Jura calmed himself, before hastily moving his hands in alien patterns.
I know everything about you, old man. In truth, I am afraid to fight you. Before my erasure, I lost to you. Yet this is different.
The clan head's eyes widened as surprise swept over him.
"Are you mad?!"
He stopped smiling.
"Forbidden Arts? Dual Extinction Seal? How do you even—"
The clan head yelled, gesturing for the ground to erupt around Shai Jura, floor and walls rising to cage him in a dome.
It would be impossible to escape while summoning incantations, yet he dove through the closing gap, rolling beneath the rising floor. When he rose, the elder's face was only an arm's length away.
"What—"
The clan head muttered as Shai Jura's arm shot out towards his face for a punch.
The elder's palm snapped up to deflect the strike.
Yet to his surprise, Shai Jura's fingers locked around his middle finger.
"You never intended to use—"
"It's over."
CRACK.
The clan head looked at his broken finger. Then at Shai Jura's savage amber eyes.
For three seconds, the hall went quiet.
This was the shift he had been waiting for.
The atmosphere had changed. Shai Jura saw it clearly.
There was no longer curiosity in the old man, but only recognition.
Recognition of a threat.
Shai Jura's vision blurred even further, but his expression did not change. He did not smile. He did not gloat. And though he could no longer see the clan head through the haze, he continued to stare.
"You... how..."
The elder's voice dropped to barely a whisper.
"A dual extinction seal? You really tried to threaten me with mutual destruction?"
The elder flexed his hand, his middle finger bent unnaturally.
"You never had a cultivation base. Not even since the beginning of this fight, yet you still managed to break my finger."
Breathing hard, Shai Jura awaited the retaliation that would kill him.
The Imuat clan head began to circle Shai Jura, his good hand furrowing his beard as he muttered under his breath.
"Kill. Save. Kill. Save. Kill."
The clan head kept glancing at Shai Jura as he panted.
I may have really fucked up.
Exhaustion swept over him, every muscle trembling without the support of a cultivation base.
He was now weak. Easy to kill.
A single thought could end him.
His hands trembled, not from exhaustion, but from something else entirely.
He had gambled everything on a feint and a broken finger.
His life. The very essence of his being. The thought of it ending here and now truly frightened him.
Yet… it never came.
The clan head stared into Shai Jura's amber eyes, a flicker of satisfaction crossing his face.
Then, he laughed, a sound that began as shocked disbelief turned into genuine delight.
"You pass! You pass!"
He slapped Shai Jura's shoulder, the gesture almost fatherly. Then his grip tightened.
"Shailyth Al'Jura."
How does he know that name?
The weight of his true name stopped Shai Jura mid-step, but his expression remained unchanged.
"Do you understand why I've tested you?"
"No."
They faced each other like predators, every facial movement precisely lethal.
"There is a war within my house. A war of succession, and attribute. I do not care about your strength, truly I do not."
The clan head let out a big sigh.
"It is your intellect and volatility that intrigue me. The Dual Extinction Seal feint. Breaking my finger instead of attempting a killing blow you could never land. These were never simple improvisations, but rather… the killer precision of a genius."
He stepped closer.
"Your background, your relationships, you are a nobody. And yet, you are perfect. You will help Sindra attain my kingship and raise him into a ruler."
"Join my family."
The clan head's face went cold. This was not a request.
His broken finger mended in a golden glow, drawing his attention fully to the person before him.
Letting out a slight whisper, Shai Jura pulled his face close into the clan head's ear.
He needed to sell this. Needed the clan head to believe he was valuable, dangerous, and most importantly, controllable.
"We are both storms, devouring everything in our path. Help me attain my cultivation, and my transcendence. And through this, I can devour everything that opposes you."
The sun slowly began to fall, as black clouds blanketed the sky.
"Then you will join the royal academy."
The clan head finally spoke.
The perfect outcome. It feels unreal.
As he met the elder's blue, misty eyes, Shai Jura saw a powerful figure reduced to nothing more than leverage.
A deep, instinctive warning stirred within Shai Jura.
He had already veered off his original path completely, yet he knew, this was the perfect timeline. Nothing can happen by sheer coincidence, or luck for that matter.
There were forces pushing him into this path. Maybe gods, people in power, or even the universe itself.
Whatever this is, this absurdity of luck, it cannot be trusted.
Perfect outcomes don't exist. Not across two lifetimes of failure and execution.
I beat a veteran cultivator without a cultivation base. And now I find myself about to attend the most prestigious academy in this region. It's impossible. Yet it happened.
Paths don't appear in wilderness. Someone clears them.
This road? It is too straight, too clean, and too perfectly aligned with my needs.
I am not walking my own path, I'm following one someone else carved.
And that terrifies me.
Not the manipulation itself.
I expect that.
But what terrifies me is not knowing what they're building me into. What they want me to become.
Fine. Have it their way. I'll walk anyway, studying their path as I go.
Learn why it curves here, why it straightens there. Understand what they're building me toward.
Because once I know my destination, I can arrive as something they never planned for.