The silence that descended upon the Spirit Cauldron Sect was a profound and unnatural thing.
The only sounds were the mournful whisper of the wind through the eaves of the grand pavilions and the rhythmic drip… drip… drip… of blood from a hundred different surfaces.
Shi Ran stood in the center of the main training grounds, a solitary figure in a world of red. Bodies lay scattered like fallen leaves after a storm.
Disciples who had been practicing their sword forms just an hour ago were now mangled heaps of flesh. Elders who had commanded respect were now just cooling meat.
He looked around, his eyes as cold and empty as a winter sky. He saw the face of a young outer disciple, his eyes wide with a final terror.
He saw an old alchemist, a man who had once given him a kind word, slumped over his cold cauldron.
He saw the core disciples who had enjoyed the fruits of his labor, their fine silk robes now stained with their own lifeblood.
He felt nothing.
The rage that had been a roaring inferno, the hatred that had fueled his every action for three long years since he had discovered the truth about his parents' killer, had burned itself out. In its place was only a hollow emptiness.
He had achieved his vengeance. He had erased the sect from the face of the world. And now… now what?
Tap.
The sound was barely a whisper in the wind. The sound of a stone being dislodged.
It came from the direction of the Ancestral Grotto.
Shi Ran's head snapped up. He had left Ancestor Mu there, his Nascent Soul dissipating. He should be long dead by now.
He moved, his form a blur that left a faint after image. He crossed the sect grounds in seconds, his boots splashing through pools of blood.
He reached the entrance to the grotto. The two Golden Core guards he had killed lay where they had fallen.
He stepped into the damp darkness of the tunnel. He could still feel the lingering aura of death, the ghost of Ancestor Jin's shattered soul. He walked into the main cavern.
And he saw Ancestor Mu was still alive. He had managed to crawl back onto his dais, his back slumped against the cold stone.
His body was a wreck… his limbs were bent at unnatural angles, his robes were a bloody mess.
But his eyes… his eyes were open. And they were burning with an impotent fury.
Shi Ran stopped in the center of the cavern, looking at the dying man.
"Still here, old man?" Shi Ran's voice was flat, devoid of emotion. "I thought you would have had the decency to die by now."
A rattling sound came from the ancestor's throat. It was a laugh. "You... you think you've won, boy?"
Ancestor Mu rasped, his voice a dry rustle of dead leaves. "You have destroyed... everything. For what? For a memory? For parents you barely even knew?"
"I knew them well enough," Shi Ran replied, his own voice quiet. "I knew they didn't deserve to be slaughtered like cattle by a greedy thief."
He took a step closer. "And you. You knew. Didn't you? You sat here for a hundred years, sensing the rotten core of this sect and you did nothing. If you had upheld even a shred of justice... I would not be here today. This blood would not be on my hands."
"Justice?" the old man coughed, a spray of black blood spattering the stone. "There is no justice! There is only power! Yao Guang was strong. He made the sect prosperous. His methods were… distasteful, but effective. Your parents were weak. They stood in the way of progress. The world of cultivation is a river of blood, boy. You either swim, or you drown. Your parents drowned."
He sneered, a ghastly expression on his ruined face. "And now, so have you. You have killed everyone. You have made enemies of the entire domain. The Verdant River Palace will hunt you. The great families will want your head. You will be a rabid dog and you will be put down like one."
Shi Ran looked down at him, his expression unchanging. "You are wrong," he said. "I am not a dog. I am the man who killed you. That is all that matters."
A strange light entered the ancestor's eyes. "Is it?" he whispered. "You think you can just walk away from this?"
He raised his one remaining arm. It trembled with a terrible effort. A storage ring on his finger glowed with a violent light.
"A gift, boy," Ancestor Mu hissed, a triumphant snarl on his lips. "A parting gift from the Spirit Cauldron Sect!"
Something shot from the ring. It was an invisible wave of malicious energy.
A soul attack.
Shi Ran was caught completely off guard. He had been so assured of his own overwhelming power, that he had forgotten the desperate tricks an old monster might have hidden up his sleeve.
The wave hit him.
It was a pain beyond anything physical. It was a tearing agony that ripped through his very consciousness. It felt like his soul was being shredded by a thousand invisible blades.
His vision went white. His ears rang with a deafening shriek. His own Nascent Soul, the powerful entity in his Dantian, hairline cracks appearing on its surface.
He staggered back, a scream tearing from his own throat. He clutched his head, falling to his knees, his body convulsing.
Through the white haze of agony, he saw Ancestor Mu's head slump to the side, a victorious smile frozen on his face. The final expenditure of his life force had killed him.
Shi Ran knelt on the floor, his body shaking uncontrollably. The initial agony slowly subsided, leaving behind a bone deep cold. A terrible weakness was spreading through him.
He looked down at his hands. They were shimmering like a heat haze. His life force was leaking out of him like air from a punctured lung.
He had won. But the dead man had the last laugh.