The blue spirit moved ahead of us through the passage. At first it looked like a person. Then I saw the truth of it.
It was split cleanly down the middle, as if something had taken a blade and divided it from head to toe. Even the face was cut in half, one side intact, the other missing.
It floated forward anyway, moving with a calm, unhurried rhythm.
Only after it spoke did I begin to understand what it was.
A spirit was not a living being.
It was a trace left behind when something powerful refused to disappear completely. A fragment of intent, memory, or cultivation that lingered after the original source was gone.
I followed with Yue Lian's hand in mine. She was still a little shaken, moving cautiously beside me.
"You were waiting for what?" I said.
The blue spirit turned. Its profile caught its own light.
"Hoho… let me first tell you what this place is."
It spoke with a faint, amused tone, as if enjoying the delay.
Then it continued.
Introducing itself the remnant soul of the half human and half demon.
A cultivator who had walked between humans and other natures, climbing toward the upper realms with everything he had.
He forced his way upward until he reached the limit—where talent stopped mattering, and only this place was what remained of that failure.
A construct left behind before death, built to continue what he could not finish, and to pass forward what he could not become.
"I have been waiting," the spirit said, "for someone like you."
I looked at the side of its half-face as we walked.
(Someone like me?)
What the hell was this spirit talking about? This was Chen Wu's inheritance. The system had already flagged it and built an entire quest structure around it for only Chen Wu.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked. "Why me.
It talked, but not answering my question" Being half human, I was able to cultivate. My revenge was left unfinished. The things I wanted to complete remained incomplete." The passage turned slightly and its glow shifted across the new angle of the wall.
"Why me," I asked again.
The spirit laughed, genuinely amused.
"What do you mean, why you?" It turned fully to look at me for the first time since we had begun walking. "This is a demonic inheritance, weren't there traps in the path you fool." It spread what remained of its half-hands. "And did you think I was looking for a saint?"
It pointed at me. "YOU."
Behind me, Yue Lian's footsteps stopped.
I turned back to her.
She stood in the middle of the passage, her face pale in the spirit's blue glow, her hands hanging at her sides.
"Brother," she called. Her voice was small, careful. "Let's leave. Right now."
She swallowed her fear.
"This place is… very dangerous…. Father, father warned me to stay away…"
The spirit looked at her and laughed again, this time with its full presence behind it.
"Dangerous, she says. You call this place dangerous, little one, and yet you have been traveling with him… HAHAHAHA."
Yue Lian went still.
She looked at the spirit, then at me.
Whatever her spiritual sight had shown her in that moment passed through her expression. She did not yet have the experience to hide it.
I stepped forward, my face expressionless.
"Brother…?" She called again.
But I struck the back of her neck cleanly and caught her before she fell, lifting her unconscious body into my arms.
The spirit watched this, its half-face carrying something between approval and satisfaction.
I asked."Was it the door that judged me?"
"Yes," The spirit moved forward again. "It's one of my greatest creations and after today it passes to you." Something in its voice shifted slightly, the particular quality of old pride revisited. "We are almost there."
The passage opened into a wholly different space.
It was so vast that the far walls were not immediately visible, and the ceiling rose to an unimaginable height.
The walls themselves gave off light, a steady, source-less illumination that came from everywhere at once and cast no shadows. It was clear and even, like midday light filtered through clouds, revealing every surface.
Then the spirit beside me stopped and its half-body went rigid.
"WHAT!" The word came out flat and it turned sharply. "MOVE, FAST, FAST."
I already was.
We came through into an open space and that's when I finally saw them….
Chen Wu's group stood in a loose formation, their attention fixed on a figure hovering before them.
Another spirit!
Another half-figure, shaped the same as the one beside me, but its glow was red instead of blue. It faced the group like something in the middle of a conversation.
Chen Wu and the others turned and saw me. Our eyes met.
And at the same moment, the two spirits noticed each other.
The blue spirit beside me crossed the distance in an instant, its half-body moving with a speed that had nothing to do with physical limits.
"What have you done?" Its voice had lost all warmth. "Why did you let them enter without telling me?"
The red spirit turned to the blue one with the look of someone who had expected this.
"Hah. I do what I want. Who are you to tell me anything?"
"I am the same as you, you fool—"
"You are not my master. Nor the master of this place."
"Then tell me." The blue spirit moved closer, its light pressing against the red's. "Did they meet the requirements? Why did you let them in? Answer me."
The red spirit's posture shifted. Its certainty wavered. "We are close to disintegration," it said, some of the defiance leaving its voice. "Our time is nearly finished. I could not keep waiting—"
"DID. THEY. MEET. THE REQUIREMENTS." The blue spirit shouted.
The red spirit fell silent. It turned and looked at me, its glow flickering slightly.
"And him. Does he?"
"Humph." The blue spirit chuckled softly.
"Of course he does."
The red spirit stared at me for a long moment.
Then it moved, drifting toward the blue spirit. They pressed their half-foreheads together.
Blue light met red at the point of contact. The red spirit went still, its glow shifting as something passed between them without words.
"Oh," the red spirit said quietly. "He truly is..."
"DEMONIC CULTIVATOR." Chen Wu's voice cut across the space, sharp and immediate. At the word, the group behind him moved. Spiritual essence surged through each of them at once, their attention snapping to me with a single, focused intent.
"Everyone, stay alert. Demonic cultivators are vicious and treacherous by nature," Chen Wu said, stepping forward
I stared at the two foolish spirits standing between us.
"SHIT."
Before coming to this place I had intended to approach Chen Wu calmly, take the inheritance while he was still blind to it, and leave when the matter was finished or kill him.
But now these spirits had ruined that plan and made me the enemy openly.
I shifted Yue Lian's weight and positioned myself, my spiritual essence rising through my body with quiet ease.
However, both spirits suddenly turned and shouted together, "STOP."
We all looked at them. The blue and red lights hovered between us,their half-faces turned toward both sides at once.
"Blue spirit," I said into the stillness. "You already know I am the one you were waiting for."
From behind Chen Wu came a voice I had not expected.
"We came first." The voice was clear and deliberate. "We entered through the red spirit's door. We have already become its inheritors."
I turned.
Mei stood at the edge of Chen Wu's group and beside her was Su Ling.
My gaze lingered on them for a moment.
(What the fuck are they doing here?)
They should have been in the sect. But…
Then Chen Wu spoke in a threatening tone.
"Leave, this place belongs to the Clouded Peak Sect. If you remain, you will be hunted by the sect and everyone connected to it."
Hah. Great….Threatening me with the very sect I belong and had just escaped from.
I said nothing. What could I say?
Instead, I looked at the two spirits hovering between us. Their lights flickered faintly, as if they had just realized they had caused a problem and were now searching for a solution.
"Is there a trial," I said. "For the inheritance."
I had guessed there would be one.
The Space went completely silent.
The blue spirit and the red spirit looked at each other. Then both of them said, at exactly the same moment. "The trial. Yes. We forgot about it."