The sword entered Chen Feng's back without a sound.
No scream. No warning. Just cold steel sliding between his ribs with the practiced precision of someone who knew exactly where a cultivator's heart resided.
Chen Feng looked down at the blade protruding from his chest—the familiar silver edge he'd seen a thousand times in sparring matches, in battles, in quiet moments by the campfire. The sword he'd helped reforge when it shattered saving his life three years ago.
Liu Yan's sword.
"Why?" The word barely escaped as a whisper, blood already flooding his mouth.
"I'm sorry, brother." Liu Yan's voice came from behind him, still holding the blade buried in Chen Feng's chest. But there was no sorrow. Only cold satisfaction. "Two hundred years is a long time to pretend friendship with someone so naïve."
The battlefield stretched around them—bodies of demon soldiers they'd just defeated together, smoke rising from scorched earth, victory flags fluttering in the wind. The Demon Emperor was dead. They'd won.
They'd won, and Liu Yan had chosen this moment of triumph to murder him.
"Two hundred... years?" Chen Feng's knees buckled. He tried to turn, to see his sworn brother's face, but his body refused to obey. Liu Yan had placed the strike perfectly—severing meridians one by one, unraveling two centuries of cultivation with surgical precision.
Ironic. Chen Feng had taught him that exact technique. Meant for enemies. Never imagining—
"Did you really think I suffered through your endless lectures about righteousness and duty because I valued your wisdom?" Liu Yan laughed, and it was a sound Chen Feng had never heard before. Bitter. Mocking. Empty of any warmth. "Every battle I fought beside you, every time I 'saved your life,' was calculated. An investment in earning your trust."
Chen Feng's vision blurred. Blood dripped from his lips in slow, hypnotic rivulets, each drop carrying away pieces of his life force.
"And I played my part beautifully, didn't I, darling?"
That voice. Soft as silk. Familiar as his own heartbeat.
No.
Yue Lian glided into his failing vision, her white robes pristine despite the battlefield carnage. Beautiful. Serene. The woman he'd loved for sixty years smiled at him with the same tender expression she'd worn countless times before.
Except now he saw what that expression really was.
Performance art.
"Lian..." His voice cracked. "Tell me this is... a nightmare. Tell me—"
"Oh, Feng." She sighed, tilting her head as if addressing a particularly slow child. "Did you truly believe someone like me could love someone like you? You, with your common bloodline and mediocre talent? The only remarkable thing about you was your fortune in finding that Scripture."
She reached out, stroking his cheek with fingers that had once promised eternity. Now they felt cold. Dead.
"I've been Liu Yan's lover for sixty-three years, darling. Since before you ever confessed your pathetic feelings." Her smile widened. "Every kiss you stole, every tender word I whispered, every night you dreamed of our future together... such sweet delusions. You made it so wonderfully easy."
The pain of the sword through his chest was nothing—nothing—compared to the agony tearing through Chen Feng's soul.
Two hundred years of brotherhood. Sixty years of love. Every memory, every moment of happiness, every sacrifice—all of it turned to poison in an instant.
"The Scripture." Liu Yan twisted the blade, and Chen Feng gasped as more blood flooded his mouth. "Where is it truly hidden? Not the decoy you showed us. The real Nine Revolutions Immortal Scripture."
Chen Feng's lips trembled. Blood dripped slowly—so slowly—from the corner of his mouth. Each drop carrying away his life, his dreams, his foolish, foolish heart.
And then, despite everything, he laughed.
It started as a chuckle, wet and bubbling. Then grew. Louder. Harder. Until his whole body shook with manic laughter even as his blood painted the ground crimson.
"What's so funny?" Yue Lian demanded, her perfect mask cracking. "You're dying!"
"You..." Chen Feng gasped between laughs. "You absolute... fools... Two hundred years... of planning... Sixty years... of lies..."
"Tell us where it is!" Liu Yan snarled, yanking the sword free.
Chen Feng collapsed to his knees, hands clutching uselessly at the massive wound in his chest. His cultivation base was unraveling, his life force draining away like water through a sieve.
But still he laughed.
"The Nine Revolutions Immortal Scripture..." he wheezed. "Has no physical form... exists only... in the inheritor's consciousness... You murdered me... for a manuscript... that doesn't exist..."
The color drained from both their faces.
"No," Yue Lian whispered. "No, that's impossible—"
"The ancient immortal... who created it... was too wise... to leave such power... vulnerable to theft..." Chen Feng's laughter turned to coughs, blood spattering the ground. "The manuscript turns to dust... when read... It only reappears... when the inheritor dies... somewhere random... in the world..."
Liu Yan's face went white with rage. "You're lying! You have to be—"
"Search my corpse... Search for ten thousand years..." Chen Feng smiled through the blood. "You'll find... nothing... Absolutely... nothing..."
His vision was fading now. Darkness creeping in from the edges. But he held onto consciousness long enough to see their expressions—horror, disbelief, and slowly dawning realization that they'd destroyed everything for nothing.
"Thank you," Chen Feng whispered as the darkness took him. "Thank you... for teaching me... what trust... really costs..."
His last sight was Liu Yan and Yue Lian tearing through his belongings in desperate panic, searching for a treasure that would never be found.
Then nothing.