Night cloaked the mountain paths as Kai descended from the ancient chamber. The stone beneath his feet was cool and slick with dew, moonlight glinting off the jagged ridges of Obsidian Peak like silent silver blades. Each breath he took carried the metallic tang of Qi still circulating through his meridians. The cultivation chamber had stabilized him—restored him in body and in spirit—but the wounds Han Long left weren't the only ones that weighed on him.
Kai was going home.
The Sect Fortress loomed in the near distance like a shadow devouring the mountainside. Towers rose like jagged teeth, black against the stars, torchlight flickering at their tips. Kai kept to the trees as he drew closer. Something in the air felt wrong. The atmosphere was heavy. eneath the cover of night, he saw it.
Dozens of them.
Sprawled across the foot of Obsidian Peak, many still clutching weapons, limbs tangled in death. Blood soaked the gravel paths and stone steps that led to the outer wall. He moved closer, eyes narrowing as he recognized the tattered black robes with crimson lining. These were his own Sect disciples.
Some still had their identity tokens on them. Inner sect members. Outer disciples. Even low-ranking initiates. Kai crouched beside a fallen acolyte whose face was frozen in an expression of horror, his throat slit clean, his hand still gripped tight around a dagger coated in dried blood.
Kai's stomach turned.
They'd killed each other.
He knelt in silence, pressing two fingers to the corpse's neck, cold, long gone. Then his gaze shifted to another body, this one with a shattered skull and markings of high-level cultivation technique burns across his back.
Not an outside attack. No foreign Qi. These weren't enemies. This was infighting.
Kai rose to his feet, his face dark.
He moved like a shadow, weaving through the crags and ravines leading to the fortress gates. His spiritual presence was masked behind his Celestial Eclipse lightness techniques. Each step was deliberate. Each breath muted. The moonlit towers of the fortress watched him like ancient sentinels, and still he slipped through.
Within the outer walls, the grounds were unfamiliar in their unease.
Guards in Crimson Hall armor patrolled the courtyards in tight formations. Their crimson lamellar gleamed under the torches, weapons drawn, not ceremonial, but ready. Their expressions were sharp, tense, as if expecting assault from any direction.
Kai kept to the shadows, moving beneath eaves and scaling the old pathways few remembered but he had once used as a young disciple. As he climbed toward the upper terraces, he could hear voices, arguments, short orders barked, whispers laced with fear.
The sect no longer seemed unified.
Where was the Enforcement Hall? Where was Elder Bai's discipline enforcement?
Instead, Kai saw power vacuumed into strange formations. Crimson Hall standing militant. Shadow Hall nowhere visible but their absence was a message in itself.
Kai paused at the roofline of the eastern archive when he spotted a familiar face moving quietly through the training courtyard below—Shen Rui.
One of his more pragmatic envoys. Kai had promoted him to envoy after the Ironwood Chapter incidence. The man had a head for politics, a tongue for diplomacy, and—most importantly—a loyal streak.
Kai leapt down silently from the roof, landing behind Shen Rui like a ghost.
"Shen Rui."
Shen Rui spun, hand halfway to his blade, but froze mid-motion when he saw who stood before him. His eyes widened, mouth parting in disbelief.
"Master Kai…" he whispered. "You're alive."
Kai nodded. "Barely."
Shen looked him over, worn robes, faint scarring, a quiet energy that hadn't been there before. "We thought you were dead. Rumors… said you'd vanished at the Azure Cloud Sect ruins."
"It was a close shave."
Shen hesitated, glanced around, then motioned for Kai to follow. "Not here."
They retreated to an abandoned wing of the compound, one that had been empty since the last sect fire years ago. Cracked walls, soot-stained beams. But safe from ears.
"I returned from Ironwood two days ago," Shen said in a low voice. "Something's wrong, Master Kai. Deeply wrong."
Kai crossed his arms. "Tell me everything."
Shen took a breath. "It started subtly. Crimson Hall claimed it was temporary patrols, extra protection after you vanished. But then the Shadow Hall began executing 'suspected traitors.' Enforcement Hall tried to intervene, and that's when the first blood was spilled."
Kai's jaw tightened. "The bodies at the mountain's base?"
Shen nodded. "That was only the beginning. Since then, the Sect has fractured. Elder Huo's Crimson Hall now controls most of the gates and storage halls. Shadow Hall is… less visible, but they've assassinated three Outer Hall sub-leaders, all of whom were loyal to you."
"And Enforcement Hall?"
"For now, Elder Kong says they're 'waiting for order to return.' I think he's stalling. Waiting for you."
Kai exhaled slowly. "This reeks of Elder Huo. He's always thought I was too lenient."
"Yes," Shen Rui said. "But… something doesn't add up."
Kai looked up sharply. "Explain."
"Elder Huo is many things—rash, passionate, aggressive. But this…" Shen shook his head. "This coup is slow. Precise. Coordinated. The Shadow Hall didn't just join him. They acted before he did. And their assassinations were perfectly timed, efficient. Not Elder Huo's style."
Kai's eyes narrowed. "Power seized with fire burns too fast."
Shen Rui blinked. "What?"
Kai's voice was low, thoughtful. "Power taken with brute force flares up and collapses quickly. But this—" he gestured around them—"this was done with a scalpel. Not a hammer."
Shen Rui was silent for a moment. "Then… someone's using Elder Huo?"
"Or," Kai said grimly, "he's smarter than we think."
They stood in silence.
Outside, a bell tolled to indicate midnight.
"We need allies," Kai said at last. "Get a message to Enforcement Hall. Tell Elder Kong I've returned. Discreetly."
"I'll move tonight," Shen Rui said. "But if Crimson Hall finds out you're alive…"
"I'm counting on it," Kai said, eyes sharp. "Let them hunt a ghost. Meanwhile, I'll start rooting out the rot."
As Shen slipped into the shadows to deliver the message, Kai remained behind in the ruined compound, eyes lifted to the moonlit sky.
His sect was bleeding.
And if this coup succeeded, if Shadow Hall and Crimson Hall solidified their alliance, then his authority wouldn't be the only casualty. Everything he had forged, every fragile thread of order he'd woven into the Sect, would unravel into tyranny and plunge back into chaos.
He turned and disappeared into the dark corridors once more, a ghost in the fortress.
But not for long.