**Agony.**
Min-jun collapsed to his knees as the Eclipse Rot surged through his veins like liquid fire. The black corruption twisted up his neck, spiderwebbing across his jawline—his vision swam with flashes of alien landscapes, screaming faces that weren't human, a hunger so vast it could swallow worlds.
Xia stood over him, her tattoos now burning crimson. **"The Rot will make you strong enough to survive what's coming."**
Liao's obsidian dagger flashed toward her throat—
—and *stopped* an inch from her skin, suspended by an invisible force.
**"You don't understand,"** Xia whispered. **"The Ascended aren't just coming. They're already here."**
Her hand snapped up, and the ground *erupted* beneath Liao, hurling him backward into a collapsed tent. Before Min-jun could react, Xia grabbed his face, forcing him to meet her eyes—now *void-black* from edge to edge.
**"The Third Form won't save you,"** she hissed. **"It's a leash. The Rot is freedom."**
Then she was gone, vanishing into the smoke like a ghost.
---
**The rebel camp burned.**
Min-jun staggered through the chaos, his body no longer entirely his own. The Rot whispered to him in a language of teeth and shadows—telling him which paths to take, which rebels to avoid. He watched his own hand, black-veined and twitching, snap a Jade Serpent soldier's neck before the man could scream.
*This isn't me.*
But it was.
Liao found him crouched over a corpse, his fingers buried in the dead man's chest. **"Boy."** His voice was hoarse, his burns now covered in hastily applied bandages. **"Fight it."**
Min-jun's voice came out warped, doubled—his own and something *else*. **"It's too late."**
**"Bullshit."** Liao hauled him up by his collar. **"You think you're the first to get infected? The original Heaven's Fist masters *chose* this. They let the Rot in on purpose—to learn how to kill from the inside."**
A tremor shook the earth. In the distance, the sky *rippled*.
Liao's grip tightened. **"The Third Form isn't about purging the Rot. It's about *weaponizing* it."**
---
**They fled north** as the world burned behind them.
Min-jun's body moved on autopilot, the Rot guiding him through impossible leaps over fissures, dodging falling debris with preternatural reflexes. Liao struggled to keep up, his breath ragged.
**"The Cloud-Swallowing Mountains,"** he gasped. **"There's a temple there—last sanctuary of the true masters. They'll know how to—"**
A golden light split the sky.
The celestial gate reopened—but this time, only *one* figure descended.
Taller than the others.
Robes whiter than bone.
A mask carved to resemble a weeping angel.
**The Ascended had come.**
---
**It spoke without moving its mouth.**
***"Return the defective specimen."***
The voice vibrated in Min-jun's skull, shaking his teeth. The Rot inside him *recoiled*—not in fear, but *recognition*.
Liao spat blood. **"Run, boy. I'll hold it."**
**"You can't."**
**"I know."** Liao grinned, pulling out a second obsidian dagger—this one etched with runes. **"But I can piss it off."**
He lunged.
The Ascended *flicked* a finger.
Liao's body *folded* inward, bones shattering like glass—
—then *detonated* in a burst of black flames as his daggers ignited.
The Ascended *screeched*, its pristine robes catching fire. For the first time, it *moved*, flailing at the unnatural flames.
Min-jun didn't wait.
He *ran*.
---
**The Rot guided him** through collapsing valleys, whispering shortcuts through time and space. He felt his body changing—muscles reforged, tendons snapping and reknitting stronger.
By dawn, he reached the mountains.
By noon, he found the temple—half-buried in snow, its entrance guarded by a single statue of a man in mid-punch, his face worn smooth by centuries of wind.
Min-jun's corrupted hand touched the stone.
A voice echoed from within:
**"Ah. Another sinner comes to repent."**
The statue *moved*.
---
**TO BE CONTINUED...**