Daeryon didn’t ask for permission. He didn’t nod. He didn’t even blink.

  The moment my words tore through the cave, something inside him broke loose.

  The air cracked.

  Not wind.

  Pressure

  Pure, crushing intent.

  The man’s smile faltered as frost lining the walls shattered into dust, exploding outward like a ring of glass struck by a hammer.

  Daeryon took a single step.

  The ground dipped beneath his foot, the stone groaning under a weight it was never meant to bear.

  The man in white chuckled softly. “Such hostility. You must be—”

  Daeryon vanished.

  He didn’t blur.

  He simply disappeared, the cold swallowing him whole.

  A heartbeat later, the entire cave buckled.

  A shockwave slammed into the walls, ringing like metal struck underwater. Ice spears burst from the ceiling, spinning down in spiraling shards. The man staggered, sliding back several feet, his boots skidding across the frost.

  Daeryon stood in front of him, arm outstretched, his fist buried in the man’s ribs.

  Or what should have been ribs.

  Instead, pale light flickered like paper catching fire from within, the man’s form bending unnaturally around the blow as if his body weren’t flesh but liquid chi packed inside skin.

  For a moment, there was silence.

  Then the man exhaled sharply, his breath fogging with shock. He coughed once.

  A single drop of silver blood hit the floor.

  His smile twisted, but the amusement didn’t return.

  “Impressive,” he whispered, his voice trembling around the edges. “Truly impressive. But tell me… how much of that strength can you waste before the anchor awakens?”

  Daeryon didn’t answer.

  But this time I felt it. Not the cold.

  Daeryon’s rage.

  Quiet. Focused. Absolute.

  He grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him off the ground like a piece of weightless cloth.

  Frost spiraled up Daeryon’s arm from the man, his chi burning white hot and cold as a collapsing star.

  The man choked, pale energy leaking from his eyes. “Y… you dare—”

  Daeryon slammed him into the ice floor.

  The cavern cracked in a perfect circle beneath the impact, a deep ringing echo rolling outward like a bell tolling for the dead.

  Before the man could even gasp, Daeryon planted his foot on the man’s chest and raised one hand.

  The air dimmed.

  The pale light thinned.

  I felt the pressure tightening around his form as Daeryon gathered power that made the frozen cave shudder.

  “Talking time is over,” Daeryon said quietly.

  Daeryon moved first.

  His raised hand came down like a falling star, the air screaming in its path.

  But the man in white twisted, not fast, not strong, but wrong. His body bent as if his bones were strings pulled by unseen hands, slipping out from under Daeryon’s strike with a smooth, unnatural glide.

  He slid backward across the ice, his boots whispering over the frost as a wide gap opened between them.

  He smoothed his robe with one hand, as if brushing away dust instead of death.

  “Daeryon Kang,” he said, his voice sharp as a cracked bell. “You really are a problem. We did not expect you to come here yourself. You have already ruined the entire plan… but still.”

  He smiled, thin and arrogant.

  “It is not a problem. I can deal with you myself.”

  Daeryon didn’t react, but something in the cold shifted, like the air itself holding its breath.

  Heat surged in my chest. “Look at this fucker,” I snarled. “He thinks he can win. If I had a body right now, I’d tear him apart myself.”

  Daeryon didn’t look away from the man, but his voice reached me, low and steady. “He is not weak, Daniel. Stronger than the last one. Not in raw force, but in survivability. My first punch should have killed him.”

  The man’s smile twitched, as if he’d heard the truth and hated it.

  I stepped closer, my eyes burning holes through his perfect face. “How strong is he, exactly?”

  Daeryon’s jaw tightened, frost crawling over his shoulders like a living thing. “He is in the seventh stage.”

  My head snapped toward him.

  “Seventh? Where did a monster like this even come from? And why is he walking around like that is normal?”

  Daeryon didn’t take his eyes off the man. “The seventh stage is called Abyssal Ascension. It is when a demonic cultivator learns to draw on abyss chi. It gathers at the edge of the world. Chaotic energy. It changes the body. Makes them hard to put down.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  I blinked hard, my breath shuddering.

  “So what, he just ignores getting killed?”

  “They do not ignore it,” Daeryon said quietly. “Their bodies twist around the damage. Bones shift. Flesh knits back together. A strike that should end them only slows them down.”

  The man spread his arms, silver threads on his robe glittering. “I do not know who you are talking to, but beautifully said. I am difficult to kill.”

  Daeryon’s gaze sharpened, a faint pulse rolling down his arm like distant thunder stirring awake.

  “Difficult,” he murmured, “is not impossible.”

  The world seemed to hush.

  Silence pressed in for a heartbeat, as if the cave itself were waiting to see what happened next.

  Then the man lunged.

  He shot forward like a spear loosed from a war bow, chi tearing the air behind him. His palm sliced toward Daeryon’s throat, crackling with white light.

  Daeryon stepped aside.

  Just stepped. As if he were dodging a drifting leaf.

  The man’s strike hit only wind.

  A vein throbbed on his temple. He spun and slashed again, this time with enough force to crater the stone behind Daeryon if it landed.

  It didn’t.

  Daeryon tilted his head and the blow sliced past his cheek, ruffling a few strands of hair.

  The man hissed, a sound sharp enough to peel bark from a tree.

  He attacked again. And again. And again.

  Each strike came faster, heavier, more drenched in abyss chi. The ground tore. Stone shattered. Frost spiraled in the shockwaves.

  Daeryon did not block a single hit.

  He just moved. Calm, precise, unreadable. His footsteps were soft as snowfall, barely indenting the ground, his robe drifting behind him as if it weighed nothing.

  “Fight me!” the man snarled, eyes burning. “Or stand still!”

  Daeryon did not answer. His silence was an insult carved in ice.

  The man struck with both hands now, his arms twisting unnaturally, bones shifting to extend his reach in grotesque ways. Abyssal energy warped his limbs, stretching and snapping back like whips.

  Not one touch landed.

  And every miss fed his fury.

  I stood behind Daeryon, buzzing with amusement. “This asshole looks like a broken windmill.”

  The man roared and slammed both palms into the ground. A shockwave exploded outward, the earth splitting in jagged cracks. Dust spiraled upward. The air turned black.

  Daeryon did not move. Frost rose around his feet, meeting the shockwave and splitting it cleanly in half.

  The man burst through the dust cloud, teeth bared, hair whipping wild.

  “My body—” he shouted, veins bulging, “—cannot be destroyed!”

  He swept forward in a blur, his silhouette splitting into three shadows. Illusions? Or limbs moving faster than sight could track?

  Daeryon weaved between them, his movements fluid as water rolling downhill.

  Not even a sleeve was touched.

  “Why,” the man growled, voice cracking, “won’t you get hit?”

  Daeryon finally answered, soft as breath. “You are too slow.”

  The man froze.

  Just a breath.

  Long enough for the words to sink in.

  Then something inside him snapped.

  A sound tore from his throat, half snarl, half wounded pride, and abyss chi burst off his body in a violent bloom of black light. The frost beneath his feet hissed, melting into steaming cracks.

  “You dare belittle me” he spat, his voice fraying like torn cloth. “You dare insult my ascension?”

  Daeryon didn’t even look at him.

  That only made the man angrier.

  He lunged again, but this time the strike was not meant to hit. It was meant to collapse the battlefield.

  Abyss chi surged outward, drilling into the cavern walls. Stone screamed. Ice shattered in sheets. A pillar to the left cracked straight down the middle with a gunshot pop.

  The ceiling trembled.

  Pebbles rained.

  I walked a little closer to Daeryon’s back, more instinct than logic.

  “This bastard is going to bury himself before you even touch him” I muttered. “Is this what seventh-stage wisdom looks like? Because I expected, you know, more brain.”

  His limbs twisted again, joints bending sideways, bones spiraling like warped branches. Abyss chi wrapped him in a flickering outline of silver and black, the aura of a creature whose body no longer fully belonged to itself.

  He charged.

  This time he didn’t attack with fists. He attacked with his entire body.

  Like a beast lunging from a cliff, he threw himself at Daeryon, his torso stretching unnaturally, arms elongating mid-flight, the air tearing in his wake.

  Daeryon met him head-on.

  A flare of black-red aura.

  And the man’s full-body strike slammed into Daeryon’s palm.

  The cave detonated.

  A shockwave ripped outward, sending a white ripple through the frost like lightning under ice. Shards sprayed in every direction. A roaring gust tore past me, flattening my hair back.

  The man’s face twisted as Daeryon held him in place with one hand, unmoving, as if stopping a mountain from falling out of the sky.

  Cracks spread across the ground beneath the force.

  Daeryon’s voice slid through the chaos like a blade dipped in calm. “Your speed is useless if your intent is loud.”

  The man gasped, teeth grinding, abyss chi surging in panicked pulses.

  Daeryon pushed. Just a little.

  The man was launched backward, skidding across the frost so fast sparks flickered where his boots scraped stone. He crashed into a pillar and cracked it in half.

  A low groan rolled through the cavern, the sound of the mountain waking up to their fight.

  He staggered up, spitting silver blood, his eyes wild.

  “You cannot keep dodging forever!” he shrieked. “Your frozen body has limits. You think you can outlast abyss chi?”

  Daeryon stepped forward, frost blooming in a slow, steady circle around him. “I do not need to outlast it.”

  His eyes darkened, a deep, ancient red bleeding outward like ink dropped into water. “I only need to kill you once.”

  The man trembled, abyss chi rising in unstable coils. “Kill me? You don’t even understand—”

  Daeryon vanished again.

  He only left a whisper of cold.

  A ripple of air.

  Then he appeared behind the man as if stepping out of his shadow, hand raised, fingers curled like he was gripping the spine of winter itself.

  The man twisted backward in terror, his body bending like wet parchment, but Daeryon’s palm touched his chest before he could fully contort.

  A soft, almost gentle touch.

  Then—

  A massive shockwave.

  The impact sent a geyser of ice exploding upward, the cavern flashing white.

  The man flew, crashing through two frozen spires before slamming into the ground in a tangled heap of limbs and shattered chi. His breath hitched in broken wheezes.

  For the first time, fear cracked through his expression.

  I walked forward, staring down at him, my heartbeat a drum of rage. “Look at you,” I breathed. “Pathetic. After everything you’ve done… the children you put in the ground… this is all you are.”

  Daeryon walked toward the man slowly, frost swirling around him like a rising storm. “Get up,” he said. “This ends now.”

  The man pushed himself up, trembling, silver blood threading down his jaw. His smile was gone. His arrogance was gone. Only a raw, cornered hatred remained.

  He lifted one shaking hand.

  And for a second, nothing happened.

  Then the frost around him pulsed.

  Once.

  Twice.

  A faint tremor rippled through the ice floor, winding outward in ghostly lines. Like cracks forming under the surface, but they were not cracks.

  They were veins.

  Veins of abyss chi.

  Daeryon’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

  The man’s breath hitched into a wheezing laugh. “You think I need this body to strike? You think I require shape to kill you?”

  The veins of abyss chi crawled outward like spiderwebs, circling Daeryon.

  Then they ignited.

  With black fire.

  A silent eruption of abyss energy shot upward in a jagged ring, forming a cage of twisting, spiraling shards of darkness. The floor seized beneath Daeryon’s feet.

  The man’s voice cracked with triumph. “Die inside my domain!”

  Then everything snapped.

  The veins surged inward, converging on Daeryon’s position like a hundred black spears erupting from the ice.

  My vision jolted.

  My throat tore open.

  “Behind you!” I screamed.

  Daeryon pivoted.

  But the man was not behind him.

  His shadow was.

  It rose like ink lifted from the ground, taking shape into a warped, half-formed silhouette, its hand stretching toward Daeryon’s back, fingers made of writhing abyss chi.

  Daeryon’s aura flared.

  And the world detonated.

  A tidal wave of shattered frost and black chi collided with the cavern walls, sending spirals of frost and darkness spinning like torn leaves in a gale and splintering pillars like kindling.

  Ice shards whipped through the air, and the ground itself rippled with violent energy. The world became a deafening, blinding storm of sound and light.

  I was tossed backward like a scrap of cloth in a gale. I couldn't see Daeryon. Only chaos, only the roaring clash of ice and darkness.

  And then silence. Not peace. Not calm. Just the aftermath of a storm and a world changed by it.

  “Daeryon!” I shouted, trying to force my eyes open against the white haze, but I could not see anything. “Daeryon!”

  Not the man.

  Not the cave.

  Not even the floor.

  Just a screaming blizzard of shattered frost and swirling abyss chi, blotting out the world.