The moon hung low and amber in the sky, a molten coin slipping behind the clouds. Wind brushed through the garden like breath through silk, rustling the plum blossoms just as Kai Jin exhaled.
He sat cross-legged at the heart of the lantern-lit courtyard, robe unfastened at the throat, Mt. Luoyang resting across his lap. Incense burned in three iron bowls around him, the air heavy with sandalwood, lotus seed, and white ginseng.
Yue, Bai Ru, and Lin Su each knelt at a point of the triangle, forming a circle around him. Their eyes were closed. Their qi pulsed in slow, disciplined waves—distinct, but harmonized. Each woman gave something different to the ritual:
Yue's energy was steady, crystalline. Like still water cupped in moonlight.
Bai Ru's flowed like warm honey, fragrant and slow but deeply grounding.
Lin Su's qi was sharp, flickering, dancing with untamed heat. A storm just barely held in check.
Kai inhaled again. The energy passed through him, braided into his own. He felt his dantian expand and contract with the rhythm of four hearts.
*"Focus,"* the World Eye whispered inside him.
He reached inward.
---
The first layer of his cultivation opened easily. It was familiar—sword forms, muscle, memory. He passed through like a door he'd opened many times.
The second layer was denser. It held the weight of discipline, of his father's lessons, of nights spent alone with calloused hands.
The third layer shimmered with guilt—those he hadn't saved, the bodies on battlefields, the whispered confessions of broken men.
He paused there, his breath hitching. Bai's fingers touched his wrist gently. Yue's energy cooled the shaking. Lin Su's defiance roared through his bones like a second spine.
He pushed through.
And then—
He reached the Fourth Ring.
---
It wasn't a space. It was a state. Stillness, boundless, bright. The inside of the world's first breath.
In that place, Mt. Luoyang pulsed. It lifted from his lap, glowing like sunsteel. Slowly, it split—not broken, but revealed—into twin forms:
**Honor**, the blade of clarity and resolve.
**Shadow**, the blade of freedom and instinct.
He took them both, one in each hand. The air shivered around him.
Above the garden, the moon went silver.
---
He opened his eyes. The three women were watching.
"Did it work?" Yue asked softly.
Kai rose to his feet. Both blades dissolved into light and reformed as one—his will choosing the shape.
"Yes," he said. "But only because of you."
Bai Ru smiled, but her fingers trembled.
Lin Su tilted her head. "You saw something. In the core."
Kai nodded. "A mountaintop. We stood on it. All of us. And the sky wasn't broken. It was burning. In gold."
Yue reached for his hand. "Then climb."
---
They spent the rest of the night in silence.
Each woman drifted to sleep in the courtyard, cloaked in the soft hum of residual qi. Kai remained awake, sitting alone beneath the flowering tree. The World Eye spoke again.
*"Your path is no longer yours alone. Power shared is not power halved—it is power sanctified."*
He looked at the sleeping women. His chest ached—not with pain, but with something like reverence.
"I will protect it," he whispered.
The breeze stirred, as if in answer.
---
From a nearby rooftop, Zhao Lianhua watched the entire ritual, lips pressed together.
"So that's what devotion looks like," he murmured. "Messy. But beautiful."
Then he vanished into shadow.
---
**\[To Be Continued in Chapter 74]**