The Heaven-Severing Azure-Blade rested like a cold slab of unnecessary history against Jian’s hip. Without the spirit girl Sui-Mei to animate the Azure-Sky iron, the weapon remained a masterfully forged stick of metal. Yet, its resonance acted as a homing beacon for every opportunistic predator in the Iron-Sleet Vales. Jian walked through the biting metallic wind, his tattered rags fluttering. He headed toward the local hub of Silver-Watch, his mind drifting to the brining process he wanted to start in his internal realm.

  A ripple in the shadows interrupted his thoughts.

  A subtle micro-stutter in the movement of the sleet. Most cultivators would have missed it. Jian spent several million years in a cell where only the darkness moved. He didn't stop. He didn't reach for the hilt of his new sword. He continued his slow rhythmic march, head tilting as he listened to the heartbeat of the person following him.

  "Another pest in the wings," Jian rasped. His voice was a dry rhythmic thrum. "The Shadow Assassin trope. You’ve been lurking for three miles, puppet. You’re waiting for the moon to hit the peak so you can trigger the Midnight Ambush arc. Boring. The pacing is atrocious."

  The ripple solidified into absolute charcoal. A man wrapped in bandages of soul-binding silk that absorbed the light. The Umbra-King, a legendary assassin terrorizing the Silver-Watch region for a century, driving local trade into sharp decline as he hunted for the Azure Blade. The Heavens had promised the weapon to him in a vision, or so local prophecy stated.

  The assassin didn't speak. He moved with a speed that bypassed the physical, appearing in front of Jian with serrated daggers dripping with Void-Rot poison.

  Jian let out a weary sigh. He drew the Azure Blade. The metal didn't glow or sing. It remained a silent cold weight. He met the assassin's strike with a horizontal parry that should have been too slow. The daggers slid off the Azure iron as if the metal possessed its own gravity.

  The fight became a visceral display of technical dominance. The Umbra-King used the Flickering Shade style, form appearing and disappearing in the sleet, striking from angles defying human geometry. Jian didn't use a single spell. He stood in a three-foot circle, boots carving deep grooves into metallic snow. He moved the heavy sword with the efficiency of a man chopping wood, every swing answering the assassin's frantic energy.

  "The prophecy said the Blade would be mine!" the Umbra-King hissed, voice sounding like dry leaves crushed. "I slaughtered thousands to prepare for this day! I am the Master of the Dark!"

  "You're a script-filler who overstayed his welcome," Jian said, eyes a swirling cocktail of copper and gold.

  He didn't swing the sword for the next strike. He performed a Nothingness Thrust. The Azure Blade passed through the assassin’s bandages, his shadow-shield, and his heart. The Void-Rot on the daggers tried to infect the blade. The nothingness of Jian’s soul drank the poison as if it were a light appetizer.

  The Umbra-King froze. Eyes glowing with sickly violet light widened as he felt his existence unraveled. No grand monologue. He disintegrated into a cloud of grey soot instantly scattered by metallic wind.

  Jian looked at the sword. "Fulfilling prophecies. A truly low-tier use of my time."

  The city of Silver-Watch was a fortification of grey granite and rusted iron. Its residents lived as paranoid survivors in the shadow of the Umbra-King for generations. Jian walked through the main gate hauling the severed head of the shadow-beast—a manifestation of the assassin’s true soul. Absolute silence greeted him.

  Elders of the city, beards stained by metallic dust, emerged from the high hall. They looked at the Azure Blade, then at the soot-covered tattered rags of the man holding it.

  "The Prophecy is fulfilled!" the head elder shouted, voice cracking with terror and relief. "The Azure Savior has come! The Umbra is snuffed out!"

  They surrounded Jian, sycophantic praise hitting him like a physical stench. They ushered him into the Grand Pavilion, offering fine silks and oldest wines. Jian sat in the center of the hall, tearing into a plate of salted beef, performing a surgical probe of every man in the room.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  "We owe you a debt that cannot be paid in gold, Senior," the head elder said, bowing low. "The region has been in decline for a century. Trade has stopped. Our spirits are broken. We have little to offer a master of your unique caliber."

  He paused, exchanging a look of collective predatory guilt with the other elders.

  "Except for the lineage," the elder continued. "We offer you the hand of our Sovereign’s adopted daughter, the Princess Kalia. She is the last of the Moon-Sleet bloodline. She is a prize beyond measure."

  Jian swallowed beef and looked at the elder. "I have enough wives. My house is full of queens and my head is full of ghosts. I don't need a princess."

  "We insist!" the elders cried in unison. Their desperation was palpable. They wanted to be rid of her. She was a headache, a rebel, or perhaps knew too much about their tainted dealings with the High Immortal realm.

  Jian sighed, the sound carrying the weight of ten million years of bad casting choices. "Fine. Put her in a carriage. I’m leaving in an hour."

  Princess Kalia was a storm in a silk dress. Hair the color of blackened iron, eyes blazing with cold aristocratic fury. Two guards, looking as if expecting a bite, ushered her into the shared carriage. She sat across from Jian, hands gripped tightly in her lap. Her jagged Moon-Sleet Qi caused the carriage interior to frost over.

  "I will kill you," Kalia whispered, voice a sharp blade. "I don't care if you killed the Umbra-King. I am not a trade-good to be given to a vagrant."

  Jian didn't look at her. He leaned back against velvet cushions, eyes closed. "The Spirited Bride arc. You’re supposed to hate me now, then we have a shared trauma event, and you fall for me by the final chapter. I’ve read this one, Kalia. You’re about twenty pages behind the tempo."

  "You lunatic!" she hissed.

  They reached a local inn at the edge of the vales as night fell. The Moon-Light Inn stood as a lonely structure of wood and stone, smelling of damp wool and woodsmoke. Jian checked them into a single room, ignoring the princess's protests. He wasn't interested in her body. He was interested in the sleep he earned digging that hole in the previous chapter.

  "Stay on your side of the bed, puppet," Jian rasped, voice smooth and terrifyingly sane. "I have a big day tomorrow, and I don't want to hear you grinding your teeth."

  He stripped off his outer rags, revealing a gaunt unscarred frame looking fragile as porcelain but holding the density of a planet. He collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep within seconds, breathing rhythmic and deep.

  Kalia stood by the window, heart hammering. She watched the moon rise over frozen peaks, silver light reflecting in the dagger hidden in her sleeve. A blade of Stilled Blood, an heirloom of her lineage that could theoretically sever a Nascent Soul from its physical anchor.

  She waited until candles guttered out. She waited until the only sound was the low hum of metallic wind outside.

  She moved with the silent grace of a hunter. She reached the side of the bed and looked down at Jian. Vulnerable in sleep, face pale and peaceful. He didn't look like a god or a monster. He looked like a man who forgot how to dream.

  Kalia raised the dagger. With a soundless scream of rage, she drove the blade down toward Jian’s chest.

  No sound of tearing flesh. No spurt of blood.

  The dagger hit Jian’s skin and stopped. It sank into a layer of space that shouldn't have existed. Kalia pushed with all her strength, face turning purple with effort, but the blade wouldn't budge. Like trying to stab a hole in the sky.

  Jian didn't wake up. Eyes remained closed, breathing never faltering. But as Kalia stared in horror, his body changed.

  His skin turned translucent, revealing a void of swirling copper and gold. The Nothingness in his gut flared. The room filled with cold airless pressure seizing Kalia’s lungs. She tried to pull the dagger back, but it was anchored to his flesh.

  "Is the scene over yet?"

  The voice didn't come from Jian’s mouth. It came from shadows behind her. It came from air in her lungs. It came from the marrow of her bones.

  Kalia spun around, eyes wide with primal terror. The room was empty. Jian lay on the bed, translucent form glowing with ghostly light. But the voice was everywhere.

  "You should have used more poison," Jian whispered in her ear. "The Stilled Blood dagger is derivative for a fifth-stage High Immortal's daughter. It lacks the Spicy aftertaste I prefer."

  Kalia fell to her knees, clutching her head. Haunted by a man still alive. Jian was asleep, yet his presence filled the room, deconstructing her mind, rewriting her perception of reality.

  "What are you?" she gasped, voice a broken sob.

  Jian’s form flickered slightly. He let out a weary sigh, face aged in the moonlight as he looked at the woman with ageless wonder. "A witness to eternity. Now sleep, for we have much to do tomorrow."

  The young woman passed out. Jian smiled to himself. She was weak, yet strong. Stronger than someone like her should be. He would find this interesting, he thought as his form blended into the shadows.