"You all saw it," Ren said.
His voice wasn't loud, but on the crowded training field it cut cleaner than any shout.
"Same realm as many of your Human Hall disciples," he went on, glancing toward the lower stands. "Not a special constitution—just a body tempered properly. What made the difference wasn't realm."
He tapped his temple with a knuckle.
"It was comprehension. Refinement. Intent."
The words sank into the silence like stones into deep water.
Down in the Human Hall section, a few disciples swallowed hard. The comparison to Liang Guangfeng's humiliation still stung. Earth Hall's inner court shifted, expressions tight. On Heavenly Abode's high platform, several disciples' gazes turned sharp, their pride prodded.
Ren tilted his head slightly, as if listening to the invisible currents of their thoughts.
"But laws are greedy," he added, smile flickering. "They always want more. One example isn't enough."
Thousands of eyes followed his gaze as it slid toward the Heavenly Abode stands.
"Ling Sen," Ren called, tone still light, almost casual.
The air tightened.
Ling Sen stood like a stone pillar among Heavenly Abode's elites, back straight, aura folded so tightly it almost vanished. At the sound of his name, he raised his head and met Ren's eyes.
In that instant, the crowd's murmurs sank into their chests.
"Among all of you," Ren continued, "you're the only one who's stepped into Martial Intent properly, correct? Ashura battlefield, endless slaughter, using killing to temper yourself."
A turbulent ripple spread through the disciples.
So he knew.
Ling Sen's greatest trump card—the Ashura Martial Intent he'd comprehended in the Ten Thousand Killing Array—wasn't common knowledge, but in Seven Profound Martial House it was legend. His understanding of Ashura was what put him at the peak of Heavenly Abode.
That this outsider had identified it with a single glance…
Ling Sen's fingers twitched once, then stilled.
"Guest Instructor Ren," Sun Sifan began carefully, "Ling Sen is one of our Heavenly Abode's top—"
"Which is why," Ren cut in gently, without looking away from Ling Sen, "he's the best choice."
There was no mockery in his eyes. No condescension.
"You've walked your own path of Intent," Ren said. "That's worth respect. I want my disciple to feel what it's like to clash with someone who isn't just waving brute force around."
Behind him, Na Yi's brows lifted slightly.
"…Me?" she asked quietly, already knowing.
Ren glanced back over his shoulder. The lazy line of his mouth softened.
"Of course," he said. "You handle pressure better than Na Shui."
Na Shui made a small, indignant noise that she swallowed halfway. Her cheeks warmed; she knew he wasn't wrong.
Na Yi stepped forward.
"Na Yi," she announced, voice steady, carrying across the field. "Altering Muscles realm."
The words struck like a slap.
Altering Muscles—body tempering stage. One of the lowest thresholds in Seven Profound Martial House. To pit that against Heavenly Abode's famed Ashura Ling Sen—
The stands erupted into incredulous whispers.
"Is he insane?"
"Altering Muscles against Heavenly Abode's killing god…"
On the high platform, several elders' faces darkened, but no one spoke. The image of Liang Guangfeng crumpling under a single exchange still burned too bright in their minds.
Ling Sen was silent for three breaths.
Then he moved.
He stepped off the Heavenly Abode stands and descended like a falling blade. The wind parted around him; when his boots touched the arena platform, the stone only shivered, refusing to show weakness.
His aura didn't surge. It folded inward, restrained to the point of vanishing. Only those with keen senses felt it—a faint, rusty taste on the back of the tongue, the smell of old blood on a battlefield where corpses had long since turned to dust.
He cupped his fists toward Ren first.
"Ling Sen," he said, voice low, cool. "Heavenly Abode senior apprentice. Early Bone Forging."
The reminder of the gap in realm—body tempering versus Bone Forging—hung there like another blade.
Then he turned his gaze to Na Yi.
"…Your martial sister defeated Liang Guangfeng so cleanly," he said. "If I retreat here, my martial heart will be affected."
Na Yi's lips curved into a very small, very sharp smile.
"I would prefer you not retreat," she replied. "If you hold back, the lesson will be weaker."
Ren chuckled under his breath.
Up on the elders' platform, Sun Sifan rubbed the bridge of his nose.
These three… were not making anything easy.
"Do not injure yourselves past what the Martial House can heal," he said at last, each word weighed. "Begin."
For a breath, nothing moved.
Then—
The world tilted.
Na Yi didn't see any specific technique. No seal gestures. No dazzling flare of true essence.
She didn't need to.
One moment, she stood in Seven Profound Martial House's main arena, under seven array pillars, thousands of disciples watching from the stands.
The next, she was knee-deep in corpses.
The stone floor vanished, replaced by churned, blood-soaked earth. The sky dulled to a murky, suffocating red, as if the heavens had been sealed with dried blood. The air reeked of iron and rot. Shadows lunged and fell at the edges of her vision—men charging, screaming, dying, over and over.
Somewhere in the haze, a war drum beat. Slow. Inexorable. Like the heart of something that refused to stop.
Ashura battlefield.
In the stands, Na Shui's breath hitched.
Even outside the domain, she felt it. Ling Sen's Martial Intent dragged an inner world of slaughter down over reality, draping the physical arena with a layer of pure will. True essence, consciousness, even the spirit were pulled into its rhythm, forced to step in time with that drum.
On the platform, Na Yi's heartbeat spiked once.
Then steadied.
She lifted her eyes.
Ling Sen walked toward her through the sea of corpses.
Every step was precise.
Blood splashed around his boots but never touched his robes. His sword remained sheathed at his side, but the killing intent around him rose like a tide. The world itself whispered that this was a man who had cut down countless enemies, died and revived under endless pressure until all that remained was the instinct to kill and survive.
Ashura—the battlefield where death and killing never ended. The Martial Intent of slaughter honed to purity.
Na Yi exhaled softly.
In front of her, the battlefield.
Behind her, in the distance, Ren's presence—relaxed, steady, like a warm palm between her shoulder blades.
She remembered the feel of his hand on her head in the Southern Wilderness, the calm cruelty in his voice when he had told Chi Yue to die, the way the Fire Worm Tribe's screams had been folded into light and simply… erased.
She smiled.
"…Your Intent is impressive," she said quietly.
Ling Sen's eyes narrowed. The Ashura battlefield pulsed.
Pressure slammed down.
Na Yi's true essence stalled for half a breath. Her muscles grew heavier; each inhalation felt like drawing air through boiling water. The domain didn't just weigh on her body—it pressed on her meridians, clamped down on dantian and soul. The Ashura field tried to shave away her strength from every angle, turning her into another corpse in the mud.
Ashura Force Field—omnidirectional suppression of body, meridians, true essence, and spirit.
"So this is the famous Ashura," she murmured. "Then…"
Behind her, in the void between breaths, something turned.
A red-gold rune-wheel unfurled at her back, blazing to life like a hidden sun. Fire roared up in her blood, answering.
"…let's see which battlefield burns hotter."
True essence surged from her dantian, spiraling along the altered paths of the Modified Heretical God Force. Instead of bursting out wildly, it flowed through refining spirals—boosting as it tempered, each loop burning away impurities. The Azure True Dragon Infinity Seed deep in her blood pulsed once, amplifying and stabilizing the tide, expanding her pool while shoring up her body. Fire Laws at first level—Burning Heat—rose from bones and marrow, guided by the memory of Ren's patient voice in a wilderness ravine.
The Fire Martial Intent domain unfolded.
Unlike Ling Sen's Ashura, it didn't replace the world with an illusion.
It simply suppressed the rules of fire.
Within a certain radius around Na Yi, all fire-related phenomena changed nature. Heat stopped behaving like a passive byproduct. Flames aligned with a higher-order pattern. The latent "temperature" hidden in blood, killing intent, even emotion found itself drawn into a new orbit.
Ling Sen felt it like an invisible hand grabbing his field by the throat.
The bloody haze saturating his Ashura battlefield… brightened.
The dull, congealed red sharpened to a molten hue. Threads of heat pulled free from gore and flesh, drifting toward Na Yi like sparks sucked into a forge.
Their domains collided.
Ashura's suppression tried to clamp down on Na Yi's body, true essence, and spirit.
Fire's refinement seized the "heat" of that suppression—rage, hatred, the hot edge of killing desire—and fed it into Na Yi instead.
Her blood thundered.
Her vision sharpened. The weight on her limbs lessened instead of increasing. The domain that was meant to crush her became a fuel stream.
"Impossible—" a Heavenly Abode elder breathed, forgetting to hide his shock.
Ling Sen's lips peeled back a fraction.
He didn't waste breath on disbelief.
His sword moved.
The blade flashed from its sheath in a single, clean line. Ashura killing intent condensed around it, forming a dark-red aura heavy with the stench of death. He stepped in—no fancy footwork, just ruthless economy, every motion honed in the Ten Thousand Killing Array. The sword came in low, then snapped upward toward Na Yi's throat, dragging behind it the weight of every life he had taken.
Na Yi's eyes narrowed.
She didn't respond with a complicated sword art.
She lifted her own blade.
Fire gathered.
Not wild. Not roaring.
Hot. Pure. Obedient.
The rune-wheel behind her spun once. The Fire Martial Intent domain contracted, drawing in every stray spark—the battlefield's lingering flames, the heat in blood, even the fiery edge of Ling Sen's killing intent—and crushed them into a single, razor-thin line along her sword.
She stepped.
Time seemed to slow.
To the watching disciples, the exchange was almost too fast to follow. Two figures blurred, passing each other at the center of that corpse-strewn field. Sword light and red-gold radiance intersected, forming a cross of light in the air.
Silence.
Then—
A shattering sound, like thick glass cracking under sudden heat.
Ling Sen staggered.
The Ashura battlefield… broke.
The oppressive red sky peeled away in strips, dissolving into pale smoke that bled back into the real arena. Corpses faded into drifting ash. The war drum's pulse stopped mid-beat.
They were back on the stone platform.
Ling Sen dropped to one knee.
Blood seeped from a thin line across his chest, running from left shoulder to right hip—clean, precise. The cut hadn't gone deep; Na Yi had controlled her power at the last instant. But his circulation had been severed at several critical junctions. Ashura aura scattered, failing to re-condense.
Na Yi's blade rested at her side.
Her chest rose and fell a little faster than normal, but her breathing was even, controlled. The Fire rune-wheel behind her slowly dimmed and sank back into her Spiritual Sea.
She turned her gaze down to Ling Sen.
In her eyes, there was no ridicule.
Only a quiet, steady flame.
"…Your Intent is strong," she said softly. "But your Law is shallow. You tempered killing will and battle instincts… but you haven't asked what killing actually is. What fire actually is. You stacked slaughter on slaughter, but you didn't refine it."
Ling Sen's fingers dug into the cracked stone.
His heart pounded.
In that single crossing, he'd felt something horrifying.
His Ashura domain—his years of bathing in blood, of sharpening himself on the edge between life and death—had been seized, refined, and used as fuel for his opponent's Law.
Exactly how he treated his enemies on the battlefield.
Being treated the same way…
His martial heart trembled.
But it did not crack.
Slowly, he exhaled.
"…I lost," he said.
The words scraped raw in his throat.
He forced himself to lift his head. First to Na Yi. Then further, to Ren, who watched from the edge of the platform, hands loose at his sides, expression unreadable.
"Guest Instructor Ren," Ling Sen continued. "Your disciple's path… is higher than mine."
He swallowed once.
"If possible…" His fists clenched. "…I request the chance to listen to your lectures regularly."
The stands exploded.
"Ling Sen… actually—"
"He wants to attend his classes?!"
"Ling Sen… bowing like that…"
Shock raged through Human Hall like wildfire. Earth Hall's elites looked as if the ground had shifted beneath them. Heavenly Abode disciples stared, expressions ranging from disbelief to fury to a strange, unwilling excitement.
On the elders' platform, Sun Sifan's jaw tightened. He looked at Ren.
Ren met his gaze calmly, then returned his attention to Ling Sen.
His smile this time was small, but genuinely warm.
"Good," he said. "That's the right answer."
He flicked his fingers.
A thin wisp of fire arced through the air—soft, golden-red, carrying none of the earlier demonstration's crushing heat. It sank into Ling Sen's chest like warm water.
Within Ling Sen's meridians, Fire at third level—Creation—moved with delicate precision. It did not invade or mark. It soothed torn channels, dissolved hidden residues of backlash, guided his own true essence back into smooth flow. The healing thread stitched his injuries together with the quiet efficiency of someone for whom Creation was just another aspect of fire to command.
Ling Sen's breath eased. The tightness in his chest dissolved.
He bowed his head.
"…Thank you."
Na Yi let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her grip on her sword loosened; faint tremors ran through her fingers, quickly calmed as she cycled true essence along the patterns Ren had carved into her cultivation.
Ren stepped between his disciples, resting a hand on each of their shoulders—Na Shui on his left, Na Yi on his right.
To the watching disciples, the image burned itself into their hearts: two "swamp witches" from the Southern Wilderness standing calmly under countless gazes, backs straight, while one of Heavenly Abode's greatest bowed his head.
Ren turned back to the sea of faces.
"You've seen it," he said, voice carrying without the help of true essence. "Realm alone didn't decide these outcomes. If my disciples only had Law and no foundation, they would've folded the first time Liang Guangfeng swung his sword. If they only had Martial Intent and no Law, they could've made their attacks sharper—but not overwhelming."
He tapped Na Shui's shoulder lightly.
"Body, art, Intent, Law," he said. "When all four move together, even a cute witch at Altering Muscles can crush a Heavenly Abode Bone Forging disciple with one strike."
Na Shui's ears burned scarlet. A few Heavenly Abode disciples' faces went ugly.
He patted Na Yi's shoulder.
"And when you refine Intent through Law, and Law through Intent," he continued, "you can take a battlefield someone else has walked for years… and suppress its rules in a single cut."
On the elders' platform, a few throats worked as if swallowing bitter medicine. Shock, apprehension, greed, and unwilling respect tangled on their faces.
Ren's smile curved, relaxed and patient.
"This is what I'm offering," he said. "Not some miracle pill that turns you all into 'geniuses' overnight. I'm offering roads. Ways to see the world's structure. To stop swinging blindly in the dark and start cutting along the grain of reality."
He lifted his hand.
Invisible lines of Dao brushed across the training field—too subtle to be full Laws, but enough that sensitive disciples felt their skin prickle. A few with better comprehension straightened unconsciously, as if someone had pulled a veil from their eyes for a heartbeat.
"I'll hold lectures," Ren said. "I'll explain what I can. I'll show you how to nudge your arts toward true Laws. Some of you will understand. Most of you… won't. That's fine."
His smile turned a touch sharper.
"For those who do… knocking on my door is always allowed."
He let his hand fall.
For a long breath, nobody moved.
The last traces of that compressed flame still seemed to hang in the air, phantom heat brushing meridians and skin. Thousands of gazes—awed, shaken, hungry—remained fixed on him.
"Alright," Ren said finally, tone lightening. "That's enough shock for one morning."
A ripple of nervous laughter spread through the crowd. Tension bled out of shoulders and spines.
Ren's expression slid toward something more practical.
"I'll be holding a proper lecture on martial intent and the early steps toward Laws," he said. "Not this surface-level demonstration. I want you rested and clear-headed, not half-dazed from rumors and skipped meals."
He glanced up at the sky, feeling the Martial House's arrays humming softly in the pillars.
"…Three hours," he decided. "Main training field. Human Hall, Earth Hall, Heavenly Abode—anyone who dares to come, comes. If you're injured, treat it. If your mind's noisy, quiet it. If you think you're 'above' learning at Pulse Condensation…"
His eyes brushed Heavenly Abode's front rows.
"…then stay home and keep being blind."
Several Heavenly Abode disciples flushed, fingers digging into their arms.
On the elders' platform, a few faces went stormy. But Sun Sifan merely closed his eyes briefly and exhaled through his nose.
"Pass the order," he said quietly.
Hong Xi cupped his fists. "Yes."
Ren clapped his hands once.
"That's that," he said. "Lecture in three hours. If you want to sleep instead, I won't stop you. Just don't complain later when the people beside you start walking ahead."
He turned, cloak flicking, Na Yi and Na Shui falling into step at his sides as naturally as if they'd always been there.
The storm he had raised did not calm so easily.
It rolled through Seven Profound Martial House.
The Martial House was not a sect, but for many young martial artists it might as well have been a small world.
Within the hour, that world buzzed.
In Human Hall's stone courtyards, outer disciples clustered in anxious knots.
"Did you feel it? My meridians are still numb…"
"That was Law essence? At Pulse Condensation…?"
"Na Yi… Na Shui… they really are just at Altering Muscles?"
Voices tumbled over one another. Fear, awe, greed—it all blended together. Some of the timider disciples clutched their chests, wondering if they dared sit in the same field as such monsters. Others clenched their fists until knuckles whitened, eyes burning.
In Earth Hall's inner walkways, silence was heavier.
Quieter—but not calm.
True essence circulations that had been stable for months suddenly faltered and restarted. Young talents who had believed the Martial House's manuals were the limit of the path found themselves staring at their fingers like they belonged to strangers.
"She refined Senior Brother Liang's fire art from the outside," one muttered. "If someone can touch your art's structure like that… what have we been chasing?"
Their martial hearts, built on the belief that their current manuals were "high-level," cracked in small, painful ways.
Heavenly Abode simmered like a storm under a roof.
Some disciples slammed doors behind them and dove into secluded cultivation rooms, fury boiling in their veins. Others sat cross-legged in shadowed courtyards, replaying Na Yi's single sword cut in their minds, chasing the moment where fire and killing intent had exchanged hands.
In a quiet courtyard at the edge of Heavenly Abode, Ling Sen sat alone.
His Ashura aura was withdrawn so deeply that even the servants forgot to breathe when they passed his gate. The faint, warm flame Ren had left in his chest pulsed once, soothing torn channels, smoothing his breath.
Ling Sen opened his eyes.
"Refine killing with Law…" he murmured. His fingers curled in the cloth over his heart. "Then use it to burn away flaws…"
He saw again that crossing—a battlefield he had bled to build, seized and turned into fuel by another's Dao.
His jaw clenched.
Slowly, his gaze steadied.
"If I can temper Ashura this way…" he thought, "its killing will won't scatter. It'll become a pure edge."
The thought lodged like a seed in his heart.
His martial heart, shaken, found new ground.
Three hours later, the main training field of Seven Profound Martial House had changed.
The usual formations for sparring and tests had been withdrawn. No weapon racks, no trial arrays. The entire stone arena had been turned into one vast meditation platform.
Disciples filled it from edge to edge.
Human Hall robes mixed with Earth Hall's. Heavenly Abode's elites dotted the front like darker stones scattered across snow. Even some core disciples who seldom showed their faces in ordinary events had come, expressions carefully neutral.
On the high platform, elders sat once more—but their gazes had shifted. Wariness remained, but curiosity now sat beside it like an unwelcome neighbor who refused to leave.
Sun Sifan looked over the sea of disciples, then down to the lone figure standing at its center.
Ren Ming.
Hands tucked into his sleeves, posture loose, eyes half-lidded, as if this was a quiet afternoon in his own courtyard and not the focus of tens of thousands of stares. Behind him, Na Yi and Na Shui knelt a half-step back on either side, backs straight, their auras restrained. Even like that, their foundations pressed subtly on the skin—anyone who had seen them fight that morning could never mistake that feeling again.
Ren lifted his head, taking in the crowd.
He didn't use true essence to amplify his voice.
He didn't need to.
"Comfortable?" he asked lightly.
A few Human Hall disciples started, then smiled despite themselves.
"Good," Ren said. "We're not fighting today. If you're tense, relax. If you're already plotting how to 'show off' in front of others… save it for the Ranking War. This isn't the place."
His gaze swept the inner rings.
Zhu Yan sat stiff-backed, jaw tight. Murong Zi's bright eyes sparkled with burning curiosity. Bai Jingyun's profile was calm, lips pressed into a thin line; Qin Xingxuan sat near Earth Hall's front, hands folded neatly on her knees, gaze sharp but composed.
Ren's eyes moved on, sliding to Heavenly Abode's first row.
Ling Sen met his eyes head-on. No arrogance, no shame. Only a new, heavy calm.
Ren's mouth quirked slightly.
"Three things," he said. "First: I'm not here as your master. Unless you come knock on my door yourselves, I'm just a man talking about the Dao."
A murmur ran through the disciples—half relief, half disappointment.
"Second: I won't force you to accept anything I say," Ren continued. "If my words don't fit your path, throw them away. Keeping them will only harm you."
A few of the older inner disciples relaxed at that.
"Third…"
His tone softened, gaining a quiet, weighted depth Na Yi and Na Shui had come to recognize as his dangerous teaching voice—the one that meant someone's world was about to change.
"…if you do want to listen, then give me your attention completely. For the next two hours, let go of your rank, your background, your 'talent.' Just be martial artists facing the Dao."
The field hushed.
Even the wind seemed to pause between breaths.
Ren inhaled.
Deep in his spine, something responded.
The Immortal Soul Bone.
Cold, crystalline light flickered along that strange bone—lines of Dao-essence, tracing themselves out and folding back in. It was a relic from a higher realm, forged for one purpose: to turn complexity into simplicity, to take any energy or law it touched and strip it to its structure.
Ren had used it to analyze devils' demonic power, angels' holy light, even the chaos of worlds beyond Martial World. Compared to that, the true essence circulating through Seven Profound Martial House was almost charmingly straightforward.
"All of you," Ren said quietly. "Close your eyes."
There was a heartbeat of hesitation.
Then, like a wave, lashes lowered. Tens of thousands of chests rose and fell more slowly.
"Don't force your breathing," Ren said. "Let it fall into its natural rhythm."
The Immortal Soul Bone shone.
Ren's perception widened.
He did not push anything into them. He simply… watched.
He felt Human Hall disciples' true essence trickling along crude paths, leaking at every junction. Earth Hall's circulations were more refined—but stiff, full of small blockages built up over years. Heavenly Abode's true essence surged with force, but carried hairline distortions born of arrogance, impatience, and uneven foundations.
He could have forced them into order with a thought.
He didn't.
"That 'ethereal' state your manuals mention," Ren said mildly, his voice drifting across the field like a spring breeze, "that feeling where your consciousness floats, your true essence revolves on its own, and your cultivation suddenly doubles… some of you have tasted it. Most of you chase it like a dream."
On the elders' platform, several expressions tightened.
Ethereal.
It was known among a few masters as a special martial intent—a state that allowed one's consciousness to detach, the body instinctively revolving true essence along a perfect path, greatly increasing cultivation speed.
"To most people," Ren continued, "that state is a gift from fate. You stumble into it once or twice in your life, then lose it, and spend the rest of your years chasing shadows."
He smiled, a little crooked.
"…but I don't like leaving things to fate."
The Immortal Soul Bone brightened, lines within it rearranging.
Meridian maps, breath patterns, mental states—thousands upon thousands of tiny, messy threads—rose in his awareness. He let the Bone's instinctive talent compress them, refine them, strip away the noise.
A single, simple principle remained.