The miasma rolled back in, no more parted by the overwhelming presence of the Old Ones.
Jin Huang lay face-down for a long moment, cheek pressed against cold stone, tears of relief still clinging to his lashes. Then he sucked them back in with a sharp inhale, remembering both composure and dignity.
Supreme Immortals did not ugly-cry.
He pushed himself up slowly, wiped his face with his sleeve, and sat cross-legged as though he had meant to fall over in the first place.
Hei Shisan lowered himself gracefully nearby, robes pooling like ink. Xu Ye settled on the opposite side, movements measured, careful.
Neither spoke. Neither teased.
The heart of Obsidian City returned to silence.
Al about them, the miasma thickened, black and crimson currents swirling lazily in the air like underwater smoke. It pressed against Jin Huang's skin, heavy and invasive, seeking cracks, weaknesses, hesitation.
Instead, it found eager, excited pores desperate to gobble it up.
Jin Huang rolled his shoulders once, then he straightened his back.
His breathing slowed as his mind found quiet, and he allowed himself to take in as much of the miasma as possible.
This, he felt, would be his final ascent in the Energy Gathering realm.
He opened his mouth, nose, and pores even wider, inhaling.
The sound was neither subtle nor refined, but akin to the sound of a hurricane attempting to swallow noodles.
The miasma itself shuddered, a visible funnel forming in front of him as thick torrents of demonic energy were dragged into his lungs in great, unapologetic mouthfuls. It burned as it entered him- corrosive, resentful, ancient.
Nevertheless, Jin Huang swallowed. The energy quickly found its way into his meridians, where it met the fierce and powerful golden energy that was not running rampant inside of him. Once there, the demonic energy could only be quietly assimilated. It could offer no resistance.
Demonic qi was not supposed to surrender gently. It was not a thing that harmonized. It would claw, scrape- seek to defile and dominate.
This behavior was most unlike demonic energy, but Jin Huang did not know that.
Golden light once again erupted from Jin Huang's pores.
His meridians flared, reinforced by the strange, gluttonous constitution he had cultivated through reckless consumption and impossible survival. The demonic miasma continued to slam into his circulating spiritual current, being devoured straightaway.
Xu Ye's brows knit together slightly as he looked at Jin Huang.
"He's not refining it conventionally- if one can even refine demonic energy." Xu Ye murmured internally. "He's… metabolizing it."
Hei Shisan's lips curved faintly, "Of course he is. If he can eat that much of Madame Cho's food, he can eat anything in the Earthly Realm."
Another inhale. Larger this time.
The vortex widened. The miasma trembled as though resisting, yet the slumbering Old Ones did not stir. Their presence remained distant, coiled deep beneath layers of reality despite their physical selves being blatantly present.
However, they were indeed watching.
Jin Huang's aura thickened around him in dense, visible waves. Golden light intermingled with streaks of dark crimson, the two energies momentarily grinding against each other like tectonic plates.
His breathing assumed a rhythm.
Inhale. Swallow. Circulate. Devour.
Inside his dantian, spiritual energy churned violently. What had once been a swirling lake was becoming a storm-tossed sea. The density increased with each breath, the pressure building, compressing.
Energy Gathering was not about elegance. It was about filling the vessel until it could hold no more.
Cracks began to form along his meridians- not fractures of weakness, but stress lines of expansion. They glowed brighter, stretching, widening to accommodate the influx, like muscles would tear during intensive exercise.
Sweat beaded along his forehead, a thin line of blood escaping one nostril.
He ignored it, inhaling again. This time, he did not merely draw the miasma into his lungs. He pulled with intent, causing even his pores to widen temporarily.
The vortex expanded to a roaring column, miasma spiraling into him from all directions. The air howled. The heart of the city trembled faintly as centuries of accumulated demonic residue surged toward one grinning mortal.
The pressure inside him skyrocketed and, for a fleeting instant, his body threatened to rupture.
His teeth clenched as golden flames ignited behind his eyelids.
"I'm not full yet," he thought fiercely. "I still have room... for far more than this!"
He did not know how, but he forced the energy filling him to compress even further.
The churning sea within his dantian began to condense under sheer will. The once chaotic energy being forced into tighter circulation patterns, spiraling faster and faster, grinding down bodily impurities through relentless rotation.
Xu Ye felt it in that moment- saw something that made him gasp. "He's reaching the threshold."
Hei Shisan was sitting beside his successor, arms and legs folded. His eyes were closed, and he did not open them. "If he keeps this up, he'll break through."
Xu Ye sighed, "Bodily strength equivalent to a Dao Integration stage cultivator... all while at the Energy Gathering realm. Just what kind of a monster is he?"
Though he said this, Xu Ye's eyes flickered with a hint of knowing and reminiscence.
Hei Shisan scoffed, amused. "The kind that will bring a greater change to the Academy than anyone else has."
"Hm," Xu Ye breathed. "But will that change be good or bad?"
Hei Shisan smiled, but said nothing. Only time could answer Xu Ye's question; he could not.
Jin Huang's aura flared outward in a brilliant shockwave of gold threaded with quickly-dying black-red streaks. The surrounding miasma was blasted back for several meters before being sucked in again like obedient prey.
Inside him, the storm would reach critical mass before being compressed yet again. This cycle continued, seemingly without end.
The energy within his dantian compacted, growing denser, heavier, more potent. What had once required torrents of qi to sustain now pulsed with suffocating intensity in a smaller, far more concentrated volume.
These were the final stages of Energy Gathering- not yet the Inner Core realm, but close.
Jin Huang exhaled slowly and the vortex dissipated. The miasma in the city was no less abundant, but an unseen exhaustion flickered in Jin Huang's aura. He needed a break, even if he would not let it show.
Opening his shining eyes, Jin Huang brushed a hand through his yellow hair and steadied his breathing.
His aura settled into a heavy, oppressive stillness that pressed gently against Hei Shisan and Xu Ye like a declaration of his growth over that short time.
Silently, Hei Shisan inclined his head. Xu Ye allowed himself the smallest exhale of relief.
Jin Huang rolled his neck once, then once more for good measure. He smacked his lips thoughtfully. "Tastes a bit bitter," he muttered under his breath.
Neither of the others responded.
After a pause, Jin Huang grinned again.
"Alright," he said quietly, eyes drifting toward the dark forms of the Old Ones. "It seems that I'm doing something right, for once. I'm finally cultivating."
Hei Shisan chuckled, "Although, if the journal is to be trusted, then you'll have to move on to an entirely different method once you break through to the Inner Core realm."
Jin Huang groaned, "Don't even get me started."
Xu Ye said nothing, his eyes wide as he stared at Jin Huang. Glimpses came to him, unclear without his ocular divinity but enough for him to understand what he was seeing.
A more distant future than what he had seen so far, but not too far away either. He could not say exactly how long it would be until it came to pass.
He saw Jin Huang, standing in the center of arena as challenger after challenger came, intent on teaching him his place. He saw blood, broken bone, broken spirits... and...
His eyes stung, and he grimaced, wincing. His distress was noticed.
"Xu Ye?" Jin Huang turned to him, a trace of worry in his gaze.
In the endless night of his eyes, a trace of fear crept in. Staring reassuringly at Jin Huang, Xu Ye gave the best smile he could manage. "Backlash. Don't worry about me. I tried to use my ocular divinity before it was ready."
Nodding, nudging him on the shoulder and telling him to be more patient, Jin Huang and Hei Shisan returned to their conversation about the feeling of devouring demonic energy.
Xu Ye gazed at the crimson lightning above, no longer certain of anything. Not even of his own motives.