Frustrated and grey from the emotional storm, Gen finally let out a heavy sigh that seemed to empty his chest. His eyes, sharp as a blade's edge, stared at the door Liang had slammed.
*Laing was his best friend.*
The thought carried a weight that made the shame curdle in his stomach. Part of him ached, regretting not just saying 'yes' in that moment. But regret was a medicine that always arrived too late, and it had a bitter, useless taste.
He rose from the chair.
His legs moved on their own. They held his weight, solid and sure, as if they had never been frozen, as if the past week of helpless fury had been a bad dream. He took a step, then another. The feeling was a distant relief, overshadowed by a more urgent need.
He walked to Lorel, who stood by the cold fireplace. The beautiful teenage girl held a placid expression, her face a calm lake. She wasn't really surprised. Her eyes seemed to say she had known all along that eventually, Gen would be able to walk again.
Gen bit down on his pride, grinding it to dust between his teeth. "I am sorry." His voice echoed, too loud in the empty, tense space, competing with the crackle of the dying fire. "I was too blind to see how my weakness was causing pain to you. To all of you. I hope you can pardon me."
Lorel fell silent. In her mind, she was startled. *Gen Jiang had actually apologized.* But instead of the warm flush of happiness, she felt… nothing. It was like the usual joy, the little burst of childish lightness she felt each time he held her hand or refused to look at her in that flustered way, was gone. It had been replaced by something cooler, quieter, more observational. For a fraction of a second, she seemed to grasp the edge of what the old woman with the harp had told her.
Seeing no reaction, Gen's frown deepened. "I said I am sorry. Will you please answer it?"
Lorel's expression remained calm, a mask of polite acceptance. "I accept your excuse. It is fine. You should better hurry up and look for Liang."
Gen nodded, a quick, mechanical jerk of his head. He rushed past her without another word, out into the gathering night.
Lorel didn't turn to watch him go. She simply moved deeper into the shadows of the hut, the coldness inside her mirroring the cold outside.
***
Gen searched for Liang the whole night. He shouted until his voice grew hoarse, his calls for "Laing!" swallowed by the whispering pines and the endless snow. He shouted apologies into the wind, admissions of being scared, of not knowing how to react, pleas for his friend to come back.
Somewhere, curled in the hollow of a lightning-blasted tree, Liang was listening. He heard his name, heard the raw strain in Gen's voice. He buried his head deeper into his knees, his hands clamped over his ears. He did not move. He did not show himself.
***
Morning found Gen leaning against a tree at the forest's edge, looking up at the Damocles. In his mind, he scolded himself. *How stupid I was. Liang was my best friend. I just pushed him away.* Liang had always been there. Through the humiliation at the monastery, through the loss of his father, through every reckless plan. *How could I do that?*
He bailed his fist, the new strength in his legs a mocking contrast to the weakness in his heart. *What would you have done, Father?* he asked the silent, looming swords in the sky.
***
At the same time, Liang was somewhere else on the mountain, also looking at the Damocles.
In his mind, he replayed a lifetime of trust. He had always trusted Gen without question. Not because Gen was the Immortal's son, but because Gen was that genuine person who had genuinely cared. The boy who had defied the whole monastery, faced down a monster, just to protect Liang from being insulted as the weakest disciple.
But last night, Liang had felt something different. A crack in the foundation.
*If I were stronger,* he thought, the idea taking root with cold certainty, *then Gen would not have had to use the Sanguine Paradise. He would not have lost his mobility. If I were stronger, things would be different. Why am I hesitating again?*
He had the tool. The knowledge from the scroll was etched in his memory, clearer than any ink. The Willful Sentence. The three Dark Wheels.
*I am ready to use it.*
***
At the exact same time, Lorel stood by the hut's small, thick window, staring at the Damocles in the sky.
She didn't know why, but she felt they were beautiful. Not their light, but their… freedom. Whether these Damocles one day fell or not, it didn't affect what they *were*. They did not depend on the Divine Generals to be strong. Their sheer presence, their immutable reality, was a reminder too hard to ignore.
She didn't want to be ignored anymore. She didn't want to be the one left behind, begging for scraps of attention, waiting for a smile or an apology to feel whole.
***
Buqu, standing in the village square, gazed at the Damocles, wiping winter frost from his nose with a thick thumb. He spoke to the old lady beside him. "It is time I take the kid to the Damocles."
The old lady nodded slowly. "Why do you value him so much, Bu? I know the melody of your heart. And I know you will have no hesitation to let this thing fall on us once the time comes."
Buqu bailed his fist, looking at the old woman. Though she was smiling at him, she wasn't stupid. Neither was Buqu. They could read each other like open books, and that was perhaps why they got along so well—no lies, no pretenses.
"He reminds me of myself," Buqu said, his voice a low rumble. "Back then."
The old lady laughed, a dry, rustling sound. "I feel pity for him. He did not ask for all of that. Yet he has to bear all that weight. It is normal for him to break at one moment."
Buqu nodded once. "That is why he needs to see it for himself."
Buqu ascended into the grey sky, his form dark against the clouds. His voice, powerful and undeniable, rolled over the village and the forest. "GEN JIANG. FOLLOW ME."
The melancholic figure of Gen appeared next to him without a word, lifting into the air with a pulse of **Shidow**. By now, he was largely used to Buqu ordering him around. And frankly, on this day, at this particular time, he didn't really care about pride or anything else. Gen felt hollow inside, as if a part of him was missing, left behind in the snowy forest with a friend he could not find.
"Let us go," Buqu said, his eyes on the distant, glowing pillar. "And look at the Damocles."
Gen blinked twice, slightly surprised. He looked at Buqu. "You want to take me up there? But how?"
Buqu's expression didn't change. "You ask too many questions. Follow me. Without a word." He turned his gaze upward, to the faint point of light in the grey afternoon sky. "To reach the Damocles, we will need to tear through space at incredible speed. Without it, someone like you will need at least a full century just to see its tip."
Gen bailed his fist. *So it is like a shortcut,* he thought. He followed Buqu into the air without another sound.
They began to ascend, slowly at first, then faster. The air grew thin and bitingly cold. Then, Buqu's form seemed to *condense*. He became a dark streak against the sky. Gen pushed his **Shidow** to its limit, manipulating the thin air to pull himself forward in Buqu's wake. They were no longer flying. They were becoming beams of light, shooting upward.
Gen activated his **Jingdao**, reinforcing his entire body to the maximum. His skin took on a faint, golden sheen as his bones, muscles, and organs braced against the mounting pressure. His lungs learned to sip at air that was barely there.
Buqu, on the other hand, needed no such thing. He moved with an ease that was terrifying, parting the atmosphere as if it were still water, the very space around him groaning under his passage.
With Buqu at the forefront, all Gen could see was a flashing, rushing darkness. The world below vanished into a blur of blue and white, then into the deep black of the void.
Although the Damocles looked like it hung in their sky, the reality was different. If a Damocles, a weapon of such annihilating power, were truly in their atmosphere, its light alone would be enough to sear the world blind. That was why they only saw a faint, shimmering point—a representation of its tip. The Damocles existed in a pocket dimension anchored above their world, its terrible mass suspended in a separate layer of reality. Only its very tip was allowed to seep through, a promise of the fall.
To let a Damocles drop, a Divine General had to force that pocket dimension to tear open completely.
Gen and Buqu pushed through the black cosmos between worlds. It was not empty space. It was a crushing, howling pressure that tried to flatten Gen into nothingness. He felt it in his teeth, in the marrow of his bones—a weight that wanted to grind him to dust. But he endured it. His will, hardened in the winter desert and tempered by regret, did not waver. His body, now stronger than ever with his **Jingdao** flowing unimpeded, held firm.
Ahead, Buqu flashed forward, his fist pulling back. He did not punch the air. He struck the fabric of the transitory space itself.
The impact was silent, but Gen felt it—a terrible, deep *thrum* that vibrated through his soul. A shockwave of distorted force rippled out from Buqu's fist, tearing at the black cosmos. Even Gen, following behind, was caught in the ripples. They slammed into him, rattling his teeth. A hot line of blood trickled from his nose, immediately freezing in the absolute cold.
He kept moving forward.
With a final, collective push, they broke through.
The screaming pressure vanished. The crushing weight fell away.
Gen and Buqu tumbled out of the chaotic darkness and into a vast, silent, starry sky.
And there, before them, Gen could see one of them.
The Damocles.
It was not a point of light. It was a *presence*. An obelisk of crystallized judgment so vast its sides seemed to curve like a planet's horizon. It hung in the silent void, made of a material that was neither metal nor stone, but solidified wrath. Light, cold and unforgiving, bled from its entire form, illuminating the pocket dimension with a stark, shadowless glow. It was beautiful in the way a glacier was beautiful—pure, monumental, and utterly merciless. The tip they saw from below was merely the very end of a sword whose hilt was anchored in the machinery of heaven itself. Gen stared, his breath gone, his mind unable to frame the scale of the thing that threatened to erase his entire world.