Gen looked at the Damocles in the sky. From here, they were only points of cold light, not even their terrifying tips visible, but he knew what they represented. *Opposite of the Damocles.* The boy's words echoed. *Middle Desert. Follow the Damocles in the opposite direction.* That meant behind him, if his sense of direction wasn't completely wrong. Behind him, where this man in black stood.
In his state, fighting this assassin sent for his head was a waste of time. Blood seeped through his fingers where he held his chest. His Qi felt thin, strained. *The best option is to flee. Survive.* The old woman's words in the winter village came back to him, a bitter prophecy fulfilled. Out of that mountain, he was a fugitive. The whole world clued in. Every hand was turned against him. Even if he helped Hu, no one wanted to be associated with the son of the man who had drawn the gods' wrath. He could only blame himself, not them. He had accepted that burden.
The leading figure spat on the ground. He grasped at the empty air, and a scythe of shimmering void-matter coalesced in his hand. Its edge made a low, grinding screech as it dragged across the cobblestones of Hu, throwing up sparks, as he began his final approach.
Gen took one last look at his assailant—the cold eyes, the patient stride—and turned.
He became a beam of light.
He shot into the sky, a ragged, bloody comet, pushing his **Jingdao** and **Shidow** to their absolute limit. His legs burned. His chest screamed. Every movement left a fine mist of blood in his wake, a crimson trail painting his path across the pale sky. He didn't care. He ran. Getting as far away as possible was his only chance.
The assassin smirked. He dissolved into a streak of dark light, a shadow chasing the sun, and followed. His speed was identical, a mirror of Gen's desperate flight. Their figures vanished from Hu without a sound, without a farewell.
The young boy could only stare at the empty distance where they had disappeared. He had heard the assassin's words. *Gen Jiang. Son of Immortal Jiang.*
So it was true. He had met the son of Immortal Jiang without even knowing it.
The boy couldn't explain why, but he felt the stories were wrong. The figure he'd seen wasn't a criminal who colluded with Divine Generals. He wasn't a arrogant prince. He'd just looked like a wounded boy. Alone. And terribly, utterly lost.
"I hope he finds what he's looking for," the boy whispered to the empty plaza. He made a silent vow to the Wheels themselves, holding his small, dirty hands close to his chest.
***
Gen fled with his whole heart.
He pushed his body past pain, into a numb, screaming haze. His **Jingdao** reinforced tearing muscles. His **Shidow** manipulated the air ahead to slice drag, to grant a fraction more speed. Every gasp was a knife in his lung. His every move did leave blood—a dotted line across the snowy plains and grey skies for anyone to follow.
He knew he couldn't outrun him. The assassin's aura was a constant, cold pressure behind him, never falling too far back, never surging too close. It was the pace of a seasoned hunter, one who followed a wounded animal, waiting for it to exhaust itself.
A day later, the chase continued. Gen's world had narrowed to the burning in his legs, the throb in his chest, and the icy pinprick of the hunter's presence at the edge of his senses.
*Stupid,* the hunter thought, gliding effortlessly over a frozen lake far below Gen's flight path. *What kind of cultivator just runs? Face your death with some dignity.* Yet, a sliver of unease nagged at him. The boy's speed was constant, unvarying. He didn't change direction. He didn't try to hide his trail. It was as if he was asleep while running. Something was off. He couldn't let this continue forever. He needed to corner the prey, and fast.
Unknown to the assassin, Gen wasn't just running.
He was training.
The last time he'd used the **Sanguine Paradise** of Shelai, he couldn't walk for a week. He couldn't take that risk in Hu, surrounded by potential enemies. So he needed to lure his hunter deep, to a place of absolute desolation where no one would see. Only then could he act.
His mind worked through the pain, a desperate calculus. He couldn't afford full immobility. So he did the only thing he could think of. As he flew, he focused his will inward. He invoked a *localized* version of the Sanguine Paradise. Not on his whole body. Just on his arms.
A searing, purifying heat bloomed in his biceps, his forearms, his hands. It felt like dipping his limbs into molten sunlight. The fatigue from the constant **Jingdao** reinforcement, the strain from blocking attacks, the deep muscular tears—they began to burn away, consumed by the intense, focused regeneration. It was agony, but it was a clean, purposeful fire.
His legs he left alone. They had to keep moving. They screamed in protest, but they functioned. *One part healed, one part working. A split focus.* It wasn't smart. It was desperate. He didn't have time to be smart.
***
Later that evening, as the sun bled orange across a vast, empty expanse of snow, Gen let his speed drop. He descended, landing in a field of white so pristine it hurt the eyes. His blood had finally crusted and dried on his body; the wound on his chest was a ugly, closed scar thanks to a crude, fiery application of **Shidow** to cauterize it.
The assassin did not attack immediately. He landed on the skeletal branch of a lone, frozen pine fifty meters away, standing like a dark fruit on the white canvas. He observed. His eyes held the patience of a glacier. He had hunted so many that the smell of a trap was a scent he knew. He glanced at Gen, not moving closer.
"So," the assassin called, his voice carrying clearly in the frozen silence. "You have no shame in destroying your father's reputation? Colluding with the enemies of the world?"
Gen frowned. The man was cautious. Too cautious. Gen forced a smile, his lips cracking. "After what I did in Hu, you still think I collude with them?"
The assassin's own smile was thin. "A hero doesn't shout about his heroic deeds. That's proof enough for me. If you truly cared about clearing your name, you would have ignored Hu and dealt with what needed to be done."
Gen stumbled, letting one knee sink into the deep snow. The movement was partly real—his legs were trembling bundles of exhausted nerve—and partly theater. He had to show weakness, but not too much. As his knee touched the snow, he felt it—a cold, killing wind that brushed the back of his neck. The assassin hadn't moved, but the intent was there. A promise. *One slip. One moment of true vulnerability. You'll be dead before you hear the sound.*
The assassin continued, his tone almost conversational. "I admire you, Gen Jiang." He jumped down from the tree, landing lightly on the snow. His scythe of void-matter appeared in his hand again. "After all, taking the life of a Divine General, even a wounded one like Nix, is not something just anyone can do. Even at my level, I couldn't be that confident. Yet you claim you want to kill all five of them in a five-year period." He tilted his head. "Aren't you a little… greedy?"
Gen forced himself to his feet. He looked at the assassin, his gaze steady. "That's my business. I'll deal with the Divine Generals my own way. Whether you think I collude with them… I can't really care."
The assassin's smile didn't reach his eyes. He stopped his advance, holding his ground. "It's clear from your actions that you would never collude with them. But the world only hears and sees what is fit for them. They blame not only Jiang, but also you. Without you, Jiang would never have sacrificed himself. The world would not have lost such a figure." The assassin's voice lost its mocking edge, turning flat and final. "That's why I need your head. The Crowned Shadow wills it. Whether you collude or you fight, I don't care. I want your head because you robbed us of the most prime target this world could ever offer. Do you understand?"
Gen fell silent. The words, absurd and twisted, found a dark echo in the hollow place inside him. He *could* understand. It wasn't about saving the world. Who cared about a doomed world? Everyone acted from their own heart, their own fear, their own greed. In such times, trust and care felt like foreign treasures, legends from a dead age.
He thought of Lorel. Her timid smile, her growing fire.
Of Chubbs, his loud, unwavering loyalty.
Of Liang… the friend who had walked away, but whose friendship had once been real.
And then it clicked.
He hadn't just been their pillar. Back then, in the light of the Sun Palace, *he* had been the light that allowed *them* to keep smiling, despite the Damocles over all their heads. And it was the same now. The only reason he dared to be on this path, to face the Divine Generals, wasn't because he was Gen Jiang, son of the Immortal.
It was because he had people who cared about that boy, and who were worth walking into hell for.
A warmth, fragile but real, cut through the cold exhaustion. He wasn't just fighting for a father's legacy or to clear a name. He was fighting to get back to them.
He bailed his fist, feeling the renewed, sun-forged strength in his freshly healed arm.
*My friends,* he thought, the words a quiet anchor in the storm of his mind. *I am coming. I will not die here today.*
He looked at the assassin, and for the first time since landing in the snow, Gen's smile held no bitterness. It was a simple, determined baring of teeth.
"You talk too much," Gen said. "If you want my head, come and take it."