Chapter 24: No Turning Back
The fist landed.
For one suspended heartbeat, the Twin-Chorus Mirror Moth seemed to remain whole out of sheer refusal.
Then Renyu full weight went through it as the piston fire up and executes with devastating penetration attack.
The cracked clearing answered with a violent shudder. The moth body bent around the strike, one broken wing folding the wrong way as the silver strings stretched, screamed, and snapped in a burst of pale dust. The ground beneath it caved in. What remained of the false body flickered once beside it, then shattered into drifting light.
The true body hit the crater and did not rise again.
Renyu stayed there a moment longer, one knee in the broken earth, shoulders heaving, fist still buried where the moth had been. The song was still in his throat. The pressure of Gungnir still clung to his bones. The whole forest around him looked as if it had taken artillery fire.
Then the armor broke apart.
White gauntlets dissolved first, then the black-gold greaves, then the crimson-gold lines that ran over his torso and back. The converter crystal pulsed once in front of his chest and vanished into him.
The moment it was gone, the pain arrived.
It did not come gradually.
It came all at once.
The lacerations from the sound blades, ignored through battle, burned like fire dragged over skin. A deeper line along his side opened properly when his body lost the Gungnir reinforcement that had been holding him together through force alone. Something warm ran beneath torn cloth. His left shoulder throbbed. His thigh tightened. The hand that had caught the broken wing felt like it had closed around knives.
His breath caught.
Then he swayed.
"Renyu!"
Yu Tianheng moved first, but Qin Ming voice cut across the clearing faster.
"Lingling."
Ye Lingling was already there.
By the time Renyu balance truly gave, she had reached him. Her spirit bloomed in her hands, pale and clean in the wreckage, a cluster of white flowers too gentle-looking for the kind of life-and-death authority they carried. The healing light spread from them in thin, luminous strands and settled over Renyu body.
The effect was immediate.
The blood slowed first. Then the worst of the torn flesh began to close. The burning pain retreated, not gone, but pushed back enough that he could breathe without his ribs feeling flayed open.
Renyu shut his eyes for a moment and let out a breath through his teeth.
"That," he said hoarsely, "is unfairly useful. Thank you."
Ye Lingling did not even glance up. "Save your energy."
Dugu Yan folded her arms and looked away before anyone could catch the concern in her face. "If he can still talk, he won't die."
Yu Tianheng let out a breath and stepped back half a pace. "That's your way of sounding relieved?"
"No."
"It sounded like it."
"Then your hearing is poor."
Qin Ming ignored all of them.
He had been watching the corpse. Still shock that a Spirit Elder actually defeat a 50000 years old spirit beast and not by forming a team but alone.
This kid will begin the rise of the Heaven Dou Empire.
He know that even though the beast reach 50000 years old, it's defend can be said to be low. It's a creature that focus on surprised attack.
Then the moment he glance toward the Twin-Chorus Mirror Moth, his expression changed.
A ring rose slowly from the dead moth body.
Black.
Not dark purple. Not old-purple mistaken in poor light.
A dark black ring. Showing the age of the beast and strength.
The clearing, already ruined, seemed to tighten around it.
Five minute after.
Renyu opened his eyes and saw it at once.
For a moment no one spoke.
Then Qin Ming did.
"No."
The word came flat and sharp enough to cut through the whole clearing.
Renyu pushed himself straighter despite Ye Lingling healing still working through him.
Qin Ming took one step forward. "Don't even think about it."
Renyu gaze stayed on the ring. He could feel it already, the pressure of it, yes—but more than that. The fit. The answer in it. The same strange resonance that had pulled him into Gungnir charge was still there, clearer now that the beast was dead.
"It matches," he said quietly.
"It exceeds reason."
Renyu looked at him.
Qin Ming face was harder than before. Not angry. Worse. Teacher-hard. The sort of expression that had already made up its mind and did not intend to debate with a student who thought pain made him special.
"I know enough," Qin Ming said, "to understand that normal ring limits don't mean much with you."
Yu Tianheng eyes narrowed slightly. Intrigued on the meaning that their teacher said.
Dugu Yan turned her head.
Renyu said nothing.
Qin Ming went on, voice steady. "The Board sent down your file before this trip. They didn't waste words, but they sent enough. Your first ring was already outrageous. Your second made no sense. Your third..." He stopped there and let the silence finish it. "I know what your third ring is."
Dugu Yan looked from Qin Ming to Renyu. "You never said."
Renyu tone stayed even. "No one asked so no need to explain."
She stared at him. "That is not an answer."
"It's the one you're getting."
"Enough," Qin Ming said.
The black ring turned once in the air above the moth body.
It seemed darker now that the battle was over.
Renyu rose fully to his feet.
Ye Lingling caught his sleeve at once. "Don't force it."
"I'm not."
"You're bleeding again."
He glanced down.
She was right. The healing had done what it could in a short time, but the movement had opened the deeper line at his side again. Not badly.
Qin Ming saw it too. "Sit down."
Renyu did not.
The silence that followed was not defiance for its own sake. It was worse than that. He was genuinely considering the ring.
Yu Tianheng spoke next, more quietly than Qin Ming had.
"Do you know what you're looking at?"
"Yes."
"Do you?"
Renyu turned toward him. "You think I'm drunk on the kill."
"I think you're still not entirely back here."
That one landed.
Because it was true.
The fight still rang in his bones. The rhythm of the moth wing vibration, the way Gungnir had answered it, the way the clearing had narrowed until only one line of inevitability remained—it had not fully left him.
But that was not the same thing as being wrong.
Dugu Yan clicked her tongue. "Teacher's right. This thing is insane. That a 50000 years spirit ring and this is for you fourth ring. No way, that your body can handle it."
"That's not a technical term," Renyu said.
"Do you want a more precise one?"
He looked at her.
She met his gaze coldly. "Suicidal."
Ye Lingling let go of his sleeve. "Your body is stable."
Dugu Yan turned. "Stable?"
"For now," Ye Lingling said. "Although he is not heal completely, there no problem anymore as most of the wound leftover was just the surface. The deeper wound already heal."
Yu Tianheng frowned. "That helps no one."
"It helps me." She lifted her eyes to Renyu. "If you absorb it now, your condition is bad, but not collapsing. If you wait too long, the wound will reopen more. If you move too much, the same."
There was nothing emotional in the explanation.
That somehow made it harder to argue with.
Lin Su, who had said almost nothing since the fight ended, finally spoke from the edge of the clearing.
"The crown did not send me here to tell him which ring to take."
Everyone looked at him.
He stayed where he was, one hand resting lightly against a broken trunk, eyes on Renyu rather than the others.
"But if he chooses, my task begins after that."
Dugu Yan voice sharpened. "That sounds suspiciously like approval."
"It is not." Lin Su's gaze did not move. "It is acceptance and that was the order that was given to me."
Most the people here in their mind can only said, you will not act anymore.
"Same thing."
"No," Qin Ming said. "It isn't."
The teacher eyes were still on Renyu.
For the first time since the ring rose, his voice lost some of its hardness and took on something quieter.
"If this were only ambition, I'd stop you myself."
Renyu expression did not change. "I know."
"If this were only arrogance, I'd knock you unconscious and drag you out of the forest."
"That would be troublesome."
"That is not your concern."
A faint breath of something almost like humor passed between them, then vanished.
Renyu looked back at the black ring.
"It isn't greed," he said.
No one interrupted.
"It fits," he went on. "The beast wasn't just using illusions. It was creating a wrong target. A layer. A displacement between what could be struck and what mattered." He touched his chest lightly with two fingers. "My spirit answered that the moment we stepped into its territory. It said this is it."
Even Renyu do not know the reason, he should not mind whichever the spirit ring coming from. The best should be higher years in spirit ring age as his skill already fixed but he felt like some kind of resonance.
Qin Ming jaw tightened.
"You're asking me to trust feeling."
"I'm asking you," Renyu said, finally meeting his eyes again, "to trust me."
The clearing went quiet.
Yu Tianheng watched him. Dugu Yan watched Qin Ming. Ye Lingling spirit light remained steady as she continue the healing. Lin Su did not move at all.
Qin Ming exhaled once through his nose.
"When this goes wrong," he said, "I'm the one who answers for it."
Renyu gave the smallest nod. "I know."
"And you still say to trust you."
"Yes."
A longer silence this time.
Then Yu Tianheng stepped back.
Not much.
"If you fail," he said, "we pull you out."
Dugu Yan turned toward him. "Out of what? Death?"
Yu Tianheng didn't look at her. "If he dies, that part won't matter."
"That is a disgusting way to encourage someone."
"It wasn't encouragement."
Ye Lingling voice came soft and precise. "If he's doing it, he should begin now."
Qin Ming looked at her.
"Most of the deep wound already heal, only slight injuries left. It will not affect the absorption process." she said. "And arguing does not improve his chances."
That ended it.
Qin Ming closed his eyes once, briefly, then opened them and stepped aside.
"Then make sure that you succeed," he said.
This time, Renyu obeyed.
He lowered himself in the center of the ruined clearing, beside the moth body and within the ring of fallen trunks of his own fight had made. The ground was uneven beneath him. His side hurt. His shoulder throbbed. The black ring hung before him with the kind of weight that should have belonged to someone older, stronger, wiser.
Too late.
He settled his breathing.
The others formed a loose perimeter around him without needing to be told. Yu Tianheng to the front-left. Dugu Yan to the right. Ye Lingling nearest, still ready. Qin Ming standing just behind, arms folded, eyes hard. Lin Su in the shadow of a broken tree, watchful and unreadable.
They need to make sure that the place safer for Renyu to continue absorption of the spirit rings.
Renyu looked once at the dead moth.
Then at the ring.
Then he reached for it.
The moment his will touched it, the black spirit ring trembled.
For a breath, it hovered there between acceptance and refusal.
Then it descended.
Qin Ming did not move. Ye Lingling did not breathe. Yu Tianheng eyes narrowed. Dugu Yan fingers tightened against her sleeves. Lin Su shifted his weight, only slightly.
The ring settled over Renyu body.
Pain hit immediately.
His spine locked. His breath stopped halfway. His whole body gave one hard shudder as the pressure entered him, old and cold and wrong, like broken music trying to force itself into living flesh.
The black ring began to turn.
Renyu fingers dug into the soil.
Around him, no one said a word.
Because there was nothing left to say.
There was only the ring. The ruined clearing. And the long, dangerous road that had just begun.