“No, it doesn’t make sense,” I said flatly. “If I kill your mother, would you die?”

  Yao Yazhu blinked. Confusion flickered across his face, then offense, and finally a cold seriousness. “Of course your feeble mind wouldn’t understand such a concept. Unfortunately for you, my mother is already dead—”

  I cut him off. “No wonder you grew up wrong. I mean, we’re talking about killing a child here. Your mother must be rolling in her grave right now.”

  Yao Yazhu had nothing to say.

  “…”

  I didn’t let the silence breathe. “Think about it. You said when the Meteor Child comes, the Star of Calamity follows. But the Meteor Child is already here. What makes you so sure the Star of Calamity isn’t already here too?”

  I spread my hands. “Prophecies are funny like that. Maybe the Star of Calamity is born through the child. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe I’m the Star of Calamity. Or Meng Rong. Or maybe killing the child is what actually awakens it.”

  I leaned forward, grinning, letting my intimidation trait seep into my posture. “You ever consider that? These prophecy things are unreliable as hell. That’s why people get dragged into cults and butcher innocents, because people like you take hearsay and carve it into absolute truth.”

  I felt it then. Something was off.

  Yao Yazhu scoffed. “Preposterous! Hearsay? Me?”

  He grinned and the massive fox looming above him vanished like smoke.

  “So,” he jeered, “it was an illusion all along? Hah~!”

  I glanced at Meng Rong.

  She was sweating, looking pale and seemed on the verge of death. I’d been provoking Yao Yazhu on purpose, waiting for her to strike, to reveal some hidden hand. But she’d been silent the entire time.

  “It was a good illusion,” Yao Yazhu continued casually. “Fear, shaped into something familiar. Those are the easiest illusions to believe.”

  He shook his head. “But also the easiest to break, once you notice even the smallest flaw. And you fumbled badly, Lady Meng.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t see through my illusion when I first appeared, did you?”

  My grip tightened.

  “I wonder why,” he went on, amused. “Such a shame. It would’ve gone perfectly if Yakuza here hadn’t ruined it. I even copied that old man’s speech patterns and posture flawlessly, you know?”

  I cut in, my voice sharp. “Where’s Tao Fang?”

  “He’s safe,” Yao Yazhu replied lightly. “For now.”

  Then he tilted his head. “How about a deal? I’ll return Tao Fang… if you give me the Meteor Child.”

  That wasn’t aimed at me.

  It was aimed at Tao Yu.

  Meng Rong’s composure shattered. “Don’t listen to him!” she shouted. “Take the child and go! We’ll handle this… I promise you’ll see your grandfather again. Now!”

  A path opened behind them, formations peeling away like curtains.

  Tao Yu hesitated, conflict written all over her face. Then righteousness won. She grabbed Xue Hai’s hand and ran, dragging the little girl through the opening.

  Yao Yazhu stepped forward.

  I moved instantly, raising my bat and planting it between us.

  “Not a step more,” I warned.

  Yao Yazhu tilted his head and smiled. “So,” he said lightly, “how much?”

  “Excuse me?” I replied, my grip tightening on the bat.

  “You do not really belong to any organization, right?” he continued. “So how much would it take?”

  “That’s just rude,” I said, even as my eyes tracked his shoulders and feet, memorizing the angles in case he moved without warning.

  “It’s me. Listen carefully.”

  Meng Rong’s voice slipped directly into my head, even though her lips never moved. I stiffened for a fraction of a second, then forced myself to relax. Sound transmission. We had barely brushed against it during her lessons, but I recognized it immediately.

  “I’m injured,” her voice continued. “It has something to do with my encounter with the evil spirit within you. I am not confident I can subdue him easily. Do not reply. Just listen. You do not know how to use sound transmission yet. I need you to buy time so I can properly cast a spell.”

  I gave a vague nod, just enough to look like irritation rather than acknowledgment, and shifted tactics.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “You can still turn this around, Yao,” I said aloud. “Just walk away.”

  “No,” he answered without hesitation.

  “You are going to die if you don’t,” I pressed on. “There are two of us, and Meng Rong is a realm higher than you. Xue Hai has already fled. Do you really think you can chase after them while facing us at the same time? Don’t forget, I’ve beaten your peer already. You are no match for us.”

  I put as much conviction into it as I could manage, leaning into intimidation and confidence alike.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t even blink.

  “But Lady Meng is injured, isn’t she?” Yao Yazhu said calmly.

  My expression barely held, but I felt Meng Rong falter beside me. Her breath hitched, just slightly.

  She stared at him. “You… who are you? My illusion is not something an average cultivator could see through. You listened, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Yao Yazhu replied pleasantly. “Listening to sound transmission is light work for me. Just let me do my job. I promise I won’t touch the Lord of Xincheng.”

  Meng Rong clenched her teeth. “Yakuza, step aside.”

  I snapped my head toward her. “What are you saying? After everything we’ve done, you want to let him kill the Meteor Child?”

  “Our arrangement still holds,” she said, her voice strained. “In fact, it might be better if he deals with the Meteor Child right now.”

  “I refuse,” I said immediately.

  Pain exploded through my body.

  A metallic taste flooded my mouth as blood spilled over my lips. My fingers went numb, and the bat slipped from my hand, clattering uselessly against the floor. My legs gave out, and I barely caught myself before collapsing.

  Meng Rong coughed violently beside me, blood staining her sleeve as she spat and cursed under her breath. “You really had to go that far?”

  Yao Yazhu walked past us as if we were already dead. “Soul Severing Poison,” he said idly. “I will return with the antidote once I am finished.”

  My knees hit the floor, then my chest, and finally my face. The world tilted and blurred as Meng Rong collapsed moments later.

  “H-Hey… I can’t accept this outcome,” I croaked, even as my vision blurred and my body felt impossibly distant.

  Meng Rong’s voice came out tight but controlled. “Don’t worry. The deal is still in effect. The agreement was you protecting my brother, and the little girl—”

  “No!” I snapped, panic cutting through the haze. “Don’t pull that bullshit on me! You wanted that girl saved too, didn’t you? Because that’s what your precious little brother wants! If you fold now, think about how he’ll look at you from now on! Come on! Don’t give up just because of some poison!”

  “Yakuza Man,” she said sharply, finally losing her composure, “this is not just some poison! It’s Soul Severing Poison! It’s in the name! In the next ten minutes, we will die—our souls severed from our bodies! In the next five minutes, we will be forced to watch our bodies suffer irreversible brain damage while trapped in astral form, until our souls dissipate into the ether! It’s the most gruesome death the Milky Way Shadow Corps can bestow on a cultivator! If he doesn’t return within fifteen minutes with the antidote, we are dead!”

  Ah, shit.

  My thoughts scattered. There was no clever trick, no last-second improvisation, no bat swing that could fix this. Since coming to this world, I truly didn’t know what to do.

  Time slipped by without mercy.

  And then, abruptly, the pain stopped.

  I realized I was floating.

  I hovered above my own body, limp and lifeless on the floor. The sight hit me harder than any blow I’d ever taken. Strangely, though, I could still perceive Meng Rong… not her body, but her soul, pale and fraying, tethered faintly to mine. The Binding Vow. That was the only reason we could still sense each other.

  “Is this really it?” I asked her, my voice hollow in the astral space.

  She looked… exposed. Without her cultivation masking it, her soul appeared cracked and weary. “If it is meant to be, then it will happen,” she said quietly. “That is destiny. We are powerless to stop it. Now we must abide by it.”

  “Fuck destiny.”

  The words didn’t come from me.

  They came from below.

  I stared in disbelief as my corpse twitched, and then sat up. Bones cracked. My neck rolled lazily from side to side. My body yawned, picked up the bat, and gave it a few casual swings as if testing the weight.

  It was my body.

  But it wasn’t me.

  The sensation was deeply wrong, like watching someone wear my skin.

  Meng Rong recoiled, terror ripping through her soul. “No… n-no… the evil spirit is out…”

  I swallowed hard and called out, “Yakuza Man?”

  The thing in my body glanced up straight at me and smirked.

  “Rude,” he said. “Evil spirit? I’d kill you for that insult if not for the Binding Vow. Annoying bitch.”

  Meng Rong trembled, unable to even retort.

  Yakuza Man then turned fully toward me, planting the bat on his shoulder like it belonged there. “I’ll save the Meteor Child brat,” he said casually, as if offering to run an errand. “Just for you.”

  My heart sank. “In exchange…?”

  “Thirty minutes,” he said, holding up three fingers, then zero. “That’s all I want. Thirty minutes using your body, any time I want.”

  “There’s no way—” Meng Rong cried out. “No! Don’t make that deal!”

  Yakuza Man laughed softly. “Listen, boy. This body has less than five minutes before it deteriorates to the point where your soul can never return. It’ll die properly, and I’ll vanish along with it. We can’t have that.”

  He glanced at Meng Rong. “And as you can see, this woman dies too once that time runs out.”

  The weight of it crushed me.

  Five minutes.

  No loopholes. No clever plays. No destiny to spit on.

  Only a choice.

  I didn’t have time to think. I didn’t want to. I just acted.

  “…You have a deal,” I said.

  Yakuza Man’s grin widened. “Excellent!”

  I asserted, leaving nothing to chance. “In exchange for thirty minutes of usage of my body, you will save the Meteor Child, Tao Yu, and Tao Fang, without harming anyone else.”

  Yakuza Man clicked his tongue. “That’s a bit too much. Forty-five minutes.”

  “No,” I shot back immediately. “You don’t get to negotiate with me. Thirty minutes is already generous. If you just want to vanish, then fine by me. What do you say?”

  He sneered. “Arrogant piece of shit.”

  My confidence wavered for a split second. I could feel it, that knife-edge moment where everything could collapse if he refused. Meng Rong’s voice cut in, strained and urgent. “This is a huge mistake.”

  I clenched my fists, even without a body to feel them. “I trust Yakuza Man.”

  He laughed softly. “Fine. You got a deal.” Then his tone shifted, something sharp slipping beneath it. “But… there’s one problem.”

  My heart sank. “What is it?”

  “I don’t like her.”

  “What?” The word barely left me before it happened.

  Without hesitation, Yakuza Man drove my hand straight into Meng Rong’s abdomen. Energy erupted outward, violent and chaotic, like a vessel shattering. I felt it even from the astral state, a sudden emptiness spreading where her presence had been. Her cultivation unraveled in an instant, leaking away like mist under sunlight.

  “Meng Rong—!” I screamed.

  Her eyes widened, more in disbelief than pain. Then her body went slack. Her soul flickered once… and vanished.

  “What did you do?!” My voice cracked, nervous.

  Yakuza Man withdrew his hand and smiled, wiping the blood away with casual disdain. “Consequences.”

  Just like that, he turned his back on her seemingly lifeless body. He started walking in the direction Yao Yazhu, Xue Hai, and Tao Yu had fled, his steps unhurried, almost bored. “You’ll thank me later,” he said over his shoulder. “These people? Inferiors. Not worth your time. You might as well think of this whole thing as a dream, boy.”

  He paused briefly, rolling his shoulders as if savoring control of the body. “After all, in life, the only real thing is yourself.”