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  “The more blood spilt, the greater the glory. May your arena be soaked in crimson. May your jaws glut on the flesh of foes. And may your fire for battle never be quenched — until the final moment comes that you must sever your very head.”

  — Creed of the Beheaded Phoenix Sect’s Sparring Halls

  The Sparring Hall resembled an enormous tower, featuring nine levels interconnected by a maze of platforms, ramparts, and bridges. There were no rails to speak off, and the floor had become so slippery with blood that a single misstep could see one plummeting several stories to a very painful descent.

  All of this was by design, of course. As horrific and chaotic as the architecture of the building was, there was no denying that its perilous nature helped facilitate an environment worthy of the Sect’s violent disciples to cultivate in.

  That being said, sometimes — perhaps caused by a lack of oversight by the Sparring Hall’s Elder, or by the over-eagerness of Junior Disciples — the orderly duels of the venerated arena would descend into a blood-fuelled orgy, populated by Cultivators who over-indulge in the means of violence as their primary means of attaining enlightenment.

  In such cases, when the battle frenzy takes hold of all, and when all sense of order and restraint has been lost, it becomes the responsibility of the Seniors to go in and remove those bloodthirsty battlers from the field.

  Through means of more violence.

  [Fiery Comet Step]

  The Young Master blurred forth, ascending the ramps that facilitated movement between the levels and platforms with blinding speed. As he did so, he adjusted the direction of his techniques, firing off another step to narrowly dodge the wayward blasts of pyrotechnic projectiles and soaring severed limbs from the other Disciples.

  It was no easy feat. The Fiery Comet Step was a technique that provided acceleration above all else. The boon of their speed came at a significant price in manoeuvrability once the Divine Art was set in motion. The only way to manipulate the practitioner’s momentum in such a state was to cancel and reapply the technique in a different direction.

  It was hardly efficient. The waste in qi alone was a painful pill to swallow. Yet the wise disciple knows better than to hesitate, especially when the purpose of such spiritual expenditure was to avoid a direct collision with an errant incendiary.

  Feng deftly avoided all incoming missiles and ascended to his destination: the first arena’s floor. The moment he reached the upper rampart, a nearby Disciple threw a punch at him with a frenzied scream, the battle rush causing him to fail to recognise who stood before him.

  Hei Feng calmly parried the blow, grabbed the outstretched arm — which better resembled a mangled lump of seared meat than a limb — and carefully threw the wound-crazed Disciple over his shoulder and off the platform. The Junior’s screams echoed behind him for a second before ending in a choked splat.

  “Do not worry. I made sure he landed on his back and not his head,” the Young Master calmly said as he flared his qi.

  The other Disciples on the rampart stumbled at the burst of power. A sense of calm briefly returned to their muddled senses. Upon realising who had entered their arena, they immediately ceased their fighting and bowed towards him, greetings erupting from their lips.

  “We greet the Young Master!”

  Feng nodded, his expression unreadable as he assessed the Disciples. He did not recognise their faces, but their blue-rimmed robes told him that they were Inner Disciples. All existed somewhere within the middle Steps of the Second Realm, but more importantly, all of them carried vicious, blood-curdling wounds that would be fatal to any mortal.

  Their senses had not left them entirely yet, else they would not have greeted him at all. The mental state of the combatants would be worse as he ascended. Nonetheless, their battles had already gone on for far enough. Any longer and they might start suffering irreparable degradation to their mental well-being.

  “It appears I lack an opponent,” Feng declared as he entered a stance. “Who will be the first to come forth and honour me with a fight?”

  The moment he shifted into his guard, the atmosphere reverted. Bloodlust returned to the Disciples’ eyes as their unstable qi flared once more. One by one, they charged at him, inhuman shrieks bursting from their lips.

  Feng calmly evaluated them. Each existing in varying degrees of injury and madness. Some bore horrific burns, others were missing limbs. One particularly worrying Disciple had a portion of his torso missing, his intestine being held in place with a blood-soaked hand. Some charged at him with staffs or glaives, others with flame-wreathed fists and mouthfuls of fire. He adjusted his stance accordingly.

  A sharp thrust. A pulverising punch. Bones shattered. Weapons broke. And all went screaming over the platform’s edge in a matter of seconds, until only Feng remained.

  The Young Master continued ascending, clearing each platform of fighters one after another while being careful not to inflict more damage than what the Disciples had already incurred. Sometimes they charged at him in groups, too lost in the throes of pain and murder to comprehend who their opponent was. All the same, Feng made sure to minimise the damage done to them before he threw them off.

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  [Fiery Comet Step]

  Weaving between opponents, parrying flaming strikes and blows, all while making sure to keep his qi balanced and moderate the use of his Spiritual energy reserves… It was a welcome challenge, one that he had not indulged in for some time.

  This was not a practice that he regularly partook in. Putting aside the fact that it was rather demeaning for a Young Master to take the role of caretaker, Feng had been busy with the wedding preparations and hadn’t had the chance to visit the training halls in quite some time. In addition, the duty of getting the Inner Disciples to calm down from their blood frenzy normally belonged to the Core Disciples, a role that many resented.

  Feng did not mind it, however. The task — trivial as it may be — made him feel useful, and it was nice to be able to take care of his juniors every once in a while. Pain and suffering may be necessary for advancement, but an excessive indulgence of it would just lead to madness. He would have words with Elder Jun for allowing things to escalate to this level. The reserved Core Disciples should have been sent in long ago to break the combatants out of their bloodlust-induced fugue state.

  Another explosion rang out from above. More bodies fell, and Feng was reminded that there was at least one Core Disciple who was doing his job properly.

  [Fiery Comet Step]

  The clamour from above was louder now, and not just because he was ascending the ramparts. Feng risked a glance towards the higher floors and saw that the hectic battles were being cleared off from the top down.

  It appeared Brother Dai was as eager to meet him as he was.

  Feng kept ascending, the sheer numbers of frenzied Inner Disciples failing to slow him down to any appreciable degree. Likewise, the violent fighting in the uppermost levels slowly but noticeably decreased in intensity as the higher floors were empty of combatants. The Core Disciples that held onto those ramparts were swept off the edge in roaring blows that surpassed any that Feng had encountered yet in his ascension.

  Up and up he went. His opposition increased in skill and ferocity. The average cultivation level of the Disciples fighting him rose, from the middle Steps of the Shaping Realm to the penultimate pinnacle, until his foe became those of the Tempering Realm, the same as his.

  The Core Disciples were harder to subdue; some were even at a higher Step than his. All the same, the Young Master swept them each off the ramparts, never letting a single blow land upon him.

  It did not matter that his opponents were the most talented disciples within his Sect, nor that some of them were even at a higher Step of advancement than him. Cultivation standing alone was not the sole determining factor in capability.

  He was their Young Master, the Heir of the Hei Clan and the son of the Sect’s Patriarch. From the very day he drew breath, his every step has been paved and guided by the efforts of the entire Sect to become an exemplary cultivator.

  He drew the lion’s share of the Sect’s resources. His training was personally tutored by the Elders. Even the mere fact that he was born atop the mountains near the Sect’s Divine Corpse ensured that his body would develop first-rate meridians, unattainable by those from outside the monastery.

  His superiority above other mundane cultivators, even the Core Disciples, was beyond question. His strikes were surer, the execution of his techniques more precise, even the very pressure exuded by his presence dwarfed theirs. One by one, he defeated them and suffered not a single scratch on his person. To an outside observer, it would almost appear that the Young Master held no equal among all the Sect’s disciples.

  Until he finally reached the middle floor of the tower, where a man awaited him.

  The floor had already been cleared of resistance, leaving only the Young Master and the Disciple standing before him. The training hall, which had been outrageously raucous and crowded a mere half hour ago, was now almost completely silent. Standing on the fifth floor with no one around them, the smell of fresh blood and ash still thick in the air, Feng could almost believe it was just the two of them left in the tower.

  The cultivator before him made for a striking figure. A man of pale skin and emerald eyes that matched the blackness of his hair. Tall, broad-chested, and with refined facial features that somehow managed to look rugged yet heroic at the same time, his image made the women of the Four Mountain Sects Group swoon at his very presence alone. The lesser ladies would admire his looks, while those with more ambition would be focused on his standing instead.

  The disciple’s gold-rimmed robes marked him as a Core Disciple of the Beheaded Phoenix Sect. His gallant and regal features further exalted his status, for surely no human could look that perfect without being a Cultivator of significant standing. But if there were any doubts about his capabilities, they were gone the moment they sensed his qi.

  Tempering Realm, Ninth Step.

  Just a single step away from the venerable Nascent Realm. His standing marked him as one of the strongest Disciples in the Province. The pressure he exuded was immense. It alone should suffice in conveying the power he possessed.

  Should one be burdened with ill-senses, however, then the enormous glaive the disciple wielded should leave no further room for doubt. The weapon’s length was twice the man’s prodigious height, and its massive steel edge was already drenched in blood.

  The Disciple’s deep green eyes met Feng’s pale blue ones, his gaze promising violence. Feng smiled grimly.

  The man before him was none other than Brother Dai, the strongest Disciple within the Beheaded Phoenix Sect. And he looked ready to kill.

  Yang Bloodlust

  Yang qi is the masculine and active component within Yin-Yang Spiritual duality. A surfeit of Yang qi within a cultivator leads to certain benefits, such as greater control over martial techniques, or a quicker response for critical thinking in combat. However, just like its Yin counterpart, an overabundance of the fiery element will lead to dire consequences.

  Yang Bloodlust is an affliction that occurs when a cultivator (typically male) is exposed to too much Yang Qi without a suitable Yin counterpart to balance it. The result is a heightened sense of the most basic and brutal of human emotions: rage. The desire for murder and the joy of feeling one's blood on their hands becomes rapturous, until the need for bloodlust becomes all-encompassing, even surpassing the body’s instinctive aversion to pain and suffering.

  Unlike Yin Hunger, which affects mostly the mind, the effect of Yang Bloodlust appears to be more physiological. The cultivator’s Dantian releases an excessive amount of energy into the body’s meridians, prompting cultivators to seek opportunities to vent qi through techniques.

  However, the act of doing so not only prompts the Dantian to release more qi into their body, but the execution of techniques now also triggers a fresh wave of euphoria within the cultivator. The scent and warmth of spilt blood become sweeter and more potent, even addictive. This naturally slowly escalates until the bloodlust completely overshadows every other bodily need within the cultivator, turning him into a mindless monster that only knows battle.

  – Excerpt from To Those Worthy of the Eternal Banquet