Time snapped back into motion with an almost audible crack.
"Huh?" The cultivator blinked, confusion twisting his features.
The sword still hung in his grip, but the target had vanished from its path.
Chen Mo stood tall before him now, uninjured, steady, eyes burning with cold clarity.
It was absurd. Impossible.
The cultivator's mind reeled, struggling to process the shift.
One heartbeat ago, the prodigy had been a dying dog on the floor. Now… this.
"You… How did you—?" The words stumbled out, voice cracking with disbelief.
Chen Mo gave no answer.
Words were too generous for a traitor like this.
Instead, he reached to his side and drew the blade he had refused to sell, even when hunger clawed at his insides.
The sword was battered: chips missing from the edge, faint cracks spiderwebbing along the fuller, rust staining the once-bright steel.
To every other cultivator, it was trash, fit only for the scrap heap.
To Chen Mo, it was everything.
