The forest clearing was unnaturally silent, the only sound the ragged, pained breathing of the man half-buried in the cliff face and the faint, rustling whisper of leaves in the wind. Li Yu and Khaos simply stood there, their gazes fixed on their defeated foe. The silence stretched, heavy and oppressive, a form of psychological torment more terrifying than any threat.
For Li Yu, the silence was a space for cold, pragmatic calculation. 'Kill him,' a part of his mind whispered. 'It is the safest, most efficient solution. A dead Soul Formation expert cannot seek revenge, cannot reveal my secrets, cannot bring the unknown troubles of a distant continent to my doorstep.' But another part of him hesitated. 'He is a living repository of priceless information. To destroy that knowledge would be… wasteful.'
He weighed his other options. Imprisonment was impractical. He had no techniques capable of holding a human expert of this level, and bringing such a dangerous, unknown factor back to the Green Mountain Sect was an unacceptable risk. Release was a gamble, a loose end left to fester in the world.
While Li Yu weighed his options with the cold logic of a strategist, Khaos's thoughts were far simpler, dripping with a cosmic level of contempt. 'A super genius?' he mused, his ancient gaze analyzing the broken man. 'This is what passes for genius in his land? His control of spiritual energy is crude, his soul is bright but impure, and his techniques are flashy but lack true, foundational depth. He is powerful only when compared to the insects on this continent. Perhaps he is from some powerful family, a big fish in a small pond, praised and flattered by his clan until he actually believed he was a dragon.'
The man in the cliff could not bear the silence any longer. The two figures before him were terrifying. The younger one, who had so utterly crushed him, was staring at him with a cold, calculating gaze that made him feel like a piece of meat being evaluated at a butcher's shop.
The other, the one he now assumed to be the boy's master, looked at him with an expression of such profound, dismissive contempt it was as if he were an interesting piece of mold and nothing more. The combination of the physical agony from his injuries and the sheer psychological pressure was becoming unbearable.
"Please…" the man rasped, his voice weak. "May… may I at least take some pills to stabilize my injuries? I will not try to escape. I swear it."
Li Yu's cold expression did not change, but he gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
Relief washed over the man. He fumbled with a storage ring on his un-shattered hand, his movements clumsy and pained. A small, jade bottle appeared, and he quickly downed several fragrant, high-grade healing pills.
The potent medicine began to work immediately, a warm current spreading through his broken body, knitting together shattered bones and soothing his ruptured meridians. The pain began to recede, but the existential shock of his defeat remained.
As the healing energies worked, his mind began to clear. He looked from Li Yu to Khaos and back again. He had left his home, his continent, seeking an opportunity, an inspiration to break through the bottleneck that had plagued him for twenty years.
For months, he had been disappointed, finding this land to be a backwater. And now… now he had been broken and humbled by a boy who was roughly around 20 years old. He had faced a power so far beyond his own comprehension that it had shattered his entire worldview.
And in that shattering, a new, desperate thought began to form. 'This is it. This has to be it. Fate, karma, the will of the heavens… it is a strange and unknowable thing. Perhaps this crushing, humiliating defeat was not a tragedy, but the very opportunity I have been searching for. This is my chance.'
His gaze fell upon Khaos. He was clearly the master, a being of unimaginable power and depth. To learn even a single technique from such an entity would be a blessing that could change his destiny. He took a deep, steadying breath, his injuries momentarily forgotten in the face of this desperate hope.
"Senior!" he called out, his voice now filled with a fervent, almost fanatical respect. "This junior was blind and arrogant. I have seen the true immensity of the heavens and the earth today. I beg you, Senior! Please, take me as your disciple! I will serve you with my life, my only wish is to follow your profound dao!"
Khaos turned his gaze upon the man, and the faint contempt in his eyes deepened into a look of outright disgust.
"You?" Khaos said, his voice flat and utterly dismissive. "You wish to be my disciple?" He let out a soft, humorless laugh. "You are too weak."
The three words struck the man with more force than Li Yu's staff. Too weak. He, a super genius, an expert who was peerless among all he had met in his realm and generation on his own continent, was dismissed as being too weak to even be considered. The rejection was so absolute, so devastating, it left him speechless.
His chance, his fated opportunity, was gone. He looked at the terrifying master, then his gaze shifted to the monstrous disciple. A new, even more desperate idea took hold. If he could not learn from the master, perhaps he could learn from the student. The boy was so young, yet so powerful. His path was clearly one of heaven-defying fortune.
He turned his pleading gaze to Li Yu. "Young Master," he said, his tone now humbled and respectful. "Your power is something I have never witnessed. It is clear your path is destined for greatness. I… I beg you to take me as a disciple. I am a Soul Formation expert. I have some knowledge of formations and of the history of my entire continent. I can be of great use to you!"
Li Yu looked at the man, a strange expression on his face. "Take you as a disciple?" he said, the idea sounding foreign and absurd to his own ears. He shook his head. "I am not old enough to be anyone's master."
The rejection, though polite and based on a strange logic, was another crushing blow. Shut down again. The man's heart sank into a pit of despair. He was trapped, injured, and his two desperate bids for a new path had been utterly rejected. He had one last option, the lowest he could possibly stoop, a complete abandonment of his pride as a genius and an expert.
"Then… then please," he said, his voice barely a whisper, "allow this one to become your follower. I do not ask for guidance or for techniques. I only ask to follow you, to serve you, to witness your path. It would be the greatest honor of my life."
Li Yu fell silent, his mind once again turning to cold calculation. A Soul Formation follower. The man was incredibly powerful by the standards of those he had met in this continent. Stronger than all his retainers currently, excluding Khaos. The idea was… tempting. The man would be a formidable asset. He also possessed knowledge that could be invaluable. But the risk… he could not risk this man simply leaving one day and revealing everything he had learned.
As if reading his thoughts, the man spoke again, his voice rushed and desperate. "I know you cannot trust me. I would not trust me either. But there is a way. We can form a master-servant soul contract."
He saw the guarded look in Li Yu's eyes and quickly elaborated. "Not the vile slave contracts that destroy a person's will. This is a high-level contract known and can be used only among Soul Formation and higher cultivators on my continent, used to form alliances between powerful human experts. It is called the Pact of Shared Paths. Both parties must be willing for it to form. Under its laws, I would be unable to ever take any action to harm you or your interests. I would be physically and spiritually incapable of revealing any of your secrets to a third party. My loyalty would be absolute. The contract does allow me one freedom: I would be allowed to refuse a direct order if it goes completely against my will or my moral compass, though I would still be bound from harming you. It is a contract that ensures loyalty and security for the master, while preserving the basic dignity and will of the servant. It is a fair contract, for both parties."
Li Yu's interest was piqued. "How is such a contract formed?"
"It is a contract of the soul," the man explained. "I will teach you the technique. Then, I must sever a small, non-essential fragment of my own soul and give it to you to keep. As long as you hold that fragment, I am bound by the pact's laws. Also, you can destroy the fragment, and my own soul would be crippled, my cultivation destroyed. It is the ultimate guarantee of my sincerity."
The offer was extreme. To willingly hand over a piece of one's own soul was the greatest act of submission a cultivator could make. It showed the man's absolute desperation and his conviction that following Li Yu was his path forward.
Li Yu considered this. The terms were… acceptable. It provided the security he needed. He gave a final, slow nod. "Teach me the technique."
The man looked immensely relieved. He closed his eyes, and a small, intricate jade slip materialized from his storage ring. He infused it with his spiritual sense, recording the complex method of the soul pact. He then sent it floating over to Li Yu.
Li Yu caught it and pressed it to his forehead. Information flooded his mind. It was a profound and complex technique, but for someone with a nascent soul as powerful as his, the principles were surprisingly easy to grasp. After a few minutes of silent contemplation, he understood it completely.
He looked at the man. "I am ready." He offered a final warning. "I have nothing to teach you. My cultivation method, my techniques… they are unique to me. I do not believe they can be taught or replicated by anyone else. You may follow me for a hundred years and gain nothing from it."
"I am okay with that," the man said, his voice firm and filled with a new resolve. "My own path has led me to a wall. My own master, though powerful, has nothing left to teach me. To be able to simply observe your journey, to seek a single clue on how to become stronger, is a fated opportunity I am willing to risk everything for."
Li Yu nodded again. "Very well. What is your name?"
The man's eyes lit up with a brilliant light. He had succeeded. "This humble one is named Jian Xuan."
"Prepare yourself, Jian Xuan," Li Yu said.
Jian Xuan's face became a mask of intense concentration. He let out a pained grunt, and Li Yu could feel a tremor in the man's spiritual energy. A tiny, bead-sized sphere of pure, white light, shimmering with the essence of his soul, slowly emerged from between his eyebrows. It was a painful, vulnerable process. With a final, shuddering breath, he severed its connection to his main soul and sent the fragment floating gently towards Li Yu.
Li Yu reached out, not with his hand, but with his will. The soul fragment was drawn into his sea of consciousness, where his own colossal, sleeping leviathan soul resided. He carefully stored it in a quiet corner, a silent promise and a deadly threat held in perfect balance.
A profound, unbreakable connection, a law written upon their very souls, was forged in the silence of the ancient forest. The conflict was over, and a strange new chapter had just begun.