Zheji Pass.
Two mountains stand here, flanking the pass. The bleak northern wind sweeps through the gorge, emitting a wailing sound like a lament. Five years ago, Xiao Wuchen was stripped of his armour, had his meridians severed and was banished like a dead dog. Behind him lay the cold indifference of his homeland, and before him lay the desolate wilderness.
Today, however, a procession of crimson ceremonial banners stretching for miles trampled the lingering snow before the pass as they advanced in majestic splendour.
Xiao Wuchen did not ride in a palanquin; he rode a snow-white Jade Lion of the Night instead. His crimson dragon robe stood out starkly against the barren wasteland, resembling a flowing, unquenchable flame of vengeance.
Behind him, three thousand armoured Black Robe guards followed in close formation. Their jet-black armour was intertwined with vermilion cloaks, and wherever they passed, birds disappeared from the skies and beasts scurried into hiding.
"Commander, the pass ahead has been sealed off," the deputy commander of the Black Robes urged his horse closer, reporting in a hushed tone. "Those three... await at the pass."
Xiao Wuchen lifted his gaze slightly and fixed it upon the massive stone slab engraved with the characters 'Broken Halberd'. On that stone, three ancient yet formidable auras loomed like towering mountains, sealing off the path ahead with an unyielding weight.
'Xiao Wuchen, you eunuch who has thrown the court into chaos! Dare you set foot within these walls?'
The voice boomed like a great bell, causing fragments of rock to cascade down the sides of the pass.
It was Toba Hong, the 'Sky-Supporting Hand'. Years ago, it was he who shattered Xiao Wuchen's spine with a single strike of the Great Vajra Wheel Seal.
To his left stood the Qingyun Daoist, robed in dust and radiating an otherworldly air. It was he who had sealed Xiao Wuchen's vital points with a secret technique, condemning him to a death he could not escape. To his right stood the veiled, venomous Yin Mountain Old Mother. She had once sprinkled bone-corroding powder into Xiao Wuchen's wounds, condemning him to endure the agony of ten thousand ants gnawing at his heart day and night.
These three Grandmasters were representatives of the 'noble orthodoxy' who had conspired to ambush Xiao Wuchen in the past.
Xiao Wuchen pulled back on his reins, feeling a dull ache in his fractured bones. It was the wound in his soul's depths that roared. His eyes glowed faintly crimson, not from sorrow, but from the pent-up excitement he had felt for five years.
"Tuoba Hong, Qingyun, Yinshan." He ground out these names, each syllable like a drop of blood from between his teeth. "This one has waited for this day, practising swordsmanship even in dreams."
"Arrogant! Five years ago, I could have crippled you. Today, I can still bury you within these very walls!" Tuoba Hong roared, unleashing the full weight of his authority as a Vajra Realm Grandmaster. He leapt down from the boulder; the golden light in his palm resembling a falling meteor.
Xiao Wuchen sneered coldly, not even dismounting.
'Do you truly deserve the title "Grandmaster" before this one?'
He drew the Sword of Birth and Death from his waist deliberately slowly.
In that instant, all vitality seemed to be sucked from Zheji Pass. The withered weeds turned to dust instantly, and even the flowing wind froze solid.
Xiao Wuchen only ever wielded his blade once.
The sword's radiance was not brilliant, but pure and despair-inducing pitch black. As the blade sliced silently through the void, it pierced Tuoba Hong's palm the moment it touched it, cleaving through his impenetrable golden light as easily as a hot knife through butter.
"Aah—!"
Tuoba Hong let out a wretched scream. His arms, which were powerful enough to cleave mountains and shatter rocks, withered and shrivelled the instant they touched the black light. They finally crumbled into a pile of decaying white bones, which were scattered upon the ground.
"What demonic art is this?!" Qingyun Daoren and Yin Mountain Old Mother paled with horror. Exchanging a glance, they held nothing back. Qingyun Daoren's whiskers transformed into a thousand threads of murderous intent, while Yin Mountain Old Mother flicked her sleeves, unleashing a barrage of green poison needles that filled the sky.
Xiao Wuchen regarded these forces that had once filled him with trembling dread; his eyes held only contempt.
'Too slow.'
His form flickered slightly. Within the fiery remains of the python-patterned robe, the sword qi of birth and death swept out in an arc.
The threads of the whisk shattered. The poison needles shattered.
Immediately afterwards came the sound of flesh and bone shattering.
Qingyun Daoren's robe was shredded and a gaping wound opened in his chest. Yin Shan Laomu's sinister visage was swept by the intent of the sword, ageing him fifty years instantly before shrinking into a withered, empty husk.
Xiao Wuchen sheathed his sword.
Three masters, renowned throughout the land, now knelt before him — one with an arm severed and the other two barely clinging to life. Their eyes brimmed with terror as they gazed upon the fiend in a crimson robe atop a white steed.
"Kill me..." Tuoba Hong moaned in despair.
'Kill me?' Xiao Wuchen rode his horse slowly towards Tuoba Hong, looking down on him. "I have said before that death is the lightest punishment in this world."
He turned his head and waved to the black-robed guards behind him.
"Disarm these three. Sever their tendons. Chain them to the stone stele at Zheji Pass with cold iron. Let every traveller who passes this way see what becomes of those who cross me.'
He dismounted and approached the massive stone slab engraved with the characters 'Zheji' step by step.
Xiao Wuchen extended his jade-like fingers and swept them through the air in front of the stone.
The original characters were erased and replaced by two blood-red characters written in a sweeping dragon-and-phoenix style that radiated boundless killing intent:
"Xiao Pass".
"From this day forth, this pass shall have a new master." He turned his gaze southward, towards the heartland of the Jiangnan aristocracy — a realm as dreamlike in its splendour as it was utterly rotten to the core.
"Let us depart for Jiangnan. This lord shall see to it that the skies there undergo a change, too.'