Li Chen did not stop running until the forest thinned and stone replaced soil beneath his feet.
By the time dawn broke, he was already high in the mountains, crouched within a narrow crevice where cold wind howled like a warning. Only then did he allow himself to rest.
The backlash came immediately.
Pain bloomed from his chest outward, sharp and suffocating. His meridians spasmed as if twisted by invisible hands. Li Chen clenched his teeth and forced himself upright, blood trickling from his nose.
Too fast, he thought. Too violent.
The breakthrough had not been clean.
He could feel it now hairline fractures within his meridian network, places where Qi leaked uselessly into flesh instead of flowing forward. Each breath drew fire into his lungs.
Li Chen closed his eyes and circulated Qi carefully, following the Iron River Breathing Art to the letter.
It was not enough.
The damage resisted repair.
Hours passed. The pain dulled but did not vanish. When he opened his eyes again, the world felt slightly muted. His senses still exceeded those of a mortal, but the sharp clarity he had tasted before was blunted.
A permanent scar.
Li Chen accepted it without emotion.
Scars meant survival.
Far below, within the Iron River Sect, elders gathered.
Three soul lamps flickered and went dark.
An outer elder frowned, fingers tightening around his teacup. "Three outer disciples lost in the peripheral mountains?"
Another elder snorted. "Bandits. Rogue cultivators. Nothing worth alarm."
A third voice spoke, colder. "One of them carried a sect token."
Silence followed.
"Send scouts," the first elder said at last. "Quietly."
Back in the mountains, Li Chen moved again.
He avoided Qi circulation whenever possible, relying on physical endurance and terrain. He ate sparingly, drank melted frost, and slept in short, light intervals. Each day, he studied the manual, committing every flaw and contradiction to memory.
On the fifth night after the battle, something changed.
As Li Chen circulated Qi under the moonlight, the familiar pain surged but alongside it came something else.
Clarity.
For a fleeting moment, Li Chen perceived the flow of Qi not as energy, but as connection. Threads stretching outward from himself, from the land, from the dead.
From Zhou Fan.
From the three disciples.
Threads of cause and effect, tangled and heavy.
So this is karma, Li Chen realized.
The moment the thought formed, the threads tightened.
Pain stabbed into his chest.
Li Chen reacted instantly.
He did not resist.
He cut.
Not with a blade, but with intent.
He forced his Qi outward in a sharp, decisive surge not to draw power, but to reject it. The sensation was violent, like tearing wet cloth. His vision darkened.
When it cleared, the pressure was gone.
The threads had thinned.
Not severed but weakened.
Li Chen inhaled slowly, heart pounding.
This was no technique written in any manual.
This was instinct.
Understanding.
The beginning of something dangerous.
He remained seated until dawn, testing the sensation carefully. Each attempt left him weaker, but the threads loosened all the same.
At sunrise, Li Chen stood.
Iron River Sect would come. Of that, he was certain.
He did not intend to face them as prey.
He turned east toward rumored ruins where sects forbade entry and cultivators vanished without explanation.
If Heaven used karma as chains
Then he would learn how to break them.