Jin Seong stared at the man before him.
Scarred. Branded. Ancient not by years, but by burden.
"You walked this path before me," Seong said slowly. "Then why are you still here?"
The man smiled—no warmth, just grim understanding. "Because I stopped. I refused to take another step past page five. I feared what I was becoming."
"Cowardice?"
"Clarity." His tone sharpened like steel unsheathed. "The Heaven-Slaying Path does not offer ascension—it offers annihilation. It doesn't lift you above your enemies. It buries you with them."
Seong said nothing. The words hung in the air like smoke after fire.
"You think you're the only one betrayed by the Celestial Tiger Sect?" the man continued. "I once stood where you did. Their shining hope. Their favorite son. Until I questioned the law that protected monsters and silenced the weak."
Seong's jaw clenched.
The man pointed at his own chest. "They branded me with that same seal. Cast me out. Called me defiler, criminal, heretic. So I found the scroll. I survived page one. I endured page two. And I slaughtered a mountain's worth of hypocrites before I realized—this scroll doesn't want justice. It wants extinction."
"Then why give it to me?"
"Because I want you to decide if you're stronger than me."
Lightning cracked across the sky, sudden and sharp.
Seong didn't flinch.
The man turned his gaze to the horizon, where the lights of the sect flickered like cold embers far below.
"You'll need more than the First Slaughter Technique to survive what comes next," he said. "The sect will learn you're alive. And they'll send someone to silence you."
"Let them."
"No. Not them."
He turned back, voice grim. "Her."
Seong frowned. "Who?"
"Do Yun's sister. The youngest Core Elder. Ice-touched. Merciless."
A flicker of memory returned. A girl with silver eyes and a sword so cold it froze blood before it spilled. Seong had only seen her once during a ceremony. She never spoke. Never blinked.
"She's already climbing," the man said. "I saw the signs in the forest hours ago."
Seong's fingers tightened around the dark blade he had summoned from his pain.
"How do I stop her?"
"You don't," the man said. "You test your worth."
Seong stepped forward. The wind howled around them, drawn to the cursed lotus at his core. His eyes gleamed—not with hope, but resolve.
"I will not die on this mountain," he whispered.
The old man nodded. "Then welcome to page three."