The sky was red.
Not sunset.
Not blood.
Something older.
Luo Feng stood on a cliff of broken steel and scorched marble, looking down at what had once been a thriving cultivation city. Now, it was a charred wasteland. Spires lay toppled. Sects torn asunder. The wind whispered through rubble like a child crying alone.
And at the heart of it—
A man.
Robed in black and gold, standing in silence as white flames danced around him. His back was broad. His hair wild. His aura—wrong. Not demonic. Not spiritual.
Just… shattered.
He turned.
And Luo Feng saw his own face.
Ding! Legacy Memory: Celestial Mentor No. 01 – "Althus."Status: Degraded. Memory reconstructed from system fragment.Warning: Host is viewing a corrupted legacy node. Interpretations may be incomplete or distorted.
Luo Feng narrowed his eyes.
The man—Althus—stared at him across the ashes.
"I told them," Althus said, his voice deep, worn, haunted. "I told them not to touch my disciples. I told them what would happen."
His hands flexed.
Each movement echoed with residual energy—like reality was struggling to forget what he'd done.
"They killed three. Took another. The last one betrayed me." He smiled bitterly. "So I reminded the world what a teacher's wrath feels like."
Luo Feng stepped closer, breath tight in his chest.
"You destroyed a city."
"I destroyed a mistake."
Althus raised a hand and gestured to the ruin. "This was a stronghold of the Righteous Path. Full of laws. Rules. Fear disguised as balance. They feared what I taught. They feared the ones I taught more."
"So you ended them."
"I taught monsters," Althus whispered. "But monsters with purpose. They rose because I believed in them. I thought I could rewrite fate."
He turned fully now, and his eyes locked with Luo Feng's.
"You are walking the same road. You think you can mentor without becoming a tyrant. But there comes a point… when teaching turns into weaponization."
Luo Feng's jaw clenched.
"And you think that point is inevitable?"
Althus nodded slowly. "Because the world doesn't change. It just chooses new targets."
The memory shifted—cracking at the edges.
Flashes of war.
A disciple with burning wings impaling ten sect elders.
Another carving names into bones.
One kneeling and screaming as her mind shattered from power she wasn't ready to hold.
"You can't save them all," Althus said. "And when you lose one… it rips something out of you that doesn't grow back."
Ding! Memory End.You have witnessed a Forbidden Legacy.Insight Gained: Mentor's Paradox — The stronger your disciples become, the more the world resists.Passive Skill unlocked: "Voice of Warning" — disciples gain brief resistance to mental collapse when undergoing forced evolution.System note: This legacy was locked for 9,000 years. Accessing it marks you as a "Second Flame Bearer."
The vision shattered.
Luo Feng gasped as he returned to the real world.
He sat alone beneath the ancient hawthorn tree at the peak's center, the wind brushing past like a breath of ghosts.
The taste of ash was still on his tongue.
And though his hands were steady, his heart was not.
What happens if I go too far?
He had seen the line.
Seen what came after.
And the truth was, he didn't know yet if he could stop himself from crossing it.
At the same time, deep within the Inner Sect, Elder Qing paced the stone floor of the Celestial Dawn's private council chamber.
Her voice was cold.
"He's awakened a forbidden legacy."
Around the table, five elders sat in uneasy silence. Some leaned forward, curious. Others clenched their teeth.
"He resisted the Silent Needle. He walks under suppression. He creates techniques in the middle of battle." Qing's voice dropped. "And now, he carries a fragment of the First Mentor's flame."
Elder Mo slammed his hand on the table.
"This is exactly why we should have removed him during the last test!"
"Mo," said an older man—Elder Ji, a voice rarely raised—"You failed. You gave him the chance. And he didn't retaliate. He taught. He adapted."
"And what happens when his disciples grow stronger than us?" Mo spat. "When he decides to do what Althus did?"
The room froze.
"You're comparing him to the man who wiped out the Northern Triad Sect," Elder Fei muttered.
"Am I wrong?" Mo snapped. "He's gathering outcasts. Demonic bloodlines. Forgotten legacies. His path isn't clean. It's dangerous."
Elder Qing crossed her arms. "Then you propose…?"
"We offer him a choice," Ji said at last. "Bring him in. Offer a Hall of his own. Structure. Control."
"And if he refuses?" Mo asked.
Ji's eyes sharpened.
"Then we plan for the possibility that we are no longer the center of this Sect."
That evening, as Luo Feng prepared to enter private cultivation, Bai Xueyin stood by the garden's edge, watching the stars.
"I saw your face change," she said.
"When?"
"After you meditated. You looked like someone who had seen… the future."
Luo Feng didn't answer right away.
Then: "I saw a Mentor who lost everything."
Her eyes flicked to his.
"And?"
"He gave power to people the world hated. And when they became strong… the world destroyed them."
Bai's voice was soft. "Would you still teach, knowing that?"
Luo Feng looked at her.
"I already did."
A beat of silence.
Then Bai nodded, once, and returned to her training circle—where frost began to bloom in precise, perfect lines.
Later that night, Luo Feng sat with A-Yan by the fire.
She was trying to phase an apple through a cup.
It wasn't going well.
"You're pushing, not slipping," he said.
"I am slipping!"
He raised an eyebrow. "Then why is the apple bleeding?"
A-Yan stared at the half-mushed fruit.
"…Okay. I was pushing."
He chuckled.
"You'll get it. The first time is always a mess."
"Did your first lesson go bad?"
"Oh, it was a disaster," Luo Feng said. "I taught a girl how to use a basic lock-step. She kicked me in the shin halfway through."
"What'd you do?"
He smiled.
"Taught her how to break a man's balance without kicking."
She laughed.
They sat together in peace for a while.
But far above, storm clouds gathered over the mountain.
Not natural ones.
Spiritual.
Political.
Heavy with decisions.
And soon… they would break.