Chapter 20 – Petals of Destruction
The moment Yan Xue drew the circle with his blade, it was more than just a symbol of challenge.
It was a declaration of absolute control.
The disciples of both the Tianyu and Life Sects felt it in their bones—a blooming tension that crackled in the air like stormlight, beautiful yet terrifying. Dozens of them surged forward, fueled by pride, outrage, and disbelief.
They came from all directions, swords drawn, talismans flying, spiritual auras flaring like wildfire.
Yan Xue didn't move.
The wind stilled.
And then he danced.
It wasn't footwork taught in any sect. His body twisted with the elegance of silk, flowing like water across marble. He stepped between sword arcs like petals drifting past blades, every motion waste-free, every movement coiling and uncoiling with hypnotic power.
The first attacker struck down with a blazing sword aimed at his heart.
With a flick of his sleeve, a silk ribbon darted out from beneath his robes, lashing through the air with unnatural sharpness. It coiled around the man's wrist like a lover's touch before snapping with a crack of Qi. The sword dropped. The disciple screamed and fell.
Another came from behind, twin daggers enshrouded in green wind.
Yan Xue turned slightly, almost lazily, and traced a lotus sigil in the air with his blade. The symbol hovered for a heartbeat before bursting into petals that spun and sliced, detonating in a ring of crimson light.
The assassin was thrown back, blood trailing from a dozen cuts too shallow to kill, but enough to humiliate.
"He's using... spiritual silk!"
"It's... it's like a dual cultivation technique but in battle form!"
"What is this... sect?!"
Still they came. Dozens more. Some leapt into the air with fire Qi blazing beneath their feet. Others launched ranged techniques that rained down like comets.
Yan Xue let them come.
From the circle of earth he had drawn, lotus flowers began to bloom—not real ones, but pure Qi manifestations, soft and glowing, hovering around him in delicate formation. As each spell or weapon approached, one lotus would absorb the attack and shatter into vapor.
Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
The air filled with the shimmer of broken petals and the moans of defeated disciples. No death—just humiliation. Every blow was precise, every retaliation designed to cripple pride, not bodies.
A group of six coordinated swordsmen moved as one, trying to trap him with a formation.
Yan Xue dropped low and spun, his entire body a flowing ribbon of red and silver. His fingers snapped in a strange mudra, and silken threads erupted from his sleeves, arcing through the air like lightning.
Each thread struck a pressure point. Each one stilled a limb.
They froze mid-strike, swords midair, eyes wide as their muscles betrayed them.
"W-what is this sorcery?!"
He walked past them.
They collapsed behind him.
"Tianyu Sect," Yan Xue said aloud, his voice ringing across the battlefield, "you once cast me aside as a failure, a weakling. You called me unworthy. Now watch your proudest disciples crumble beneath a single silk thread."
A group of female cultivators from the Life Sect joined the fray, empowered by yin arts. They hurled crescent-shaped blades of ice and beauty.
Yan Xue responded with something they didn't expect.
He smiled.
He whirled his lotus-blade in a flourish and murmured: "Winter bends to spring."
With a swipe, his blade traced a spiral, and from it emerged a blooming lotus of pure heat—not fire, but Qi forged through dual cultivation's internal balance.
The ice shattered before it even reached him.
One of the female elders gasped. "That... that technique... it shouldn't exist!"
"He merged yin and yang into a singular strike...!"
The air was thick with Qi. With disbelief. With envy.
More charged in. Zhao Wen, now fuming, signaled the inner court disciples to attack together. He didn't bother joining—not yet. He wanted Yan Xue softened.
Ten elite disciples charged at once from all directions, unleashing synchronized elemental strikes.
Yan Xue leapt upward, spinning midair, his robe splaying in a lotus bloom. From the center of his back, a faint sigil appeared—a lotus throne in soft crimson, marking his allegiance.
He raised both arms.
The air pulsed.
"Silken World: Thousand Petal Veil."
From his body exploded a vortex of silk petals, spinning at high speed, each one a blade, a shield, a carrier of will.
Screams. Disciples thrown aside. Spiritual armor shredded.
But still—no death.
Only shame.
Yan Xue landed softly, like a feather. Not a hair out of place.
He turned to Zhao Wen.
"Are you not going to fight me, prodigy of Tianyu sect? Or have I already marred your pride?"
Zhao Wen's face twisted in fury. He stepped forward, releasing his full cultivation. Golden Core energy roared around him like a divine storm. He launched into the sky, sword blazing like a sun.
"I will wipe your name from this realm!"
Yan Xue inhaled.
He whispered softly: "For my master. My husband. My god. The Heavenly Demon."
And then he rose.
They clashed midair.
Golden sun met crimson silk.
Heaven trembled.
Qi exploded with each strike, creating shockwaves that split clouds and rattled the mountains. Their blades danced in brilliant arcs, Zhao Wen's sword light like falling stars, Yan Xue's movements fluid, ethereal, a ballet of blade and silk.
Zhao Wen roared, channeling a divine dragon from his core. It wrapped around him, a phantom beast of golden wrath. He descended like judgment.
Yan Xue responded by lifting his left hand—a gesture slow, deliberate.
"Silken Lotus: Red Heaven Mirror."
A radiant lotus bloomed above him, catching the dragon's charge. The petals folded inward, wrapping around the beast, crushing it. Zhao Wen's face contorted in disbelief as his technique collapsed.
Yan Xue surged forward, eyes glowing.
"You are not even worthy of my Master's shadow."
Their blades met in one final clash—and Zhao Wen's sword shattered.
He plummeted to the earth, landing in a crater of his own pride.
Silence.
All eyes turned skyward, where Yan Xue hovered, hair flowing, robes rustling gently.
He gazed upon the sects below and declared:
"Today the Silk Lotus blooms. And from this day on, your heavens shall never forget its fragrance."
The battlefield had gone still. Zhao Wen lay unconscious in a crater, his shattered pride bleeding into the earth. Disciples groaned around him, some crawling away in terror, others stunned into silence. Yan Xue hovered in the sky like a fallen star reborn, framed in crimson silk, untouched, radiant.
And then, from amidst the ruins, a voice rose.
"Yan Xue... you've changed."
He turned.
Li Mei stood alone at the edge of the battlefield, bridal robes tattered and hair loose. Her eyes shimmered with a strange blend of disbelief, desperation, and something darker.
"You've become powerful. You've proven your worth. Perhaps... perhaps all this was meant to happen. So you could stand beside me."
She took a step forward, her voice soft, persuasive.
"The heavens are strange. Maybe it was fate. You were once mine... and now you've become someone worthy of me. Let's put this behind us. Come. We can stand together, rule together."
Yan Xue's lips parted.
Then curved.
Into a soft, amused smile.
He descended slowly, gracefully, until his feet touched the cracked earth.
"Worthy?" he repeated.
He stepped toward her, silks whispering against the wind.
"Li Mei, look at me. Look carefully."
She did.
"Am I not more radiant than you? More graceful? My skin untouched by sorrow, my aura fragrant with divine silk. I no longer stand beside anyone—they kneel."
His smile deepened.
"I am more feminine than you, more beautiful than you. And I belong to someone far above you."
His voice dropped, reverent.
"I belong to my Master. My husband. My god. The Heavenly Demon."
Something flickered in Li Mei's eyes.
Then curled into contempt.
"You mean that vile pervert who turned you into... this? A doll? A slave wrapped in perfume and silk? You were a man, Yan Xue. A man! And he made you into this plaything."
She spat on the ground.
"That creature isn't a master. He's a corrupter. A perverted dog dressed as a lover."
For a moment, the air was still.
Then something cracked.
Not in the sky. Not in the ground. In Yan Xue.
His smile vanished.
His eyes became empty.
The lotus throne behind him pulsed once, blood-red.
"You dare," he said softly, "insult him in front of me."
Li Mei flinched.
"You dare speak the name of the Heavenly Demon with filth in your mouth."
His hand moved like lightning.
The silk ribbon lashed forward, wrapping around her neck.
"You will not be forgiven."
She gasped, clawing at the silken thread.
"Y-Yan Xue—"
He stepped close, lips at her ear.
"I am no longer Yan Xue to you. I am the petal that fell and rose anew. I am the bloom that dances in blood."
With a flick, the ribbon sliced clean.
Her body crumpled.
A scream rang out from nearby. One of the previously defeated disciples tried to run.
Yan Xue raised a hand.
Lotus petals exploded from his palm, each one a blade of wrath.
The fallen—those he had once spared—burned in waves of red light.
Their bodies twisted, beautiful and terrible, as the silken Qi seared through bone and soul.
He spun once, arms wide.
"Hear me, Upper Realms! This is your warning."
His voice echoed like divine thunder.
"Those who insult my Master, who mock my transformation, who call his love a perversion..."
His blade glowed.
"...will be shown the truth in silk, blood, and ash."
The survivors fled. Elders trembled. And high above, hidden behind celestial clouds, the Heavenly Demon smiled.
The petals of retribution had begun to fall.
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