The curse mark shattered. Bai Xue and Li Xiang burst out, charging up into the crowd. Li Xiang hurtled at Zhang Zhou with a shout.

He spread his feet and reached up. Curse marks on his arms glowed red, rotating around his forearms and wrists and tracing down the backs of his hands. Like snakes, they slithered over his body, restless, forever in motion.

With a wave of her fans, Bai Xue turned the floor under Zhang Zhou’s feet to ice. Li Xiang slammed into him and forced him back, away from the hole.

He blinked slowly, looking at Bai Xue. “You broke my curse.”

“Surprised?” she asked, sweeping her fans. Ice spires thrust from the floor under Zhang Zhou’s feet. He slid backward, evading. Lesser cultivators all around him slipped and fell. Some were thrown into the air atop ice spires.

“Handle her!” Bai Fenfeng shouted. She faced the lotus, arms up, light tracing between her and the petals. “Jingwen, go!”

Jingwen slumped against the wall, head drooping.

“Stop faking! Fight her!”

Jingwen sagged lower. Her head tipped back.

Zhang Zhou threw his hands out. Bai Xue fell back. “Li Xiang!”

Leaping forward, Li Xiang spun her sword. Sword energy swirled around her, silvery and sharp.

Ting! Ting! Ting! Invisible needles sparked against her sword energy and fell back, deflected.

Zhang Zhou’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. His hands flexed, curse marks crawling faster over his skin.

“Surprised? We figured out how you cast curses. Your trick won’t work twice,” Bai Xue taunted.

“Hui told us about the energy needles. We didn’t figure it out,” Li Xiang corrected her.

Bai Xue waved her hand. “Don’t sweat the details.”

“That isn’t my only trick,” Zhang Zhou replied emotionlessly. He held out his hand. Curse marks swirled off his flesh and twisted into the shape of a sword, pulsing with dark light. Red symbols lit up all over his body. The remaining black curse marks rearranged themselves over his body, circling his wrists, elbows, shoulders, and neck. Lines down the inside and outside of his limbs connected the circles together.

Li Xiang took a deep breath and closed her eyes. All at once, she opened them, emitting a fierce, silvery sword aura from her body. Her sword resonated with her body’s aura and let out a keening sword cry.

Bai Xue swept her fans. Ice condensed in the air around her and fluttered down as snowflakes. Ice touched her temples and twined around her head in a tiara. Ice armor formed around her chest. Sharp ice gauntlets froze around her hands.

“Remember. Look for the signal,” Bai Xue muttered.

Li Xiang nodded once, eyes bright and alert.

The three of them leaped at one another, black, silver, and white energy crashing together.

Behind them, back in the hole they’d leaped out of moments ago, water gushed in from a hole in the wall.

--

Deep below the lotus, Hui swam down into the lake. Icy water twisted his robes around his body, dragging at him as he swam. He kicked toward the bones at the bottom of the water. If there’s death, there’s bound to be death qi. If Bai Xue can’t break the barrier, then its power comes from somewhere, and like we thought earlier, it’s probably drawing on the death qi in this lake. I’ll drain all the death qi away, and then we can see if her barrier’s still too strong for Bai Xue without any supplemental qi!

Li Xiang, Bai Xue, I believe in you!

Deeper and deeper. The water grew colder. The chill soaked into his flesh and bones, then deeper. His qi shuddered, dantian flickering against the cold in the water.

Hui reached out a strand of qi into the water around him. It glowed for a moment, then faded. The water ate away at the qi, drawing the light out of it.

Death qi! This far from the bones? Hui shivered. What a fearsome source of death qi… I wonder if this is what was killing the cultivators they threw in here? The lotus hasn’t attacked me yet… or did they simply fall and drown to their death, unresisting?

He peered down. Below him, death qi shimmered off the pale white roots of the lotus. The roots dug deep into the bones, curling around the long-dead bodies. Hui shuddered. The mass of death qi exuded a cold pressure of its own, something that pressed on his mind rather than his body. He closed his eyes and pressed outward with his mental energy until the pressure subsided.

Pressure dealt with, he drew the death qi toward him, spiraling it inside of him. Slow at first, but steadily growing faster, death qi poured into him. Hui hesitantly circulated it, but when nothing bad happened, began circulating it faster and faster. His own qi wilted, stifled by the rush of death qi. His body grew cold and stiff, his eyes drooping shut.

The more I circulate death qi, the more dead I feel. It’s not surprising, when it’s basically the same way I play dead.

No, wait, that’s not the point! If I feel this dead circulating a little death qi, what’ll happen when I circulate all the death qi in this lake? Don’t tell me, will this small cultivator die for real?

Ah, too much, too much! I can’t. Sorry Li Xiang, Bai Xue. We’ll have to find another way to break the barrier!

Hui stopped drawing in death qi. It faded away. His eyes opened, and he shook his head. Alright. Time to swim—

Death qi rushed at him in a wild swirl, more than he’d been drawing before. It poured into him, soaking his flesh and pouring around his dantian. Hui’s body went limp again, heart slowing, limbs stiffening.

Wait, wait, wait! Elder death qi, don’t tell me! Just like ordinary qi, you want to rush into me when I finish playing dead? Wait, did that count as playing dead earlier? Ah, I was just circulating some qi! This small disciple isn’t ready!

Darkness obscured his vision. Hui struggled against it, circulating his qi as vigorously as he could. Hui circulated his qi desperately, fighting off the death qi. Death qi poured into his passageways and spilled into his dantian. Where death qi touched his qi, his qi blackened. Its inherent blue light dimmed, then flickered out, dying to black. Viciously, he cut off the blackening scraps of qi and tightened his grasp on his qi, using all his mental energy to keep a tiny gap between the death qi and his qi even as the death qi encroached on what little remained of his qi.

“Stop!” Hui shouted. It escaped in a bubble of air, silent words drifting toward the surface.

The sheer volume of death qi overpowered him, too much to handle. He retreated steadily with his qi, circulating in a smaller and smaller area in his dantian. The death qi swirled wildly, searching for a weakness in his mental energy.

Hungry to devour what little remained of Hui’s qi, the death qi surged further. Hui tightened his grip on his qi in return, circulating it in as small a space as he could.

Outside of his dantian, his body broke down under the onslaught. His qi passages melted. The outer walls of his dantian crumpled. Death qi poured through him, filling up every space in his body. Through what little remained of his vision, he watched his hands blacken. Cold ate at his very core, leaving not a scrap of heat.

Warmth at his chest. A stream of qi passed into him. It burned through the death qi and fed his faint qi. The additional heat fought off the cold of the death qi. Hui focused on it, drawing it out. It pierced through the death qi and met his qi, bolstering him. He circulated it, growing it with all his might.

The death qi raged again. The heat cut off, and Hui’s qi began to shrivel once again.

Wait! That’s right. I can circulate death qi, too!

Hui focused on both, drawing the death qi around what remained of his dantian as he circulated his qi inside. The rush slowed. It drew to a halt, then began to take shape. He circulated it faster, faster, and the shape became familiar. The death qi condensed, forming a shadow version of his dantian. His body tingled. A second set of passageways separated from his original passageways, and his original passageways sprang back to life, not melted as he’d thought but merely overwhelmed. Hui tentatively sent his qi out alongside the death qi. With two sets of passages and two dantians, the two could circulate alongside each other, neither devouring the other.

Hui blinked, startled. Did—did I cultivate a second set of qi organs? Like Bai Xue’s illusory yin and yang?

Or… were they there all along, just waiting to come to life?

The two systems thrummed in harmony. One, his original dantian, circulated in his flesh, but the other one, the one circulating death qi, seemed detached, somehow. Not in my flesh? But then, where?

The two dantians filled with qi. Qi poured into him from outside, while death qi forced it way in from below. Completely full, his insides quavered, on the verge of bursting. Hui tensed, then relaxed and continued to circulate his qi. He assumed a lotus pose as he drifted down, deeper into the water. The pressure on his dantians remained on the verge of bearable.

At once, the two traded a stream of qi. The qi streams touched the center of the opposite dantian and opened up a hole in it. The hole grew wider, hollowing. Not sure what to do, Hui kept circulating.

In his mind’s eye, the pages of the Defying Death, Defying Heavens manual appeared before him. The incomprehensible symbols swirled before his eyes and shaped into images.

A cultivator sat, legs crossed, circulating their qi. Unlike him, the cultivator circulated death qi and qi in their passages together, somehow maintaining the two in harmony. As he watched, the death qi and qi swirled into one. The death qi hollowed out the cultivator’s dantian, forming a void core as they took their first steps into the third stage.

Ah? I’m breaking through? I need a protector—well, who’s going to come into this lake to stop me? Only for me is this death-qi-filled lake a paradise!

Well, and demonic cultivators, but…

Hui paused. Anyways, this small cultivator isn’t a demonic cultivator!

It seems I’ve deviated slightly from the manual… hopefully this isn’t enough to keep me from stepping further. All I’ve done is add another dantian. That should only make me stronger, right?

Mmm… I’ll ask Master about it when I get back.

His dantians shuddered. Hui startled, then killed his thoughts and focused on breaking through. I feel like I’m forgetting something… Something about the death qi? The lotus...? Ah! My dantian— Focus, Hui!