The remaining four disciples hung back, clearly the weaker members of the group, content to let their stronger companions lead the charge while they searched for an opening.
Kahn watched the three phantom bulls converge on him from three different angles, his expression remaining entirely unbothered by the sudden, overwhelming display of Qi and technique.
’Same style, same sect, same one trick,’ he thought, his fingers drifting down to rest lightly on the hilts of his new blades. ’Let’s see if a little variety helps them any.’
He didn’t wait for the first strike to land.
Kahn moved, and the corridor blurred around him.
He crossed the distance to Yao in a fraction of a heartbeat, well before the man’s charging fist could even complete its full arc.
Yao’s eyes widened in stunned disbelief, his brain barely registering the movement before Kahn was already inside his guard, well past the reach of his technique.
Kahn’s right hand flashed out, and one of the Blood Fangs opened a clean, shallow line across Yao’s exposed forearm.
It wasn’t a deep wound. It didn’t need to be.
The moment the blade kissed his skin, Yao let out a strangled, agonized gasp, his charging momentum completely collapsing as a wave of unnatural, burning pain shot up through his entire arm.
The phantom bull wrapped around his body flickered violently, its spectral form shuddering as if it too had been wounded.
Blood welled instantly from the shallow cut, refusing to slow or clot despite Yao’s frantic attempt to channel healing Qi into the wound.
Kahn could feel the faint trickle of stolen vitality flowing back through the blade and into his own veins, a small, cold thread of stolen strength weaving its way up his arm.
He didn’t linger to admire the effect. Kahn pivoted immediately, driving his knee hard into Yao’s stomach and sending the man crashing backward into the stocky hammer-wielder charging in from the side.
The two of them collided in a tangled heap, the hammer-wielder’s phantom bull dissipating instantly as his concentration shattered under the impact.
The wiry woman with the braid was faster to react, already mid-swing with a curved sword wreathed in her own smaller phantom bull’s aura by the time Kahn turned to face her.
She slashed diagonally, aiming to open his chest from shoulder to hip, her blade humming with dense, compressed Qi.
Kahn simply stepped into the strike rather than away from it, letting the reinforced edge of the sword scrape harmlessly across his forearm instead of his torso.
The blade shrieked against his skin, throwing off a small shower of sparks, but failed to leave so much as a scratch.
The woman’s eyes went wide with horror.
Kahn’s free hand shot forward, wrapping around her throat with the same crushing, effortless grip he had used on Ter earlier.
He didn’t bother lifting her off the ground this time. He simply squeezed, feeling her frantic pulse hammer weakly beneath his fingers, before hurling her bodily into the stone wall behind her.
The impact was loud enough to rattle the wooden beams of the ceiling, her body crumpling to the floor in an unmoving, limp heap the instant she struck the stone.
The remaining four disciples who had hung back froze entirely, their swords trembling visibly in their grip as they watched three of their strongest companions get dismantled in the span of a few breaths.
Yao staggered back to his feet, blood still streaming freely from the wound on his arm, his phantom bull flickering weakly around his shaking frame.
His earlier fury had entirely evaporated, replaced by a raw, primal fear that twisted his scarred features into something almost pitiful.
"What... are you?" he rasped, echoing the exact same question every single person Kahn had faced tonight seemed desperate to ask.
Kahn rolled his shoulders, the twin Blood Fangs humming faintly in his grip, still slick with the first taste of blood they had drawn.
"I already told your friend downstairs," he said, his voice carrying easily through the tense, silent corridor. "Just a guy you see."
He took a single step forward, and every single remaining disciple flinched back in unison, their formation collapsing entirely as instinct finally overrode whatever fragile courage or duty had brought them up those stairs in the first place.
Behind him, still slumped uselessly against the doorway of the medic room, Ter watched the entire one-sided slaughter unfold with a hollow, defeated expression, the last flicker of hope draining out of his battered face.
He had genuinely believed, for one brief, foolish second, that ’real cultivators’ might actually stand a chance.
He understood now, watching Yao bleed and the woman lie motionless against the wall, that he had been wrong about everything from the very beginning.
Whatever, whoever, this white-haired monster truly was, the entire Raging Bulls sect didn’t currently possess a single soul strong enough to make him kneel.
The silence in the corridor stretched long and taut, broken only by Yao’s ragged, wheezing breaths as he clutched his bleeding forearm and the faint, dripping patter of blood hitting the stone floor.
None of the four remaining disciples moved. They stood frozen in a loose, uneven line, swords trembling in white-knuckled grips, their eyes darting rapidly between the unconscious woman crumpled against the wall and the white-haired stranger standing calmly in the center of the hallway.
Kahn watched them with mild, detached patience, the twin Blood Fangs resting loosely in his hands, still slick with the first blood they had drawn.
He wasn’t in a hurry. He had learned patience in the worst possible classroom, four years of it, taught through iron chains and the back of a whip. Waiting for four frightened boys to decide whether they wanted to die tonight cost him nothing at all.
It was one of the four who finally broke the silence, a lean, narrow-faced disciple with sharp, darting eyes named Feng.
His voice cracked slightly as he forced the words out, clearly trying to summon a courage his shaking legs didn’t actually possess.
"You think you can just walk through these halls and slaughter whoever you please?" Feng shouted, his sword hand trembling despite the volume of his voice.
"Sect leader Gorath will return in three days. Three days! When he steps through that gate and finds out what you’ve done here, he will peel the skin off your bones and use it to make new banners for the training hall!"
The threat rang out loudly through the stone corridor, clearly meant to strike fear into the heart of whatever mysterious intruder had invaded their home.
Feng’s chest puffed out slightly as he spoke, drawing false confidence from the mere mention of his master’s name, as if simply invoking it could summon protection out of thin air.
The other three disciples flanking him seemed to draw a small measure of courage from his words as well, their spines straightening ever so slightly, their grips on their weapons tightening with renewed hope.
Kahn tilted his head slightly, regarding Feng the same way a man might regard a child throwing a tantrum over a broken toy.
"Gorath..." he repeated slowly, testing the unfamiliar name on his tongue. It meant nothing to him, no weight, no history, no fear. Just a collection of sounds attached to yet another monster hiding behind a title.
He thought back, briefly, to the image of his father’s head being squashed against the wall like a watermelon by the sect leader, as well as his mother’s punctured chest.
Both their deaths had played out in front of him, and remembering it now, he felt fresh rage towards the demon they called sect leader.
"Let him come, I’ll be here waiting for him." Kahn said, clenching his fists.