He forced himself to meet Kahn’s eyes, some small, desperate part of him seeming to understand that lying now, or softening the truth even slightly, would end far worse for him than simply finishing the confession.
"So the master decided not to wait," Ter said. "Why breed a bloodline into the family gradually over generations, when you could just... rip it out of her directly and hand it to his son now. Guarantee the result instead of gambling on it."
The words hit Kahn like a physical blow, each one landing heavier than the last. He had assumed the worst already, imagined countless horrific fates for his sister during his four long months trapped in that cell.
He had pictured her forced into a loveless marriage, treated as breeding stock for a monstrous bloodline, and that alone had been enough to fuel his rage.
But this was worse. They hadn’t even seen her as a person capable of producing an heir naturally. She was simply a resource to be harvested, drained, and discarded once her bloodline had been successfully transplanted into someone more convenient.
He gnashed his teeth, and the ambient Qi in the corridor visibly rippled outward from the sheer, unrestrained fury bleeding off his aura.
The wooden beams overhead groaned faintly under the sudden pressure, and Ter dropped instinctively to his knees, pressing his forehead nearly to the floor in a desperate, primal display of submission.
"Please," Ter whimpered, his entire body shaking. "I didn’t have a say in any of it. I swear it. I was just following orders."
Kahn didn’t respond immediately. He stood in the center of the corridor, his fists clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles had gone bloodless, his mind consumed by a violent storm of rage.
Every instinct screaming through his body demanded he chase them down immediately.
Track Gorath, his precious son, and every single elder who had walked out of this compound with the intention of butchering his sister for parts, and tear every last one of them apart with his bare hands before the sun rose again.
However, he had to be patient...
He clenched his fists, exhaling deeply. As he did, he could feel the wild edges of his fury sharpen instead into something colder, more patient, more dangerous.
’Three days..’ he thought.
He didn’t know where the ruins two provinces east actually were. He didn’t know the terrain, the defenses, or what kind of forces might be traveling alongside Gorath’s party for protection.
Chasing blindly after them now, still only at the Qi Condensation realm, would be reckless at best and suicidal at worst.
Gorath was mid Foundation Establishment. An entire major realm above him. According to everything Kahn had ever read about the laws of cultivation, fighting an opponent one realm higher was already considered a monumental struggle.
He currently stood two full ranks beneath the man who intended to carve his sister open like livestock.
’Let them go,’ Kahn decided, his eyes hardening into flat, resolute steel. ’Let them finish their little errand. Let them walk right back through the front gate, confident, relaxed, thinking they’re returning home safely.’
A slow, humorless smile tugged faintly at the corner of his mouth.
’And when they do... I’ll be waiting. Strong enough that it won’t even be a fight.’
He looked down at Ter, who remained frozen on his knees, watching the shifting emotions cross Kahn’s face with wide, terrified eyes.
"Get up," Kahn said, his voice calm again, though the underlying chill hadn’t faded in the slightest. "You’re going to keep breathing a little while longer. I have work to do, and you’re the only one left who knows this compound well enough to be useful."
Ter scrambled back to his feet immediately, nodding rapidly, too afraid to ask what exactly that work might entail.
Kahn turned away from him, his gaze drifting toward the closed door where his sister slept peacefully for the first time in months. Three days. It wasn’t much time to close the gap between a Qi Condensation cultivator and a mid Foundation Establishment expert, not through conventional means.
But Kahn wasn’t a conventional cultivator.
He thought back to the golden interface that had transformed him from a broken slave into whatever he was now in the span of a single night, the same interface currently sitting dormant and waiting behind his eyes.
’I don’t need years,’ he thought, a fresh, determined fire kindling in his chest to replace the cold fury. ’I just need to keep signing in, hehe. Three days is more than enough for me, Gorath won’t even stand a chance.’
A weak, yet familiar sound suddenly drifted from the door behind them, breaking Kahn out of his thoughts.
It was barely more than a whisper, a small, rustling stir of fabric against fabric, but Kahn’s entire body went rigid the instant he heard it.
His head snapped toward the door before his mind had even fully processed what the sound meant.
He crossed the distance in a single, blurring step, shoving the door open so fast it nearly tore off its hinges.
Sera’s eyes were open.
Kahn’s heart slammed violently against his ribs as he rushed to her bedside, dropping to his knees beside the small wooden bed with a speed that sent a faint tremor through the floorboards.
He reached out, hovering his hands just above her frail shoulders, terrified of touching her too roughly, terrified this was some cruel trick of exhaustion and desperate hope.
Her dark eyes were unfocused, glassy with confusion, drifting slowly around the unfamiliar room before finally settling on his face.
She blinked once, twice, her brow furrowing weakly as if trying to piece together a puzzle her exhausted mind simply couldn’t solve.
Her gaze lingered, confused, on the long strands of snow-white hair falling loosely around his face.
"Brother...?" she whispered.
The single word came out cracked and hoarse, barely audible, but it hit Kahn harder than every punch, every phantom bull, every desperate strike he had weathered in the past few hours combined.
His vision blurred instantly, hot tears welling up before he could stop them, spilling down his cheeks despite every effort to hold himself together.
He hadn’t cried, not truly, not once since the day their sect burned. He had buried it, packed it away beneath four years of chains and silence. But hearing that single, fragile word from her cracked lips shattered whatever fragile control he still had left.
"Yes," he choked out, his voice trembling. "Yes... it’s me. I’m here, Sera. I’m here."