He thought of the corridor outside, of the bodies he had left scattered across the stone floor without a single flicker of hesitation.
He didn’t feel any guilt towards what he had done, feeling like he did the right thing even.
But sitting here now, in the quiet stillness beside his sleeping sister, a small, uncomfortable question surfaced in the back of his mind, one he hadn’t allowed himself the luxury of asking during the chaos of the past few hours.
’Am I becoming exactly like them?’
The thought settled heavily in his chest, refusing to be easily dismissed. He had spent four years despising every single person wearing the Raging Bulls’ colors, hating the casual, effortless cruelty they inflicted on anyone weaker than themselves simply because they could.
Tonight, he had met that same cruelty with an equal, if not greater, level of violence.
He glanced down at the twin Blood Fangs resting against his hips, the crimson veins running through the black steel dormant now, quiet after having fed so thoroughly earlier in the night.
A weapon built specifically to drain the life out of whatever it cut. A fitting tool, perhaps, for the kind of person he might be turning into.
Kahn exhaled slowly, forcing the spiraling thought to slow down before it could consume him entirely.
’No,’ he decided finally, his eyes drifting back toward Sera’s peaceful, sleeping face. ’They drained her blood into a jar while she screamed, and planned to extract her bloodline the second it became convenient for them.’
There was a difference, he told himself, between cruelty for its own sake and violence deployed with purpose, however brutal that violence might look from the outside.
His father’s gentleness had been the reason Blooming Flower sect ended up getting destroyed and easily overtaken by the Raging Bulls, a demonic sect.
As much as he admired his father, Lahn had made up his mind that he would never follow in his footsteps, or else he could lose the things that were precious to him just as easily.
It might seem cruel... but Kahn doubted the Raging Bulls, or Gorath, or anyone circling his sister like vultures over a wounded animal, would have extended him the same courtesy if their positions had been reversed.
A soft, weak groan pulled him out of his thoughts. Sera’s eyelids fluttered faintly, her head shifting slightly against the thin pillow, though her eyes remained closed this time.
Kahn immediately leaned forward, gently taking her small hand in his own again, his thumb tracing soft, soothing circles across her knuckles.
"I’m right here," he murmured quietly, keeping his voice low and steady, the same calm, grounding tone he vaguely remembered their mother using whenever either of them woke from a nightmare as children. "You don’t need to wake up all the way. Just know I’m here."
Her fingers twitched weakly around his, a faint, unconscious response, before her breathing settled back into its slow, steady rhythm without her eyes ever fully opening.
Kahn allowed himself a small, relieved breath, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders at the reassurance that her sleep remained natural and healing rather than slipping toward something worse.
From his corner of the room, Ter shifted slightly, drawing Kahn’s attention away from the bed for the first time in several long minutes.
The inner disciple flinched the instant Kahn’s gaze landed on him, clearly bracing for some fresh punishment.
"Water," Kahn said instead, his tone flat but no longer carrying quite the same razor edge it had held earlier in the hallway. "And whatever food is kept fresh nearby. She’ll need something in her stomach the moment she’s strong enough to hold it down."
Ter blinked, visibly caught off guard by the mundane request after everything he had witnessed over the past hour. He scrambled quickly to his feet regardless, nodding rapidly.
"There’s a kitchen storage room two floors down," Ter said, his voice still hoarse and unsteady. "I can bring something back. Broth, maybe. Something easy on the stomach."
Kahn scoffed, looking at the man from head to toe.
"You think I’ll trust you to bring food for my sister?" he said, while Ter shivered at his words.
Ter, for all his earlier posturing and cruelty, no longer looked capable of anything resembling defiance. The fight had been thoroughly, permanently beaten out of him tonight, replaced by a desperate, singular need to simply stay alive.
However, he couldn’t deny that Kahn’s worry was valid, so he simply kept quiet.
"And Ter?" Kahn said, his aura leaking gently out of him.
The man froze halfway to the door, his shoulders tensing visibly.
"If news about what happened in this sect somehow spreads out... and reaches the sect leader, then you’re in trouble." Kahn continued, his voice calm and quiet, carrying none of the earlier fury, which somehow made the implicit threat land even heavier.
"And I promise you, whatever you’ve imagined happening to you tonight, the reality will be worse."
Ter swallowed hard and nodded quickly, before disappearing through the door without another word, his footsteps fading rapidly down the hallway outside.
Kahn turned his attention back to his sister, the quiet stillness of the room settling comfortably around them once again.
He reached up absently, running his fingers through his own unfamiliar white hair, the strange new texture still catching him slightly off guard every time his hand brushed against it.
Whatever he looked like now, whatever strength had been forced into his body through blood, pain, and an impossible golden interface, the man sitting beside this bed still felt, at his core, exactly like the same boy who used to hide behind his father’s robes during thunderstorms.
He glanced toward the small, cracked mirror still hanging on the wall, catching a brief glimpse of his reflection from across the room.
Sharp, unfamiliar features. Pale, striking hair. Eyes that had witnessed and delivered more violence in a single night than most cultivators experienced across years of training.
’Three days,’ he reminded himself quietly, his resolve hardening once more beneath the lingering weight of grief and quiet reflection. ’Three days to become strong enough that no one, not Gorath, not his son, not a single soul left in this compound or beyond it, ever gets the chance to hurt her again.’
He settled back onto the small wooden stool, keeping his hand gently wrapped around his sister’s, and allowed himself, for the first time in four long, agonizing years, the simple, fragile luxury of sitting quietly beside someone he loved without fear of chains, whips, or watching eyes.
Outside the small window above the bed, the moon hung low and pale over the sect’s mountain, indifferent to the blood already spilled tonight, and utterly unaware of exactly how much more was still coming.