Bury Them All: A Cultivator's Path

Chapter 5

Five uneventful days passed. Silas spent them cultivating, inching steadily toward the fourth stage of Qi training.

He was in no rush to actually build the spirit-gathering array the Formation Peak disciples had left in his hands he had neither the spirit stones nor the raw materials to construct it properly, and figured it made more sense to break into the mid-stage of cultivation first and worry about formations later.

Bram, for his part, spent those five days sulking — though not over Silas. He had bigger concerns.

The Outer Sect Grand Tournament was coming.

Nothing on Sky Burial Mountain drew a crowd quite like it. Beyond simply crowning the strongest outer disciple, the tournament offered something far more valuable: its top three finishers were promoted directly into the inner sect.

Ordinarily, earning a place among the inner disciples meant grinding all the way to the seventh stage of Qi training — a benchmark that sounded modest and was anything but. Most disciples with real talent got pulled into the inner sect long before they needed a tournament to prove it; the truly exceptional bypassed all of it and became true disciples outright.

Everyone left competing in the outer sect, by definition, was someone whose talent had already been judged and found wanting. For them, spending years scraping together enough resources to reach the seventh stage the honest way made far less sense than simply winning a spot once a year and skipping the line entirely.

For someone like Bram, this tournament wasn't an opportunity. It was the only realistic path his life had left.

So on the morning the field narrowed from twenty to ten, Bram arrived early, eager to watch.

"First match of the Top Ten bracket Desmond Rourke against Kellan Reyes, to the ring!"

The presiding deacon's voice rolled out over the arena. Two figures rose and drifted onto the platform.

"Reyes. Finally." Desmond's face had gone pale, and he drew a slow finger across his own throat, taunting the man across from him.

"Rourke." Kellan's eyes were murder itself. "I'm taking your head as an offering to Iris."

This was the man Silas remembered the cultivator who'd mocked Desmond that day at the pay line, months ago.

Kellan sat at the late sixth stage of Qi training, well above most of the outer sect, Desmond included. Ordinarily that gap alone would have made him untouchable.

But Desmond had done something unforgivable while Kellan was away on assignment, he'd turned his attention to Iris, Kellan's sweetheart since childhood, and the affair had ended with her dead by his hand.

There had never been a way to answer for it. Until today.

Killing was permitted in the Grand Tournament. Nobody was going to stop this.

The two collided.

Techniques and treasures flared to life almost immediately Desmond a stage behind Kellan in raw cultivation, but backed by a magic weapon gifted from his brother, which more than closed the gap. Kellan, for his part, had years of hard survival in the outer sect behind him, and fought like a man with nothing left to lose.

Hundreds of exchanges later, both men's robes had gone from white to red, blood soaking through in equal measure on each side.

The outcome, though, had already been decided.

Desmond caught Kellan with a solid blow, sending him staggering back and then a pair of gauntlets, gleaming with restrained power, materialized over his hands.

"A mid-grade spirit weapon." Kellan's voice cracked with disbelief.

He wasn't alone in his shock. The entire crowd of outer disciples went still. A weapon of that grade was worth a fortune nobody in the outer sect owned one, let alone brought one into a duel.

Watching from the guest platform, a young man with the polished bearing of old money smiled with quiet satisfaction. Desmond's brother and, evidently, the source of the gauntlets.

Just as everyone, Desmond included, assumed the fight was as good as over, Kellan calmly sheathed his broadsword and drew a slim, unassuming blade instead.

"A common spirit sword," Desmond scoffed, barely registering the switch as a threat. "You think that changes anything?"

"Kill," Kellan answered, and nothing else.

They clashed again. Desmond's gauntlets tore through the air with brutal efficiency — until something about the fight began to nag at him. Kellan wasn't losing ground. If anything, each exchange left him bolder than the last.

"Summer's Blade," Kellan murmured, and unleashed a sword form nobody in the crowd recognized.

Far above, unnoticed by everyone below, the eyes of Marcus Thane — master of the outer sect — sharpened with sudden interest.

Sword Peak's own technique. The Four Seasons Sword Art. He couldn't hide his astonishment. It was, without argument, the single strongest swordsmanship the entire sect possessed — taught, in principle, only to Sword Peak's true disciples.

There was no honest explanation for how Kellan Reyes had gotten hold of even a fragment of it.

Above the ring, a half-formed sun bloomed into being, radiant and merciless, and Desmond felt something close to true fear for the first time in the match.

The mid-grade weapon that had carried him this far finally began to fail — hairline cracks spreading across its surface until it shattered outright. Stripped of his advantage, Desmond stood no chance at all against a man fighting at the very edge of his ability.

One final blow sent him crashing down, sprawled across the ring like something already dead.

"Not so confident now, are you?" Kellan looked down at him, blood streaming from Desmond's mouth, his face a portrait of terror. "I told you — I'm taking your head for her."

Desmond's eyes darted wildly toward the crowd. "I yield"

But Kellan was already moving, the finishing blow already committed.

"Enough!"

The deacon overseeing the match appeared between them in an instant.

Kellan froze mid-motion, body locked as though by invisible chains. "What is this?"

"You've already won," the deacon said flatly — a man with Foundation Building cultivation behind his authority. "There's no need to end his life."

"He never yielded!" Kellan's composure cracked entirely. "He never once said the word — you have no grounds to stop this match!"

"Killing him serves nothing. It won't reflect well on you."

"To hell with how it reflects," Kellan snarled, turning toward the crowd despite the force holding him. "Everyone here knows what's between us. The only reason you're protecting him is that his brother sits in the inner sect — and you're playing favorites in broad daylight."

He never finished the thought.

Desmond had already circled behind him, and drove a fist clean through his back.

High above, Marcus Thane watched the scene below without visible reaction. *If it weren't for Della's friendship with Rourke's brother, I'd have let this play out and settled the mess myself afterward.*

By that afternoon, the Top Ten bracket had concluded. Both Desmond Rourke and Bram Hollis advanced — one carried by his family's resources, the other by nothing more than luck.

And by then, Silas had already finished burying what remained of Kellan Reyes.

Fragment acquired: Four Seasons Sword Art.

Immortal experience gained!

Spirit root fragment gained!*

He'd watched the final moments of the fight before Kellan died, and the memory left him with something colder than pity — genuine unease.

If I ever climb high enough in this world,* he thought, I intend to make sure nothing like that happens twice.

Three mornings after Kellan's death, someone extraordinary arrived on Skypillar Mountain.