Redeeming the Broken Stars.

CHAPTER 14: ARE YOU SCARED ALREADY?

“He isn't the only one.”

"Mirael Sunwalker. Foundation Establishment cultivator, formerly of the Celestial Lake Sect. A woman.”

“She entered the tournament four years ago because her daughter had been taken by Ashenfang demon hunters, and winning the pill would give her enough power to pursue them into demon territory.”

“She won six rounds before a formation array specialist from the Broken Chain Sect disrupted her cultivation base from a distance." Another pause.

 "Her daughter is still missing." Old Moth said, her voice now dropping low to barely above whispers.

"Chen Two-Shadows. A cultivator of unusual heritage, half mortal, half something that the records don't specify clearly.”

“He could move through shadows as if they were water. He entered the tournament of Shadows twice.”

“The first time he reached the semifinals. The second time he disappeared in the middle of his fourth round match.”

“No one saw him fall. No one knows where he went. The tournament records list him as 'outcome unknown,' which in Feng Crimson-Hand's filing system generally means 'consumed by something we'd rather not document.”

Kaelen listened to all of it, filing every detail away with the methodical precision Typhon had drilled into him over years of training. 

Every death told a story. Every story contained information about the tournament's dangers.

"Zhao Everstone," Old Moth continued. "Perhaps the most tragic. He was a cripple, similar to what you appear to be now.”

“Shattered meridians from a sect punishment.”

“He entered the tournament with a technique he'd developed himself over ten years, a method of manipulating the ambient spiritual energy in the arena itself rather than his own cultivation base.”

“He was extraordinary. He won nineteen consecutive matches without taking a serious injury." Her walking stick tapped quietly for a moment.

"In his twentieth match, his opponent recognized that his technique required the arena's existing spiritual energy as raw material.”

“She purged the ambient energy from her immediate vicinity before the match began, leaving him nothing to work with. He was beaten to death in minutes."

"He was discovered," Kaelen said. "His technique was analyzed and countered."

"Yes. The tournament is a venue where the extraordinary becomes ordinary quickly, because everyone watches, everyone learns, everyone adapts." Old Moth glanced at him. 

"You have one advantage that Zhao did not: your technique is not something that can be countered by removing ambient energy.”

“Essence Devouring works on the cultivation base of your opponents themselves.”

“The more powerful the cultivator, the more you can theoretically take from them."

"Theoretically?” Kaelen Ashwright immediately asked.

"You've never used it in actual combat. Theory and practice tend to diverge in arenas where people are actively trying to kill you."

"Then I'll learn quickly."

"You'll have to." Old Moth turned down another street, this one narrower and quieter than the ones before it, and stopped before a door so unremarkable that Kaelen had to actively look at it to register its existence. "Ah. We're here…finally.”

The home of Old Moth was small enough that "home" felt generous as a descriptor. 

One room, floor to ceiling, with a ceiling low enough that a tall person would have needed to duck. 

A sleeping mat in one corner, rolled with the efficiency of someone who moved it often.

A table and two chairs. Shelves covering every wall from floor to nearly-ceiling, crammed with objects that defied easy categorization: jars of materials that pulsed faintly with contained energy, scrolls so old their edges had dissolved into fringe.

Stones carved with formations so complex they made Kaelen's eyes ache when he looked at them directly, dried things that might have been plants or might have been something else entirely, and moths.

Moths everywhere. Perched on shelves, folded still as paper on the edge of jars, drifting in slow patterns near the single lantern that provided the room's only light.

As Kaelen entered, a dozen of them lifted silently and resettled on surfaces near him, as if curious.

He stared at them. They stared back with their compound eyes and wing-pattern faces.

"They won't harm you," Old Moth said, moving to the table with familiar ease and lowering herself into one of the chairs. 

"They're drawn to soul energy. Yours is... unusual. They find it interesting."

"I find it interesting that a blind woman keeps pets that are drawn to soul energy," Kaelen said, moving to the other chair with careful, managed movements. 

His legs were reaching the end of their current willingness to cooperate. 

Sitting down felt like a reprieve from something larger than gravity.

"I find it interesting that a dead boy asks philosophical questions about my housekeeping," Old Moth replied serenely, and reached under the table to produce a small clay pot, which she placed before him. 

"Drink this."

Kaelen looked at it. It smelled medicinal, bitter in a way that suggested it was doing something rather than tasting good.

"Wha

t is it?" Kaelen Ashwright immediately asked, his face etched in shock and bewilderment.