Damon's Ascension-Chapter 113: War In Xiangyang 14

The trio of subordinates immediately rose to their feet, their expressions shifting in alarm. Damon’s brows lifted in surprise, a flicker of unease sparking in his chest, but he quickly forced himself to stay calm. Turning to his right, he found a withered, bony old man seated there, his skin weathered by the sun, bald head gleaming, and a long white beard spilling over his tattered robes. The old man’s eyes were fixed hungrily on the pot of rice.

The old man licked his lips and, with no trace of shame or concern for the tension thickening in the air, he reached forward and began plucking slices of duck straight from Damon’s plate with the easy rhythm of a starving crow.

"Mmm! Tender, soft, just enough ginger. You have capable retainers, young man. That’s good. Very good." He praised endlessly, almost swallowing his own tongue from enjoyment.

"Who are you?" Chen Yuan asked warily, already moving subtly to Damon’s side.

The old man chewed with exaggerated delight, waving them off with his free hand. "Ah-ah, so many questions! But since you asked politely, I shall bless you with enlightenment. I am none other than—"

The fellow then struck a pose, lifting his empty rice bowl high like a divine relic. "—the Ever Victorious Fighting Buddha!"

Sun Liang coughed. "That’s... a title. Not a name."

"Titles are worth more than names in this world, boy!" the old man lectured between bites.

"Besides, who would you rather follow, someone named Xu Baochun, or the Victorious Fighting Buddha?" He flexed a twig-like arm.

Damon stared evenly. "You broke into my manor and ate my food. Explain yourself, old man."

The man stopped chewing for a moment and scratched his head sheepishly. "Right, right, yes. Important matters. But... hmm... you’re the lad who walked into the Sect Square and cracked open the Empty Soul Palm like a peanut, yes?"

Damon’s expression shifted ever so slightly. "You’ve been watching."

"Oh no, no, no! Not watching. I felt it. From across town. I was lying in a gutter at the time, communing with ants, but I felt it." The old man shook his bald head rapidly.

Xue Rou blinked. "...What?"

"You’ve just reached Small Accomplishment, that thread of restraint... you broke it and forged a second anchor. Most never get past the first." The old man stated, finally growing serious, his eyes gleaming.

Damon folded his arms, suddenly alert. "Then you know the nature of the art. You’re from the Zen Sect?"

The old man gave a wheezing laugh. "Boy, I am the Zen Sect."

That silenced the courtyard.

Damon narrowed his eyes. "You?"

He pointed to himself with his thumb with pride. "Me. The last Elder. The last real one, anyway, not like the monk at the Sect Square."

"That fellow is not one of us. That’s your precious Brother Mian, the same Brother Mian who stirred up half the county with false teachings and left rebel manuals like candy on festival day." He waved dismissively.

Sun Liang’s mouth fell open. "You’re joking."

"I wish," the old man shook his head grimly, now sipping from Damon’s tea.

He sighed with enjoyment from the sweet tea. "He’s been impersonating our sect for two years now. Stole one of our robes, one of our mantras, and proclaimed himself a ’master’ to fool the world. He even butchered the Empty Soul Palm into a trimmed version, cut out all the reflections, the oral histories, the commentary from the ancestors... left only the skeleton."

He tapped Damon’s chest lightly. "That’s what he gave you."

Damon stared at him. "And yet I succeeded."

The old man’s grin widened like a crack splitting the world. "Exactly! And that is why I’m here. You, my void-blooded disciple, practiced the Empty Soul Palm without crutches, no commentary, no guidance. You walked into the darkness alone... and carved your name into it."

Xue Rou frowned. "Wait... does that mean he —Brother Mian—never expected Damon to survive?"

The old man nodded slowly. "He expected you to implode. He gave you the dry husk of a sacred teaching and waited for your spirit to tear under its weight. But instead—"

He pointed to Damon. "—you did something only one other person has ever done."

Damon lowered his head dangerously. "The Ever Victorious Buddha?"

The old man beamed and pounded his own bony chest. "You’re looking at him."

Sun Liang rubbed his face in disbelief. "So let me get this straight. The Zen Sect has no elders left but you, who is a squatter, and some impostor at the square is now the public face of your sect?"

"Correct, but don’t look at me like that. I’m not dead yet." The old man said, unabashed.

Chen Yuan leaned forward. "Why haven’t you revealed him?"

The old man’s smile faded, and for the first time, his age seemed to sit heavily on his shoulders.

"Because he knows too much," He said quietly.

The old man looked upward slightly. "Too many of our dead brothers spoke to him in trust before they realized what he was. I tried to stop him once... but I’m too weak now, too old. And the Zen Sect... has been retired."

Damon considered this. "So what do you want from me?"

The old man chuckled. "Want? I want more rice."

Damon stared coldly.

"...but," the old man added quickly, raising both hands in mock surrender.

"I also want you to think. If you mastered the art this far with nothing but fragments... then imagine what lies ahead if you had the true version."

"And you have it?" Damon asked.

The old man nodded. "Etched in memory. The original scrolls are gone, but I remember every word. I can pass it on to you, line by line. All you need to do is prove that your second thread isn’t a fluke."

Damon took a deep breath, exhaling a curl of black mist from his lips. "What thread comes next?"

The old man’s eyes glimmered. "You tell me, disciple. That’s the essence of our way."

He reached forward and snatched one last bite of pickled radish before reclining with a satisfied sigh. "Mmm. Now then... since I’m officially your elder, shouldn’t you give me a courtyard to nap in?"

Damon didn’t smile, but his voice was faintly amused. "You’ll have a place, but start from the beginning. I want every word of the true Empty Soul Palm, preferably before dawn."

The old man raised his bowl in salute. "Then pour the tea and light the incense, my dear disciple... the road to emptiness is long, but tonight, we begin walking it together."

..........

Hours later, the central study of Crane Ridge Villa was covered in the faint perfume of sandalwood incense, which was a staple for inciting focus during cultivation.

A bunch of scrolls had been unrolled across the floor in semi-circles, filled with rough brush notes copied down by Xue Rou at Damon’s behest.

The old man—now resting on his back atop a thick cushion—was muttering aloud while Damon sat across from him in complete silence, his eyes closed, breathing as slow and soundless as stone.

"...and remember, the fourth line is the trickiest not because it’s complex, but because it’s so simple you’ll think it means nothing." The old man wheezed, lifting a crooked finger toward the ceiling.

Damon opened his eyes slowly, and the black mist still coiled faintly from his mouth. His gaze darted toward the freshly transcribed verse:

’Perception is not truth. Sight is not presence. That which cannot be seen... cannot be resisted.’

"Then what does it even mean?" Xue Rou asked sullenly from the side, rubbing ink off her fingers.

"It means that once the thread of understanding is broken, the need to understand disappears. And the need to resist... dies with it." Damon answered quietly.

The old man grinned, eyes half-lidded. "Not bad. You’ll be terrifying when you’re finished."

Damon didn’t reply as he had already slipped back into the lotus position, his Internal Force coursing through his meridians in heavy silence.

This time, as he entered the visualization again, he no longer arrived as a ’form.’ He appeared as a shadow of will, a sort of formless awareness drifting through the void.

The two golden and indigo threads pulsed behind him like twin dragons, and before him—stretching toward the distant dark—lay endless strands of possibility.

He reached toward two of them simultaneously.

One glowed with a fractal pattern, shifting and branching infinitely like a kaleidoscope that pulsed gently with energy that felt cold, not from maliciousness, but from indifference.

This was the Thread of Reason, the very force that let him make decisions, weigh options, calculate odds. As someone who worshiped reason, it was only natural that he would choose to work on this concept.

Meanwhile, the other thread shimmered like a veil, almost invisible but utterly essential because when he focused on it, his awareness shifted and everything in the void became clearer.

That was the Thread of Perception, the lens through which he analyzed and comprehended the world around him, from sensation to intuition. He had gained inspiration for this one from the words of the old man just now.

To sever one was dangerous, but to sever both... might be madness.

And yet...

Damon raised his hand in the void.

He whispered: "Strike not at the body..."

The shadow-form of his being pulsed.

"...but the thread between breath and being."

And he struck, causing both threads to shatter at once. Like always, there was no fanfare or thunderous lightning tribulation, but just a pervasive silence.

However, in that silence, the void split open as if a page of reality had been torn. Damon’s awareness folded, refolded, then reconstructed itself to become less like a person and more like a concept trying to wear human form.

Logic, calculation, understanding had now become things that filtered his decisions passively no more. Now, they had become a sort of resource, external to his core that were optional and detachable, essentially tools.

Back in the villa, the old man stirred.

"...He really did it, two threads in one breath? Even I never dared that..." He whispered to himself, wide-eyed.

A low hum began to radiate from Damon’s seated form as his aura rose uncontrollably.

First, the candles dimmed, then the ink on the scrolls nearby began bleeding upward, defying gravity, and the floor beneath him cracked faintly, spiderwebs of fractured stone creeping outward.

Damon’s eyes opened calmly, a slight smile on his face.

"Fourth realm?" The old man asked cautiously.

Damon stood slowly, his presence now thinner than mist yet heavier than mountains.

"Comprehension wise, yes. Power wise, no." Damon replied.

Chen Yuan entered just then with fresh tea, paused, and stared at Damon incredulously.

His voice came out a whisper. "...You feel like a dream I forgot."

"Good, that’s how you know the Internal Force is working." The old man muttered.

Damon turned to him. "There is something you have left out of your earlier revelations. Spit it out, why did you come to enhance my power for free?"