Chapter 497: His World

The basement of the castle was silent.

Dasha stepped forward, one foot after another, the sound of his boots muted. The air was thick with the stench of decay, blood, and something older—something forgotten.

The deeper he walked, the more color drained from the world.

The bricks of the walls, once aged brown, turned to ashen gray. The torchlight dimmed, their orange flames shifting into hollow whites. Even his own skin paled as the very essence of this space drained away.

It was a side effect.

A passive consequence of his existence now.

Dasha Pang was consuming this place.

Every breath he took, every step he moved—his body instinctively absorbed insane amounts of Natural Qi.

The sheer amount of mama was getting so ridiculous that he was forced to don Ruh-al-Qital to properly cycle it. Cultivation was delicate for a reason. Foolishly blasting oneself with mana was suicide. Pathways would become eroded and turn the body into infinitely branching rivers that would converge into an explosion.

“So this is Prophet Mehenet…”

His corpse at any rate. Down at the deepest level, at the very end of everything, was a robed figure, collapsed in front of an unsealed door.

It led to a wide, stone chamber.

Rows of iron-barred cells lined the walls, stretching deep into the darkness. He could hear the faint, rasping breath of the dying. The stench of rot was overwhelming.

And there, standing amid the wreckage was Sun-young.

She was wounded, her clothes torn, her wooden sword splintered beyond repair. Her left arm was hanging limply, and fresh blood dripped from a wound on her forehead.

Yet, despite it all—

She was still moving.

Breaking the locks. Smashing the chains.

And within the cells?

The children.

A hundred? No. Far less than that. Nearly a hundred corpses.

Most of them too far gone to save. Limbs missing. Flesh carved into unnatural shapes. Eyes hollowed, their souls already stolen by Mehen.

But—

Eight were alive.

Just eight.

Among them, five stood out.

Dasha’s eyes narrowed.

The five children of Old Rocco. Exactly as was described to him.

Two more were the ones Sun-young had been searching for—the couple’s missing kids from the camp. They were frail, their bodies barely clinging to life, but they were breathing.

The last was different.

Older. A teenager, perhaps sixteen, their body scarred and bruised, yet their eyes burned with resistance. Unlike the others, they had endured something far worse—a longer suffering.

Dasha did not need to make his presence. When she broke the chains with the broken wooden sword, she peered over her shoulder, waiting what he would.

“This Territory is hundreds of years old and stable,” he stated.

“It will collapse in some weeks, I suspect.” His gaze flickered to the five children. “These five are mine.”

Sun-young’s expression hardened.

“…These are not Old Rocco’s children, are they?”

She was right.

They were vastly different. Their skin tones, facial features, even their accents did not match one another.

The eldest boy, perhaps twelve, had deep brown skin and tightly coiled black hair. The girl beside him had olive-toned skin and the sharp, narrow eyes of someone from faraway deserts.

Another had pale freckles dusted over their face, a stark contrast to the boy beside them with rich mahogany-colored skin.

The last child was the youngest, barely seven. They looked almost ghostly white, a frail figure with ashen hair.

They were not blood-related.

They had never been.

Dasha simply said, “Adopted.”

A lie. A truth. It didn’t matter.

What mattered was that they belonged to him now.

Sun-young’s fingers twitched.

“Yet he is not here,” she said plainly. “Does he care much at all about his own children? To send one man alone?”

Dasha stared at her.

“So you have doubts. Will you fight me?” he asked. “Here and now? With those kinds of injuries?”

Her grip on her broken wooden sword tightened.

Dasha did not move.

He did not need to.

Because the air around him told her everything she needed to know.

He had changed.

She could feel it.

The weight of his presence. The way the world dimmed wherever he stood.

Perhaps—if she had her real sword.

Perhaps—if she were at her peak.

Then maybe—just maybe—she could challenge him.

But the reality was cruel.

Dasha was overwhelmingly stronger than her right now.

Her body was still battered from the battles before.

Her Qi reserves were near empty.

Her weapon was useless.

And Dasha stood there, unshaken.

He tilted his head. “Well?”

Sun-young closed her eyes.

She hated this.

But she was not foolish.

She had no way to win.

she asked the only question that mattered.

“…Will you harm them?”

Dasha’s expression did not change.

“I can promise you this much, Yoon Sun-young,” he said. “I will not hurt them. I will not lay a hand on them. Neither will Old Rocco.”

Silence.

Sun-young’s grip loosened.

“…A contract.”

Dasha nodded.

“We can sign one if you wish.”

She exhaled slowly.

“…Let’s do it then.”

And just like that, a Blood Pact was struck. Yoon Sun-young was a smart woman. Through her injuries, however, she was unable to think perfectly.

Just because he wasn’t going to hurt them didn’t mean he wasn’t going to use them to hurt.

***

A Sin’s mediation. The chamber was silent. The children were kept hungered and begging and ignored until they could only be silent.

A perfect, undisturbed stillness.

Dasha Pang sat in the center of the room, cross-legged, his hands resting gently on his knees. He had not moved in two days. His breath was deep and measured, his body perfectly still. But beneath his skin—a storm raged.

Qi.

Endless, infinite Qi.

It spiraled within him, rushing through his meridians like a vast ocean, like a river in flood, like a storm that had no end. He absorbed. He refined. He devoured.

His surroundings had already begun to reflect the change.

The stone floor beneath him was cracked, the natural Qi in the air warping unnaturally. The colors of the world around him had begun to dull once more, as if existence itself was struggling against him, struggling against the sheer force of his absorption.

This was no mere meditation.

This was a breakthrough.

The first step into Core Formation.

Core Formation.

Also called the Golden Pellet Realm.

It was a milestone of legend—where a cultivator condensed their cultivation into an orb of pure energy. A Core. It was the first true step beyond mortality.

Few succeeded. Many failed.

And Dasha Pang did not intend to fail.

Within his body, his three Dantians churned.

The Lower Dantian, the foundation of Qi, where energy was stored.

The Middle Dantian, the seat of emotions and willpower.

The Upper Dantian, where the mind and spirit converged.

To succeed, he would need to connect them all.

But that was not all.

A cultivator’s primary elements would manifest as outward Qi. Too much imbalance, and failure was inevitable.

Dasha could feel it.

His Qi was too wild, too untamed. His foundation, built upon years of battle and reckless growth, was at the tipping point. He needed to refine it, to control it, or he would never reach the next realm.

Tu Na Breathing.

The very technique that had carried him through impossible battles, that had allowed him to consume the Ka of a forgotten god, that had made him a legend among Sins.

He focused on his breath.

Inhale.

The Qi surged, overwhelming, uncontrollable, like an ocean crashing into his meridians.

Exhale.

He refined it, shaped it, turned the raging waters into controlled streams.

Inhale.

The Three Dantians began to stir. The whirlpools inside them spun violently.

Exhale.

The Lower Dantian tried to rise.

The Upper Dantian tried to descend.

The Middle Dantian, the bridge between them, struggled.

He did it. He was doing it.

But once or twice or three times was not enough. Millions of motions and circulations were necessary. Hundreds of hours of dedication were required.

A sharp click.

The sound of boots against stone.

Dasha’s eyes snapped open. A figure stepped inside, his brimmed hat casting a long shadow over the floor.

Xavier.

He was wrapped in a dark cloak. More than ever, he could feel it. The racially ambiguous man’s very presence was subtle, as if the world itself was unsure if he was truly here. He still could not sense him. Someday, he hoped to rectify that.

“Xavier.”

The Whisper stopped. “You’ve conquered a Territory, Great Sin.”

“Indeed, I have.”

Xavier’s gaze flickered across the room, taking in the cracks in the floor, the faint haze of Qi distorting the air.

Dasha closed his eyes again.

“I have been meditating for two days now.”

The storm inside him was near its peak.

It’s time.

Xavier pulled something from his cloak. A small, wooden box. He set it down gently before Dasha.

“These are the potions and cultivation pills you requested.”

Dasha reached forward, opening the box.

Inside, rows of small glass vials gleamed under the dim light. Golden liquid, thick as honey, rested within them. Next to them, black and gold cultivation pills

“Aya Nakamura and Viktor Lysenko had no troubles, I presume.”

“Aside from a brief accident, no.” A small pause. “They wanted me to pass on their thanks to you. Your old notes bridged the gap of the science they knew and cultivation science. Everything became…much simpler.”

“I know.”

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