A Waste of Time-Chapter 134: Echoing Wane

The gap in abilities between Slaves and Applicants was never insurmountable. The true divide had always been in opportunity—resources, training, and the arrogance of those spared the daily grind of servitude. Without the crushing yoke of chores, Applicants refined their Qi and honed their techniques in comfort, while Slaves clawed for scraps of time to Cultivate between endless labor.
But all that meant little when their general faltered.
The Applicants of the black Castle found themselves abandoned by their leader the moment fear struck him. Confronting Daemon outside or inside the walls would have ended in defeat either way, but any commander worth the title knew retreat was not an option. If they were fated to lose, they should have dragged blood from the enemy first—left scars, bruises, anything. Instead, their leader fled, and with his retreat, so too collapsed their morale.
The Slaves, by contrast, surged forward in perfect rhythm. They obeyed Daemon’s order to fight in tight groups, sifting through the white-robed Applicants like sand through fingers. Even where numbers weighed against them, the Slaves pushed harder, their morale burning white-hot.
Applicants tried to rally. Here and there, one or two would step up, barking orders, pulling a handful of fighters into a makeshift line. But each time, one of Daemon’s nine leaders appeared, striking hard and fast to tear out the heart of the resistance before it could form.
Up the hill, near the yawning gate of the black Castle, the retreating leader scrambled with his entourage, shoving his way through bodies, sweat plastering his hair to his face. Just when the yawning mouth of the gate promised safety, a shadow blocked it.
Daemon stood there, shoulder leaning lazily against the iron bars, whistling a soft, tuneless note. His presence froze them all.
“I must say,” Daemon drawled, glancing sidelong at the man, “I’m disappointed in you.”
The leader faltered, feet skidding to a stop. His followers paled.
Daemon’s eyes shifted past them, down the slope. He watched his black-and-white-robed Slaves advance, forcing the white-robed Applicants down onto the rocks and mud, beating them until they stayed down or slid screaming from the path into the jagged stones below. Oil still slicked the slopes, a trap the Applicants had laid for others now claiming their own bodies.
“You, Mr. Pickle,” Daemon continued with a faint smirk, “are the reason my people are having such an easy time. I expected you to throw caution aside, to at least make your followers feel the heat of battle before falling. Instead, you ran back to your shell like a turtle.”
A glint of silver cut the air. Daemon’s hand shot up, pinching the object inches from his eye. A poisoned silver needle trembled between his fingers, its tip glistening with green venom. His frown deepened—not from the threat, but from the memory it conjured: silver needles draining his blood in the Azure Lock Chamber.
With a flick, the needle reversed course, burying itself in the fleeing leader’s thigh. He gasped, looking down in disbelief as a dark blotch spread across his robe.
“Whenever one of your minions attacks me,” Daemon said, his lazy gaze sweeping the group, “you’ll be the one to pay. But…” His eyes softened to something almost kind. “If you turn back and fight for your survival, I won’t interfere.”
The Applicants shifted uneasily. The threat of demotion—to fall back into slavery—gnawed at them. But Daemon’s promise, simple and direct, steadied their trembling hearts.
Daemon had no interest in carrying them to victory. He would not warp the natural flow of the Sect-Competition. His role was not to pick favorites but to balance the scales when arrogance tipped them too far. By delaying the Castle’s strongest group at the gates, he gave his Slaves time to carve through their foes. When the odds evened, he stepped back and let the clash resolve itself.
The fight below raged on for twenty brutal minutes. Fa Mei and Ai Biyu fought side by side to support Luo Han and Sun Kai as they faced the cowardly leader himself—Mr. Pickle—backed by a stubborn subordinate. The man’s Fourth-Stage Qi Gathering power made the difference clear. Luo Han and Sun Kai were raw, their techniques crude, their openings glaring. They fought with heart, but lacked polish.
Daemon’s eyes lingered on them, quietly analyzing.
This is why Applicants look down on Slaves. It isn’t just Cultivation—it’s refinement. Their experience, their techniques… they make the gap sharper than the numbers show.
An Applicant toppled at last, groaning in the mud after fighting her heart out and admirably giving it her all, Daemon finally spoke.
“That’s enough.”
The words carried like a commandment. Fists froze mid-swing. Boots ground to a halt. Even the groans quieted.
“All who can still stand,” Daemon said from atop the hill, his tone calm and casual, “you’ve got two choices. Climb into the Castle and enjoy the safety of your new rank as Applicants… or follow me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll toss you into battles against Outer Disciples next!”
He jerked his thumb at the yawning gate behind him, then turned away, his body dissolving into flickering light before reappearing at the center of the meadow. His voice carried to every ear, soft as a lover’s whisper, tempting as a devil’s promise.
“I’ll be waiting right here.”
Fa Mei was the first to move, her cropped hair sticking to her face with sweat, her cheeks streaked with blood. She looked feral, wild, but her eyes burned with certainty. She grit her teeth, leapt down the hill, and sprinted to join him.
Luo Han and Sun Kai followed, rolling their eyes at her eagerness but unwilling to lag behind.
Even Ai Biyu, humiliated yet strangely exhilarated, clenched her fists and descended after them.
By the time the dust settled, Daemon sat at the meadow’s heart surrounded by sixty-five men and women—Slaves and Applicants alike—who had chosen to follow him. Others slunk into the Castle and barred its gates. The rest, beaten and broken, would face demotion or wait to join another fight.
Those who stayed with Daemon sat cross-legged in meditation at his command. And then, casually, he walked among them.
“Open your mouth.”
A flick of his finger. A drop of his blood.
One by one, his vitality poured into them. Cuts sealed. Bruises faded. Hidden injuries dissolved like smoke. And then came the breakthroughs.
From the walls and beneath the oak, three Elders watched in silence. Cuifen, her green eyes sharp. Mo Qiuya, lips twisted in a sly smile. Shen Duan, stern and frowning.
What they witnessed was unthinkable. With nothing more than a drop of Daemon’s Life-Blood, Cultivators leapt entire sub-realms, their vitality reforged, their organs and bones tempered, their spirits nourished. For some, it was the difference between despair and a second life.
The ones who had chosen safety behind the Castle’s walls looked down in bitter regret.
The ones at Daemon’s side trembled with awe.
And Daemon himself? He only smiled faintly, watching the fire of ambition catch flame in their eyes.
This was cultivation in its truest form—a glimpse of the life awaiting them beyond the Mountain’s influence, where there were no rules, no restrictions, no protectors hovering overhead to save them from ruin.
Choice was everything.
The ones who had been beaten down yet swallowed their shame and frustrations, who shifted their hearts from despair to determination, found themselves transformed. Defeat became fuel. They turned loss into a stepping stone, and their Qi surged.
The victors, by contrast, had dulled their edge. Satisfied with a small gain, they switched off the hunger for more, clutching their present advantage as though it were enough. But the regret on their faces said otherwise as they realized what they had missed—the chance to rise even higher by gambling further.
Those who had once paid dearly in Contribution Points for even a single drop of Daemon’s blood before his breakthrough would have wept to see this. Sixty-five youths had just received the improved benefits of his Life-Blood for free—healed, tempered, and strengthened simply for daring to follow him.
The results were undeniable.
Where once they had been scattered and desperate, now they stood transformed. A single Mr. Pickle in the Fifth-Stage, seven more at the Fourth. The rest at the Third, with nearly twenty pressing against the threshold of the Fourth. Among them were Luo Han and Sun Kai, their auras swelling with power as though on the verge of eruption.
The meadow still shimmered faintly with lingering ripples of Qi, proof of their breakthroughs. Any Cultivator passing by would have known instantly: something extraordinary had just occurred here.
They turned their gazes outward, watching as the next clash unfolded. A coalition of Slaves and Applicants, unwilling to face demotion, hurled themselves desperately against one of the eight Keeps. It was a siege driven by fear and ambition, ugly and raw. The defenders fought like cornered wolves, but the attackers fought like drowning men, unwilling to sink without dragging someone down with them.
Daemon sat apart from it all, calm, his black eyes watching the carnage below. But his senses, sharper than any outward glance, caught something else. A flicker of subtlety. A pattern repeated too often to be coincidence.
Ai Biyu and Mr. Pickle. Their eyes met too easily, lingered too long, carrying silent messages in their subtle glances.
Daemon didn’t turn, didn’t even shift his posture. But his words cut through the air like a blade.
“You two have been acting quite suspicious for a while now.”
The meadow grew tense. Heads turned, eyes darted between the pair he’d named.
“What is it you’re hiding?” Daemon asked, his tone still calm, but edged with steel. “Either come out clean… or spit out my blood and be on your way.”
His neck tilted slightly, just enough for them to glimpse his gaze. The warning there made their hearts lurch.
“I don’t mind if you split from this group,” he added softly, “but don’t expect to keep the benefits you just enjoyed. I don’t do charity.”
The silence that followed was heavier than the sound of battle echoing from the Keep.
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