Insomniac Player

Damien read system notifications many times to be sure.

"Heavenly Demonic Cult?"

"The organization you now belong to."

"I thought this was Shadowless Palace."

"Shadowless Palace is the cult’s hidden blade. I command it. The world only knows the blade, because the body attached to it hasn’t shown itself in centuries."

Damien looked back at the floating notification. "Why do I outrank almost everyone in it?"

"Rank measures standing, not numbers. The Heavenly Demon holds the first rank alone. His personal disciples hold the second. Grand Elders and Palace Masters hold the third. Their direct disciples, myself included, hold the fourth."

"So people far stronger than me answer to me."

"Many of them, yes."

"That sounds like terrible design."

"It’s built on lineage. Not strength."

"I’m Level Twenty."

"Don’t confuse authority with the ability to survive holding it. Some gate guards you currently outrank could end you before you finished one of your idiotic proverbs."

Damien thought of Wei Jian, Level 101, a man who’d have run a national defense force back home and here got assigned to inspect broken roads instead. Murim had already taught him plenty about strength and station never quite matching up the way he expected. And now the system had handed him authority over a good chunk of an ancient, hidden cult without giving him one single point of actual strength to back it up with.

No stat bonus. No new skill. No buff worth the name.

Just enough authority to offend people who could erase him from existence before he finished apologizing for existing at all.

He stared at the last line a while longer.

Authority Recognised: Fourth-Highest Standing, Heavenly Demonic Cult.

"Can I hide this?"

The Dark Lord watched him across the flame, something faint moving behind his eyes for the first time since Damien had woken up. "Your first intelligent question so far."

"Generous teaching method you’ve got."

"And you’ve survived it, so far."

Damien closed the title window. Nothing changed outwardly, no mark on his robes, no dark light wrapping around him. Reassuring, for about half a second, until he remembered certain abilities could read system titles regardless of how they displayed.

"It won’t announce itself on its own," the Dark Lord said. "But anyone with enough authority of their own will recognize the weight of it just by looking. Don’t rely on secrecy against anyone stronger than you."

"That’s most of Murim."

A faint smirk touched the man’s mouth, gone almost in a blink.

"For now."

.....

The Dark Lord turned back toward the passage out of the ceremonial hall, and Damien followed him into the narrow recovery room. Behind them, the wall sealed itself shut, no seam left, no line, like the door had never existed at all.

The man settled back into his chair and poured more tea. "You should know what you joined."

"That would’ve been useful information before the bows."

"You accepted before asking."

Damien lowered himself into the seat across from him. "The other option discouraged careful research."

"A limited choice is still a choice."

"That sounds like something powerful people say when they want to feel reasonable about it."

Something flickered behind the man’s eyes at that, brief, and Damien got the distinct feeling he’d just walked up to the edge of something and looked down. The man only drank his tea, though, and said nothing further.

"The Heavenly Demonic Cult is divided into Seven Palaces." He set the cup down. "Each protects one part of the cult’s existence. Each answers to a lord. I am one of the seven."

"The Shadowless Palace."

"That’s the name outsiders gave our legend. Inside the cult, we’re called the Shadow Palace. Intelligence, infiltration, silent execution, and the protection of secrets all fall to us."

That’s why his face is a state secret, Damien thought. That’s why seeing it turned a recruitment offer into a threat on my life the second he showed it to me.

"The Seven Lords answer to the Heavenly Demon," the man went on. "Palaces disagree with each other constantly. Disciples compete. None of us betray the cult to an outside power. Ever."

"And I’ve joined without meeting this Heavenly Demon at all."

"Most members live their whole lives without seeing him."

"Is he even alive?"

The man just looked at him. Damien decided, quickly, that the mortality of a supreme cult leader could wait until he had an actual escape route lined up.

"Understood," he said.

"No, you don’t. Understanding takes years. For now, remember only this. Inside the cult, your title carries my authority. Outside it, that same title is a death sentence."

"The Orthodox Sects?"

"Among others."

Damien leaned back, carefully, his ribs still objecting to anything faster than careful. "You’ve handed a Level Twenty outsider a fourth-rank title in a hidden organization that half of Murim hates."

"More than half."

"That correction didn’t help."

"It wasn’t meant to."

The man reached into his sleeve and set a thin manual on the table between them. Black leather, no author’s name on the cover, the kind of black that seemed to swallow the medicine burner’s light instead of reflecting it. Four silver characters ran down the spine, and the system translated them the moment his eyes settled there.

➤[Walk of Night]

He didn’t reach for it right away. "Another oath?"

"A movement technique. In your language, a skill."

"Does reading it kill me through my own shadow?"

"Incorrect practice might."

He pulled his half-extended hand back.

The man pushed the manual an inch closer instead. "Your shadow movements have power and no discipline behind them. You throw yourself between points of darkness. You force your own body to imitate whatever surrounds it. This teaches positioning. Breath. Circulation. The placement of intent before the movement ever starts."

"Will it improve Shadow Dash?"

"I don’t know." Something in his voice actually shifted at that, an honest admission sitting oddly against everything else he’d said so far.

"Your arts are foreign to this place. They don’t come from any Dao I recognize. This manual might strengthen them. Might alter them entirely. Might do nothing at all. Master the first walk and come find me. Then we’ll both know."

He finally picked it up. The cover felt cold against his palm, colder than the room around it.

A notification opened.

➤[Foreign Martial Manual Detected: Walk of Night]

➤[System conversion unavailable.]

➤[This manual must be learned through study and practice.]

Of course it does.

He opened to the first page. Diagrams filled it, feet, joints, narrow pathways traced through a human body, and every sentence beneath them read simple right up until the next sentence quietly contradicted whatever he’d just decided the first one meant.

Step where darkness will be, not where darkness rests.

He understood every individual word in that line. Together, they read like something Earthling might say, except written by someone who genuinely expected it to work.

"How long does the first walk usually take to master?"

"For a talented disciple, three months."

"And an untalented one?"

"They’re never given the manual in the first place."

"Convenient standard."

The man raised two fingers, and a pale panel unfolded in the air between them.

➤[Friend Request Received.]

➤[Xuan Wuye wishes to add you as a Friend.]

➤[Title: Lord of the Shadow Palace]

➤[Level: Concealed]

Damien read the name twice. "Xuan Wuye."

"It’s my name."

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