The guard died before Wei Liang could get another word out of him, and the camp went silent except for Wei Dong's ragged breathing and the distant call of night birds settling back into the trees.
"Three hundred years," Brigh said, staring at the body. "That's not a person. That's something else wearing the word."
Xu's voice came slow, careful, weighing something heavy. "Or it's exactly a person, just one who found a way to keep going far past when they should have stopped. I fought people like that in my own lifetime. Cultivators who chased longevity through methods that cost other people everything to sustain."
Wei Liang studied the dead guard's face, memorizing it out of old habit, though he doubted it would matter much against whoever actually gave the orders. "Rong protected Fen's
