Pillars of Lust, Walls of war
The transformation began without a decree. No horns. No banners. No mandates from sect elders. But everyone knew.
Cold Ember Pavilion was no longer a sect.
It was becoming a temple.
A shrine.
And at the center stood Haaron.
He never asked for worship. He never demanded kneeling. But women knelt anyway. Not just to him—but to what he gave them. Breakthroughs, resonance, liberation from the quiet, suffocating rigidity of a system that told them to wait, serve, and endure.
The mountain changed too.
Its spiritual field, once cold and slow, now thrummed with molten undercurrents. The Leyline beneath the northern peak pulsed in rhythm with Haaron's cultivation. Each breath he took seemed to awaken something buried deep in the bones of the mountain.
It began with a simple experiment.
Haaron carved a formation circle in the inner courtyard—something ancient, something forbidden, something not from this time. Sutra-linked and spiritually alive, it pulsed beneath his feet as he meditated.
He invited no one.
But they came anyway.
A dozen disciples found excuses to pass by. Some simply lingered. Others sat. No instructions were given.
But still they grew.
One girl wept during meditation. Another cried out in climax and confusion. Three broke through on the spot.
The next day, Haaron did it again.
This time, forty gathered.
He said nothing.
He simply let the Sutra do what it was meant to do.
He opened himself—and they bloomed.
By the end of the week, he erected the Threefold Pillars.
The first was set in the alchemy grove.
It hummed with balance and reaction, harmonizing female qi with Haaron's passive spiritual field. Disciples working within its radius reported clearer pill formations, fewer impurities, and… spontaneous pleasure bursts.
The second stood beside the beast pens.
It calmed the most feral creatures. Spirit beasts bowed their heads when Haaron passed. Three bonded themselves to disciples without traditional rites—drawn by his energy as if he were the mountain's core.
The third was placed in the old sparring field—converted now into a Sutra practice ring.
Those who trained there moved like dancers in trance. Attacks grew sharper. Formations fused with instinct. Two disciples achieved simultaneous comprehension of a technique Haaron had never even demonstrated.
Inside the Pavilion's inner court, elders met in growing silence.
"What he's doing is spiritual integration," Elder Fen said, her tone unsteady. "Not coercion. Not influence. He's reshaping them. And they want it."
Elder Bai scowled. "They need to stop."
"How?" asked another. "Disciples are breaking bottlenecks we couldn't fix in years."
"They smile now," Fen whispered. "Even the ones who used to cry during meditation."
Yue Shilan, standing by the window, didn't speak.
She felt it too.
Every night the Sutra pulsed.
Every time Haaron took a breath.
She felt it in her bones. In her thighs. In her soul.
Beyond Verdant Flame's northern border, the Obsidian Lance Domain watched closely.
Sect Master Zhen Mo no longer sat in counsel—he stood in fury.
"His technique mimics an evolved formation field. One that turns human connection into networked cultivation." He snapped a scroll in half. "That's not dual cultivation. That's systemic domination."
"Shall we strike?" asked his First Blade.
"No. Not yet. We need what he's building. If we destroy it, it will die with him."
"Then what?"
"We steal it."
He summoned the Xuan Twins—sister and brother cultivators trained in parasitic infiltration. Their cultivation paths were designed not to overwhelm—but to embed, corrode, and reverse-engineer.
Their orders were clear: infiltrate Cold Ember Pavilion. Target a node. Disrupt the Sutra. Collapse the resonance web.
And if possible…
Seize the source.
Back at Cold Ember, Haaron stood on a raised platform near the southern edge of the mountain. Below him, one hundred disciples knelt.
He hadn't summoned them.
They came to feel.
And they did.
When he closed his eyes, the Sutra spun silently.
Some meditated. Some climaxed. Some cried. All advanced.
The mountain pulsed with energy.
And Haaron, smiling faintly, whispered:
"This is only the beginning."