Night had fallen by the time Luotian returned home—a modest dwelling tucked beneath the shadow of a thousand-year-old giant sequoia at the city's northernmost edge.
The tree stretched nearly a hundred meters into the sky, its massive trunk a canvas of thousands of fist-sized dents. Some of these marks bore the faint, rusted stains of old blood—silent witnesses to years of relentless, agonizing training. For three years, ever since his sworn siblings had awakened their bloodlines and left him behind in rank, this ancient titan had served as his only sparring partner.
His hands were always wrapped in frayed bandages. Beneath them, calluses and scars marked the thousands of hours he had spent striking the tree's unyielding bark. Even when his knuckles split and pain surged through his arms, he had never faltered. With every strike, he had hoped to close the gap between himself and the others.
The northern district was desolate. Few ventured this far from the city's heart, as the land here bordered Winterrock Peak, a solitary, frost-white mountain that loomed over the horizon like a silent sentry.
Unlike the eastern Warland Thicket, which teemed with monsters and the chaotic energy of the hunt, Winterrock Peak was stark and unforgiving. Its steep cliffs were treacherous, and its base was a graveyard of sharp stones waiting for those foolish enough to slip. For anyone without the ability to fly, attempting the ascent was nothing short of madness.
The mountain was barren as well as dangerous. There were no rare herbs or monsters to hunt on its slopes, no resources worth the climb. The city had little reason to venture there.
It was precisely this isolation that had drawn Luotian here. Far from prying eyes and the suffocating pity of the populace, he could live a life of undisturbed focus.
His home was a simple wooden structure, practical and unadorned—the residence of a commoner rather than a youth hailed as the son of a God. The interior held only the bare necessities: a few tools, basic furnishings, and a clean space to rest.
The Peacock Lord had visited this humble clearing numerous times, urging Luotian to move into the Mei Clan estate where he could live in the luxury befitting his station. But every time, Luotian had politely declined. He preferred living here, away from the expectations that came with his father's name.
For Luotian, this small house beneath the sequoia represented the only thing he truly owned: a life shaped by his own hands.
He crossed the threshold of his home. Everything was exactly as he had left it—austere, silent, and still.
"When everything else is stripped away, what remains is truly special," he murmured, a faint, nostalgic smile softening his features.
His mind drifted back to his previous life, to the sprawling opulence of the Demon God Palace. Despite being surrounded by the wealth of galaxies and an army of servants, he had eventually chosen a quiet, backwater planet to settle on with Yue'er. Even as a supreme being, simplicity had been his sanctuary. He had valued that simple life above all the palace's luxuries.
He retrieved a weathered toolbox from a shelf in the living room and carried it into his meditation chamber. This was the room where he had spent a thousand failed nights sitting cross-legged, desperately trying to absorb monster cores in a futile attempt to spark a breakthrough.
Today, though, he entered the room with hope.
Dropping into a meditative seat at the center of the floor, he placed the toolbox before him. A cold, sharp determination ignited in his eyes. "Time for a new chapter—for the one they called the Savior. But first... I need to remove Father's seal."
The seal relied on subtlety rather than strength. It could be unraveled by the faintest wisp of Theríon, yet it was so microscopic and deeply embedded within his Soul Core that it was virtually undetectable.
For years, the city's most renowned healers and sages had poked and prodded at his body, yet none had been able to diagnose the root of his "sickness."
Even if a doctor had possessed the god-like insight required to locate the seal, removing it would have been a suicide mission.
The Soul Core was the absolute epicenter of a cultivator's being—the forge where Theríon was birthed and stored. A single tremor of a misplaced finger would have shattered his soul, ending his life in the process.
The problem was simple: the known way to break the seal required Theríon from within, but the seal prevented him from generating any.
To anyone else in this world, the problem would have seemed insoluble. Luotian, however, had more than a warrior's understanding of the soul. He had been Head Researcher of the Coeus Library.
He had another way.
A faint crack echoed through the room as Luotian interlaced his fingers and stretched his arms outward, his joints snapping in the heavy stillness. He turned his attention to the weathered toolbox, retrieving thirteen slender acupuncture needles that glinted with a cold, silver light.
Closing his eyes, he retreated into the inner landscape of his consciousness. The seal was tiny and hidden deep within his Soul Core, but his refined perception could pick it out clearly. He traced its crystalline geometry with practiced precision, his breathing slowing until it was nearly imperceptible.
The moment the coordinates of the seal were locked in his mind, Luotian's eyes snapped open.
His hands moved with a velocity that defied the physical limits of a "Cripple." In the span of a single heartbeat, twelve needles pierced the air, sinking into the specific meridian points surrounding his solar plexus—the biological shield of the Soul Core. Each needle descended exactly one inch; a hair deeper would have punctured an organ, a hair shallower would have missed the spirit-gate.
The needles formed a perfect, vibrating array. They began to hum, resonating at a frequency that bypassed his physical flesh to strike at the spiritual cage within.
Luotian raised the thirteenth and final needle.
This was the "Key." Holding it steady, he guided it toward the exact center of the array.
Crack!
The moment the final needle made contact, the atmospheric pressure in the room seemed to spike. The seal's invisible threads, wound tight for a decade, began to fracture.
Peng!
With a sound like shattering glass in a vacuum, the seal disintegrated. It vanished from his soul without a trace.
Without a moment's delay, Luotian's hands blurred again. He withdrew the needles one by one in the reverse order of their insertion, his motions smooth and methodical. He remained calm, working with the practiced ease of a master finishing a familiar task.
Once the final needle was withdrawn, the silence of the room was obliterated.
His Soul Core, no longer shackled, unleashed a decade of compressed potential. Theríon erupted like a breached dam, surging through his long-dormant meridians and igniting every fiber of his being with a violent, intoxicating heat.
A faint, dangerous smile curved his lips as he felt the torrent stabilize. "With the seal gone, awakening my bloodline should be easy."
His expression hardened, shifting from scholar to sovereign. He drew a breath that seemed to pull the very oxygen from the room. "HAH!!"
BOOM!!
With a single, soul-deep shout, the "Cripple" vanished. The invisible walls of his ten-year stagnation crumbled into spirit-dust.
Feng Luotian was now a One Fang Fighter.
He tilted his head back, savoring the revitalizing current mending his soul. "An eternity since I felt this," he murmured. "A Bloodline Awakening... to stand at this threshold a second time is an extraordinary gift."
Bloodline Awakening was regarded as the most exalted state a cultivator could experience. It was a fleeting, miraculous window where the heritage within the marrow reached its absolute purest form. During this primordial phase, the latent potential was pristine—untouched by the friction of techniques, untainted by the impurities of the world, and unburdened by the wear of battle. It was a state of singular perfection, unmatched in its clarity.
Yet, as a warrior grows and refines their path, that crystalline purity inevitably fades, replaced by the scars of discipline and the compromises of specialized power. To hold that untouched potential in his hands once more was an unparalleled advantage.
Luotian marveled at the sensation. This time, he could shape his cultivation exactly as he intended.
"Next, Bloodline Interfusion. I've spent centuries researching and testing it. I can't afford a mistake, especially with my own bloodlines."
He drew a long breath, channeling his Theríon. A dark scarlet aura erupted, enveloping his body in a shroud of violent shadows that crackled with a terrifying, entropic force. This wasn't merely fire; it was an Abyssal Darkness that radiated absolute dominion, threatening to swallow the very space around him and erase anything in its path.
Then, with a precise surge of will, he shifted his energy. The crimson shadows buckled, giving way to a divine blue light that pulsed with a celestial calm—a holy radiance that mended the air itself, soothing both body and soul.
Feng Luotian carried two extraordinary bloodlines within his body.
One was the Scarlet Demon God Phoenix—the abyssal, dark legacy of his father.
The other was the Blue-Eyed Heavenly Royal Swan—the radiant, celestial gift from his mother.