The bone warriors surged forward, their skeletal feet clattering against the stone like a hailstorm. Li Tian met the first wave with a sweep of his dagger, qi flaring along the blade. The strike shattered ribs and skulls, but the fragments reassembled mid-fall, claws slashing at his throat.
"Aim for the cores!" Elder Qiang shouted, his palms blazing with crimson fire. "In their spines!"
Su Lin spun, her sword cleaving a warrior in half. A flicker of light glowed in its vertebrae—a shard of murky crystal. She stabbed downward, piercing it. The bones collapsed, inert.
Zhang Wei roared, his broadsword crushing two warriors into splinters. "Easier said than done!"
Li Tian's scar burned as he channeled the Core's energy. Silver light erupted from his palm, engulfing a dozen skeletons. Their cores cracked, and the bones disintegrated to ash. But the effort left him gasping, the chamber tilting.
*Too much. The Core's still unstable.*
The statue of the Magic Emperor loomed above the fray, its staff's Celestial Core pulsing faster, as though feeding on the chaos.
"The statue!" Li Tian shouted. "Destroy the staff!"
Elder Qiang lunged, fire spiraling toward the gem. The statue's eyes flared, and a barrier of black energy deflected the attack. The rebound sent the elder skidding across the map-carved floor.
Su Lin ducked a skeletal claw. "We need a new plan!"
Li Tian gritted his teeth. *The cores… the map…* The answer clicked. "Zhang Wei! The continents—smash the glowing lines!"
The big man grinned. "Finally!" He slammed his sword into the stone, fracturing a luminous path connecting two temple markers. The chamber trembled, and the statue's barrier flickered.
"Again!" Li Tian yelled.
Zhang Wei obliged, wrecking another line. The statue's Core dimmed.
"Now, Elder!"
Qiang unleashed a torrent of flame. The barrier shattered, and fire engulfed the staff. The Core cracked, its light winking out. The bone warriors froze, then crumbled.
Silence fell, broken only by labored breaths.
Su Lin wiped ash from her face. "Anyone else want to quit while we're ahead?"
---
**The Emperor's Whisper**
The cracked Core slipped from the statue's staff, rolling to Li Tian's feet. He picked it up—a shard the size of a walnut, its edges jagged. The moment his fingers touched it, the world dissolved.
He stood in a library vast enough to swallow kingdoms. Shelves stretched into infinity, stacked with scrolls whose titles shifted like smoke. At a desk of petrified wood sat the Magic Emperor, his form translucent, features blurred.
**"Clever,"** the emperor said, voice tinged with amusement. **"But breaking the map won't save you. The threads remain."**
Li Tian gripped the shard. "What do you want?"
**"What all prisoners want. Freedom."** The emperor gestured, and a scroll unfurled, displaying a desert scoured by violet storms. **"The next temple lies in the Crimson Wastes. To reach it, you'll need more than courage."**
The vision fractured, replaced by a single image—a spire of black glass piercing a blood-red sky. Then, nothing.
---
Li Tian staggered, the shard burning in his palm. The others stared.
"Another chat with our favorite tyrant?" Zhang Wei asked.
"He showed me the next temple." Li Tian knelt, sketching in the dust. "Here. The Crimson Wastes."
Elder Qiang's face paled. "The Wastes are a graveyard. No one survives the storms."
"We will." Li Tian touched the scar on his chest. "But we need a way to cross it. The storms shred flesh and qi alike."
Su Lin studied the shattered map. "The Magic Emperor must've had a method. These lines—they're not just geographic. They're celestial currents."
"Pathways," Elder Qiang murmured. "The temples are nodes in a network. Travel between them would require harmonizing with the currents."
Li Tian glanced at the dead Core in the statue's staff. "Or using a Core to force a path."
Zhang Wei groaned. "We're not jumping through another portal, are we?"
"No." Li Tian rose. "We need to fly."
---
**The Codex of Dust**
They combed the chamber for hours, sifting through debris and bones. Near the statue's base, Su Lin found a hollow compartment containing a metal codex, its pages thin as insect wings. The script was Old Celestial, but interspersed with diagrams of strange vehicles—sleek, bird-like machines with sails that shimmered like oil on water.
"Sky Chariots," Elder Qiang said, awe thinning his voice. "The emperor's personal transports. They harnessed celestial currents to move faster than any spirit beast."
Li Tian traced a diagram. The chariot's core was a familiar gem. "They used Cores."
"And we've got one." Su Lin nodded to Li Tian's chest.
"Half a Core," Zhang Wei corrected. "And it's *in* him. You planning to strap him to a mast?"
Li Tian ignored him, flipping pages. The codex detailed construction materials: celestial steel, storm-forged timber, cloth woven from cloudfiber. "We don't need to build from scratch. The temples must have docks."
Elder Qiang nodded. "The relay sphere mentioned a 'Hangar of Echoes.' If we can find it…"
Another tremor shook the chamber. Dust rained from the ceiling.
"Let's argue while moving," Su Lin suggested.
---
**The Hangar of Echoes**
The codex's map led them through collapsing halls to a massive vault door etched with winged serpents. Li Tian pressed the Core shard to a recess, and the door ground open.
Inside was a cathedral of rust and ruin. Dozens of Sky Chariots lay in varying states of decay, their sails moth-eaten, hulls choked by vines. Only one remained intact—a sleek vessel with a hull of iridescent metal, its sails folded like a sleeping hawk's wings.
"Lucky number seven," Zhang Wei said.
Li Tian approached the chariot. A control panel glowed faintly, its surface etched with sigils. He placed his palm on it, and the Core in his chest flared. The chariot shuddered, sails unfurling with a sound like ringing crystal.
Elder Qiang frowned. "It's bonded to you. The emperor's design."
Su Lin boarded, running a hand over the railing. "Will it hold?"
"Only one way to find out." Li Tian gripped the helm. The moment he touched it, knowledge flooded his mind—wind patterns, current charts, a thousand coordinates etched in starlight.
The hangar ceiling cracked, sunlight spearing through.
"Time to go!" Zhang Wei hauled Elder Qiang aboard.
The chariot rose, humming with pent-up energy. Li Tian focused, and the sails glowed. With a lurch, they shot into the sky, the temple collapsing beneath them in a cloud of dust and echoes.
---
**The Crimson Horizon**
They soared above emerald forests and jagged peaks, the chariot slicing through clouds. Zhang Wei whooped, leaning over the rail. "Now this is traveling!"
Su Lin watched Li Tian. His eyes had taken on a metallic sheen, his movements precise, mechanical. "Tian. You're bleeding."
A thin trickle of silver ran from his nose. He wiped it away. "The Core's balancing the chariot's energy. It's fine."
She grabbed his wrist. "You're not a battery. Let Elder Qiang help."
The old man sighed. "The bond is too deep. If I interfere now, it could destabilize both him and the chariot."
Li Tian stared ahead. The horizon bled red. "We're close."
The Crimson Wastes spread below—an ocean of dunes, their peaks scarred by lightning-blackened trenches. Violet storms raged in the distance, swallowing entire mountains.
The chariot shuddered as turbulence struck. Warning sigils flared on the panel.
"Currents are chaotic here!" Elder Qiang shouted. "We need to land and recalibrate!"
Li Tian's hands tightened on the helm. "No. We go through."
"Are you insane?!" Zhang Wei bellowed.
The storm loomed, a wall of howling wind and lightning. Li Tian's scar blazed. "Trust me."
He plunged the chariot into the tempest.
---
**The Storm's Heart**
Darkness. Thunder. The chariot bucked like a wild horse. Zhang Wei clung to the mast, cursing. Su Lin channeled qi into the hull, sealing cracks as they formed.
Li Tian's vision swam with overlapping images—the storm's raw energy, the chariot's trembling frame, the Core's relentless pull. *Faster. Deeper.*
***You see it, don't you?*** The Magic Emperor's voice slithered through his mind. ***The pattern in the chaos.***
And suddenly, he did. The storm wasn't random. It was a lock, its key a specific current. Li Tian wrenched the helm sideways. The chariot spiraled, avoiding a lightning strike by a hair's breadth.
"There!" he shouted.
A rift opened in the storm, revealing a sliver of calm. The chariot shot through, emerging into a cavernous sky. Below, the black glass spire pierced the earth, its apex crowned with a temple of bleeding stone.
Su Lin exhaled. "You did it."
Li Tian collapsed against the helm, silver blood dripping from his ears. "Not… yet."
The temple's gates yawned like a serpent's maw. Somewhere within, another Core waited—and with it, the Magic Emperor's laughter.
---