The Headmaster's Tower was a bastion of quiet power. The scent of deep petrichor and cool, unyielding stone – smells as intrinsic to Qin Jiang as his own breath – filled the spacious office. Holographic screens displayed Sky University's vibrant life: Foundation Stage students in Sector Gamma wrestling nascent lightning, scholars debating in the Sunstone Library over fragrant jasmine tea, Security Chief Ken Lan, smelling of oiled leather and gunmetal, reviewing perimeter drones. Qin Jiang observed, his obsidian eyes holding swirling galaxies, the silent resonance of his Manifestation: Throne of the Gravitic Legion the bedrock beneath it all. Order reigned.
Su JinXin hadn't chosen the abyss; it had claimed him. Decades prior, aboard the deep-sea submersible Abyssal Dawn (ozone, recycled air, human sweat), the brilliant oceanographer retrieved a pulsating obsidian core from the Silent Trench. The Primordial Leviathan Gen didn't Awaken; it invaded. The Chainbound Phase was agony: black scales erupting beneath his skin, burning like acid, his breath reeking of rotting kelp and brine. Hallucinations of trench horrors clawed at his mind. Survival demanded a desperate Reawakening: plunging the corrupted core into his chest. The Tribulation was crushing darkness and whispering abyssal entities. He emerged master of the Void Serpent Gen, eyes stagnant blood, skin unnaturally pale and faintly scaled, radiating despair and void, smelling of deep ocean and ozone. Centuries of shadow wars for the Shun Association followed. Craving more, he descended into the 'Demon Maw,' merging the Void Serpent with primordial sea demon essence. The Tribulation was a psychic maelstrom of poisoned water and screaming void. He emerged as JinXin, Harbinger of the Abyssal Tide, Final Breath terror twice reborn. His Demonic Leviathan Gen radiated menace: deep brine mixed with old blood and cloying despair. His mission: infiltrate Sky University. The Abyss Knocks
The heavy oak door swung open silently. The cool petrichor drowned under a polluted tide: briny deep-sea reek, metallic blood-tang, cloying despair. Su JinXin stood framed, lean and wiry, tarnished silver hair tight against a pale scalp. High cheekbones gave him a skull-like sharpness. Eyes like stagnant blood under moonlight burned with ancient hunger. Simple dark robes drank the light, smelling of ozone and the alien deep. His presence pressed down, a psychic whisper urging surrender. Qin Jiang didn't rise. His gaze remained fixed, betraying nothing. The air chilled, dust motes spiraling more noticeably towards the unseen Gravitic Heart. "Su JinXin," his voice rumbled like settling bedrock. "You disturb the mountain's breath. State your purpose."
"Breath?" JinXin rasped, a dry scale-on-stone sound. A humorless crack split his glacial face. "Only the deep's pressure, Principal. Currents shift. I am JinXin, Harbinger of the Abyssal Tide. Agent of the Shun Association." He savored the psychic chill. "Your fortress? Hollowed. Ken Lan serves the same tide." As if summoned, the air near the window shrieked – space tearing. A vortex of grit and scorched-earth smell exploded inwards. Ken Lan landed, shaking the floor. Bark-like skin etched with corrupted crimson runes blazed; granite eyes burned with fanatical fury, the acrid stench of betrayal sharp. He stood beside JinXin.
"Ken Lan," Qin Jiang stated, the name a stone-carved verdict. JinXin displaced. From door to desk in an instant, a crimson mist afterimage fading. His hand swept out. "Mutation Technique: Crimson Rain of Ten Thousand Sorrows!" Air wept solidified droplets of despair and demonic energy, streaking down with hypersonic fury, screaming damned promises, reeking of copper, rot, and soul-crushing sorrow.
Qin Jiang didn't flinch. A thought. One Terracotta Sideguard materialized, shield slamming down. "Absolute Bulwark." A gravity-dome erupted. Crimson droplets splattered violently into acrid smoke, wails silenced. The shield held. JinXin hissed, steam from a vent. "Predictable. This room is too confined. Precious. The Kun Mountains. Horizon enough." A challenge laced with threat.
Qin Jiang rose, a continental plate shifting. "The Kun Mountains suffice." A gesture bent space; a portal smelling of high wind and distant stone irised open. He stepped through, Sideguard vanishing. JinXin flowed like ink, Ken Lan stomped after. Foundation Before Throne: Kun Mountains Clash
Wind scoured a desolate Kun peak, smelling of ozone and ancient rock under an indifferent sky. JinXin struck first, not yet unleashing his domain. "Mutation Technique: Abyssal Lash!" Tendrils of viscous, tar-like darkness, reeking of brine and psychic venom, whipped from his sleeves, cracking towards Qin Jiang like living whips.
Qin Jiang countered, grounded and precise. "Mutation Technique: Seismic Stomp." He stamped. The mountain peak shuddered. Jagged fissures snaked outwards beneath JinXin's feet, not to trap, but to disrupt footing and balance. The Abyssal Lashes faltered, striking rock instead of flesh, sizzling where they hit. Ken Lan roared, betrayal fueling his corrupted Earth Manipulation. "Mutation Technique: Granite Fist Barrage!" Fists the size of boulders, sheathed in jagged, corrupted stone smelling of scorched earth, launched from the ground, aiming to pulverize Qin Jiang.
"Mutation Technique: Gravity Well." Qin Jiang raised a hand, palm out. Space distorted around the flying stone fists. Their trajectory curved violently inwards, crashing into each other mid-air with thunderous booms, showering debris. JinXin flowed around the collision. "Mutation Technique: Void Bolt!" He spat a globule of condensed darkness that hummed with spatial distortion. It shot silently, faster than sound, aiming to bypass defenses.
"Mutation Technique: Stone Sentinel." Qin Jiang didn't dodge. A section of the mountain peak detached, swirling instantly into a thick, rapidly spinning disk of compressed rock interposed in the bolt's path. The Void Bolt struck, not exploding, but tearing a ragged hole through the stone before dissipating. The disk shattered.
"Enough skirmishing!" JinXin snarled. "Legend Manifestation: Sea of Crimson Sorrow, Void Sky of Regret!" Reality ripped. The peak vanished. They stood on a roiling ocean of clotting blood (reeking of iron, despair) beneath a starless, oppressive void. Crimson lightning arced.Qin Jiang stood firm on the viscous waves. "Legend Manifestation: Fortress of Unyielding Clay, Bastion of Shadowed Legacy." The blood-sea beneath him solidified into seamless, dark terracotta, spreading like a rising continent. Towering clay walls veined with starlight erupted, forming an immense fortress smelling of deep earth and resolve. Domains clashed – crimson and deep brown energy seethed at the boundary.
"Legend Pose: Harbinger of the Abyssal Tide!" JinXin transformed: elongated shadow-form, chitinous spines, venom-dripping talons, eyes bloody stars. The Sea churned.
"Legend Pose: The Unmoving Mountain Throne." Qin Jiang became the fortress. Obsidian eyes held eons. The Gravitic Heart pulsed visibly above his hand. Two Terracotta Sideguards materialized, shields locked. JinXin gestured. "Legend Technique: Vortex of the Damned Maw!" The blood-sea erupted. A colossal whirlpool vomited a vortex of shrieking demonic claws (solidified regret) and poison-water tendrils (corrosive acid, psychic rot stench) roaring towards the fortress.
Qin Jiang commanded. "Legend Technique: Legion's Endless Vigil." Thousands of Spectral Terracotta Warlords (shimmering dark bronze energy) materialized on walls and courtyards. Phalanxes formed, glaives humming. The clash was cataclysmic – claws shattered shields, poison dissolved energy, Warlords reformed, glaives hacked through with resonant clangs.
"Legend Technique: World-Sunder Blade!" Qin Jiang summoned energy atop his highest tower. A colossal sword of compressed bedrock and shadow plummeted like a meteor towards JinXin. JinXin snarled. "Legend Technique: Abyssal Parry - Tide's Turning!" He raised talons. The blood-sea surged into a multi-layered shield of congealed sorrow and demonic energy. The Blade struck.
KRA-KOOOOOM!
Light vanished. Space buckled. Domains flickered – brown, crimson, black – as gravity convulsed. Distant Kun peaks trembled. Light returned. The shield shattered, blood-sea boiling. JinXin was hurled back, Harbinger form flickering. The Blade was spent. The Silent Dagger
While JinXin reeled, blinded by the spatial storm, Qin Jiang acted with emperor's precision. As the Blade formed, one Spectral Warlord near the fortress base dissolved into manifested clay. Guided by Qin Jiang's will, it flowed through the domain substance, crossing the chaotic boundary unseen. It reformed behind the off-balance JinXin.
Its weapon: a Clay Dagger of Severing Silence, condensed from the Mountain Throne's essence – sharp enough to cut psychic bonds, heavy with gravitational force. Perfect moment. Perfect strike.
The dagger punched through weakened scales at JinXin's elongated skull base – the Leviathan's psychic core nexus.
Crunch-thud.
No explosion. JinXin's eyes widened – shock, then terrifying silence where the Leviathan roared. The blood-tang vanished, replaced by sterile demonic dissolution. The crimson sea flickered. The void sky trembled. The Harbinger form dissolved into smoke, revealing Su JinXin's pale frame, disbelief frozen. He collapsed onto evaporating blood-sea steam. The Leviathan dissipated with a psychic sigh. The Kun Mountains snapped back. Wind howled. Only ozone and fading corruption remained. Return of the Unmoving Throne
Qin Jiang stood amidst the mountain air, domains dissolving. He glanced at JinXin's husk. No gloat. A portal opened; he stepped back into his office. Ken Lan stood by the shattered window, panicked fury radiating, corrupted energy gathering in his fists. "YOU—!"
A thought. A Terracotta Sideguard materialized behind Ken Lan. Its massive annihilation-humming sword appeared, impaled through his chest and back. Ken Lan's roar became a wet gurgle. He looked down, up at Qin Jiang – shock in fading granite eyes. Runes flared crimson, died. He collapsed, betrayal's scent replaced by iron blood and spent power ozone. The Sideguard vanished. Qin Jiang walked to his desk. Screens flickered. His name blazed on the Mutation Tower: Qin Jiang - Terracotta Emperor (Final Breath). Students trained in Sector Gamma, unaware. Scholars debated, jasmine scent almost tangible.
Hours later, on the Sky Arena platform, news drones hovering (OmniCorp, GenTech, Celestial), Qin Jiang addressed the world. His bedrock voice, carrying Kun wind scent, amplified: "Power," it resonated with Throne-weight, "is forged. In discipline's crucible. In mastery's pursuit against self and world. Today's Ember Rift hunts forge tomorrow's darkness-resilience. Train not for Tower glory, but to stand when tides rise. Forge will like Gen. Be the unbreakable stone. Sky University is your anvil. Strike true."
Thunderous applause. Interviews followed. Qin Jiang answered with bedrock certainty. The abyss faced, betrayal shattered, mountain's purpose reaffirmed. The storm passed. For now. Deep currents moved; the Emperor's vigil was eternal. The chapter closed on the Gravitic Heart's hum and Sky University's determined bustle, readying for the next crucible.