The expedition had begun.
Three days had passed since the banners of the Heavenly Spear Alliance were raised across the Crimson Sky Academy. What had once been a fractured bastion of elite cultivation had now transformed into a strategic war base, with subunits of each Hall training in shifts, rotating between martial drills, mana channeling formations, and tactical briefings. The transformation wasn't just structural—it was spiritual. Every soldier, mage, rogue, and commander felt it: the pull of something greater, the rising heartbeat of a force that was beginning to tremble against the world's foundation.
And now, the first campaign of that force had launched.
Su Mengtian stood at the forward edge of the expeditionary force, his gaze piercing the mist-covered terrain ahead. The land they marched into was known by many names—Deadwind Hollow, Wraith's Spire, The Forgotten Spine—but on any map, it was simply part of the Spiral Rift Border. The terrain was cragged, split by ancient seismic scars and magical turbulence, littered with bone fields and corrupted flora. Dimensional instability made scouting impossible by traditional means, and mana navigation failed frequently due to rift surges.
Yet Su Mengtian led without hesitation.
Behind him, over a hundred elite operatives from the Nine Halls moved like clockwork—each group carefully selected, all bound to their Hall's creed. Shadows cloaked the scouts ahead, Aegis defenders flanked the caravan, Echoes coordinated transmissions from the rear, while Ironbloods and Wyrmcallers handled the heavy deployment gear.
By his side marched Yue Qingshi, the commander of the Hall of Astral Command. Her once-pristine robes had been replaced with hardened blacksteel armor, her raven hair tied in a high warrior's braid. Between them, nothing needed to be said. Her respect for Su Mengtian had grown—not from his strength, but from his vision. She had seen generals break under pressure. But Mengtian… he thrived in it.
They descended into the first sink hollow just after nightfall. It was a place not marked on any known map—a valley where old ruins clung to cliffs like the ribs of an ancient beast. Here, the expedition made its first base camp.
"Tempests," Mengtian called, his voice quiet but firm. "Seal the ridgelines. Plant warding glyphs."
"Yes, Commander," came the reply. The air shifted as Tempest Hall's spiritualists floated into the high terrain, burning incense that fused curses into the air like a living fog.
"Echoes," Yue Qingshi added, "map the mana currents. Watch for pulse echoes."
"We've begun the sweep," a technomancer replied, antennae glowing blue with flickering signals.
The camp unfurled like a mechanical lotus: shelters rising from compressed slabs, beacons igniting with protective arrays, aether batteries whirring as power grids came online. Ironblood elementalists formed a protective dome overhead to neutralize atmospheric interference. But it wasn't enough.
Not here.
Not in this cursed spine.
"Stillness," Su Mengtian ordered. "Silence all echoes. Something's coming."
A hush fell instantly over the expedition.
And then they heard it—the groan of the land. The Rift was alive tonight.
From the east ridge, a cascade of black mist began to drip like ink from an invisible brush. It rolled, not like vapor, but like a sentient tide. From within it, shapes emerged—disfigured beasts with twisted limbs and half-melted faces, like creatures caught between dimensions. Their eyes were hollow voids.
"Positions!" Yue Qingshi shouted.
Hall of Valor warriors surged forward with weapons alight. Behind them, Aegis defenders locked shields, forming a half-moon barricade around the camp. Su Mengtian raised his hand, the sigil on his wrist glowing crimson—triggering the formation protocols they had rehearsed for weeks.
"Engage," he said.
The battlefield exploded.
Thundercracks from Ironblood cannons echoed through the hollow, beams of lightning arcing across the black sky. Wyrmcallers unleashed bonded beasts—flaming eagles, crystal lions, draconic serpents—all roaring in a united cry. Shadows flickered into the mist, eliminating enemies before they ever reached the lines. The Hall of Tempests infected the invaders with withering mantras that turned their limbs brittle and slow.
But it wasn't enough.
These weren't ordinary dimensional beasts. These were Spire-Touched, corrupted by rift radiation, partially existing in multiple realities. They bled into the world like splinters of a nightmare, ignoring physics, logic, and pain.
One charged directly at Mengtian.
Ten feet tall, its ribcage exposed and breathing like a second mouth, it swung an obsidian blade fused to its arm.
Su Mengtian didn't dodge.
Instead, he stepped forward—his aura shattering the very air. With a flick of his fingers, a wind tunnel formed and bent the incoming attack sideways. He pivoted, ducked low, and slammed his fist into the creature's chest—not with brute force, but with compressed momentum gathered through his perfected breath cycle.
The beast imploded.
Yet even as it fell, more emerged.
Hundreds.
They poured from the mist like ants from a split hive. The land was rejecting them. The Rift was retaliating. Something ancient stirred deeper in the hollow, and Su Mengtian felt the pulse again.
This time, stronger.
The blood in his veins surged.
His hidden bloodline—the Thunder Guardian Dragon—responded not with fury, but with anticipation. It did not wish to awaken out of fear. It sought a moment worthy of its emergence. Mengtian clenched his fist, forcing the energy back down. Not yet. Not now. He couldn't reveal it—not while spies from Yueying's clan might still watch.
"Fall back to the inner line!" he shouted.
The expedition began a calculated withdrawal into the stone fortress ruins embedded in the valley's heart. Aegis defenders sealed the gate with overlapping barrier domes, while Tempests filled the hollow behind them with blinding mist laced with decay spells.
Inside the ruins, Yue Qingshi activated an ancient map projector from a hidden rune-engraved dais. A 3D layout of the surrounding Spiral Rift displayed—unfolding like a puzzle.
"There's a lower shaft," she said. "Looks like an old tunnel system beneath the ruins."
Mengtian nodded. "We're not retreating. We're going in."
"What?" one Echoes analyst gasped. "That's suicide. The radiation—"
"We adapt," he cut in. "This is why we exist. This is why the Alliance was born."
And in that moment, no one doubted him.
Within the hour, they breached the lower tunnel. The descent was slow, lit only by alchemist-globes and bio-luminescent runes. The walls pulsed with old magic—symbols from before the Age of Collapse. The temperature dropped. Mana currents twisted unnaturally.
They had entered the Hollow Core.
Yue Qingshi whispered, "This wasn't a battleground. This was a lab."
All around them, skeletal remains of dimensional creatures floated inside crystalline sarcophagi. Sigils of containment were etched into the floor like DNA spirals. And then they saw it.
The Monument.
A massive obelisk inscribed in runes from dozens of lost civilizations. At its peak, a pulsating orb shimmered with black lightning.
Su Mengtian stepped forward. Something in his blood stirred violently.
"This is it," he whispered. "This is what we came for."
And deep inside him, the seal trembled once more.
But still, he held it back.
Because the thunder would roar when the time was right—and when it did, the world would hear the return of a legend reborn.