The air in the metro tunnels was thick with the scent of rust and old decay. The glowsticks cast long shadows on walls plastered with pre-Collapse advertisements—smiling faces offering products that no longer existed. Yuchen led the way, his boots crunching over shattered glass and the occasional sun-bleached bone. Behind him, the remnants of the Luo family moved in tense silence, their weapons drawn, their eyes scanning the darkness.
Xing padded ahead, his silver-marked fur glowing faintly in the gloom. The pup had changed since the desert battle—his shoulders broader, his movements more deliberate. He paused now, his ears pricking forward, a low growl rumbling in his chest.
"What is it?" Yuchen whispered, hand hovering over his plasma pistol.
Xing didn't answer. He didn't need to.
The tunnel ahead shimmered.
The ruins of Lanzhou's underground were unlike anything Yuchen had seen.
Where Beijing's metro had collapsed into chaos, these tunnels had been preserved. Mosaic murals of the Luo phoenix adorned the walls, their colors still vibrant after decades. The air grew warmer as they descended, the scent of ozone and something else—something alive—thickening with every step.
Jiang wiped sweat from his brow. "This isn't just a metro. This is a goddamn tomb."
"Not a tomb," Jinhai corrected softly. "A nest."
The final chamber took their breath away.
A cavernous space, its vaulted ceiling held aloft by pillars carved like coiling serpents. At its center stood a dais of black jade, and upon it—
A mountain of crimson feathers.
The creature slept in a nest of its own making, wings folded tight, its breath slow and deep. Even at rest, its presence pressed against Yuchen's skin like a physical force.
The Vermilion Phoenix.
An S-rank beast.
Their beast.
Xing was the first to move.
The pup approached the dais, his tail lowered in submission, his golden eyes fixed on the slumbering titan. The moment his paws touched the first step, the Phoenix stirred.
A single eye opened—a molten gold orb with a slit pupil like a cat's. It regarded Xing with ancient intelligence, then shifted its gaze to the Luo heirs.
Jinhai stepped forward and knelt.
"Ancestral Guardian," he intoned, pressing his forehead to the stone. "The blood of Luo returns."
The Phoenix's beak parted. Not to speak—but to sing.
The sound was unlike anything Yuchen had ever heard. It vibrated through his bones, through his blood, awakening something deep and dormant. The Luo family members gasped as one, their hands flying to their chests—where the family's genetic markings, usually invisible, now glowed a faint red.
Yuchen looked down.
Beneath his armor, the Luo phoenix sigil burned against his skin.
Memories that weren't his own flooded Yuchen's mind.
2025. The first days of the Collapse. Lanzhou burning. The Luo ancestors standing before this very beast, offering a pact—not of domination, but of mutual survival. Blood for protection. A bond woven so deep it became heredity.
The vision shattered as the Phoenix's song faded.
The beast stretched its wings, revealing feathers that shimmered like heated metal. Then, with deliberate grace, it bent its head toward Xing.
A challenge.
A test.
Xing didn't hesitate. He met the Phoenix's gaze—and howled.
Not the sonic weapon from the desert.
Something older.
Something claimed.
The Phoenix's answering cry shook the chamber. Dust rained from the ceiling as the two S-rank beasts communed in a language beyond words.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over.
The Phoenix folded its wings and settled back onto its nest.
But its eye remained open.
Watching.
Waiting.
Jinhai's grip on Yuchen's shoulder was iron. "You understand now."
Yuchen stared at the Phoenix, his pulse racing. "This is why the Long family wanted us dead before we reached Lanzhou."
"Not just us," Jiang muttered, eyeing Xing with new respect. "They knew about him too."
The pieces fell into place.
The Long family hadn't just wanted to prevent the Luo from reclaiming their ancestral power.
They'd wanted to steal it.
Xing returned to Yuchen's side, his markings pulsing in time with the Phoenix's slow breaths. The message was clear.
The guardian had accepted them.
But the war was far from over.
The gates of the Luo ancestral fortress rose before them like the wings of a great phoenix unfolding.
Yuchen stood at the threshold, his boots coated in the dust of their long journey, his pulse steady despite the enormity of the moment. The fortress was a living masterpiece—a seamless fusion of ancient tradition and cutting-edge modernity. Towering pagodas of reinforced nano-carbon stood beside intricately carved wooden pavilions, their eaves adorned with glowing plasma lanterns that pulsed like heartbeat. The outer walls, forged from black jade and layered with energy-absorbent plating, shimmered with the faintest iridescent sheen—proof of the dormant defensive systems humming beneath the surface.
Xing pressed against his leg, the pup's golden eyes reflecting the fortress's grandeur. Even now, after everything they had witnessed, the sight stole his breath.
Luo Jinhai stepped forward, his spine straight despite the exhaustion lining his face. The massive vermilion gates, inlaid with the Luo phoenix sigil in gold and platinum, began to part with a resonant hum.
Beyond them stood rows upon rows of Luo family members—elders in their ceremonial robes, warriors in polished combat armor, scholars with data-scrolls clutched to their chests. All of them had been sent ahead from Beijing, preparing for this homecoming.
As one, they bowed.
"Welcome home, Patriarch."
The words rippled through the courtyard like a wave.
The inner sanctum of the fortress was a revelation.
Unlike the cold, militarized halls of Beijing, this place breathed.
Crimson peonies—genetically altered to bloom year-round—lined the stone pathways, their petals edged in gold. Water channels carved with precision engineering fed into tranquil koi ponds, where bio-luminescent fish darted beneath floating lotus pads. The air itself was perfumed with a delicate blend of sandalwood and ozone, a signature scent woven into the fortress's ventilation systems.
Yuchen followed Jinhai through the first courtyard, his senses overwhelmed. Everywhere he looked, history and innovation intertwined:
- A thousand-year-old stone stele stood beside a holographic monument listing every Luo warrior who had fallen in the Collapse wars.
- Robotic servants shaped like ancient palace maidens glided silently between the elders, offering tea and chilled towels.
- The central hall's ceiling was an ever-shifting nanotech replica of the night sky, constellations rearranging themselves in real-time to match the Luo family's astrological charts.
Jiang let out a low whistle. "Took 'em long enough to rebuild."
"This isn't rebuilt," murmured Elder Wu, running a reverent hand along a carved dragon column. "This is remembered."
Xing, normally wary of crowds, moved with uncharacteristic calm, his nose twitching at the unfamiliar scents. The fortress seemed to accept him—pressure plates adjusting to his weight, security scanners bypassing him entirely.
As if he belonged.
As if he had always been here.
The welcome feast lasted well into the night.
Platters of Lanzhou's famed hand-pulled noodles steamed beside delicacies Yuchen had only heard of in stories—moon-white mushrooms harvested from the fortress's underground hydroponics, honey-glazed lamb infused with rare desert spices, even a single, precious dish of pre-Collapse bird's nest soup, preserved through generations.
But the true purpose of the gathering became clear when the last course was cleared.
Jinhai rose, his ceremonial dagger unsheathed.
"The bloodline has returned," he intoned. "Let the fortress know its heirs."
One by one, the Luo family members approached—elders first, then warriors, then scholars. Each pressed their palm to the dagger's edge, letting a single drop of blood fall onto the central dais.
The reaction was instantaneous.
The dais absorbed the blood, its surface swirling like liquid mercury before resolving into a holographic family tree—one that stretched back centuries. Names glowed in gold or red, indicating those who still lived and those lost to time.
Yuchen's breath caught.
There, branching from Jinhai's name, was his father's.
Luo Tianyi.
And beside it, now pulsing to life in shimmering crimson:
Luo Yuchen.
The fortress knew him.
The fortress claimed him.
Later, in the privacy of the heir's chambers—a sprawling complex overlooking the fortress's central gardens—Yuchen finally allowed himself to exhale.
Xing had claimed a spot by the arched windows, his body curled around a genetically engineered heating stone that adjusted to his temperature needs. The pup's markings pulsed faintly, as if in conversation with the fortress itself.
Jiang poured two cups of strong baijiu, pushing one toward Yuchen. "You feel it, don't you?"
Yuchen didn't pretend to misunderstand. "The Phoenix."
It wasn't just the beast beneath the city.
It was the fortress.
The walls hummed with the same energy, the same awareness. The Luo family hadn't just built their stronghold atop an S-rank beast's nest.
They had bonded with it.
Jiang took a long swallow. "Your father used to say this place was alive. I thought he was being poetic." He snorted. "Turns out the bastard was right again."
A chime sounded at the door.
Jinhai entered without waiting for permission, his robes exchanged for simpler black fatigues. In his hands, a sealed case marked with the family sigil.
"Tomorrow, you will train with the Phoenix Guard," he said without preamble. "At dusk, you will study the family archives. And tonight—" He placed the case in Yuchen's hands. "—you will learn what it truly means to be Luo."
The seal broke with a hiss.
Inside lay a single, slender dagger—its blade forged from the same shimmering material as the Phoenix's feathers, its hilt wrapped in leather made from the hide of the last Celestial Hound.
Xing's ancestor.
Yuchen's fingers closed around the hilt.
The reaction was immediate. The blade sang, its vibration traveling up his arm and settling deep in his chest.
Jinhai's smile was razor-thin.
"Welcome home, grandson."
Dawn painted the training grounds in molten gold as Yuchen faced the Phoenix Guard.
Twelve warriors stood in perfect formation, their armor crafted from the same iridescent material as the Vermilion Phoenix's feathers. Their helmets were shaped like beaked masks, lenses glowing faintly with targeting augments. Not a single inch of skin was visible—only the Luo sigil emblazoned across their chestplates in shimmering crimson.
The captain stepped forward, her voice modulated through her helmet's vocalizer into something sharp and metallic.
"Heir Apparent Luo Yuchen. You will spar with each of us. You will lose. And then you will learn."
Xing, seated at the edge of the training circle, let out a warning growl.
Yuchen tightened his grip on the Phoenix-forged dagger. "I don't plan on losing."
The captain's helmet tilted. "Plans change."
She struck first.
Yuchen had fought elite warriors before—Sutherland mercenaries, Wei-Xing assassins, even Jiang in his more sadistic training moods.
This was different.
The Phoenix Guard moved as one organism, their attacks flowing like fire. Plasma blades hummed through the air, each strike calibrated to miss vital organs by millimeters. Yuchen dodged, parried, countered—but for every move he made, three more came from angles he couldn't predict.
By the fourth opponent, his breath came in ragged gasps. By the sixth, blood trickled from a shallow cut along his ribs.
The seventh guard didn't use a blade at all.
Her gauntleted fist struck his solar plexus with surgical precision. Yuchen's vision whited out as he hit the packed earth, the dagger skittering from his grasp.
Xing's snarl shook the courtyard.
The pup lunged—only to freeze mid-air as the captain activated a hidden control. A high-frequency pulse emitted from her vambrace, specifically tuned to Celestial Hound biology. Xing crashed to the ground, whimpering.
Yuchen saw red.
He moved without thought.
The Phoenix dagger sang as it flew from where it had fallen, hilt slapping into his palm as if drawn by magnets. His next strike wasn't trained technique—it was pure instinct, a sweeping arc that should have cleaved the captain's helmet in two.
She caught his wrist an inch from impact.
"Good," she said. "Now we begin."
They called it Xue Wu—Blood Dance.
An ancient Luo combat art, designed to harmonize with the Phoenix's energy. Not just fighting—communing.
The captain removed her helmet.
Yuchen's breath caught.
Her face was crisscrossed with luminous veins, the same crimson as the Phoenix's feathers. Her eyes burned with inner fire.
"The fortress chooses who may learn," she said, pressing a hand to her chestplate. It retracted with a hiss, revealing more of those glowing veins spreading across her torso. "Your blood has been accepted. But your body must adapt."
The training that followed bordered on torture.
- Strikes that hit not just flesh, but meridians, sending waves of fire through Yuchen's nervous system
- Stances that forced his bones to realign, his muscles to stretch beyond human limits
- Breathing techniques that made his vision swim with phantom flames
Through it all, Xing watched, his own markings pulsing in sync with Yuchen's agony.
At dusk, when Yuchen collapsed onto the stones, his body wracked with tremors, the captain finally nodded.
"Tomorrow, we teach you to burn."
Jinhai found him in the ancestral archives hours later, poring over pre-Collapse holograms of the first Luo warriors performing Xue Wu. Their movements were more than martial arts—they were rituals, each strike invoking the Phoenix's power.
"You understand now," Jinhai said, placing a hand on his grandson's shoulder. The old man's fingers were fever-hot. "We do not control the Phoenix. We channel it."
Yuchen rotated his aching wrist. The cut from earlier had already healed, the skin glowing faintly along the scar. "And Xing?"
Jinhai moved to a locked case, inputting biometric codes. The glass panel slid away, revealing an ancient manuscript—The Celestial Bestiary.
"His kind were meant to be our partners," Jinhai said, tracing an illustration of a massive wolf-like beast standing beside a Luo warrior. "Not pets. Not weapons. Equals."
Xing nosed the page, his breath ruffling the parchment. His golden eyes reflected the depicted beast perfectly.
Yuchen's comm unit buzzed.
Jiang's voice was uncharacteristically tense.
"Kid. We've got a problem."
The security feed showed everything.
A figure in servant's robes, slipping through the fortress's western gate at shift change. The way they avoided all patrol routes with uncanny precision. The moment they reached the inner sanctum's ventilation shaft—and injected something into the airflow.
Jiang froze the image, enhancing the insignia barely visible on the intruder's wrist.
A dragon wrapped around a sonic rifle.
"Long family," Yuchen growled.
Jiang nodded grimly. "And that wasn't poison they pumped into our systems."
The next clip showed the truth.
A sonic pulse emitter, hidden in the ventilation nexus. Not set to kill.
Set to awaken.
"They're trying to rouse the Phoenix prematurely," Jinhai realized. "Force it into a rampage that'll level Lanzhou."
Alarms blared.
Somewhere deep below, the earth trembled.
The Vermilion Phoenix was waking.
The tremors worsened with every passing second.
Cracks splintered through the fortress's black jade floors, glowing veins of magma-light pulsing beneath. The air itself grew thick with the scent of burning feathers and ozone—the Phoenix was stirring, and its rage threatened to consume everything.
Yuchen sprinted through the chaos, Xing at his side. The pup's silver markings blazed like live wires, his body growing larger with each stride—muscles coiling, bones elongating, his muzzle pulling back to reveal saber-like canines. The Celestial Hound was awakening in truth.
"The vents!" Jiang's voice crackled through Yuchen's comm. "They've rigged the entire western quadrant with sonic disruptors!"
A explosion rocked the compound. Flames geysered from a collapsing walkway as Long family assassins—disguised in Luo servant garb—shed their cloaks and opened fire. Plasma bolts seared through the night, cutting down unprepared guards.
Yuchen didn't stop.
He couldn't.
The Phoenix's distress screamed through his blood like a siren.
The entrance to the nest yawned open beneath the fortress's central altar, a spiraling staircase of fused bone and obsidian leading into the earth. Heat rippled from below, warping the air.
Jinhai and the Phoenix Guard formed a perimeter at the top, blades drawn.
"Go," the old patriarch commanded, his own veins alight with crimson energy. "We'll handle the rats in our walls."
Yuchen didn't hesitate.
He and Xing plunged into the depths.
The cavern had transformed.
Where before the Vermilion Phoenix had slept in tranquil majesty, now it was a storm of feathers and fury. Its wings beat against the cavern walls, sending avalanches of stone crashing down. Its molten gold eyes were wild, unseeing—locked in some ancient memory of pain.
The sonic disruptors' work.
Xing howled, the sound reverberating through the chamber in visible waves. The Phoenix shrieked in answer, a blast of superheated air hurling Yuchen back. He rolled, his Phoenix-forged dagger searing his palm as it absorbed the impact.
"It doesn't recognize us!" Yuchen shouted over the din.
Xing's response was a snarl—not of aggression, but challenge. The pup's body rippled, silver markings erupting into full brilliance as he changed.
Muscles swelled. Claws elongated. A mane of crystalline fur burst from his shoulders as he stood at his full height—taller than a warhorse, his presence radiating primal dominance.
The first true Celestial Hound in a century.
The Phoenix stilled.
For a heartbeat, predator and predator stared each other down.
Then Xing spoke.
Not in words.
In memory.
Images flooded Yuchen's mind—
The first pact. The Luo ancestors standing beside a beast identical to Xing, their blades raised not in threat, but in offering. The Phoenix bending its head, allowing a single feather to be plucked. The forging of the first bond.
The Phoenix's shriek turned mournful. Its wings folded, its great head lowering.
Xing stepped forward and pressed his muzzle to the beast's brow.
The cavern fell silent.
Jiang's plasma rifle whined as he took the shot.
A Long family assassin crumpled from the rafters, his sniper nest going up in flames. Around the fortress, similar battles raged—Luo elders moving with preternatural precision, their Xue Wu-enhanced bodies cutting through waves of intruders.
Elder Wu fought like a man possessed, his cane splitting into twin razor-whips that lashed through three attackers at once. "You dare defile our home?!"
The Long family's plan unraveled in blood and fire.
Without the Phoenix's rampage, their assault was just another failed assassination.
Dawn found the fortress wounded but unbroken.
Yuchen stood before the ancestral altar, Xing—now returned to his smaller form—at his side. Before them, the Phoenix's gift shimmered: a single crimson feather, its edges dancing with ember-light.
Jinhai lifted it with reverent hands.
"The Celestial Hound was never just a guardian," he said softly. "He was the bridge. The only creature the Phoenix would heed."
Xing huffed, as if to say Obviously.
Yuchen touched the pup's head. "And now?"
Jinhai's smile was fierce.
"Now the world remembers why none threaten the Luo in our own skies."
The feather burst into flame—and from the depths, the Phoenix's answering cry shook the heavens.