A change like no other swept down the gorge. Now there was noise where all before had been silent - the groaning of stone and the hiss of wind through a crevice. The Primordial Seal itself lay in broken pieces, glowing like red-hot coals where they lodged in portions of the jagged cliff. And from this fallen state arose the Shadow.
It bulked immeasurably, formless: part chains and part fury, a demon whose enormity squashed against the mountain as a pressing weight upon your bones. Even breathing became stone's malice. Brave leaders shouted out their fear and fled; they fled across the river without trusting another step. The haughtiest fighters staggered backward, their fingers slipping around the sword-hilts. Only Lin Xuan struck his posture at the announcement.
[System Announcement: Primordial Shadow mapping Time to Reality Subordinate Subjects: 4 further declines of me Rank 3 or Higher sentence must be broken Form Groups for translation into English sentence numbered consecutively. MORAL GUIDANCE].
Lin Xuan's gaze sharpened. If I cannot fight, then I will endure. It held no head at all, but still gave an almighty roar. The rattan jungle suddenly withered and disintegrated. Rock shattered, spitting fragments the size of boulders. Disciples were swept away like leaves before a typhoon, their mouths and ears spurting blood. Lin Xuan's eyes blurred and he took a stagger. A lesser man must surely have collapsed.
[System: Wills resonate.] [Calibration of strength of intent... Complete.] His spirit was stabilized, anchored but slower flowing than the tumult. He breathed in once, breathed out once, and stood firm.
The Shadow leaned closer, golden chains of broken light dangling soundlessly off its shape. It was less form than a memory -- yet the memory of a creature so vast that even its culture on mortal souls. The Guidance system.
[Hidden mission: Defeat the Primitive Shadow] [Path of solution Generation 3: Contact Primordial Cat] Golden lines running along Lin Xuan's gaze point to the center of the crevice, leading through the midriff of mist and rubble. There in the pulsating glow of fragments a single mark of the complete seal formation flickered weakly.
The pulse quickened in his veins. That sigil… it holds the Shadow back, until now. But it's beginning to give! If it fails, this time the Shadow will get out. If I just touch it, maybe the system—The Shadow has already moved. A surge of Qi bursts out; that wave of vaporized disciples. He watched disciples among the dispersed and falling rocks send out and spoon them with cries abruptly interrupted by silence. Lin Xuan's jaw tightened. He advanced. His every step was agony. The Shadow pressed down on his bones like a mall weight and wore his marrow away. But for all that, he could still move. Through the eyes of disciples colored as though by martial law, his own lonely figure walking slowly onward toward the cleft seemed at once mad and miraculous.
Meng Zhao's eyes narrowed from where he followed, with both disbelief and rage mingled: even now, he goes forward? This cripple? No… No, this is the end for him! Lin Xuan said to his followers under his breath: "If we let him live, we are done for. When chaos comes back — kill him. But don't make a slobbering mess of it."
Lin Xuan reached the cleft's edge. The faint light kept pulsing into the gloom, as if with a desperately delinquent heartbeat. Carved into it were ancient runes, most already obliterated, only uneven fragments remaining. But each blow was enough to knock its light out.
[System alert: This mission must be approached.] Lin Xuan's hand went up, right into the heat. Even the light sensation of searing skin, with its sharp pain that teetered uneasily between pleasure and agony, didn't make him flinch. The sigil flared once more, blazing like a torch.
And in that instant, the whole swirled and took a different course. The Emperor's Vision Darkness threw itself over them. Not the canyon — not the here and now, but something ancient. He was standing on an endless field of ash. Above him, the heavens were ripped as reliable light. In front of him, looking large beyond any measure, even constrictions by the very fabric of the cosmos itself present, was a figure robed in gold. His eyes were galaxies, his voice thunder.
"Who'd touch what I left here?" Lin Xuan stood stock still. The shape in front of him was no animal and no ghost; it wasn't even a being. It was a man—or something that had once been one. Courtesy of Emperor, the voice blared out, "[Primordial Inheritance Fragment Detected.] [Reproduction initiated... stabilizing.]" The Mark of Inheritance It went straight through him. The Emperor stared down at him. "Such a feeble worm! I take your chains and snap 'em like straw." Lin Xuan bent his neck slightly, his manner calm even in the vision world. "I am feeble as you say. But I endure. And I will not turn back." After a moment's quiet, the Emperor's lips finally moved. But his smile had no traces of kindness, only a grim recognition. "So. Get rid of my mark, if you will." With his finger down, a glimmer of flame bred by incalculable torture drove Lin Xuan to his knees and burned an impossible deep mark into his chest.
The System yelled out: [Acquisition of Mark] [Hidden Function Unlocked: Talent Fusion] Lin Xuan cried out in anguish, staggering backwards. When he opened them again, he could see the chasm.
The diadem glowed brilliantly, its fragments now combined into the entirety of the mark etched onto Lin Xuan's soul. Chains of light shot out from every direction, whipping the Shadow, driving it back toward that chasm. The Shadow roared, shaking the chasm with its wrath. The chains bit in, and it was dragged back into the void.
The chasm was finally quiet.
The glow went dim, fading into faint punctuations of light. The void calmed. From the intensity of the march, one arm shook. Lin Xuan laid it back down. His eyes remained steady if nothing else about him was. Disciples got to their feet out of this crisis, their faces filled with awe. "Is he... do we do it again?"
"He alone went out to fight." The most experienced, "That is not the same Kept asking without fail." But Lin Xuan just wiped his spear with a calm stiffness. However, some people looked at him, and he seemed more like somebody who had just survived a disaster—lacerated, marked, and burnt. Yet he still stood here without being broken.
Be low-key. Always be low-key. Meng Zhao watched with flame in his chest. He'd not only survived (Lin Xuan had snatched the moment and prospered out of catastrophe.) His fingernails grated on his palm until blood squelched from them. Lin Xuan… Crippled or otherwise, every stop of the way, I'm going to humiliate you. Swear… however many men of Zhengyangmen it takes, your body corpse will keep cold soon after I keep your dying breath. His eyes turned into a black ball. The canyon was still and silent, confiding its secrets to the earth. But in Lin Xuan's soul, that seal of inheritance throbbed faintly with a light no one else could see. He came to the edge of the battlefield and looked out toward the horizon. This is but the first step. The sect regards me as one of their pieces; Meng Zhao looks on me as prey. Let them. Come the time, they will know: the cripple is the way of emperors. In the wind, you could just hear chains breaking - both a promise and a threat.