Master Mo was not a man built for patience. The humiliation of the past week—the Lion's fart, the destroyed column, and now the successful recruitment of the three most difficult students in the Academy—had driven him to a fever pitch of rage.
He stood in his private study, a luxurious room scented with rare sandalwood, pacing furiously before a low table where Elder Cai (the Head of Revenue) was nursing a cup of expensive calming tea.
"He lives, Cai! He thrives! He has taken the Imperial Princess and the Lin family genius, and he has turned my certain debt sentence into a profit!" Master Mo shrieked, kicking a tapestry woven with gold thread. "I need him broken! Not financially, but psychologically!"
Elder Cai, a meticulous man who valued order above all else, adjusted his silk robes.
"His methods are unorthodox, Mo, but they work. We cannot touch the Twilight Stable directly. Elder Shen's protection is absolute since Su Ye fulfilled the student quota."
"Then we attack his weakness!" Mo slammed his fist onto the table.
"He claims to be a Healer of Souls. Fine. We will give him a beast that is truly, irrevocably damaged—a beast that is beyond healing. A beast that will break his confidence and, more importantly, eat his valuable pets."
Mo lowered his voice, his eyes gleaming with malicious cunning. "Cai, you know the history of the Crimson Maw Basilisk."
Elder Cai's hand, holding the teacup,
trembled slightly. "Mo, no. That creature has been sealed in the Deep Vaults for fifty years! It's a Tier-7 Saint Beast, but its spiritual core was poisoned and driven insane by the Dark Sect! It is a pure killing machine!"
"Precisely," Mo smiled, a thin, vicious line. "The Basilisk's madness causes it to attack and devour any creature with a strong Spiritual Core, regardless of its own safety. If we 'transfer' the Basilisk to the Twilight Stable, citing a need for 'specialized care' and 'psychological rehabilitation,' Su Ye cannot refuse the assignment."
Mo leaned close. "When the Basilisk inevitably goes berserk, it won't just kill Su Ye. It will devour the Thunderfire Lion, the Iron-Back Wolf, and that priceless Void-Swallowing Pig. Su Ye will be left alive, surrounded by the corpses of his entire fortune. The collapse of his status and his confidence will be absolute."
Elder Cai swallowed hard, but the temptation of crushing the upstart was too strong. "The transfer papers will be ready by midday. I will ensure the release mechanism is... faulty. A tragic accident, of course."
The next afternoon, the relative peace of the Twilight Stable was shattered by the grinding sound of heavy wooden wheels and the clatter of armored guards.
A massive, sealed containment wagon, reinforced with runes of suppression, was backed up to the main gate. The air around the wagon felt cold and oppressive.
Su Ye, Luo Bing (now clad in simple grey robes), and Lin Fan stood watching the spectacle.
"Master Su Ye," announced a nervous Guild Inspector, clutching a clipboard. "By order of the Grand Council, the Twilight Stable has been designated the sole facility for the rehabilitation of creatures afflicted by Deep Spiritual Trauma. This is a mandatory assignment."
The Inspector quickly produced the transfer papers. Su Ye's name was plastered all over them.
"This is the Crimson Maw Basilisk," the Inspector whispered, beads of sweat tracking down his temple. "It is Tier-7. It is classified as homicidally insane. Its last handler was eaten alive. Good luck."
Before Su Ye could even scan the paperwork, the guards, clearly desperate to leave, yanked the suppression rune mechanism.
CLANG!
The massive stone door on the side of the wagon slid open, not with a controlled hiss, but with a terrifying, metal-on-metal screech.
It was a creature of horrifying majesty. It looked like a serpent, but its skin was covered in hard, dull crimson scales that seemed to absorb all light. Its eyes were milky white and vacant, and a permanent dribble of toxic black venom ran from its immense jaws.
The Basilisk didn't look for the gate. It looked for life. It immediately sensed the dense Spiritual Qi of the surrounding creatures. Its head snapped toward the Thunderfire Lion's enclosure.
The Lion, who had been contentedly chewing on a dental treat, instantly went into a fighting crouch, its mane flaring with blue lightning. Even the mighty Lion sensed the cold, mindless rage of its opponent.
"Master!" Lin Fan tensed, his hand instinctively reaching for his bronze gauntlets. "Its malice is overwhelming! We must suppress it!"
"No, Lin Fan! Stand down!" Su Ye commanded sharply. "Do not engage!"
He knew the Basilisk's history. It was a specialist killer; engaging it would only lead to bloodshed and the destruction of the stable.
The Basilisk let out a high-pitched, rattling scream—a sound that spoke of nothing but pure, agonizing madness. It coiled its body, ready to strike.
"Luo Bing! Take the Lion and the Wolf back into the deep enclosure! Lin Fan! Secure the Tortoise pit!" Su Ye ordered. "Zhu Zhu! Retreat!"
But Zhu Zhu, who had been sleeping in the sun, didn't retreat. The piglet woke up, stretched languidly, and looked at the oncoming, terrifying Basilisk.
The Basilisk locked eyes with the pig. The intense, focused hatred that normally drove it to kill surged toward the small pink target.
Then, the Basilisk froze. Its head cocked slightly.
The pure, raging madness in its eyes was suddenly overlaid with a flicker of something... Confusion.
ROOOOAR! The Basilisk lunged.
WHIZZZ. Zhu Zhu didn't move.
The colossal Basilisk lunged past the pig, burying its teeth deep into the wooden handle of a shovel that Su Ye had left leaning against the wall. It crushed the wood instantly, its mindless rage needing an outlet.
The Basilisk thrashed the shovel handle against the ground, splintering it into kindling. It then turned its gaze back to the piglet.
It hesitated again. The rage was still there, but something about the pig was wrong.
Su Ye stared, realization dawning in his eyes.
The Basilisk attacks spiritual cores. But Zhu Zhu...
Su Ye grabbed the bewildered piglet and held it close. Zhu Zhu's core doesn't radiate power; it radiates nothingness. It's a vacuum. The Basilisk's spiritual radar can't lock onto it!
The Basilisk, lacking a recognizable spiritual target, spun wildly, its attack impulse overloading. It let out another shriek and slammed its head into the side of the containment wagon, cracking the thick stone.
"Luo Bing, Lin Fan! Now!" Su Ye yelled. "Get everything with a Spirit Core locked down!"
As his students scrambled to secure the beasts, Su Ye calmly approached the Basilisk, holding the piglet like a shield.
Su Ye reached out, placing his hand not on the scales, but on the cold, damp stone of the wagon wall that the Basilisk was currently resting against. The Basilisk's energy was flowing through the stone.
Zzzzt.
Su Ye's consciousness was plunged into a nightmare: a vast, echoing cavern made of crimson scales. The air was filled with the sound of thousands of tiny, screaming voices.
The Ancestor was the Shadow Wyrm of Madness—a huge, spectral dragon coiled around the cavern walls. It was weeping black tears of pure despair.
"KILL ME," the Wyrm whispered, its voice sounding like grinding sand. "Just end this suffering. We are poisoned! This rage is not our own!"
"Senior," Su Ye projected, his mind reeling from the anguish. "The diagnosis. What is the source of the madness?"
"The Core is Tainted," the Wyrm wept. "The Dark Sect did not use poison. They used a spiritual shrapnel. They embedded tiny, shattered fragments of a hundred lesser Beast Souls into my descendant's core. Every soul fragment screams a different, conflicting command: Attack, Retreat, Sleep, Eat Poison!"
"The madness is the Basilisk's inability to choose which soul to obey," the Wyrm explained. "It attacks the nearest strong Qi signature because those pure cores temporarily drown out the screaming. There is no cure. You cannot remove spiritual shrapnel. The core must be dissolved."
Su Ye pulled out of the connection, breathing heavily.
A hundred screaming souls embedded in one core. That's why it attacks anything with high Qi.
He looked at the Basilisk, which was now hysterically attacking the wooden fence. It wasn't attacking out of malice; it was self-medicating, trying to silence the torment.
Su Ye knew he couldn't dissolve the core (that was euthanization), and he couldn't pull out the spiritual fragments.
But he had a better idea.
Su Ye walked back to the shed, leaving the Basilisk to tire itself out on the wooden posts. He returned with a large, battered wooden barrel.
Luo Bing rushed over. "Master, what are you doing? We should call the Guild Hall! This is too dangerous!"
"This isn't dangerous, Princess," Su Ye said, rolling the barrel to the center of the yard. "This is therapy. And I know exactly what this Basilisk needs to stop screaming."
Su Ye opened the barrel. Inside, piled high, were all the foulest, most toxic, most volatile failed pills and metallic scrap that Zhu Zhu had brought back from the dump. It was a pile of spiritual and physical garbage, radiating volatile, conflicting energies.
"Lin Fan," Su Ye instructed. "Use your metal essence to gently guide the Basilisk over here. Don't touch it. Just lure it with the energy."
Lin Fan nodded, trusting his master implicitly. He channeled a low, pulsing stream of metallic energy from his gauntleted hand, directing it toward the Basilisk.
The Basilisk instantly turned, its eyes locking onto the high-energy signal. It coiled and struck toward the metal energy.
Lin Fan quickly pulled the energy back, guiding the enraged Basilisk straight toward the open barrel.
The Basilisk plunged its head into the barrel, expecting a fight, expecting a source of Qi to drown out the screaming souls.
Instead, its head was submerged in the chaos of the toxic scrap pile.
The screaming in Su Ye's head intensified: Attack! No, Eat! No, Burn! No, Sleep! The spiritual commands were multiplying, becoming a thousand new, conflicting noises.
But then, the chaos in the Basilisk's core met the chaos in the barrel.
The Wyrm Ancestor's voice suddenly cut through the noise, tinged with disbelief. "It's... stabilizing! The utter chaos of the scrap pile is neutralizing the embedded conflict! The sheer volume of spiritual noise is canceling out the fragmented souls!"
The Basilisk wasn't healed, but it had found a focus. It let out a deep, rasping sound—a grunt of satisfaction. It began to slowly, methodically, eat the toxic trash in the barrel.
It ate the corrosive metal shavings. It ate the charred, poisonous pills. It consumed the whole barrel, cleaning the scrap pile entirely.
Just like Zhu Zhu.
The Basilisk pulled its head out of the empty barrel. Its milky eyes cleared, now showing a hint of dull red—still dangerous, but no longer vacant. The frenzied hatred was gone, replaced by a calm, if deep, suspicion.
It looked at Su Ye. It looked at the empty barrel. Then, it nudged the barrel with its head, looking for seconds.
Ding!
[Mission Complete: Psychological Stabilization]
[Target: Crimson Maw Basilisk (Madness stabilized)]
[Affection Level: Suspicious Coexistence]
[Status: Non-lethal. Requires constant supply of conflicting spiritual trash.]
Su Ye walked up to the terrifying creature, which was now looking at him with the intelligence of a dangerous, but reasoning, beast. He gave it a respectful nod.
"Welcome to the Twilight Stable," Su Ye said. "You're still crazy, but now you're our crazy."
The Collapse of the Scheme
That night, Master Mo sat in his study, smiling smugly as Elder Cai finished his report.
"The Basilisk was delivered at 14:00 hours, Master Mo. The faulty mechanism engaged. I estimate the slaughter took less than ten minutes. By now, the Basilisk has devoured the Lion, the Wolf, the Pig, and Su Ye is ruined. He will be on his knees before dawn."
CRASH.
Suddenly, the doors to Master Mo's study were flung open. A messenger, his robes torn and his face scratched, stumbled in.
"Master Mo! A disaster! The Crimson Maw Basilisk has escaped!"
Mo's jaw dropped. "Escaped? But where? Is the city in chaos?"
"No, Master," the messenger panted. "The Basilisk... is at the North Mountain Dump. It is currently battling the territorial Spirit Bears for possession of the Guild's industrial waste and appears to be winning."
The messenger looked terrified. "And Master Mo, a letter just arrived. It's from Su Ye."
Mo snatched the letter, his hands shaking. The letter was short and written in bold, clean script:
Master Mo,
I regret to inform you that your efforts to sabotage the Twilight Stable were only partially successful. The Basilisk is stabilized and currently eating a feast of your failed alchemy scraps at the dump.
However, due to the unexpected delivery of a Tier-7 Saint Beast, I must charge the Guild Hall a Hazardous Rehabilitation Fee of 50,000 Spirit Stones.
I expect payment by morning. If not, the Basilisk's ancestor (The Wyrm of Madness) advises me to feed your next shipment of expensive Spirit Pills to my pig, Zhu Zhu. He says they look tasty.
Master Su Ye.
Master Mo crumpled the letter, his face turning an alarming shade of green. He had tried to ruin Su Ye with a massive debt and a homicidal monster. Instead, he had given Su Ye a new Tier-7 guardian and earned a $50,000 bill.
"That... that stable boy is going to be the death of me!" Mo shrieked, collapsing into his chair.