Yu Zhou lay paralyzed in the tall, ancient stalks for fear of alerting the giants clashing.
The air was thick with the scent of crushed green life and the sharp, metallic tang of cold steel. Above him, the heavens seemed to hold their breath. The two giants had finished their dance. Lu Chen, the man who had dared to swallow the _Blood-Ignition Pill_, stood perfectly still. He was no longer a man, but a pillar of cooling ash. The forbidden medicine had used his life as kindling, burning through his marrow until only a scorched husk remained, his heavy saber still buried deep in the roots of a dying oak.
Opposite him, the other combatant—the man in silver silks—was a ruin of elegance. His refined robes were shredded, revealing the jagged wounds of a battle that had transcended the mortal realm. Beside him lay his sword, a slender, beautiful thing of folded steel that shimmered even in the dim light of the forest, though its edge was now nicked and stained.
Between them, nestled in a circle of blackened earth, lay the _Long Hun Shi_. It was a fragment of the _dragon blood_, a jagged tear in the fabric of the night. It pulsed with a golden, violent heat that made the very air warp and shimmer. To Yu Zhou, the "ant" hiding in the shadows, it looked like a star that had fallen.
A voice hissed from the depths of his cold, starving soul.
Yu Zhou did not stand. He crawled. He dragged his body through the grass like a scavenger, his fingers clawing into the loam. He was a thief of fate, a crow picking at the leavings of dead gods.
As he neared the stone, the heat became a physical blow. It singed his eyebrows and turned his sweat into steam. When he finally reached out, his hand shook with a terror as the searing heat burned him. He closed his fist around the stone.
He did not scream. He could not.
The stone was hot as it contained pure Yang , he quickly fed it to his spirit animal. It was a searing, arrogant fire. It was the _Yang_, pure and unyielding, seeking to erase the "lizard" that lived in his soul. But the creature within him did not die; it opened its mouth and drank.
"You…"
The voice was a broken rasp. Yu Zhou's head snapped around. The silver-robed man had dragged himself onto one blood-slicked elbow. His face was a mask of ruin, his one good eye fixed on Yu Zhou with a look of murderous disbelief. Even in death, he held a terrifying, faded dignity.
"Drop it… little rat… that fire… is not for… the likes of you…"
The man's trembling fingers fumbled for the hilt of his elegant sword, the steel singing softly as it scraped against the earth.
Yu Zhou didn't have a plan. He had only the biting, sharp instinct of the persecuted. He shoved the residual burning stone against his bare chest, beneath his tattered rags.
The skin over his heart hissed. The smell of his own charred flesh rose into the cool forest air. The agony was so absolute it became a sort of clarity. His vision didn't blur; it sharpened. He saw the veins in the leaves, and the path through the trees that led to the dark.
He scrambled to his feet.
"Return… it…" the silver-robed man coughed, a spray of crimson staining his fine silks. He managed to lift the sword a few inches, the tip trembling, before his strength failed and the steel thudded back into the grass.
Yu Zhou turned and fled.
He ran like a hunted animal. He stumbled over the branches of the Forbidden Forest whipping across his face like lashes. The stone against his ribs was a miniature sun, a heavy, thumping weight that beat in time with his panicked heart.
Behind him, he heard it—the rhythmic, heavy dragging of a body through the brush. The silver-robed man was crawling. He was a dying monster, but he was still a monster, and he was coming for him.
"We can… still negotiate … lad…"
Yu Zhou did not dare look back. He dove into the deepest thickets, where the moss was thick and the silence was as old as the mountains.
Inside him, the "lizard" was changing. It was no longer cold. It was swelling with the stolen fire, its grey scales turning to the color of a dawn sky.
His wrists—the raw, purple flesh where the executioner's chains had bitten deep—began to burn with a new heat as he absorbed whatever energy blood left in the stone. It felt as if his very bones were being forged anew.
He was like a starving boy, carrying a stolen sun, being hunted through the dark by a ghost.
But as he ran, the spirit animal in Yu Zhou's soul sanctuary began to harden. It was turning into something cold, something sharp, something that had been waiting for a thousand years to strike back.
The dragon had been a lizard for too long.
Suddenly, the lizard like dragons leapt out of him and spat out fire at the fallen transcendent chasing him.
Lad " I fought for that which I'm going to continue to do until I breath my last
BOOM!!
The man self-destructed—but for Yu Zhou, he was protected. The lizard shielded him with qi.
Soon, the fire of the denotion had long since faded, leaving behind a silence that was even more terrifying than the explosion.
Yu Zhou stood in the center of the blackened crater. He looked at the silver-robed man—now nothing more than a pile of discarded bones and tattered silk. A few minutes ago, this man had been a nightmare. Now, he was just history.
Yu Zhou reached out and closed his hand.
He didn't feel the thrill of victory. He didn't feel the rush of adrenaline. These were mortal things—warm, messy things. Instead, he felt a calculation as precise as a clock.
Strength: qi condensation Realm, Third Grade.
Essence: 9%
Desire: 0%
Although he has been stuck at the ninth grade of body refinement due to his spirit animal.
He looked down at his reflection in a pool of rainwater caught in a shattered stone. His eyes were no longer brown; they were flecks of gold floating in a sea of mercury. His face was more handsome than it had ever been, but it was the beauty of a glacier—perfect, sharp, and utterly devoid of life.
The void in his lower dantian—the space where his "manhood" once anchored his soul—felt like a cavern of dry ice due to pure Yang of the energy.
Sibilant—
The spirit manifested behind him. It was no longer a grey lizard. It was three meters long, its scales the color of tempered steel, its many eyes blinking in unison. It nudged his shoulder, its tongue flicking out to taste the lingering qi in the air.
"I am alive," Yu Zhou whispered.
His voice didn't sound like his own. It carried a resonance that made the leaves on the nearby trees curl. Every word he spoke was now laced with _Pure Yang_ that was slowly petrifying his humanity.
He needed to test his power.
He turned his gaze toward a massive ancient ten meters away. In the past, he would have needed a axe and three days to make a dent in it. Now, he simply raised a single finger.
Ping.
A beam of condensed solar light, no thicker than a needle, shot from his fingertip.
It didn't explode.
The tree was bisected instantly. The top half slid off with a thunderous groan, the cut so smooth it looked like polished glass.
Yu Zhou watched it fall with an indifferent gaze.
Too weak, he thought. If I am to return to the capital, if I am to protect the Yu Clan from the Emperor's shadow, this is not enough. Though he had many things to take care of. protecting his clan seem to be the major thing for now
He turned his back on the crater and began to walk deeper into the Forbidden Forest edge —not as a prey animal running for his life, but as a predator reclaiming his territory.
He would spend the next seven days in this green hell. He would hunt the Spirit Beasts that even the Zhang Clan feared. He would fill the void in his soul with the essence of the forest until his power was absolute.
The world had taken his name, his honor, and his masculinity.