At the very bottom of the abyss, the fog hung as heavy as slabs of lead, thick enough to be wrung like a wet rag.
Li An slumped against the freezing, jagged walls of the stone chamber, gasping for air. Every breath felt like dragging sandpaper across his lungs, leaving behind the thick, metallic tang of iron. His remolded bloodline had granted him power, but it was a pact of self-destruction the dark, jagged pulses of demonic energy surged through his shattered meridians like liquid fire. It gave him a terrifying explosive strength, but it was pushing his already terminal body to the absolute breaking point.
His skin was a near-translucent, ghostly white. In the eerie flicker of the phosphorescence, the blue veins beneath his skin were visible, pulsing in time with the black-and-red demonic marks that snaked like living vines across his collarbones and neck.
[Host, the energy readings above are off the charts. It's a total shitshow. Leng Heng and Yun Song are tearing each other apart over the apothecary, practically leveling the mountain. But the old fossils from the Disciplinary Hall aren't playing by the rules. They've sent a private hit squad down here, hoping to snatch you up while the two psychos are busy, thinking they can turn you into their own private stash of medicine.]
"Trying to scavenge in the middle of a fire?" Li An's lips curled into a faint, bitter smirk. His fingertips trembled uncontrollably from the white-hot pain. He didn't rush to run; he knew that in this state, he wouldn't make it a mile before being hunted down.
He pulled several jagged shards of the silver chain from his robes the very shackles Leng Heng had forged to bind his soul. Wincing as the sharp edges sliced into his palms, he jammed the shards into the hidden slots of the chamber's entrance.
He'd spotted this mechanism during his fall an abandoned remnant of an ancient alchemical trap. Like a spider weaving its first web, he prepared his sanctuary. Then, he crawled back into the deepest shadows of the room, pulling his tattered white robes tight to hide the haunting demonic marks. He left nothing visible but the image of a dying, broken boy waiting to be taken.
"Over there! The scent is getting stronger... wait, is that blood?"
With a few heavy, hurried thuds, three elites from the Disciplinary Hall, clad in dark purple robes, stormed into the room. Their leader was Wu Kui—the Disciplinary Elder's top student and a peak-level fighter just one step away from the Golden Core.
"That psycho Leng Heng finally lost his grip. Once we bring this little prize back to Master, that Golden Core pill is ours," Wu Kui said, his eyes gleaming with unabashed greed as his tracking compass shook violently in his hand.
To him, Li An was zero threat. The kid's mud-stained tiger ears drooped amidst his matted hair, and his chest rose and fell so feebly it was hard to tell if he was even breathing. He looked like a crushed lily stamped into the dirt something you could break just by pressing too hard.
That utter fragility made the men drop their guard completely.
Wu Kui walked right up to Li An, his expression full of arrogant playfulness. He crouched down, reaching for the boy's shockingly thin neck, only to find himself staring into a pair of eyes that snapped open.
Deep within those golden slit-pupils, the old chilled purity was gone. In its place was a haunting, netherworldly violet a gaze filled with nothing but a desire for ruin.
"Wu..." Li An's voice was a whisper, a heartbreaking tremor. "Didn't Leng Heng ever tell you? Down here... your eyes are the first things to lie to you."
Wu Kui's internal alarms screamed, but it was too late. Li An's hand pale to the point of being ghost-like shot out from his sleeve and slammed onto the stone floor.
"BUZZ—!"
A piercing, metallic shriek tore through the entrance. The scattered silver shards ignited with demonic energy. Li An had used his "Baleful Qi" to flip the internal logic of the protection spell, turning the entrance into a literal meat grinder.
"My legs! My power... it's being eaten alive!"
The silver shards turned into streaks of lethal light. Before the two goons could even draw their steel, the shards punched through their pressure points and knees with surgical precision. Screams of agony ripped through the deathly silence of the abyss, blood splashing against the stone walls with a sickening hiss.
Horrified, Wu Kui tried to bolt, but the air around him felt like it had turned to solid iron, pinning him in place. And the "dying" boy? He was hauling himself up against the wall, swaying on his feet.
Li An moved slowly, pausing to cough violently as dark clots of blood leaked through his fingers, but the sheer, predatory pressure radiating from him made Wu Kui's knees buckle.
"You... you've gone demonic? You're a monster!" Wu Kui pointed at the marks on Li An's face, his voice cracking.
"Monster? Saint?" Li An reached Wu Kui and extended his right hand now a black, clawed talon making a slow, phantom grasping motion.
The broken silver chains acted like trained vipers, slithering up Wu Kui's ankles and coiling tight around his throat, hoisting him into the air.
"Labels don't matter anymore. Monster or god... I'm the one who decides who I am."
Li An leaned in close to Wu Kui's ear, his breath weak but freezing cold. He pressed a single finger to the man's forehead, and demonic energy punched through his skull, ravaging his mind.
Soul Search.
"Ugh... AAAAAARGH!" Wu Kui's eyes went bloodshot, rolling back into his head in absolute agony.
Li An sifted through the trash in the man's memories. He saw the disgusting ways the Disciplinary Hall planned to use him; he saw the messy details of the fight between Leng Heng and Yun Song above; and then, he found it the Disciplinary Elder was holding a petal of the "Thousand Year Fire Lotus," the one thing that could stabilize his bloodline and keep him from burning out.
A moment later, Li An shoved him away in disgust. Wu Kui's body slumped to the floor like a sack of wet flour, his mind completely erased, leaving him a drooling vegetable.
Leaning against the wall, Li An's body went into violent spasms from the effort. His tiger ears twitched frantically in pain. He wasn't done. Dragging his broken body through the pain, he hauled the two dying disciples to the center of the room.
Using their blood, he smeared a grotesque, jagged sigil on the floor a spell meant to fry any tracking compasses that came near.
"Leng Heng, Yun Song... none of you are getting away clean. But I'm going to take my time with you."
Li An wiped the blood from his mouth, a cold, malicious smile spreading across his face. He snatched the Disciplinary Hall's jade token from Wu Kui's belt and flicked it into the dark currents of the riverbank, making it look like the entire team had been swept away.
With that, Li An vanished back into the mist. Like a predator lurking in the shadows, he took advantage of the "old monsters" tearing each other's throats out, dragging his broken frame toward the "Fire Lotus Pool."