Deep blue water slid slowly from Ethan's skin, soaking into the damp pavement of the back alley. Though the blue talisman had suppressed the immediate eruption, a jagged web of dark red veins still pulsed stubbornly beneath his pale skin, radiating an eerie, lingering heat. Ethan's breathing was heavy and ragged, each exhale thick with searing air.
"Marcus, help me! Get him in the back seat!" Linda's voice was sharp, grating like sandpaper.
Marcus stood frozen by the trash cans, looking like a robot with its power cut. His mind had short-circuited—everything that had just happened defied every law of the world he knew. The blue paper appearing out of thin air, the water that moved like a living thing, and his best friend, who had caught a bullet and summoned fire from his fingertips.
"Marcus! Do you want the NYPD to haul you both away?" Linda shoved him hard.
At the far end of the street, blue and red lights pierced the night. Sirens shrieked like a death omen, closing in on the bar's front entrance. A cold shiver snapped Marcus back to reality. Fighting the stinging, burn-like pain of touching Ethan's skin, he helped Linda heave the unconscious boy into the back of her battered Camry.
"Buckle up. Hold on." The second Linda slammed the door, a ferocity he had never seen flared in her eyes. She floored the accelerator. The old engine let out a predatory roar, tires churning acrid blue smoke against the oil-stained asphalt as the car shot through the narrow, dark alley like a bolt from a bow.
Two minutes after the Camry vanished into the night, the beast known as the Internet fully awakened.
On TikTok and X, a shaky fifteen-second video was spreading at a rate of millions of hits per minute. The hashtags #BrooklynFireBoy and #MagicInDannys instantly claimed the top spots on New York's trending list.
The comment sections were a digital battlefield:
@NY_TruthSeeker: "This is definitely top-tier AI real-time rendering, or maybe a viral marketing stunt for a new Marvel movie. Too realistic!"
@BayRidgeResident: "Goddammit, I was there! I swear that wasn't CGI! That kid's hand actually caught fire. My hair still smells like it's been singed!"
@ConspiracyCat: "Look at his eyes at the 8-second mark. His pupils turn dark red. That's not a human light. That's the mark of a demon."
Meanwhile, back at Danny's Bar, over a dozen patrol cars had the area cordoned off. ESU officers in tactical vests swarmed the scene with rifles drawn. A technician in white gloves knelt by a shattered liquor cabinet, carefully picking up a deformed bullet with tweezers.
"Sir," the tech looked up, his face grim. "There's a type of... unidentifiable energy signature on the casing."
On the shadows of the overpass across from the bar, three men stood silently in the cold wind. They wore identical charcoal trench coats, their collars embroidered with a subtle grey cloud pattern. Their pupils were a dead, ashen grey, devoid of emotion. One of them closed the video on his phone, a cruel curve touching his lips.
"The bloodline isn't mature yet, but the scent is locked," the man's voice rasped like grinding metal. "They hid for so long, only to light the signal flare themselves."
"I'm tracking them now," another whispered.
"Harvest time."
A gust of wind blew through, and the overpass was empty, as if no one had ever been there. Across the bridge, the Camry carrying Ethan sped toward Chinatown, leaving the world behind.
When Ethan opened his eyes again, the world looked as if it were viewed through an ancient filter.
A thick, bone-chilling scent of sandalwood filled his nose—heavier and more metallic than the incense Linda usually burned. It hit his brain like a jolt, dragging his fever-fogged consciousness back to reality.
His vision focused. This wasn't a hospital. No sterile white lights, no beeping heart monitors. Above him hung countless brass ritual instruments, shimmering in the dim candlelight. The walls were covered in yellowing scrolls, their twisted cinnabar characters seeming to writhe in the shadows. He looked up and saw a black wooden plaque above the door frame, inscribed with four bold, golden characters: WU'S MASSAGE & ACUPUNCTURE.
"He's awake, Linda."
The voice was deep, like a resonant bronze bell. Ethan turned his head stiffly to see a skeletal old man standing by the bed. He wore a faded, frayed Taoist robe, his body as dry as a withered branch, but his eyes were terrifyingly clear—like ancient mirrors reflecting the soul.
"Master Wu..." Linda's voice came from the corner, trembling with suppressed fear.
Before Ethan could ask anything, terror seized his heart. In the old man's left hand lay several three-inch-long nails. They were a dull, dark teal, lacking any metallic luster, possessed instead of a jade-like warmth. Their surfaces were etched with microscopic, forbidden runes.
"What are you—"
Before he could finish, Master Wu moved. He was impossibly fast. He pressed his index and middle fingers together, snapping them against the nails in the air.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Four muffled strikes. Ethan didn't even feel pain—only a sudden, violent cold at his joints, as if shards of ice had been driven into the bone. Master Wu's fingers blurred again, launching the fifth and sixth nails into Ethan's collarbones.
"Hah!" With a low shout, Master Wu flipped his palm, and Ethan's heavy body was tossed into the air like a fallen leaf.
The final teal nail whistled through the air, piercing his skin and locking firmly into the base of his spine.
The Seven Stars. The Seal of the Life Gate.
Ethan was pinned to the wooden bed like a specimen butterfly, held by an invisible, absolute force. He tried to move, but his muscles felt disconnected, his very nerves locked down. More bizarrely, the scalding red veins that had been racing under his skin recoiled instantly upon contact with the nails, as if fleeing a predator.
"Where... where is this... let me go..." Ethan wheezed, his voice so weak he could barely hear himself.
"Don't move, child." Master Wu pressed a hand onto his shoulder. The hand was dry and cold, but possessed an undeniable authority. "These seven 'Soul-Locking Nails' are saving your life. They have shackled your boiling blood and sealed the curse. Without them, you would have been reduced to ash by now. Not even your soul would remain."
Linda sat nearby, her face gaunt in the candlelight. "Ethan, listen to Master Wu. This is the only way."
As the nails settled, the heat that had threatened to burst his veins receded. The red veins retreated into the depths of his body. Then, having absorbed the excess thermal energy, the teal nails shattered into dust. Miraculously, the charred skin and the holes left by the nails peeled away, revealing fresh, healthy skin beneath.
"It's suppressed for now, but I can't guarantee a second time," Master Wu said, wiping cold sweat from his brow. He turned to Linda. "I'll start the ritual. His power has awakened; it can no longer be sealed. He has to return to Kunlun. It's his only chance."
Linda sat in the dim shadows, her face as pale as a corpse. The secrets she had kept for fourteen years were finally laid bare.
"Ethan, listen," Linda said, her fingers trembling as she gripped his hand. "Time is running out. The curse in your blood has been activated. Your life is on a countdown."
"What is happening?" Ethan stared at her. He was done with riddles. "The fire... tell me the truth."
"It all goes back to our ancestor—Chen Wu-Ji."
A thousand years ago, atop the peaks of Kunlun. In a trial to determine who would ascend to godhood, Chen Wu-Ji fought the ancestor of the He clan, He Shuo.
"Chen Wu-Ji lost. But he was obsessed; he craved power above all else. The night before He Shuo was to be ascended, Chen Wu-Ji broke into the vault and stole the 'Nirvana Elixir'—the pill that could rewrite destiny."
Linda's voice carried a hint of unshakable guilt. "He Shuo didn't care about immortality. He had fought only for that elixir to save his young daughter, who had been lethally poisoned. Chen Wu-Ji didn't just steal a medicine; he stole a father's last hope."
"He Shuo reclaimed the elixir eventually, but by the time he reached his home, his daughter was dead. Despair turned that father into a vengeful demon. He Shuo ignited his very soul, transforming it into a world-burning fire, and laid down a blood curse: The Incineration Hex."
Descendants of Chen: Use the power, and the fire shall consume your life. Your years shall be halved.
"That's why I forced you to be mediocre," Linda said with a bitter smile. "The hex gives you devastating power, but it burns your lifespan as fuel. Your father—my brother—awakened his power by accident. He ended up as a pile of charcoal. Worse, there is a force in the shadows harvesting this cursed power. Your parents' death... it was no accident."
"What happened to them?" Ethan's voice shook. His eyes caught Linda's hand, and he froze. "Your hand..."
Linda yanked her hand back into her sleeve, but the sight of the withered, dark red markings burned into Ethan's mind. He realized it then: back in the alley, Linda had used her power to save him. She had ignited her own life for his.
"Are you ready?" Master Wu's voice came from the inner room, heavy with gravity.
"Wait, where's Marcus?" Ethan asked.
"He's been sent home. The less he knows, the safer he is. Let's go!" Linda helped Ethan up and into a heavily reinforced chamber.
In the four corners of the room stood bronze dragon heads, snarling and fierce. A complex circular array was carved into the floor, glowing with a faint, ethereal light. Master Wu raised an ancient, pale green jade pendant, his incantations falling like rapid rain.
"OPEN THE PATH!"
Instantly, the array erupted in a pillar of yellow light. The eyes of the dragon heads shot beams of energy into the center, whipping up a violent gale of spiritual qi. Ethan felt the floor beneath him grow light, as if the physical world were peeling away.
BANG!
A dull, bone-jarring explosion.
Master Wu froze. A fist-sized hole erupted in his left chest—the work of a high-frequency compressed air slug. Blood sprayed across the glowing jade, staining the light a dark, sickly red.
Ethan looked up, his breath catching. The door had been reduced to dust. Three men in black trench coats walked in, their dead, ashen eyes locking onto the center of the array.
"I suppose... I really am old," Master Wu coughed up a spray of blood, his body swaying as his lungs collapsed. "I didn't sense a single spark of 'life' from them."
The two lead killers didn't wait. Their bodies blurred into grey streaks, moving with a speed that defied gravity. They didn't run; they flickered across the room like arcs of dark lightning.
"You won't escape this time," the leader said, his voice flat and synthetic. He ignored the dying old man and stepped toward Ethan.
"Take him!" Master Wu roared, a final scream that burned through his remaining seconds of life. He held the jade high with his left hand to maintain the array, while his right sleeve discharged several teal nails.
Zip—!
The nails screamed through the air like armor-piercing rounds. They weren't meant for sealing now—they were lethal bolts. The two killers were forced into a grotesque, non-human contortion to dodge the projectiles, halting their terrifying advance.
Linda looked at Ethan. She leaned down and pressed a cold, wet kiss to his forehead. "I love you, Ethan. Someone will meet you on the other side."
She whipped out a bright yellow Stasis Talisman and slapped it onto Ethan's chest. Golden light locked his joints, freezing him in place within the array. Then, Linda turned with suicidal resolve and charged the three killers.
"GO TO HELL!"
Linda let out a soul-shattering scream, her body suddenly enveloped in a violent shroud of red energy. She moved like a burning meteor, grabbing two of the men by their arms and using her momentum to hurl them back into the main hall. Master Wu, fighting through agony, kicked out with a blur of strikes, hitting both in the chest with precise, bone-breaking force.
Thud. Thud. The two were sent flying.
But when the cold lights of the hall hit the killers' torn sleeves, everyone's heart skipped a beat. The fire had burned away the fabric, revealing not flesh, but a shimmering, silver-grey molecular-grade synthetic skeleton. No veins. No nerves. In the center of their chests, a honeycomb-like power core flickered with a cold red light.
They were killing machines.
"No wonder I couldn't sense any life..." Master Wu wheezed, blood staining his teeth.
"Wasting time. We didn't intend to delete you," the leader said, his movements leaving afterimages.
Before Linda could react, the machine's fingers—claws of high-strength carbon fiber—clamped onto her left wrist.
CRACK.
The sound of snapping bone echoed in the silent room. Linda let out a harrowing scream, cold sweat drenching her instantly, but she gritted her teeth and refused to let go of the arm she was holding.
The machine's eyes didn't blink. It reached for her other arm, intending to dismantle her like a piece of scrap. Master Wu launched a flying kick to break the hold, but the machine twisted its torso at an impossible angle, catching Master Wu's ankle in mid-air. With a violent whirl, it swung the old man's body directly in front of its two companions.
The two machines' arms began to reconfigure. Armor plates slid back, exposing high-frequency resonance tubes that began to hum with lethal energy.
"NO!" Ethan screamed, thrashing against the stasis. The talisman on his chest fluttered violently.
There was no delay. A blinding blue pulse of laser light tore through the air.
Master Wu's side was vaporized instantly upon contact with the high-heat beam.
Ethan's mind went blank. He watched Linda standing in a pool of blood, propping herself up with a broken arm. A primal power surged through his nerves, screaming to be let out. He wanted to tear those cold machines apart, but the talisman held him like a statue.
Fire... give me fire!
He roared internally. The magma in his gut erupted, more violent than it had been at the bar. He felt every soul-locking nail in his back vibrate—the curse was cheering as it began to feast on his life. The paper on his chest began to spark, its edges curling into ash.
The lead machine stepped forward, its hand reaching for Ethan's face. In that heartbeat, Linda pulled out a jet-black forbidden talisman and slammed it onto her own ankle.
She knew this was the end. Life for life.
Dark red flames consumed her instantly. She moved like a bolt of crimson lightning, tackling the machine from behind and slamming into the other two with the force of a detonating bomb.
"Ethan, LIVE!"
BOOM—!
Linda's entire life force transformed into a raging lotus of fire. The machine she held was melted through, its circuits shrieking. In the inferno, the woman who had protected Ethan for fourteen years turned to dry, blackened ash, scattering into the wind.
The machine pushed aside the charred remains and lunged for the array, only to find the center empty.
The transport was complete.
The only thing left in the air was a faint scent of sandalwood, and the scorched embers of the only family he had ever known.