đ©ž: A Price in Blood
---
đ The Cold Dawn
The first rays of dawn hadn't broken yet.
But the sky no longer bore the Eye.
Where it once hung in eternal judgment, only cracked moonlight and faint clouds remained. Yet the silence it left behind lingered like the aftermath of a funeral bell.
Wang Wu sat upon the shattered stone altar, surrounded by blackened lightning marks and burnt stone.
His clothes were torn. His left sleeve had disintegrated, revealing skin that shimmered faintly with silver scarsâheavenfire wounds that refused to fade. His lips were bloodless, and faint black threads danced in his breath.
He wasn't meditating.
He was surviving.
His soul had not fully returned.
---
đ Inside the Void Pulse
In the deepest part of Wang Wu's spirit sea, where most cultivators saw only a golden core or a Qi furnace, there now floated a vast black ocean.
And above that ocean stood a floating shrineâruned in crimson, flickering with blood-wrapped glyphs.
This was the Second Gate of the Void Pulse Scripture: Soul Dominion.
He floated in this endless darkness, staring up at it.
It throbbed in rhythm with his heart.
Each beat made the shrine hum.
Boom... Boom... Boom.
From the shrine descended not just power, but echoesâmemories not his own.
---
đ§ Foreign Memories
He saw a child with no eyes walking across molten stars.
He saw a one-armed woman wielding a sword made from her own spine.
He saw a man chained in the sky, screaming as golden lightning turned his blood into ashâyet refusing to die.
And in the distance, beyond time and soul, he saw a great white throne⊠and a name carved into the sky:
> Wen Dao, the Rootless Emperor.
---
đïž Return to the Flesh
Wang Wu gasped and awoke.
His vision was hazy. His bodyâparalyzed from the inside. His spirit sea churned with too many alien concepts. His dantian was cracked like porcelain. Even his Void Qi was no longer smoothâit now moved like thick sludge, surging in chaotic ripples.
"I overreachedâŠ" he muttered.
A hand pressed against his chest.
Warm. Steady. Familiar.
"You didn't overreach," said a soft, cool voice. "You survived something no mortal should have."
Wang Wu opened his eyes.
Lin Yue sat beside him.
---
đ„ Lin Yue's Confession
She wore simple red robesânot her usual radiant phoenix robesâbut plain, traveler's cloth, as if she had come here alone and unnoticed.
In the soft light of the mountain cave, her crimson eyes glowed faintly.
"You saved me once," she whispered. "You gave me that flame when I was about to burn alive in the Spiritfire Trial. I never forgot."
Wang Wu blinked.
"I⊠don't remember."
She smiled, though there was pain in her eyes. "You wouldn't. You were dying when you did it."
She took something from her sleeve. A broken black feather.
> "When you passed me that flame years ago, I thought you were a dying disciple with no name. But when I saw the Eye descend... I knew it was you."
Wang Wu stared at her.
"What... are you?"
Lin Yue smiled faintly.
And thenâ
She bit her own thumb, drawing blood, and smeared it across the stone floor.
A phoenix rune flared into life.
> "My true name is Yue Xian'er. Phoenix Bloodline of the Lost Flame, heir to the Rebirth Sutra. And I've come to deliver a message."
---
đ Message from the Past
From the burning rune rose a flickering image of a womanâtall, regal, dressed in white flame robes. Her voice was soft and terrible.
> "To the one who opens the Second Gate.
If you see this, you have survived Heaven's Eye.
You are the next Rootless Vessel. The key to the Ninth Pulse.
If you seek the truth of the Void Scripture...
...Come to the Broken Moon Ruins.
Bring no sect. Trust no master.
Come alone. Or the world burns before its time."
The image flickered and vanished.
Silence.
---
đ©ž The Cost of Power
Wang Wu closed his eyes. His breath was ragged.
"So⊠I'm not the first."
"No," Lin Yue said. "There were three before you. One fell. One vanished. One... tried to burn Heaven, and failed."
He leaned forward, clutching his chest.
Pain radiated down his spine.
His soul screamed.
"What's happening?" he gasped.
She didn't hesitate.
"You burned too much spirit at once. The backlash is cracking your meridians. You have maybe one week before the Void Rot sets in and you die."
He gritted his teeth.
"Then I have a week to fix it."
---
đ Lin Yue's Warning
Before she left, Lin Yue paused at the cave entrance.
"There are spies watching you now. The Midnight Pavilion. Crimson Mist Clan. Even your own sect elders don't know what to do with you."
She turned back to him, and for the first time, her voice trembled.
"I don't know if I'm helping a hero⊠or creating the next Heavenbreaker."
Wang Wu met her gaze.
"I don't either."
She vanished into the mist.
---
đ§Ș The Plan
Hours later, despite his shattered state, Wang Wu began to gather ingredients. His movements were slow, but deliberate.
He had one week.
And he needed three things:
1. A Soul-Fusing Lotus â rare and only grows in graveyards of cultivators.
2. A Heavenfire Spirit Pill â guarded in the Inner Vault of the Sky Ascend Sect.
3. A drop of Phoenix Heartblood â the only known source... Lin Yue.
He sighed.
"Simple," he muttered, before coughing blood.