The Grand Elder’s smile was a thin, cruel slash in the torchlight, completely ignoring the petrified initiates struggling with Jochi’s chained corpse. Targen, despite the shuddering terror radiating from his core, managed a small, polite bow.
“Grand Elder,” Targen began, his voice calm, “I apologize for the disturbance. We were simply seeking to clarify some… misunderstandings regarding the sect’s recent activities.”
The elder chuckled, a dry, grating sound that scraped against the stone. “Misunderstandings? My dear boy, your ‘clarifications’ have seen half my mountain reduced to rubble and my Sect Leader incapacitated. You have a peculiar way of seeking truth.” His gaze, cold and sharp, fixed on Targen’s chest. “And an even more peculiar way of cultivating forbidden arts. Tell me, boy, does the draconic spirit truly feel like a furnace in your blood, yearning to burst free?”
Before Targen could reply, the elder made a sharp, downward motion with his hand. The eight chains holding Jochi’s ghastly form clinked, pulling the immense, skeletal head towards the ground. A ghastly, shimmering purple mist began to rise from the corpse’s empty eye sockets, coalescing into a spectral maw that lunged directly at Targen. An unimaginable cold pierced Targen’s chest, followed by a burning agony. It felt as if his very essence was being suctioned out. His vision blurred at the edges, and the familiar, comforting hum of Jochi’s presence in his mind… dimmed.
“What… what are you doing?” Targen gasped, stumbling back, clutching at his robes as if to hold his spirit in.
The Grand Elder’s smile widened, revealing yellowed teeth. “I’m taking back what is mine. That primordial blood was always meant for *my* gate, *my* ascension. You, boy, were an interim vessel. And a rather convenient one, I might add. The purer the source, the faster the extraction.”
Agony lanced through Targen. He could feel it, a vital part of him, a burning, writhing power, being torn from his core. His legs buckled. The world swam. Inside his head, the space where Jochi usually slurred demands and techniques was utterly silent. No mocking laughter, no frantic warnings, no desperate pleas for wine. Just a void. Targen was alone. The timer in his mind, usually a slow, relentless count, began to flicker wildly. *365 days… 300… 150… 60… 30…* It was accelerating, shrinking to an impossible crawl. Minutes. He had minutes.
“Targen!” Sarnai’s scream was a raw, primal sound that ripped through the courtyard’s sudden stillness. She watched in horror as his knees gave out, his body trembling, a faint, sickly purple glow emanating from his chest. The spectral maw was an umbilical cord of death, draining him dry. “You… you monstrous fiend!”
Her sword, the Obsidian Whisper, appeared in her hand, singing with a furious azure light. She launched herself forward, a whirlwind of sapphire and steel, not towards the Grand Elder, but towards the sect enforcers who stood between her and Targen. Her movements were a blur, each strike precise, ruthless. A disciple’s shield splintered, another’s spear snapped. She was no longer the calculating strategist; she was a force of pure, unadulterated fury.
“Leave him alone, you hear me?!” she shrieked, her voice cracking with desperation as she spun, deflecting a flurry of blows with a clang of metal. “He doesn’t deserve this! He’s too kind, too stupidly good for this rotten sect! You won’t touch him!” Her eyes, blazing with an intensity that promised death, darted to Targen’s weakening form. “Targen! You idiot! Don’t you dare give up! Don’t you dare die on me!”
The Grand Elder watched, amused, as his vanguard struggled against the enraged woman. “A touching display,” he drawled, his attention returning to the draining process. The ghostly purple mist thickened, swirling into the skeletal maw. “But ultimately futile. The gate, you see, requires a concentrated burst of primordial essence. And thanks to our polite young friend here, it will open soon enough.” He raised his hands, and the air around him began to shimmer, distorting the torchlight. Above the execution platform, a tear in reality began to form, a shimmering, opaque rift that pulsed with malevolent intent. The Ascension Gate.
Targen’s body was numb, his mind a foggy wasteland. The timer was a frantic, blurring rush now, moments away from zero. He couldn’t feel Jochi, couldn’t feel his cultivation, couldn’t even feel Pogo gnawing at his shoe in protest. He was empty, a husk. But as his vision swam, he saw Sarnai, a desperate, defiant beacon, fighting for him, screaming his name, openly confessing her feelings for the clueless boy she was trying to protect.
And then, a flicker. Not of power, but of memory. The Void-Belly Physique. Jochi’s first, almost throwaway technique. It wasn’t just for absorbing ambient spiritual energy. It could absorb *anything*.
The corrupted essence, thick with the stench of death and the Grand Elder’s malicious intent, was pouring out of Jochi’s corpse, through the spectral maw, and into… Targen. Not from his own core, but directly from the dead god’s shell, through the same connection the elder was exploiting. It was vile. Toxic. A million times more dangerous than the raw chaotic blood. To absorb it would be suicide. But to do nothing…
Targen looked at Sarnai, her tunic bloodied, parrying three halberds at once as she held the perimeter around him. He had a choice: absorb the corrupted, rotting energy of the dead dragon, risking instant combustion, or watch Sarnai be executed by the Grand Elder.