The pillar of blood-red light pulsed, contracting around Gongsun Lie like a fist closing. The air shrieked, tearing itself apart as the world dissolved into a swirling vortex of scarlet and midnight black. He wasn’t just pinned; he was being *pulled*. An invisible maw opened beneath him, sucking him down, down, into a pocket of raw, hungry power.
He slammed onto something slick and pulsing, the impact jarring his teeth. The floor beneath him was not stone, but living tissue, throbbing with a sickening rhythm. Tendrils of a viscous, dark fluid snaked up his limbs, burning like acid, yet not leaving marks. His vision swam in a haze of red. This was the altar’s heart, its *stomach*. His vitality, his very life essence, was being ripped away, drawn into the pulsing mass beneath him. His body felt like a drying husk.
“*Ao Bantian!*” he snarled, a rasping cough. “*Now!*”
No answer. The greedy, demanding consciousness that had plagued his every waking moment, that had screamed for payment and mocked his suffering, was gone. Utterly, terrifyingly absent. The blood-soaked vault pressed in, suffocating, as his strength bled out into the altar. Had the fiend abandoned him? Taken his stolen treasures and fled the moment the true danger arrived?
Just as darkness threatened to consume his vision, a brilliant silver streak tore through the bleeding air, a shimmering comet of defiance. Tang Siyue plunged into the void, her spear leveled in murderous focus. She moved not with grace, but with desperate, brutal force, her entire being channeled into a single, devastating throw.
“*Touch him, and I will tear your soul apart!*” she screamed, her voice raw, tearing through the ancient being’s oppressive aura. The spear whistled through the red expanse, trailing pure, unyielding spear intent.
The pillar of light solidified further, coalescing into a spectral, towering form at the far end of the blood-chamber. It was vaguely humanoid, but twisted, formed of congealed soot and pure, malignant malice, its sockets twin pits of black void. The ancient monster, manifesting an ethereal projection, let out a sound like grinding tectonic plates, a low, rumbling laugh of pure disdain.
Siyue’s spear struck true. Not against the true body, not against flesh and bone, but against the heart of the manifesting phantom, pinning it to the pulsing wall of the altar. A wail, not of pain but of annoyance, ripped through the cavern, briefly disrupting the siphoning pressure on Lie. A precious, fleeting second of respite.
“*Insolent gnats!*” the fiend’s voice boomed, now laced with genuine irritation. A tide of pure, concentrated baleful Qi erupted from the pinned specter. It was not an attack, but a casual dismissal, a flick of an annoyed god. The force slammed into Siyue with the impact of a falling mountain.
She was blasted backward, a broken doll flung across the blood-chamber. Her spear, still embedded in the fiend's phantom chest, vibrated violently, but she was hurt. Severely. She crumpled against the living wall of the chamber, blood gushing from her mouth, her lids fluttering. The air crackled around her, scorching her skin, as the sheer malevolence of the altar tried to consume her.
The pillar of blood-red light surged, redoubling its efforts, pulling at Lie’s remaining life force. His vision narrowed to a pinprick. His cursed, rotting channels flared, burning with an agony that transcended physical pain. He was dying. His body was failing. Ao Bantian, the greedy beast, had truly abandoned him. The rage that had fueled him, the defiance that had kept him standing, began to sputter. He felt the cold touch of true oblivion.
Then, a flicker. Not a voice, but an image, slamming into his fading consciousness. A vast, hungry maw, impossibly wide, opening. A storm of iridescent scales, swirling like a galaxy. He saw it, not from outside, but from *within*. The altar. The bloody abyss. He saw it through Ao Bantian’s eyes. The greedy fiend hadn’t abandoned him. It had been busy. Preparing. Like a predator stalking its prey, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Ao Bantian wasn't silent because it was fleeing; it was silent because it was *eating*. It was devouring the very essence of the altar, consuming the demonic energy, gorging itself on the millennium-old power of the old monster. But the sheer scale of the meal, the depth of the power, was too much. Even for Ao Bantian.
A thought, clearer than any spoken word, echoed in the deepest recesses of his being, a final, unyielding demand from the famished primordial entity.
*This altar… it is a feast beyond reckoning. To devour it whole, to absorb its essence and break this ancient curse… the price is no longer mere stone or treasure. It is the core of your existence. Your heart. Surrender it. I will consume this world. You will rise anew. Or you will die, a pathetic meal for a lesser being. Choose, mortal.*
The ancient fiend, having shrugged off Siyue’s spear with a casual tremor, reformed, its gaze locking onto Lie’s rapidly fading form. A skeletal hand, formed of congealed gloom, reached out, its clawed fingers sharp as obsidian blades, descending for the killing blow. Lie, his remaining strength a mere flicker, coughed a spray of blood. His hand, shaking violently, covered in the viscous fluid of the altar, rose. He reached toward his own chest, toward the rapidly fading beat of his dying heart.