Zong Hentian walked into the phosphor glow of the vault, his fur-trimmed mantle sweeping the wet shale. Around his neck hovered ribbons of scarlet radiance—the very fire he had peeled from Xiaotian’s spine seven winters ago.
Next to Xiaotian, Lin Muxi stiffened, her blind face turning toward the heavy scrape of iron boots. Her slender hands moved toward the hilt of her ritual blade, but Xiaotian shoved her behind his back with an elbow, planting his ruined legs between her and the patriarch.
"Father of the year," Xiaotian drawled, spitting a clot of phlegm onto the rock. "Took you long enough. Did the stairs give your gout some trouble?"
Zong Hentian did not smile. His gaze dismissed Xiaotian entirely, fixing instead on the smoky silhouette of Yao Qingyu lingering near the dormant crystalline heart.
"Still insolent. Even reduced to crawling among rats, you wear that disgusting sneer." The patriarch raised one gauntleted hand. Tiny embers danced between his knuckles, smelling of ozone and singed copper. "I purged that vile marrow from your flesh to wash away the rot of your origin. Yet like a hound drawn to vomit, you return to the demoness who birthed your misfortune."
Xiaotian's knuckles tightened against his thighs. "What rot? You stole my cultivation because your legitimate pup couldn't break through Foundation Establishment without a cheat code."
"Silence!" Hentian barked, the stone floor trembling under his step. "You know nothing of your bloodline. Your mother—that wretch Ning Shu—was an apostate from the Abyssal Lotus sect. Her veins carried the black sulfur of heretic kings. When I discovered her lineage, I had no choice. I harvested your fire to protect our clan from the Orthodox Inquisition, burning out her corruption before it could poison our ancestral tablets!"
Yao Qingyu’s melodic chuckle cut through the chamber, sharp with spite. She drifted forward, her spectral fingertips trailing along Xiaotian’s collarbone, cold as river ice.
"Listen to the small man squeak," she purred, dark lips curling. "Ning Shu never hid her lineage from you, Zong Hentian. You begged her for her secrets. You begged her to grant you the power of the Abyssal Lotus until she realized what a hollow parasite you truly were."
Xiaotian’s throat went dry. He cranked his neck around toward the demoness. "You knew her?"
"Knew her?" Yao Qingyu tossed back her head, her laughter rippling across the underground pool. "Little fox, she was the grand sovereign who bound me to this bronze pillar in the first place! She used her own bloodline—the very one sitting inside your father's chest—to forge my seals. She thought she was saving the mortal dirt from my wrath. And then this pathetic dog repaid her devotion by butchering her while she lay weak from childbirth!"
The words struck hard. Ning Shu had not died of consumption. She had been butchered for the embers now dancing on his father’s knuckles.
"A righteous sacrifice for the lineage," Hentian snarled, drawing his broadsword. The metal screamed as it caught flame, the stolen blood-red brilliance warping the stagnant air. "And today, I correct my final error. Both the blind saintess who feeds the core, and the demon-spawn who dared defile my court, die here."
Hentian vanished.
Xiaotian didn't have time to curse. He dropped his weight, shoved Muxi toward a rocky alcove, and threw his arms up in an instinctual cross-block.
The fiery broadsword struck.
The concussion blew Xiaotian backward into the stony ridge. Ribs cracked, the sound wet and brittle in the dark. Fire gnawed through his outer tunic, searing his forearms down to the flesh. He slid into the mud, coughing red.
"Xiaotian!" Muxi cried out, her hands frantic against the rough stones as she tried to crawl toward him.
"Stay back!" he wheezed, scrambling to his knees. A jagged grin tore across his bloody lips. "Don't mind him, Muxi. Old man’s got stiff hips. My grandmother swung a broom faster than that!"
"Die, pest!"
Hentian crossed the distance in a blur, driving an iron-toed boot into Xiaotian’s solar plexus. The impact lifted him off the ground, hurling him into the jagged pillar near the core. Xiaotian crumpled, blood gushing from his mouth, his breath coming in shallow, agonizing whistles.
From inside his coat, Baozi poked out a scaly snout, hissed violently at the patriarch, and clamped its tiny jaws down onto Hentian's leather boot.
"Vermin," Hentian muttered, shaking his leg with contemptuous ease. The turtle was flung against the stone wall, tumbling across the gravel with an indignant squeak.
Xiaotian tried to rise, but his limbs refused to answer. The stolen Marrow-Flame radiating from Hentian locked down his broken meridians under suffocating heat. It was his own life, his own ancestral power, burning him to ash.
Hentian stood over him, raising the blazing broadsword with two hands, aiming straight down at Xiaotian’s sternum. "No more shameful jokes. Rot in the dirt with your dead kin."
Muxi screamed, lunging blindly forward with her dagger, but Hentian didn't even look; he backhanded the blind girl with a burst of spiritual force, tossing her aside like a discarded silk doll.
Xiaotian’s vision darkened to rust. The smirk peeled away, replaced by bile and bare malice.
Yao Qingyu dropped low beside his ear. Her translucent form flickered, her voice no longer playful, but cold and primordial.
"Listen to me, little fox," she whispered, words curling straight into his soul. "There is one path. An ancient forbidden art Ning Shu used when her back was against the void. The Blood-Debt Reversal."
Xiaotian spat blood onto his father's greaves. "Tell me..."
"Your Marrow-Flame still recognizes its master's hearth," Yao Qingyu murmured, her nails grazing his exposed chest. "If he drives that flame into your bare flesh with murderous intent, the resonance will crack open his soul. You can pull every drop of your birthright back into your vessel. But it only works if there is zero resistance. No spiritual shield. No dodge. You must let his blade pass clean through your breast."
Hentian tightened his grip, the blade descending toward Xiaotian's chest in a streak of blinding ruby fire.
Xiaotian looked up, exhaled the blood in his mouth, dropped his arms flat against the stone floor, and laid his bare chest directly in the path of the falling sword.