Han Zhenwu froze mid-stride. A surge of energy—vast, golden, oppressive—approached from beyond the Han estate. His expression darkened.
"Tianhun."
Outside, the ground quaked under the combined pressure of dozens of cultivators. At their head stood Xie Tianhun, an Emberwake cultivator, flanked by elite Rank 2 experts.
Zhenwu's eyes burned with fury before twisting into a proud, mocking smirk.
"I've killed an Emberwake cultivator as a Rank 2. You think I cannot kill you, Tianhun?"
He turned to his son, who held his unconscious wife and child close.
"Follow me."
They dashed into one of the tunnels Zhenwu's mole had dug long ago. But as they ran, the ground trembled. The tunnel walls groaned—then cracked. The ceiling split apart as the soil above was torn away by blasts of light.
From above, Tianhun's cold gaze met theirs. Han Zhennan froze in terror as he saw the radiant figure standing with the Empire's army.
"Move!" Zhenwu barked, grabbing his son by the arm and pulling him forward. Stones crashed down behind them, sealing the path they'd left.
---
Far behind, Han Hua rose from the rubble, blood dripping from her mouth as she forced her wounds closed with Qi.
"Damn it…" she hissed, clutching her chest. "I can't let him kill that boy. I promised Yaqi that I'd protect her son, no matter what."**
Her eyes burned with determination.
"That bastard wants something demonic from Zhennan. I've been watching him for years… he might try to use that ritual again—the one that gave him the strength to kill our father. I don't know why he'd do it again, but none of that matters. What matters is keeping Zhennan alive."
She shot upward, her body becoming a streak of lightning as she followed the Imperial cultivators. Above ground, the Empire's forces were tearing through the earth, exposing the tunnel below. They didn't even glance at her—she was the one who had sent the warning after she got a distress call from zhennan.
Xie Tianhun hadn't trusted Zhenwu from the beginning. When her message reached him, he mobilized instantly.
---
Meanwhile, deep underground, Han Zhenwu and Zhennan were still fleeing.
The path to the inheritance was far—too far—and Tianhun's aura was closing in like a storm. Zhennan stumbled again, his Qi faltering, and Zhenwu pulled him out of the way of collapsing rock again and again.
"Come on!" Zhenwu barked. "Keep moving, Zhennan! We're close to safety!"
His voice softened, just enough to sound convincing.
"Hold out a little longer—if not for yourself, then for your wife and child. Remember, Xue Lian and Han Yu are still out there. I sent them away, but it's only a matter of time before they're found! We need to help them!"
Zhennan gritted his teeth, pushing his exhausted body further. His muscles screamed, his meridians burned as Qi surged through him like molten metal. His Dantian was nearly dry—but the thought of losing his wives, his child, and his father's desperate struggle gave him strength beyond reason.
---
The tunnel burst open behind them. Tianhun descended in a flash of golden light, his Emberwake aura shaking the entire cavern.
Zhenwu shoved Zhennan aside, taking He Ruying and the baby and forcing them into his son's arms.
"Run!"
Then he turned, drawing his double-bladed sword.
Tianhun's golden gauntlet met Zhenwu's weapon, lightning clashing with divine radiance. Despite being a realm lower, Zhenwu held his ground. Sparks exploded, the air shattering between them.
Zhenwu's eyes gleamed.
"I've fought worse than you, Tianhun."
He smiled faintly, whispering to himself.
"It's time to use my trump card. The inheritance will restore me—so now's the best time to use it."
He shouted at his son once more, voice booming through the collapsing tunnel.
"Zhennan! Keep going! Don't stop!"
Zhennan hesitated, but obeyed, sprinting deeper into the path. The Empire's Rank 2 cultivators moved to chase him, but Zhenwu swung his blade, unleashing a wall of lightning that blocked the passage.
---
Tianhun smashed a fist into the ground, sending tremors through the entire tunnel.
"Midnight Sundering – Second Form, Crushing Eclipse!"
Golden energy flared around him, condensing into a blinding crescent. His punch exploded forward, ripping the ground apart.
Zhenwu stepped back, black veins crawling up his face, eyes glowing crimson.
"False Ascendence."
His Qi erupted, wild and unstable, but terrifyingly strong. Tianhun felt it instantly—the man's power had leapt far beyond Rank 2.
For a heartbeat, he almost believed Zhenwu had broken through to the Emberwake Realm. His aura screamed with the same intensity, shaking the mountain itself.
Tianhun frowned.
"Impossible. That's not a true breakthrough—it's an amplification. A forced ascension technique… suicidal."
He analyzed quickly.
"Why would he sacrifice himself for his son? The intel said he tried to kill Zhennan. What is he after? I'll need to interrogate him for that later....."
He gritted his teeth, dismissing the thought.
"No. I'm not that curious. This demonic filth dies here."
The two clashed again. Zhenwu's weapon met Tianhun's golden gauntlet, their strikes sending thunderous waves through the cavern. The tunnel shattered around them, collapsing entirely.
Tianhun was pushed back several paces, boots grinding deep into the stone. Zhenwu was flung backward but landed lightly, blood dripping from his lips as he sprinted again—toward the same path Zhennan had taken.
Tianhun followed in relentless pursuit.
The underground battlefield was chaos—rock, light, and lightning intertwining in deadly waves. Each clash cracked the ground, sending tremors across the land above.
And through it all, one truth became clear to Tianhun.
Zhenwu wasn't fighting to stall him.
He was fighting toward something.
Zhennan skidded into the open cavern and froze. Every hair on his arms stood up as if answering some distant drum—an animal alarm that had nothing to do with sight. The air tasted of iron and old thunder. He could not see the source yet, but the pressure—thick, hungry, patient—pressed against his skin like a hand.
Aboveground, Han Zhenwu kept fighting. Each strike and parry with Xie Tianhun had shredded more of the tunnel; stone and clay rained behind them. Zhenwu's breath came in ragged pulls, but a sly light burned in his eyes.
"I should be close enough. I should do it now," he muttered, and when Tianhun lunged again he sprang—partly to attack, partly to perform the small theatre he'd planned. He drew a short vial from his pouch, shattered it toward Tianhun as he closed, and smirked as the liquid hissed through the air.
Tianhun's reflex was perfect: the Emberwake cultivator raised a defensive formation, parrying the thrown shrapnel away. He believed, in that instant, that he had stopped whatever trick Zhenwu had attempted. But the liquid was old and vile—Zhenwu's fatal gift—and it cut through a second of Tianhun's guard like acid through silk. Alarm crossed the general's face as the compound's properties fought the formation; he spat and tried to purge the effect with a cleansing pulse of Qi, but the tincture had been prepared for this purpose. It buyed Zhenwu time.
Zhenwu took the window. When Tianhun recovered enough to press, he hit Zhenwu hard—an elbow that cracked ribs, a strike that sent him spinning. Still, Zhenwu forced himself forward until he reached a carved notch in the tunnel floor. There, with a final grunt, he smashed his blade into the earth; the shockwave cracked the ground and opened a narrow chute beneath his boots. He shoved Zhennan down the aperture.
"Go! Now!" Zhenwu barked.
Zhennan tumbled, scrambled, and was thrown out of the tunnel mouth into the forest air, coughing and wild-eyed. Zhenwu followed—only to take a savage boot from Tianhun that dislocated his shoulder. They crashed on the broken earth as the cavern behind them screamed.
"Let's get this over with, Zhenwu," Tianhun said, voice low and exhausted. "I don't have time to waste on you or your son. This is the end of the line. You have nowhere to go."
Zhenwu's grin was the grin of a man who had already bet everything and won a side-bet. "You know me, Tianhun. Don't you think I prepared for this scenario?" he answered. His smile widened as the soil beneath them shuddered like a beast taking breath.
"JUST IN TIME—HAHAHAHA!" Zhenwu roared.
Before Tianhun could react a crack split the earth. A hulking maw tore through stone: a worm the size of a line of carts erupted, scales like flayed iron and plates bristling with coal-dark spikes. Teeth filled its mouth like a forest of knives. It had no eyes; instead its head bore a ring of sensory plates that tasted the world by quake and smell. It uncoiled, thirty meters of living ruin, and the air rang with a shriek that felt like the world tearing.
The beast lunged with a blind, single-minded fury for Tianhun and his men.
Tianhun barely blocked; the worm's speed underground and the violence of its surface emergence staggered him. He had fought Emberwake beasts before—he knew they avoided elite cultivators when advantage was not assured. This one attacked like it had been made furious.
Zhenwu let out a short glad sound and stepped back alongside his son. He watched the worm lock onto its chosen prey—Tianhun—not him. The worm crashed through ranks of soldiers and snapped a warhorse in half like a splintered branch. Its skin smoked under the pressure of rupturing Qi.
Zhennan clutched He Ruying and the child as the ground trembled. Relief and worry braided in his face; they were alive, but the scene was collapsing into something monstrous.
Zhenwu called through the dust as they ran: "The Deepmaw Worms are dangerous blood beasts—Emberwake-level if they come of age. Strong, fast, territorial, and undetectable until they erupt. They always avoid cultivators of Tianhun's standing unless provoked. I used something to drive it insane: the scent of a rival male!"
Zhennan blinked, coughing. "You—used another of them?"
"From an old wound," Zhenwu said shortly. "A vial taken from a male Deepmaw after I was ambushed by it years back. Its presence in the air means only one thing to those worms: another male has taken their ground. They respond with killing lust. They will not stop until one of them is dead. It will keep at Tianhun and his men, buy us time. It isn't meant to eat him—only to make him bleed and be delayed." He kept one hand on his son's shoulder and the other shielded He Ruying and the baby, every movement precise despite the dislocated shoulder.
Tianhun staggered to his feet, roaring. He slammed his gauntlet into the earth in a move that would have split mountains had the tunnel remained whole. "You will pay for this treachery!" he bellowed. But his plan to crush Zhenwu in a clean strike collapsed beneath the worm's thrashing mass.
The Deepmaw tore through the battlefield like a living avalanche. Soldiers and formations were flung aside; screams cut off when the worm's jaws closed around them. Tianhun dodged and cut, and his men did their best to hold lines, but the beast did not care to be tactical; it wanted blood and would not accept retreat.
Zhenwu took Zhennan by the arm and ran. "Head for the ridge! Keep low! Use the formation stones—avoid the open!" His voice was calm, ordered—an island in a sea of panic.
As they sprinted, the worm's scream flared, and Tianhun's figure stood wrapped in golden light, fighting to hold the breach open. Zhenwu stole one last look at him—equal parts contempt and calculation—and then plunged deeper into the broken earth, dragging his family toward whatever slim shelter he had planned while the Deepmaw's rage ate time for them all.