The void split apart beneath the storm of their battle.
Lightning raged across the pale world as flaming suns crashed and shattered—two Awakened titans locked in a war that had begun long before the first mortal breath.
The gryphon, Shandian, laughed madly as its wings tore hurricanes from the blank air. "HAHAHAHA! YOU DON'T HAVE THAT BASTARD TO PROTECT YOU NOW, LEIYAN!"
The Phoenix ignored his taunts, her golden fire coiling tighter around her wounds. She dove, her talons trailing molten ribbons, and the ground exploded beneath her. But the gryphon only met her fury with another storm.
"I'D LOVE TO TAKE MY TIME AND RELISH YOUR DEFEAT," Shandian sneered, lightning cracking through his feathers, "BUT I LEARNED LONG AGO NOT TO STALL MY BATTLES!"
Lightning orbs the size of boulders burst from his wings, howling through the void like vengeful spirits. The Phoenix met them with orbs of her own—flaming suns colliding with storms of thunder. Each explosion tore holes in the empty white expanse; the floor, if it could be called that, shook like the heart of a dying god.
"I KNEW YOU WOULD BRING ME HERE!" Shandian roared through the maelstrom, his voice crackling with stormfire. "BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT THE LAST REMNANT OF YOUR MASTER'S CREATION TO BE WIPED AWAY! YOU'RE AS PREDICTABLE AND FOOLISH AS EVER! YOU COULD HAVE FORCED THAT WHITE MONKEY INTO HELPING YOU, BUT NO—you cared too much for this sacred place. THAT'S WHY YOU WERE ENSLAVED BY A HUMAN! THAT'S WHY YOU ABANDONED US! THAT'S WHY YOU CHOSE A MORTAL OVER YOUR OWN KIND! FOR AN AWAKENED BEAST, I'VE SEEN DOGS WITH MORE LOYALTY THAN YOU!"
He slammed into her mid-flight, claws rending through molten feathers, laughter echoing like thunder from an open grave.
Lei Yan—the Phoenix—screamed in pain but did not falter. She spiraled upward, tearing herself free, wings blazing even as half of one smoldered to ash.
Below them, Zhenwu had no time to watch. Amid the chaos, he slipped toward the far side of the void where a dark tear shimmered faintly in the air—a gateway leading deeper into the inheritance. The final stage of his plan awaited there. He ran, clutching the infant Han Lei close, boots cracking against the white stone.
Behind him, Maro, Tianhun, Chenhao, and Lian Yue regrouped, their eyes fixed on Zhenwu's fleeing form—but the two divine beasts' duel blocked their way. Even Tianhun dared not pass between them; every spark that fell from their clash could annihilate him outright. The group began to circle, searching for another route.
Meanwhile, Zhennan stirred.
His eyes blinked open, hazy at first—then flooded with the terrible clarity of memory. His wife's last scream. His child's cry. His father's cold eyes. Tears stung as he pushed himself to his knees, chest heaving, the air heavy with the metallic scent of lightning and blood.
He looked up.
The gryphon's laughter echoed as it ripped into the Phoenix's left wing, tearing molten feathers apart. The Phoenix shrieked in agony, falling back, eyes burning brighter than the sun.
And then—she looked at him.
For a heartbeat, Zhennan felt as if he were staring into a mirror. The Phoenix's eyes held the same grief, the same fury, the same loneliness.
A voice entered his mind—clear, feminine, ancient as dawn.
"You are of the Han bloodline, child… aren't you?"
He nodded, trembling, unable to speak.
The Phoenix beat her one good wing, forcing the gryphon back for a breath. She turned her gaze toward him, her voice now low but urgent.
"That man… what is he to you?"
Zhennan swallowed hard. "He… was my father."
"Was?" she pressed.
He lowered his eyes, fists shaking. "I don't even think he ever saw himself as my father. He said… he was farmer fattening his sheeps for slaughter. Amd that i was one of them."
For a moment, there was silence. Then—her flames dimmed with sorrow.
"Then I can give you what you seek, child. I can give you revenge."
The word hit him like thunder. Revenge—something raw, feral, alive inside him. His pulse quickened. He saw again the flash of his wife's death, the emptiness where his son's laughter had been.
He whispered, "Yes… I want it."
The Phoenix's eyes hardened.
"Very well. But I require something first. Reach the inheritance core—lock this subspace from the inside. Only you can do it. You bear the Han bloodline, the key of this place's master. If you seal it, we can trap your father here and then make him pay."
Zhennan hesitated. Doubt flickered. He had trusted his father once, and that trust had cost him everything. Could he trust her—another being of unimaginable power with motives of her own?
The Phoenix saw his hesitation—and then screamed in agony.
A talon the size of a tree pierced her abdomen. Shandian's claws twisted, tearing into her molten flesh. "You'll die before you can use him, LeiYan!" the gryphon bellowed, laughing madly.
Flames bled from her wound, yet her eyes never left Zhennan. "Go!" she cried, voice echoing inside his skull. "I will help you!"
Her claw glowed with blinding light—and Zhennan vanished, torn from the battlefield in a burst of golden fire.
Shandian roared, snapping at the empty space where he had been. "I KNOW WHY YOU SENT HIM AWAY! YOU WANT HIM TO REACH THE CORE, DON'T YOU? YOU PLAN TO TRAP ME HERE!"
He laughed, feral and wild, lightning rippling over his torn body. "BUT LIEYAN—I'M RIGHT WHERE I WANT TO BE! RIGHT NEXT TO THE ONE I HATE MOST! WHY WOULD I LEAVE AND LOSE THIS CHANCE?"
He struck again, tearing the Phoenix's half-healed wing to shreds. Her scream shook the world, flames bursting from her as she staggered back, flapping desperately, her molten blood raining down in burning rivers.
---
Far away, in the depths of the inheritance, Zhenwu emerged through a shimmering rift. The world around him shifted again—stone walls this time, ancient and cold, carved with sigils that pulsed faintly in the dark. The air hummed with latent power.
He looked around, smiling faintly through his bloodied face.
Zhenwu moved like a man reentering a grave of his own triumphs—greedy, sure, and utterly unconcerned with anything but gain. The grand door sighed shut behind him with the sound of an old thing finally admitted to its fate. Inside the hall, rows of aether shards glittered like captive stars, manuscripts hummed with sealed techniques, and ranks of artifacts waited inertly for hands to claim them.
"This… this must rival the imperial vault," he murmured, lips tight with a smile that had no warmth. He reached, touched, stuffed: aether shards, vials of condensed battle-qi, pill-sets wrapped in lacquered bundles, sealed technique scrolls marked for rank 2 and below. He fed item after item into his ring with a ravenous efficiency, hands never stopping.
Shandian's promise had been simple: create a sufficient fracture, let me slip in, and the guardians would be busy enough for Zhenwu to claim what he wanted. Shandian had kept that promise—hardly a conscience between the two of them—but promises and debt are different things. Zhenwu cared for neither.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the inheritance, Zhennan moved with every ounce of the Phoenix's demand burning behind him. The void had spat him out into antiquity: a vaulted hall of carved sigils, corridors that smelled of old lightning and cold stone. Voices—not human—flooded his mind. It was the inheritance itself, a low network of willfulness and rules, pressing knowledge into him like water into clay.
Pain tore across his temples as the stream of data hammered him: where traps slept, which monoliths could be opened safely, the pulse-frequencies of bound beasts, the exact seal that kept the core from waking fully. He fell to his knees, throat raw. Whoever thought these tests were merely for greed misunderstood the place's cruelty—its help came at a price: understanding it meant accepting that it would take something in return.
"You own the key to this place," the memory of the Phoenix's voice echoed. "use it."as blue line started to form around his hands he felt great pain from it but he endured as it subsided and then he saw a maze like structure of blue lines around his arms he guessed this was the mark that can allow to control this place.
He himself a promise. He would lock this place down from the inside. And then he would make his father pay.
The inheritance answered him by aligning. Doors that had been cold and mute sighed open; puppets and stone-beasts—rank 2 sentinels—heard the new master's call. A chain of monolith-latches clicked. A dozen guardians he had never met before stirred to life, arms made of forged aether, claws of compressed lightning. They answered not with greetings but with duty.
Back in the halls where Zhenwu rifled like a storm, a distant tremor announced the change: beasts on the move. Zhenwu's nostrils flared; treasure could be taken only while hazards were manageable. He heard the faint, sickening hum that meant the inheritance was waking.
He did not pause.
From the side passages Zhennan chose to move away from the direction he knew Zhenwu occupied. He was not a child anymore, and he did not want his father to use Han Lei as leverage to force him into submission. The inheritance had given him command, and he would obey the Phoenix's instruction: reach the core, seal the way. He sent the summoned beasts toward a far door as bait to draw away potential guards—and then angled for the room that pulsed with the core's light.
The summons, however, had a mind of their own. The beasts answered the call and found Zhenwu instead.
Zhenwu looked up only when the first of them hit the hall. A hulking construct of stone and trapped storm slammed through a display rack, shards of aether exploding like glass. Zhenwu's grin never left his face.
"You lot are late," he said, and then the hall became a killing field.
He moved with the speed of a man who had trained his life to deny mercy. The first surge of guardians came in waves: rank 2, bristling, obedient. Zhenwu did not summon a single technique at first; he simply let his double-bladed sword sing, each strike a blade of condensed lightning, each parry a circle of crackle that chewed away at a construct's joints. Still, the outnumbering came fast.
The first beast fell to a brutal strike that cracked its torso, but at once three more filled the corridor. Zhenwu adjusted, calling one of his own techniques like a craftsman bringing out a tool.
He slammed his sword down and called, "rank 2 mid tier technique lightning barrier." A ring of volatile metal-sheen rose from the floor between him and the incoming wave, deflecting the initial impact, buying him a breath. The barrier fizzed and spat as claws struck it; sparks rained like brittle hail.
They kept coming.
Zhenwu followed with a flurry-style opener, "rank 2 high tier technique storm lash"—the double blade became a whip of lightning that cracked across mechanical joints, sending sparks like trapped noon into the air. A sentry's head exploded in a flash. He moved like a surgeon of violence, one hand guiding the baby-harness where Han Lei slept, the other carving a drawing of death.
The guardians adapted. One unleashed a "rank 2 mid tier technique iron bind," metallic tendrils erupting from the ground to pin his ankle. Zhenwu felt the tug but rolled, letting the strain rattle through bone and tendon. Pain sharpened him; it did not stop him.
The next guardian let forth a "rank 2 high tier technique thunder crush" that slammed down in a localized quake, flattening pillars. A chunk of ceiling broke and pelted toward him—Zhenwu caught it with his sword, channeled it into a counterthrow, and sent a shard straight through a construct's humming core. For each move, another formed; for every wound he inflicted, another beast stepped into its place.
His breath was hot, his muscles burning like hot oil; he'd not expected the inheritance to be so literal in its defense. Still—he had counted on enough chaos to mask his looting. He kept ripping artifacts into his ring with one hand between clashes, and when a guardian rose too quickly at his flank he spun, the blade singing a lethal "rank 2 mid tier technique arc cleave," severing an arm and sending the construct off-balance.
A thought flared, cold and pragmatic: he could not do this forever. The beasts kept arriving—too many, too fast. Even with the storm lash, the lightning barrier and the iron bind resisted, the tide shifted. He needed a gap in the inheritance's logic: a place where his hand could sweep clean without the oncoming flood.
He found one, but only because Zhennan had been smarter. The boy, newly bound to the place's will, had sent forward certain guardians as bait while the core-room—farther in—stayed lightly guarded. That misdirection had worked even as it bit Zhenwu with numbers. He realized then that his son, in obeying the Phoenix, had set the very conditions that bought him these minutes—and the boy had not come to stop him from taking treasure. Zhennan had come to seal the gate.
Anger flickered through Zhenwu—dark, hot. He roared, and the hall answered in sparks, but he kept moving. The hallway narrowed; another "rank 2 high tier technique thunder crash" hammered the floor and threw him against a broken rack. He spat blood and laughed, because greed is a kind of madness and madness will not reason with the sound of clawing numbers at the door.
He drove forward, step by step, blade flashing. The guardians came—and he broke them. He would not be overwhelmed in this room; not yet. He could hear the distant bell of other forces fighting outside the inheritance's shell, the muted thunder of two Awakened beasts still dueling beyond sanity. Time, for Zhenwu, became a balance: enough to fill his pockets, but not so much that the core closed on him and trapped him inside the inheritance with his new haul.
Behind him, farther and farther, Zhennan kept moving toward the heart—toward the choice that would become vengeance or doom. The guardians would keep pressing; Zhenwu would answer strike for strike. The hall echoed with the music of a fight that had only one true audience: ruin.
And among the falling sparks and the scent of ozone and greed, both father and son moved toward the same inevitable door—each a different kind of animal driven by wills that could not be reconciled.