Chapter 32
The Serpent's Sigil
The mansion had been silent for days, but tonight it stirred with life. Tires crunched against gravel, headlights cut through the rain, and the wrought-iron gates parted to admit the Xin family car.
Inside, Xin Jian — a man with steel-gray hair and an aura of unspoken authority — stepped out first. His wife, Madam Lin Yue, followed, her sharp eyes scanning the estate. Both parents carried themselves with the gravity of power long-held.
Yet even as they walked up the marble steps, unease clung to them. Something in the air felt wrong — an echo they could not name.
When the door opened, their son waited.
"Father. Mother." The voice was polite, the bow precise. For a moment, their hearts eased. Xin Min had never bowed before. He had sneered, shouted, broken things — but never bowed.
Lin Yue's eyes narrowed. Too polite.
Jian's jaw tightened. Too controlled.
The boy before them wore Xin Min's flesh, but the cadence of his movements, the weight of his gaze, belonged to someone else.
A Father's Doubt
They dined together in strained silence. Jian studied his son over the rim of a wine glass. Once, Xin Min had eaten like a wolf, tearing through food between boasts and insults. Now, he chewed deliberately, placing each utensil back with careful precision.
"Where have you been?" Jian's voice was a blade.
"Studying," came the calm reply.
The lie was seamless, but Jian's instincts screamed. He was a man who had built empires by reading faces, and the face before him was both familiar and utterly foreign.
"You've changed," Lin Yue finally said. Her tone was measured, but her eyes were sharp as glass. "Your posture. Your eyes. Even your silence."
Ouroboros raised his gaze, and for an instant, his pupils seemed to swallow the candlelight. "Change is inevitable. To deny it is to deny fate."
The words hung in the air like frost. Neither parent answered.
The Serpent's Sigil
Later that night, when the household had gone still, Ouroboros sat in the darkened study. The legacy of his mother still burned faintly in his Sea of Consciousness, filling his veins with knowledge too vast for ordinary demons. It was there that he had seen it: a method of binding not through chains or blood, but through shadows.
On his arm, faint lines began to burn. The flesh hissed, then split into ink, forming the shape of a snake twisted into an infinity loop. It slithered once around his skin before settling flat — a mark of dominion.
Far across the city, in Li Wei's apartment, Voldrack convulsed. His arm seared, and from the skin rose the same serpent-shaped tattoo. Mei Lian rushed forward in alarm, but he brushed her off with feigned irritation, hiding the mark under his sleeve. His eyes narrowed. So. The boy calls.
At the same time, in the Chen household, Zaratul leaned over a bowl of rice when his vessel's arm flared with pain. The snake sigil etched itself into Chen Hao's skin as if branded by invisible fire. His little sister gasped, but Zaratul merely smiled, hiding the mark with a casual roll of his sleeve. At last, the bond is sealed.
Through that mark, shadows rippled at Ouroboros' feet. They lengthened unnaturally, stretching into corners where no light should reach.
A whisper echoed within the void. Voldrack's voice.What do you command?
Then Zaratul's laughter, cold and pleased.The leash is tightened. The serpent coils.
Ouroboros did not smile, but his eyes glowed faintly as he answered, his voice carrying into the unseen corridor between realms."You are mine, bound by fate. Distance no longer matters. When I call, the shadow will carry you to me."
The study returned to silence, but the sigil pulsed faintly, alive with forbidden power.
The Parents' Suspicion
Across the hall, Lin Yue paused outside the study door, her hand hovering just above the wood. She had been about to enter, to confront her son, but the moment she touched the handle, a chill ran through her arm. Something primal inside her whispered danger.
She stepped back.
Her husband appeared behind her, silent. Their eyes met, both carrying the same thought but neither daring to voice it: This is not the same boy.
Yet what could they do? To speak it aloud was to shatter the fragile illusion that their son had returned. And so they swallowed their doubts, burying them under the weight of silence.
But in their hearts, unease took root.
Ouroboros' Oath
In the study, Ouroboros stared at his reflection in the glass. The sigil still pulsed faintly on his skin, a mark that tied two powerful demons to his will.
"This power," he murmured, "was denied to them. Ordinary demons claw at shadows, hoping to bind. But I… I summon."
He closed his fist, and the shadows writhed like serpents, eager, loyal.
"All because of you, Mother."
The thought lingered, but there was no warmth in his tone. It was not gratitude, but acknowledgment — the way one might note a useful tool left behind by fate.
And in the silence of the mansion, where portraits of ancestors loomed, the boy once known as Xin Min vanished further, until only Ouroboros remained.
Would you like me to make Chapter 33 continue from the parents' perspective, letting their suspicion deepen into quiet investigation, or shift back to Ouroboros testing his new shadow-summoning ability directly with Voldrack and Zaratul?