Li Shen's vision cracked like ice underfoot. The world narrowed to the burning circle of talismans around him and Zhen Wu's iron will pressing against his bones. Each rune that pinned him hissed with silver light — holy power that wanted to burn him clean.
But there was nothing clean left in him.
Zhen Wu's staff trembled in his hands as he forced the bindings tighter. Silver cords snaked up Li Shen's limbs, burning his skin to raw meat. The elder's face was a rictus of triumph and disgust.
"You were nothing!" Zhen Wu spat, spittle flecking his beard. "A village rat — now you crawl behind a demon's fangs. Is this your grand rise? A puppet? A beast?"
Li Shen tasted blood — iron, salt, the memory of rain in Ashvale. The Codex's runes flared under his ribs, pulses of red pushing against Zhen Wu's bindings like a drumbeat. And within that drumbeat, Ku Mo's voice — cold, triumphant.
Let me in, Ku Mo rasped. Open the last seal. Your flesh will break — but I will hold it. You will stand where gods fear to tread.
The talismans tightened. Bone cracked in Li Shen's shoulder — the pain a white-hot flower blossoming up his spine. But he felt something else too: a spark, fragile and stubborn, buried beneath the Codex's tide.
A memory of a boy. A mother's voice. A promise whispered at a grave.
Live.
Beyond the circle of runes, Yue Lan's voice cut through the roar. She had pushed past the disciples, hands pressed together in a Moon Sect binding sign — but her eyes were locked on Li Shen's, not Zhen Wu's.
"Li Shen!" she shouted. "Don't you dare vanish into him!"
Zhen Wu snapped at her without turning. "Saintess, stand back! This filth must be scourged before he corrupts more—"
Li Shen's laugh was ragged, bubbling up from a throat thick with blood.
"Elder Zhen…" he croaked. "You talk too much."
The Codex surged. The last seal, a web of blood and iron wrapped around his dantian, pulsed like a living heart. Ku Mo's spirit pressed against it — fangs bared, claws hooked deep into the walls of Li Shen's soul.
One breath, Ku Mo hissed. Give me one breath and you will never kneel again.
Li Shen's knees buckled under the bindings — the stone cracked under him as the runes dug into flesh and spirit alike.
One breath.
He saw Yue Lan's eyes — wide, pleading. A flicker of moonlight in the dark ocean inside him.
Live.
The circle of talismans flared brighter — Zhen Wu roared a final chant, his staff a spear of silver flame aimed for Li Shen's heart.
Time fractured.
Li Shen stared into the Codex's abyss — Ku Mo's jaws open wide — and he did not bow.
Instead, he pulled the abyss into him without tearing the final seal. He did not let go — he dragged.
The Codex shrieked in fury as Li Shen seized its hunger with both hands and bound it to his spine. For a heartbeat that lasted forever, he was no longer boy or demon — he was both. Flesh and ruin, will and predator, refusing to kneel to Ku Mo or the Nine Heavens.
Zhen Wu's staff struck.
Li Shen moved.
He tore through the bindings — silver talismans bursting like glass under a hammer. The Codex's runes crawled over his flesh, searing into the bones of his arms like molten chains. He caught the staff mid-strike — the impact shuddered through his bones but did not break him.
Zhen Wu's eyes went wide — rage twisting to disbelief.
Li Shen's voice was not quite his own — a low snarl wrapped in a dozen whispers.
"I am not your beast."
He drove his free hand into Zhen Wu's chest — past silk, past bone. Fingers found the old man's dantian. He pulled.
Zhen Wu's scream was a ragged thing — silver light bleeding from his eyes and mouth as the Codex drank the elder's carefully hoarded Qi. His talismans flickered, died. His staff clattered to the stone.
Li Shen let him drop.
The cliffs fell silent. Moon Sect disciples stood frozen, blades half-raised. The cold wind carried only the sound of the dying talismans crackling to ash.
Yue Lan stepped forward, trembling. Her lips parted — words lost before they could be spoken.
Li Shen looked at her — his eyes still burning, but no longer hollow. Something human remained there, flickering behind the red tide.
"You should have left me to rot," he rasped.
Yue Lan shook her head. "No. I see you. Even now."
He turned from her — from the terrified disciples, from the corpse cooling at his feet. The Codex growled inside him, but now its hunger sat in his hands — a blade on a chain.
He would never kneel.
Not to the Moon Sect.
Not to Ku Mo.
Not even to the Heavens.
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⚡ End of Chapter Nine
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