They buried the bodies beneath the shrine's broken stones before dawn.
Yue Lan wrapped the dead in old shrine cloths — whispering a prayer no sect elder had taught her. Li Shen stood watch at the ruin's edge, blade across his shoulders, the Codex's runes faint in the chill air.
Above, the sky cracked from violet to bruised red. Dawn spilled like fresh blood over the mountain's crags — and in the red, Li Shen felt it: the faint tremor of eyes turned his way. Far eyes. Hungry eyes. The Nine Heavens stirring where they slept.
Yue Lan rose from the last cairn of rock, frost in her hair. She met his stare and saw the storm gathering behind it.
"They know," she said quietly.
Li Shen's jaw tightened. "They've always known. But now they care."
She stepped closer, fingers brushing the edge of his sleeve — feeling the Codex's heat beneath his skin like a heartbeat wrapped in chains.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
He almost laughed. "Like I'm standing under a blade that might drop if I breathe wrong."
Yue Lan's hand tightened around his. For a heartbeat, the mountain felt small, the sky close enough to touch.
---
They didn't linger. By mid-morning they pressed higher along the ridge — where wind howled through burnt pines and old, carved stones marked the border of something older than any sect still standing.
Li Shen knew these stones — at least by rumor. Spirit-bound milestones, once laid by wandering monk-kings who vanished into the high passes before the first great sect rose.
At the tenth stone, a figure waited for them — an old man in threadbare crimson robes, white hair bound by a single copper pin. He sat cross-legged on a slab of frost-dark granite, hands resting on a staff carved with nine jagged runes.
He looked like a beggar monk — except his eyes burned bright as a spirit lantern. And when he spoke, the mountain seemed to hush to listen.
"Li Shen," the old man rasped. "Child of Ku Mo. Saintess unmade."
Yue Lan's threads bristled on instinct, weaving between her fingers. "Who are you?"
The old man's grin was all cracked teeth. "A question too small for this height, Saintess. Call me Red Sigil — that's what the Nine Heavens remember."
Li Shen stepped forward, blade lowered but ready. "You're not Moon Sect. Or Lotus."
Red Sigil cackled. "I was sect and clan and crown — when your ancestors were flickers in the void. Now I am offering."
He tapped his staff on the stone. Sigils bloomed across the granite — crimson lines coiling like a serpent's skeleton, pulsing faintly against the dawn snow.
"Ku Mo's chain is clever," the old man crooned. "A demon's codex wrapped in mortal meat. But your leash frays, boy. I can see it in your blood."
Li Shen's pulse thundered. "And?"
Red Sigil leaned forward — breath steaming in the icy wind. "I offer you a way to break Ku Mo's teeth. Bind him — truly bind him — and make his power your own. No more hunger that bites you back. No more leash that snaps your bones if you dare dream bigger."
Li Shen's throat worked. "And what do you want?"
Red Sigil's cracked grin widened. "A cut. A share. A spark in the dark when the Nine Heavens come to burn your bones to dust. You climb, boy. I climb with you."
Yue Lan stepped between them — threads bright as winter stars. "And if he says no?"
The old monk only shrugged. "Then I sit here, cold and laughing, while Ku Mo eats him from inside out. And when the Saintess cries over his corpse, the heavens get what they always wanted."
The wind fell dead silent — frost on old sigils gleaming like blood in the rising sun.
Li Shen stared at the crimson lines, then at Yue Lan — her eyes raw, her shoulders squared like she'd stand between him and every heaven if it asked her to.
His voice came out low. "If I break the Codex's bite… what happens to me?"
Red Sigil's grin turned almost kind. "That depends, Bloodbound. On whether you're more demon than boy — or more boy than god."
---
Li Shen closed his eyes. The Codex pulsed behind them — Ku Mo's laugh a hiss of broken glass.
Choose, the demon murmured. Choose, little king.
Yue Lan's hand found his — trembling, warm.
"Don't lose yourself," she whispered.
Li Shen opened his eyes. Fire. Frost. A mountain's edge.
And a single choice.
---
⚡ End of Chapter Eighteen
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