Wind howled down from the peaks, scattering frost and pine needles across the half-buried stones. Yue Lan's spirit threads hummed between her fingers — a silver lattice dancing like trapped lightning. Li Shen stood at her shoulder, blade resting against his shoulder, Codex runes burning faintly behind his eyes.
Below them, Elder Zhuan regarded them without moving. His mask hid everything but the cold gleam in his gaze — a gleam that had once bound a thousand disciples in trembling obedience.
His voice cut the silence clean in half.
"Li Shen. You think you wear that demon's crown, but you wear its leash. Let me take it — break it, root and bone — and I will grant you a clean grave."
Li Shen's laugh startled the birds from the frost-bowed pines.
"Kind of you, Elder. But I already broke the leash once."
His free hand brushed Yue Lan's wrist — a promise that he wouldn't do this alone.
---
Elder Zhuan flicked his fingers. A black talisman unfolded from his sleeve, snapping open in the air like a crow's wing. A wave of spirit pressure slammed the snow flat around him. Yue Lan staggered back a half-step, threads fluttering.
His bindings, she realized. The same chains that sealed devils beneath the sect's main altar. He'll try to seal Li Shen's Codex — and his heart with it.
Li Shen felt it too. The Codex stirred behind his ribs — Ku Mo's voice a purr of iron teeth.
Let me off the chain, boy. I will tear this priest open from inside out.
Li Shen grit his teeth — not yet. The hunger had to stay his, not Ku Mo's.
He took a single step forward — steel whispering through mist.
"Try it," he said, voice low. "See if your paper gods hold."
---
Zhuan's talisman flared — black runes coiling like snakes through the frost. Spirit chains snapped from it in every direction, slamming into the snow, the stone, the very air around Li Shen. Each chain hissed with binding script that promised no demon would ever howl free again.
Yue Lan lunged to his side — threads flaring to intercept the first wave. Her silver silk met the chains mid-air — spirit force clashing like hot iron on ice. Sparks hissed through the fog.
She caught Li Shen's eye — a heartbeat of silent oath.
Together.
Zhuan's calm voice slid through the clash. "Yue Lan. Child. Step aside. There is mercy still for you."
She didn't flinch. "I learned your mercy, master," she hissed. "I buried it when I buried my mask."
Her threads twisted — spirit silk coiling around the Elder's talisman like hungry roots. But Zhuan's fingers flicked once — a counter-sigil pulsed. Yue Lan's threads snapped in half with a crack like breaking bone.
She gasped — staggered. The Elder's chains lunged for Li Shen's chest.
---
Li Shen moved through them — not away, but through. Blade humming with Codex heat, he struck the spirit chains mid-flight. The bindings shattered in sparks and shards of frozen script.
Zhuan's eyes narrowed behind his mask. Another flick — a second talisman unfurled, this one burning cold blue. A freezing wave slammed the ground, trying to root Li Shen in place with ice-cold spirit frost.
Li Shen braced — felt the Codex's snarl coil tighter.
Now, Ku Mo whispered. Open the gate. Devour him.
Li Shen opened just enough. The Codex's runes roared — red light flickering along his veins, the frost melting under his boots in an instant.
He lunged — one heartbeat, ten paces, steel flashing for Zhuan's mask.
---
The Elder blocked with two fingers — spirit Qi bursting from his sleeves in a shockwave that knocked Yue Lan back into the snow. But Li Shen's blade bit deep into the blocking Qi, teeth grinding through elder-forged force.
Zhuan's voice rose — no longer calm.
"You are a child in a dragon's skin, Li Shen! Kneel!"
He thrust his palm into Li Shen's chest — a binding brand glowing on his palm.
Li Shen felt the Codex recoil — Ku Mo howling as the brand scraped at the new pact Red Sigil's runes had just sealed.
Pain. Blinding. Like fire cracking bone.
But behind it — Yue Lan's cry. Spirit threads snapping out like silver lightning, wrapping Zhuan's arm, dragging his palm away from Li Shen's heart.
Li Shen's eyes snapped open — wild, raw. His hunger. His chain.
He forced the Codex's new bindings to hold — not Ku Mo's teeth, but his own iron will. The demon's roar bent under him, not the other way around.
Then he drove his blade forward — a single thrust, clean and final.
Zhuan's mask cracked. A line of red bloomed beneath the iron pins.
Silence.
Zhuan's eyes widened — for the first time, not the elder's distant disdain but surprise. He tried to speak — only blood misted the cold air.
Li Shen wrenched his blade free. The Elder fell — a whisper of silk and old vows landing in the snow at Li Shen's feet.
---
Wind howled through the broken pines. Yue Lan knelt beside him, breath ragged, threads flickering like stars dying into dawn.
Li Shen turned — his shadow long against the pale drift, Codex runes fading to dull embers once more.
"You're free," Yue Lan whispered.
Li Shen looked down at his blade — at the snow turning red under his boots.
"Not yet," he rasped.
Above them, the storm broke — and beyond the torn clouds, the stars waited.
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⚡ End of Chapter Twenty-One
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