When Elder Zhuan fell, the mountain seemed to exhale. Pines bowed under a sudden gust — snow drifting from high branches like the last breath of an old god no longer chained to this cold ridge.
Li Shen stood over the ruin of the mask, the blood mist frozen on his blade's edge. The Codex inside him purred — not a roar, not a scream, but a low, coiled waiting. His own hunger, shaped and leashed by a boy who once had nothing but frostbite and empty pockets.
Beside him, Yue Lan rose from her knees. Her spirit threads fluttered around her shoulders like torn silk, raw but alive.
"You're bleeding," she said softly.
He looked down — a gash across his ribs where Zhuan's spirit frost had cracked the last defense. Blood dripped slow and steady, steaming in the cold.
"It's mine," he said — a grin that was more tired than cruel. "That's all that matters."
---
They didn't linger by the corpse. Yue Lan gathered what talismans she could pry from Zhuan's sleeves — broken runes, cracked binding seals, a single jade bead humming with half-dead spirit Qi. Li Shen watched the valley below — the sect's shadows already coiling like wolves that had scented a wounded stag.
"They'll come in force now," Yue Lan murmured as she pressed a poultice to his side. Her fingers were cold, steady. "A dozen elders. Maybe more. They can't let this stand."
Li Shen didn't flinch when the paste stung. "Good."
She met his eyes — saw no madness there, only the iron of a chain now turned inward.
"This was never about escape," she said quietly.
He shook his head. "No. It was always about pulling them down with me."
---
They left the body where the pine roots would claim it. By dusk, they descended the eastern pass — toward a valley few sect maps still marked. Once, the Ashvale Monks called it Hollow Sky. A place of broken prayer towers and old stone dragons sunk into the riverbeds.
As they walked, the Codex whispered. Not Ku Mo's snarl — but echoes. Pieces of spirit voices bound too deep to kill outright.
Do you think you're free, little king? the echo murmured in his mind. One chain gone, ten more coil in the dark.
Li Shen pushed it aside — the new bindings Red Sigil left him still held. For now.
---
On the second night, they found an old shrine on a river bend — stone lions with broken jaws guarding a cracked door. Inside, wildflowers grew between prayer mats. A single brazier still stood — half-full of ash and old copper coins.
Li Shen sat by the brazier. Yue Lan laid her bedroll near the door, spirit threads coiled like a spider's web across the threshold.
"Sleep," he said.
She smirked. "You first."
He almost laughed — but the sound stuck in his throat.
---
At dawn, a wind stirred the broken shrine. Li Shen woke to the faint hum of Qi — not hostile, not sect-forged. Something older.
He rose — blood still crusted where Yue Lan's bandage pressed warm against his side. He stepped outside. Beyond the shrine's cracked lions, the river mist curled in unnatural spirals.
At its heart stood a figure — a woman in plain grey robes, hair bound in seven bronze pins. No talismans, no weapons. Yet her presence scraped the air raw.
Yue Lan stirred inside — threads flicking awake, snapping to the door.
Li Shen stepped closer, bare feet wet on cold stone.
The woman inclined her head — voice soft but strong enough to hush the wind.
"Li Shen," she said. "Breaker of Chains. Slayer of Elder Zhuan."
Li Shen's fingers twitched at his side. "Who are you?"
She smiled — and the shrine's old lions seemed to straighten their cracked spines.
"An envoy," she said. "The Nine Heavens see you now, Bloodbound. They send this whisper first: come kneel, and we may forgive the bone you broke."
Li Shen's eyes glowed faint red — not Ku Mo's roar, but his own ember.
"And if I don't?"
The envoy's smile did not fade.
"Then we open the gate. And you will learn what hunts gods when they crawl too close to mortal skin."
---
Behind him, Yue Lan stepped to his side — threads dancing silver in the river dawn.
She didn't speak. She didn't have to.
Li Shen drew his blade — frost and old prayer smoke drifting from its edge.
"Tell them," he said.
His grin cut frost from the air.
"I do not kneel."
---
⚡ End of Chapter Twenty-Two
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