The night sky bled red above the Ghost-Binding Mountains.
Lightning screamed like a dying beast, tearing across the clouds in wild veins. The ground trembled beneath Mo Lianyin's feet, and the scent of blood, ash, and burnt spirit stones clung to the wind.
He stood alone now. His robes torn, hair matted to his skin with sweat and blood. His right arm dangled uselessly at his side, bones shattered from a previous blow. Yet his golden eyes—shimmering with a fierce defiance—remained locked on the monstrous elder before him.
Elder Yinhai of the Shadow Grave Sect was no longer human. After sacrificing a hundred cultivators, he had transformed into a ghost-beast hybrid, his skin translucent, his body laced with writhing black veins, and a hundred whispering souls fused into his form.
"Still standing, boy?" Yinhai's voice echoed with a chorus of shrieks. "You should have died chapters ago."
Mo Lianyin's breath rattled in his chest. The Forbidden Arts had taken too much from him already. His body was breaking down, veins tearing under the unnatural force he'd awakened.
Yet he gritted his teeth and said hoarsely, "You... will not touch the tomb."
Behind him, a sealed gate pulsed with moonlight, carved into the face of the cliff. The entrance to the Tomb of the Seven Vows—a resting place of ancient cultivators, and the prison of the forbidden knowledge Yinhai sought.
The fourth Forbidden Art was hidden within.
Yinhai snarled. "Then die with your foolish honor!"
He launched forward, his claws stretched like sickles, eyes glowing with madness. Mo Lianyin closed his eyes.
And stepped back into memory.
---
The Cave of Wisteria Flame, three months ago...
"The Fourth Art," the old scroll read, its ink bleeding through aged paper, "can only be awakened when your heart has nothing left but silence. No revenge. No hope. No love. Only the will to destroy what should not be."
Mo Lianyin hadn't understood it then. Now he did.
As he opened his eyes, time slowed. The world turned quiet.
He had no revenge left. His clan was gone. He had no hope left. The righteous sects had abandoned him. He had no love left. The boy who once believed in justice was buried beneath his scars.
Only destruction remained. Destruction of the chain that bound heaven, earth, and suffering together.
He whispered, "Heaven-Crushing Pulse."
---
Time snapped.
The moon flickered, then exploded in his vision. Not physically, but spiritually—a thousand silver strands fell from the sky and wrapped around his body. His skin split, but no blood poured. Instead, raw energy surged from within, ancient and star-forged.
The ground shattered as the Fourth Forbidden Art awakened.
Yinhai barely had time to scream.
Mo Lianyin didn't move.
The energy around him pulsed like a second heartbeat, a ripple of moonlight slamming into the elder with a force that twisted space itself. The ghost-beast form wailed as its souls were peeled from it, one by one, like leaves torn by a storm.
Yinhai crumbled to his knees. "What is this?! What are you?!"
Mo Lianyin walked forward, blood and moonlight dripping from his fingertips.
"Not your heir."
He raised his hand. The final pulse echoed.
Yinhai's body was atomized, shredded into silver dust. The gate behind Mo Lianyin trembled as the forbidden seal recognized the bloodline of its chosen.
Then silence.
His legs gave out.
The Forbidden Art fell dormant. The energy dissipated. But Mo Lianyin knew something had changed. The gate would open soon.
And the heavens... had just noticed him.