Perched on the crown of a great tree, Chen Xing scanned the horizon. In the distance an ancient fortress rose from the ruinscape — not merely a lone keep but the skeleton of a once-large settlement. The sight tugged at a half-remembered image at the back of his mind.
"…I remember now. Isn't that the castle with the lizard summoning beast?" Chen Xing murmured. He stared at the ruined fortress, and the vague impression in his memory sharpened until his eyes lit. If a summoning beast that large had swallowed a castle, its chakra would be enormous. Even without knowing the beast's exact strength, the presence alone marked it as a worthwhile target. A spirit beast capable of devouring a fortress would not be weak; even if it wasn't a perfect fit for him, its power would still bolster Chen Xing's prospects.
He approached the castle and felt the first tangible thrum of chakra: a low, ancient pulse that seemed to ripple through the ground. The real fortress had long since been consumed — its stones now a part of the beast — and years of assimilation had given the place an eerie, illusion-like quality. Chen Xing reached out and pushed the heavy, creaking door. It swung inward as if it had been waiting, welcoming him.
The interior belied the exterior. Despite being long abandoned, the halls were spotless. No dust, no cobwebs — as if someone cleaned them every day. Chen Xing moved down the corridor; his footfalls sounded loud in the hush. The castle's layout felt like a maze; he walked for some time and found nothing but rows of suit-armour and long, empty galleries.
At last he entered a chamber that had once been a bedchamber. A raised dais held the skeletal remains of an armored warrior. The helmeted skull sat upright and stared with empty sockets that made Chen Xing's skin crawl — yet the bones still looked unnaturally preserved.
Without warning the bone-armored figure crumbled, armor collapsing into a dry dust at his feet; the cumbersome helmet clattered to the floor. Chen Xing tightened his focus and deployed a thread of his mental force to probe the room.
He discovered what held the fortress together: chakra filaments running through the ruins like an invisible web, all woven together and converging at a single point. That point throbbed with concentrated chakra — the likely location of a summoning-contract scroll.
"Could that be the summoning contract?" Chen Xing thought, and then his face shifted; he leapt backwards just as the floor beneath him erupted.
The stone under his feet liquefied into flesh — a pink, pulsing wall. Thick, thigh-sized tentacles tore free from that living barrier and lunged for him. Chen Xing barked a dry laugh. "Not so simple, huh?"
He reached instinctively for a defensive technique: a rapid flurry of chakra blades — his version of a Thousand Birds thrust — and slashed at the tentacles. The first salvo slowed the attack but could not cut through the wall's relentless regeneration. Chen Xing drew his thunder-forged blade and channeled lightning chakra into it; the sword wept violet arcs, spitting light with every stroke.
A massive appendage slammed down behind him. Chen Xing pivoted and brought his lightning blade round, cleaving through the flesh-wall. The wound gaped half a meter, but the flesh knit itself back together almost instantly.
"It heals too fast," he muttered, frowning. There was no guiding spirit to tell him the weakness; he'd have to brute force his way through.
He struck again and again. The thunder-blade bit deep; the chakra in the wound flared and the wall seemed to recoil, turning from living flesh to something more like condensed chakra. Dozens of tentacles snatched at Chen Xing, trying to bind and pin him before he could reach the chakra nexus.
He darted through the net of grasping limbs. When one particularly large tentacle wrapped around him he detonated a rapid burst of Thousand-Birds-style lightning, breaking free and vaulting over the reknitted wound. Each step forward was a battle: tentacles trading strikes, lightning screaming, and the flesh-wall constantly sewing itself back together.
After several furious minutes he reached the center — a behemoth reel of scrolls coiled on a dais, surrounded by a ring of twitching flesh. The environment itself pressed in like a living trap; the filaments converging on the scrolls pulsed with greedy intent. Tentacles exploded from the flesh to stop him, hauling his limbs back and wrenching him downward as a slab of flesh ripped free and exposed the weathered summoning scroll.
A voice — not spoken with lips but pressed into his mind — poured out from the surrounding flesh. It was a scratching, persuasive whisper that made the hairs on his neck stand up:
"I have been bound here for so long," it said. "If you come to take the contract, if you seek to enslave me with ink and blood, I will be forced to obey. I know the weight of binding. Your spirit must be strong — most who approach lose themselves. If you wish, I will free you. I will not make you die here."
Chen Xing remained motionless, centering himself against the psychic pressure. He understood summoning beasts: many would agree to a contract for the right summoner, but agreement on paper is nothing without recognition of the soul. A beast could be perfectly bound and yet refuse to fight for a summoner it did not respect. Worse, a spirit might retreat to the otherworld in the middle of battle or collapse the contract at a crucial moment.
At Chen Xing's steady gaze the tentacles froze. A huge scarlet eye opened in the writhing flesh, measuring him, testing his spirit. Chen Xing did nothing but return that stare. In that instant he felt fortune tilt toward him; the beast — the lizard — recognized something in him. The tentacles pulled back, and the flesh-wall loosened its grip around the scroll. The scarlet eye receded, the flesh contracted, and finally the living wall collapsed into shadows.
Chen Xing allowed a slow smile. The lizard had accepted him.
He unrolled the summoning-contract scroll. The first lines explained plainly: this was indeed a Lizard-clan spirit contract scroll. The following text described the summoning technique and listed the names of previous contractors — many names he did not recognize. When he reached the penultimate page, his eyebrows shot up.
The list ended with a single family name he half expected — and half did not: Yumiqi.
Chen Xing read the long list of contractors and realized the lizards here were not exclusively servants of one clan: they had bound themselves to many hands over the years. The contract on this scroll had been renewed a dozen times, passed between summoners — and now it bore the mark of Yumiqi.
He rolled the scroll closed and tucked it away, the taste of victory and questions both on his tongue. The fortress had given him more than just a summoning; it had handed him a thread that could unravel histories.