The blade of [Black Order] hovered less than half an inch from Duke Mordent's withered neck. The cold blade-qi had already sliced through his loose skin, allowing a trickle of grey-black blood to slide down his collar.
Mordent slumped against the window frame, half his body dangling in the fierce, hundred-meter gale outside. He laughed like a madman, his mouth full of blood, yet his cloudy eyes burned with the viciousness of a cornered beast ready to tear everything down with him.
"Kill me then! Go on, Gu Hanzhou! With this strike, you get your revenge, but you also personally sever your only path to survival!" Mordent's chest wheezed like a broken bellows. "Did you truly think ten years of suffering were just the result of the Inquisition's greed? Did you think your father was imprisoned in the Inverted Tower just to refine Order energy?"
Gu Hanzhou's hand remained as steady as bedrock, his gaze devoid of even a ripple of emotion. "Are those your last words?"
"The blood in your veins... it's not just any remnant blood of the Ancient Court!" Mordent's voice suddenly spiked, turning shrill with a mix of terror and ecstasy. "It is called the [Reverse Scale of Eternal Night]! It was the ultimate curse forged by the Ancient Court's royalty before their fall—a weapon meant to exact vengeance upon this wretched 'Order'! It grants you power, yes, but it also devours your sanity!"
Gu Hanzhou's heart skipped a beat.
As the name "Reverse Scale of Eternal Night" was uttered, the bloodstained scroll in his tunic emitted a low, vibrating resonance. Simultaneously, deep within the sea of his consciousness, a heavy, ancient portal hidden behind clouds of dark-gold mist began to shudder violently.
This was the place he had glimpsed in his visions. He had assumed it was the fountain of his strength, but now, it radiated a chill that made his soul tremble.
"You feel it, don't you? That suffocating sensation of being bound by chains." Mordent noticed Gu Hanzhou's momentary rigidity and grinned even more hideously. "Gu Qingshan didn't flee with you back then to hide from assassins; he fled to find a way to suppress this lineage! During those three years he was missing, he went to the forbidden zones of the Polar Abyss Sea. He traded his very essence as a War-God to bring back that [Consciousness Shackle] for you!"
"Otherwise, you would have transformed into a mindless, bloodthirsty Aberration the very moment your powers awakened at age ten!"
Gu Hanzhou glanced at his father leaning against the pillar. Gu Qingshan remained unconscious, but his aged face now showed signs of a painful, inward struggle.
"That shackle is closing, Gu Hanzhou." Mordent stared intensely into his eyes. "You've killed too many today. You've released too much of the 'Reverse Scale' power. Once it locks completely, you will be stuck in the Blood-Ignition Phase forever, until your body is incinerated from the inside out by your own boiling Royal Blood! Only I... only I, with the Inquisition's 'Truth Authority,' know the incantation to unlock it!"
Gu Hanzhou fell silent.
The howling wind whipped his long hair into a frantic tangle. He could feel it—the gate in his mind was indeed closing at a visible rate. It felt as if a pair of invisible hands was slowly tightening around his throat, cutting off the spiritual oxygen required to reach a higher realm.
"Gu Hanzhou, don't listen to him!"
Su Qingyue leaned against the wall, barely standing. Her voice was hoarse from exhaustion. "He's stalling! He's waiting for the mid-level reinforcements from the Inquisition! You can't believe a single word from a piece of trash like him!"
"Whether I am lying or not... just ask your 'Royal Blood.'" Mordent flashed a confident, triumphant smile.
Gu Hanzhou slowly closed his eyes.
His consciousness dived into the dark-gold ocean of his mind. At the edge of that vast sea, the massive gate engraved with ancient runes was indeed shutting. With every millimeter the gap narrowed, the energy flow within his body grew more sluggish.
If he didn't open it now, once his strength was spent, this gate would become the ultimate prison of his lineage.
However.
When Gu Hanzhou opened his eyes again, the dark-gold light had not faded. Instead, it had transformed into a deeper, more absolute pitch-blackness.
"Mordent," Gu Hanzhou's voice was so calm it was terrifying. "You made two mistakes."
Mordent's smile froze. "What?"
"First... I never accept deals from my enemies."
Gu Hanzhou's fingers tightened with explosive force. [Black Order] erupted in a lightning-fast arc. Without a shred of hesitation, the blade tore through Mordent's throat.
SHLICK!
Duke Mordent's head spun into the air. The last thing those eyes—filled with shock and denial—saw was the smoke-filled sky of the Iron City.
"Second... the shackle you spoke of? I don't need a key."
Gu Hanzhou sheathed his blade, not even bothering to watch the Duke's headless corpse plummet into the abyss below. Deep in his mind, the heavy gate finally slammed shut with a muffled, soul-shaking thud. His aura instantly plummeted, crashing from the Peak of Blood-Ignition back down to the early stages.
But the expression on his face was one of profound relief.
"If it wants to lock me in, then I will simply have to smash the lock along with the gate."
Gu Hanzhou turned and walked toward his father.
His black cloak snapped in the wind. Mordent thought he had delivered a killing blow of despair, but he didn't realize one thing: for a madman like Gu Hanzhou, who had clawed his way up from the very bottom of the mines, the best key was always his own fists and his own blade.