The water didn't just hold him; it pressed against his ribs like a cold, iron hand. Lei Ze drifted in the dark of the Forbidden Stream, his lungs burning with the ghost of a breath he couldn't take. Above him, the shadows shifted. A shape as thick as an ancient oak coiled, its scales scraping together with the sound of grinding stone. It was the Jīnlóng, a beast that had haunted these depths since the mountains were young. Its maw opened, a black pit lined with teeth like serrated ivory, ready to end the boy's story before it truly began.
Then the world turned red.
A bolt of crimson lightning tore through the water, shattering the silence. It didn't just strike the beast; it hammered it back. The Jīnlóng roared, a sound that vibrated in Lei Ze's bones even through his haze. It was a resilient thing, ancient and stubborn. It recovered in a heartbeat, its throat beginning to glow with a thick, purple smoke—the breath of rot.
It lunged again.
The second bolt wasn't just lightning; it was a sentence. The red light was absolute, blinding and hot enough to boil the stream in an instant. It hit the Jīnlóng square in the chest. There was no struggle this time. The beast simply ceased to be. It became a cloud of red mist and shredded scales, drifting away in the current.
In a realm where the sky was the color of bruised plums, Kun Zhan watched the boy's body settle into the silt. He didn't look like a savior. He looked like a man who had finally found the key to a lock he'd been picking for a thousand years.
"I will give you what you need," the Demon King whispered to the spiritual bubble. His voice was a rasp, a dry wind over old graves.
"The world is rotting, little one. It needs a monster to kill the beasts."
He looked toward the horizon of his mind. He saw a volcano in the Western Lands, a jagged tooth of rock coughing ash into the sky. Hidden in its belly was the Bloodfire Halberd, his legacy, guarded by the Soul Devourers—men who had traded their humanity for the privilege of keeping the Demon King's grave sealed.
Kun Zhan extended a hand.
A pulse of deep, viscous Qi bled from his fingertips, forming an orb the color of an open wound. It sank through the bubble, through the water, and hovered over Lei Ze's chest.
Lei Ze's eyes flickered. He saw the red sun descending toward him, a terrifying heat that made the water hiss. He tried to move, to scream, but the darkness claimed him again.
Kun Zhan dropped into a cross-legged seat. He didn't just meditate; he tore his own soul open. A million years of malice and power began to drain from him, funneled into that single red orb.
Inside Lei Ze's spiritual sea, the orb hit like a meteor.
Waiting for it was the Golden Relic Bead, the core Jìng Xū had planted with such care. It was a thing of peace—Buddhist calm and Daoist balance. It felt the rot of the demon and recoiled. The golden light flared, a sun rising to meet the dark.
The battle was silent and savage. The red tried to drown the gold; the gold tried to burn away the red. Lei Ze's spirit was the battlefield, a place of screaming winds and breaking ground. But the Demon King's power was ancient, a tidal wave that wouldn't be turned.
It didn't destroy the golden core. It merged with it.
The light shifted. It wasn't gold or red anymore. It was something else, a jagged, pulsing Tri-Path Core. Peace, Balance, and Violence, all tangled together in a knot that couldn't be undone.
Kun Zhan's body began to fray at the edges. He looked like old parchment catching fire. He let out a harsh, rattling laugh, his eyes fixed on the boy. He nodded, a final gesture of pride, before his form dissolved into ash and vanished from the world of the living.
In the Forbidden Stream, the water erupted.
Lei Ze's body shot upward, propelled by a pillar of multi-colored light. He hovered for a heartbeat over the cliffside, a beacon of gold, green, and crimson that painted the mist in colors the sect had never seen.
Then, as quickly as it came, the light died. He drifted down, landing softly on the mossy bank, soaking wet and deathly still.
"Look!"
The elders, circling the gorge like vultures, saw the flash.
"What was that?" one shouted, his voice cracking. He stayed his sword, eyes wide at the fading colors.
"The epicenter. Move!"
They moved. When they landed, they found the boy. He was pale, his robes clinging to him like a second skin, but he was whole.
"Lei Ze?"
An elder dropped to his knees, checking the boy's neck. "He's alive. He's freezing, but his heart... it's steady. Too steady."
They didn't wait to ask questions. They wrapped him in a heavy cloak and flew, a streak of grey and green toward the Thousand Alchemy Hall.
Lǐ Yúnzhōu didn't wait for the report. He burst into the hall, the scent of herbs and medicinal smoke thick enough to choke on.
Jìng Xū followed, his pace measured, his eyes unreadable.
Lei Ze lay on a bed of white silk. Alchemists moved around him with frantic precision, checking his pulse, his eyes, his breathing.
Dān Yī, the chief alchemist, stepped back. He looked at his hands, then at the Sect Master. He looked confused.
"Well?" Jìng Xū asked.
"There is... nothing," Dān Yī said, shaking his head. "No broken bones. No shattered meridians. His core is stable. It's as if he went for a swim and fell asleep."
Lǐ Yúnzhōu let out a breath he'd been holding since the boy fell. He leaned over Lei Ze, touching a hand to his forehead. "He survived that fall? Without a scratch?"
Jìng Xū stroked his beard. He wasn't looking at the boy's body; he was looking at the air around him. "He is the one," the monk whispered. "The King I saw. The world just hasn't realized it yet."
Inside the dark of his own mind, Lei Ze was elsewhere.
He stood in a world of fire. A volcano groaned around him, the walls weeping liquid stone. He turned, heat searing his face, until he saw it. A halberd, black and jagged, stuck fast in a crust of volcanic rock. It looked like it had grown there, a thorn in the earth's side.
He walked toward it. He shouldn't have. Every instinct told him to run, but his hand moved on its own.
As his fingers brushed the cold, dark metal, a pulse of crimson light jumped from his skin into the weapon. The bond snapped shut.
In the Alchemy Hall, the air suddenly expanded. A shockwave of raw, terrifying energy exploded outward from Lei Ze's body. It didn't break the walls, but it threw the alchemists backward, sending bowls of herbs and glass vials shattering against the floor.
"What is that?" someone screamed, scrambling for the door.
Then, silence. The pressure vanished. Lei Ze lay as still as a statue.
Hú Yì was in the training grounds when the news reached him. He was practicing a palm strike, his face tight with focus.
"Brother Hú Yì!"
A junior stumbled toward him, nearly tripping over his own robes. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.
"What?" Hú Yì snapped. "I'm busy."
"Lei Ze. He's... he's back. He's in the Alchemy Hall. They say he's fine."
Hú Yì's hand froze mid-air. The blood drained from his face, leaving it a sickly, mottled grey. "Impossible. Nobody survives the stream. Nobody."
"He did. And the energy... they say he nearly leveled the hall just by waking up."
Hú Yì's eyes narrowed into slits. The fear was there, but it was being drowned out by a cold, oily malice. This wasn't a rival anymore. This was a threat to everything he was.
"The rat has teeth," Hú Yì muttered.
He didn't say another word. He turned and sprinted toward the inner peaks, toward the pavilion of his uncle, Elder Gāo Fēng. He needed a bigger hammer.
Outside the mountain, in a place where the trees grew crooked and the light didn't reach the ground, the Bì Yù Zōng—the Jade Green Sect—was gathering.
The hall was lit by dim, flickering torches.
"The Green Pine will have the map," a master said, his voice a low hiss. "Jìng Xū knows where the artifacts are. He's lived long enough to remember when they were buried."
The Sect Master sat in the shadows. He smiled, a thin, sharp line. "Let them have their monk. We have other ways."
"There is one more thing," an elder added, hesitating. "A boy. Lei Ze. He fell into the Forbidden Stream and walked out. The scouts say the sky turned red."
The Sect Master paused. A flicker of something—not fear, but a cold unease—crossed his eyes. "The stream? No one walks out of that."
"He did."
The Master leaned back, his fingers tapping a rhythmic, hollow sound on the arm of his chair. "Find out who he is. If he's a miracle, we kill him. if he's a monster... we find out who's holding his leash."