Lin Yue's POV
Shen Qinghan's sword met my mother's attack with a sound like thunder splitting the sky.
"GET THEM OUT OF HERE!" he shouted to his disciples while blocking my mother's strikes. Ice and dark fire clashed, neither side giving ground.
Luca grabbed my arm. "Lin Yue, we need to move—"
"I can fight!" I pulled my sword free, my Phoenix blood and fox spirit power combining into golden flames around the blade. "I'm not running anymore!"
"Then fight beside us!" Luca grinned. "Welcome to Heavenly Sword Sect, honorary disciple!"
Fifty of us against a hundred demon-possessed cultivators. The math was terrible, but nobody seemed to care. Shen Qinghan's disciples fought with desperate courage, protecting me while pushing toward the exit.
Zhang Wei cowered behind me, useless as always. "What do I do? I can't fight like you people!"
"Then stay down and try not to die!" I slashed through two demon cultivators, my new power making me faster and stronger than ever before.
Xiao Bai transformed from his cute fox form into a massive nine-tailed spirit beast, each tail whipping through enemies like deadly ribbons. "This is fun! Why didn't you get into battles earlier?"
"Because I was trying not to die!" I shouted back.
"Well, that plan's definitely ruined now!"
Across the battlefield, Shen Qinghan was locked in combat with my mother. They were evenly matched—his ice techniques against her dark Phoenix fire. Every clash sent shockwaves that knocked nearby fighters off their feet.
"You love her!" Mother laughed while fighting. "How pathetic! Love makes you weak, Shen Qinghan! I'll kill you, and she'll watch, and the pain will make her blood even more potent for the ritual!"
"Love doesn't make me weak." Shen Qinghan's voice was steel. "It makes me willing to do anything to protect her. Including this."
He suddenly stopped defending and left himself wide open. Mother's blade drove straight into his shoulder.
"NO!" I screamed.
But Shen Qinghan was smiling. Because while Mother's sword was stuck in him, he grabbed her wrist and channeled all his spiritual energy directly into her body.
"This is called Azure Sky Lock," he said calmly, even as blood poured from his wound. "My cultivation binds yours for the next hour. You can't use spiritual energy. You can't fight. You can't escape."
Mother's eyes went wide with horror as her power drained away. "You—you sacrificed your own cultivation to trap me?"
"Temporarily, yes." He ripped her sword out of his shoulder without flinching. "It will restore in a few hours. But you won't live that long. Luca! Take her into custody!"
Three disciples rushed forward and bound my mother with spiritual suppression chains. She struggled uselessly, now as weak as a normal human.
"Retreat!" Shen Qinghan ordered. "Get Lin Yue and the prisoners out of here! I'll hold off the rest!"
"Sect Master, you're injured—"
"GO!"
Luca grabbed my arm again, pulling me toward the spirit beasts waiting to evacuate us. Zhang Wei ran alongside us, crying tears of relief.
But something felt wrong. The demon cultivators weren't chasing us. They were... retreating?
"Wait," I stopped running. "Why are they letting us go?"
That's when I felt it—a massive spiritual pressure from deep inside the mountain. Something ancient and terrible was waking up.
"The Demon Emperor," Xiao Bai whispered, his tails trembling. "The ritual wasn't supposed to start for three days, but the battle's blood and spiritual energy—it's accelerating everything!"
The mountain began to shake. Cracks appeared in the ground, glowing red with demonic energy.
"We need to leave NOW!" Luca shouted.
But before we could move, the ground beneath us exploded.
A massive hand—easily fifty feet wide—emerged from the earth and grabbed Shen Qinghan like he was a toy. The fingers were made of shadow and fire, and they squeezed.
Shen Qinghan's scream cut through the air.
"SHEN QINGHAN!" I tried to run to him, but Luca held me back.
"You can't! You'll die!"
A voice like grinding mountains spoke from beneath the earth: "WHO DARES DISTURB MY AWAKENING?"
The Demon Emperor was rising early. The battle had given him enough energy to start breaking free without the full ritual.
The hand lifted Shen Qinghan higher, examining him. "AH. NASCENT SOUL CULTIVATION. DELICIOUS. I'LL CONSUME YOU FIRST."
"No, no, no!" I struggled against Luca's grip. "Let me go! I have to save him!"
"Lin Yue, if you go, you'll just get captured too—"
"I DON'T CARE!"
My Phoenix blood erupted with power I'd never felt before. Golden flames covered my entire body, and I burned so hot that Luca had to release me or lose his hands.
I launched myself at the Demon Emperor's hand, my sword blazing with fire and fury.
"PUT. HIM. DOWN!"
My blade struck the shadow-hand, and for a moment—just a moment—it recoiled. The Demon Emperor's voice showed actual surprise: "PHOENIX BLOOD? IMPOSSIBLE. THE SACRIFICE ISN'T PREPARED—"
"I'm nobody's sacrifice!" I slashed again, pouring every drop of power into my attacks. "And you're not taking him!"
The hand loosened just enough for Shen Qinghan to fall. I caught him with a burst of spiritual energy, lowering us both to the ground.
His face was pale, his breathing labored. The demon's grip had crushed several ribs.
"You... idiot..." he gasped. "I told you... to run..."
"And I told you I'm not running." I held him close, my tears falling on his face. "Not without you."
"TOUCHING," the Demon Emperor's voice mocked. "BUT FUTILE. YOU'RE BOTH MINE NOW."
The ground split wider, and something massive began rising. A head—twenty feet tall with three faces, each one more horrifying than the last. Red eyes that burned like dying stars. Horns made of black bone. A mouth full of teeth like swords.
This was the Demon Emperor. And he was only halfway free.
"Lin Yue," my mother's voice called weakly from where she was bound. Blood ran from her nose—the spiritual backlash from her plan failing. "You have to... complete the ritual... properly. It's the only way... to seal him again."
"Complete the ritual?" I stared at her. "That requires sacrificing me!"
"Yes." She smiled sadly. "That's why I prepared you. Not just to free him... but to control him. The ritual goes both ways. Phoenix blood can seal a demon... or command one. I was going to use you to command him... and rule the world."
"You're insane!"
"Probably. But right now..." She coughed blood. "I'm also your only hope. If you complete the ritual willingly... with pure intent... you can bind him instead. Lock him away for another thousand years."
Shen Qinghan's hand gripped mine weakly. "Don't... listen to her... there has to be... another way..."
"There isn't," Grandmother Wei appeared beside us, her face grim. "The girl's mother is right. A willing Phoenix sacrifice with pure intentions can seal a Demon Emperor. But it requires your life, child. All of it."
I looked at Shen Qinghan's injured face, at his disciples fighting desperately, at the Demon Emperor rising further from the earth with each second.
If I did nothing, everyone would die.
If I sacrificed myself, I could save them all.
"Tell me what to do," I said quietly.
"NO!" Shen Qinghan tried to stand, but his broken ribs made him collapse. "Lin Yue, don't you dare—"
"I have to." I pressed my forehead against his. "You taught me what it means to fight for the innocent. This is me fighting."
"By killing yourself?"
"By saving everyone I love." I kissed him—quick and desperate and too short. "Thank you for making me feel like I mattered. Even if it was just for a few days."
I stood up before he could stop me and walked toward the demon altar at the center of the mountain.
"Grandmother Wei," I called. "Start the ritual."
The old woman's eyes filled with tears, but she nodded. "You're very brave, child."
"I'm very scared," I corrected. "But I'm doing it anyway."
I stepped onto the altar, and ancient arrays flared to life around me. My Phoenix blood called to them, activating seals that had been dormant for millennia.
The Demon Emperor's three faces focused on me. "YOU WOULD SACRIFICE YOURSELF? HOW... UNEXPECTED."
"Yeah, well, I'm full of surprises." I raised my sword and drove it into my own chest.
Pain exploded through me as my blood poured onto the altar. The arrays drank it hungrily, glowing brighter and brighter.
Behind me, I heard Shen Qinghan screaming my name.
I'm sorry, I thought. I'm so, so sorry.
The ritual began to pull the Demon Emperor back down, sealing him beneath the mountain once more. His three faces roared in fury.
"THIS ISN'T OVER! I'LL RETURN! I'LL—"
The ground swallowed him, and the mountain sealed shut.
I collapsed, my vision going dark. My blood had bought everyone's freedom.
Not a bad trade, I thought distantly.
Strong arms caught me before I hit the ground. Shen Qinghan's voice, broken and desperate: "No, no, no, stay with me, Lin Yue, please—"
"Told you..." I whispered. "Fight for... the innocent..."
"You ARE innocent! Don't leave me, I just found you—"
My eyes closed.
Then I heard a different voice—ancient, powerful, echoing from within my chest where I'd stabbed myself:
"FOOLISH CHILD. DID YOU REALLY THINK PHOENIX BLOOD COULD DIE SO EASILY?"
Golden flames erupted from my wound, burning away the darkness, burning away the death.
My eyes snapped open, glowing pure gold.
"What—" I gasped.
"YOU CARRY THE PHOENIX QUEEN'S BLOODLINE," the voice explained. "THE FIRST PHOENIX. WHEN YOU DIE WITH PURE INTENT, YOU DON'T STAY DEAD. YOU RISE AGAIN. REBORN."
The sword in my chest turned to ash. My wound sealed in golden fire. Power flooded through me—ancient, overwhelming, infinite.
I wasn't dying.
I was awakening.
The Phoenix Queen's inheritance had finally activated.
And I was now something far more powerful than anyone expected.