The air outside the Golden Leaf Auction House didn't just turn cold; it ceased to exist. One step past the threshold and the bustling city street vanished, replaced by a shimmering, translucent cage of violet lightning.
"Leaving so soon, little thief?"
Master Yan stood at the center of the street, his long robes billowing despite the lack of wind. He held a jade staff that hummed with a sickening, rhythmic pulse. Behind him, a dozen disciples from the Iron Cloud Sect stood with their hands folded, smirking.
"Move, Yan," I said, the golden glow of the Anchor beginning to thrum in my veins. "I've got places to be and people to bury."
"You humiliated my disciples and stole the Primordial Essence right out from under my nose," Yan spat, his face contorting. "You think having a bit of bloodline luck makes you a Sovereign? Within this Spirit Array, I am God. Your physical strength is a joke here."
He slammed his staff down. "Enter the Purgatory of the Mundane!"
The world blurred. The violet lightning rushed into my eyes, and suddenly, the weight of the Anchor disappeared.
I wasn't standing on a street of gold and blood. I was sitting at my old desk at Thorne Financial. The fluorescent lights flickered with a depressing buzz. My neck ached. My suit was cheap polyester.
"Elias! Where are those Miller reports?"
I looked up. Marcus Thorne was standing over me, but he wasn't the broken man from the gala. He was the untouchable boss again. He looked down at me with pure, unadulterated pity.
"I... I'm working on them," I stammered. My voice sounded thin. Weak.
"You're a loser, Elias," Marcus sneered, tossing a stack of papers in my face. "You were born a placeholder, and you'll die a footnote. Look at your hands. No gold. No power. Just ink and failure."
I looked down. My hands were trembling. The runes were gone. The "Celestial Anchor" was nowhere to be found.
"This isn't real," I whispered.
"Oh, it's very real," a voice boomed from the ceiling. Master Yan's face appeared in the ceiling tiles, mocking and vast. "This is your soul's truth. You are nothing but a bug pretending to be a dragon. Bow down, and I might let you live out your days as a janitor in my sect."
Clara walked into the office, draped in Marcus's arm. "He's right, Elias. You were always so boring. Did you really think you were special? You're just a man we threw away."
The weight of their gaze felt heavier than the forty stories Marcus had pushed me from. My heart hammered—not with power, but with fear. I felt my knees hit the gray carpet.
"That's it," Yan's voice echoed. "Accept your worthlessness. Give up the Anchor's core, and the pain stops."
Worthless?
I looked at the "Miller reports" scattered on the floor. I looked at Marcus's polished shoes. Then, I remembered the sensation of the wind on my face as I fell. I remembered the sound of the system voice in the dark water.
"You've got one thing wrong, Yan," I said, my voice dropping an octave.
"And what's that, bug?"
"A dragon doesn't become a dragon because of a ring," I growled, standing up slowly. The gray office walls began to crack. "A dragon is born from the fire that tries to consume it."
I looked Marcus in the eye and reached out, grabbing his throat. He wasn't solid; he felt like dry parchment.
"This 'loser' died in the river," I roared. "I am the Sovereign of the Deep!"
I didn't use a technique. I used my will. I focused on the core of my being—the place where the Anchor had fused with my soul—and I expanded.
CRACK.
The office walls shattered like glass. The fluorescent lights exploded into golden dust. Marcus and Clara dissolved into screaming mist.
I was back on the street. Master Yan was staggering back, his jade staff cracked down the middle. The violet lightning of the Spirit Array was no longer a cage; it was a swirling vortex of energy pinned to my chest.
"Impossible!" Yan screamed, his eyes bloodshot. "No one breaks the Purgatory Array! It's a mental lock! You should be a catatonic shell!"
"You wanted my energy, Yan?" I stepped forward, the ground liquefying under my boots. "You wanted to see the power of the Anchor? Here. Have it all."
I didn't push the energy away. I reversed the flow.
The Spirit Array, the very foundation of Yan's cultivation, began to spiral into my palms. The violet lightning turned gold as it entered my body.
"What are you doing? Stop! That's my life force!" Yan shrieked. He tried to pull his staff away, but it was glued to the air.
"You trapped me in a battle of wills, Master," I said, my eyes burning with a blinding, celestial light. "But my will has been forged in the abyss. Yours is just a spoiled old man's tantrum."
"Please! Elias! Sire! I'll serve you! I'll give you the Iron Cloud Sect!"
"Too late for a promotion, Yan."
I gave one final, violent tug.
The Spirit Array collapsed with the sound of a dying star. All the violet energy, all the decades of Yan's meditation and stolen power, poured into me in a single, tidal wave.
The Anchor hummed. [Bloodline Seal: 0.05% Unlocked.]
Master Yan didn't fly back. He simply fell forward.
His long, flowing hair turned snowy white and fell out in clumps. His skin, once smooth with cultivation, wrinkled like a rotting apple. His jade staff turned to common stone and crumbled into dust. He lay on the pavement, a frail, trembling old man of ninety, gasping for breath through toothless gums.
The disciples behind him stood frozen, their mouths agape.
"Master?" one whispered.
"He's... he's a mortal," another gasped, backing away in horror. "The Sovereign... he ate the Master's soul."
I looked down at Yan. He was clawing at my boots, his eyes clouded with cataracts. He couldn't even speak; he just made a wet, gurgling sound.
"The array was a good lesson, Yan," I said, stepping over his withered body. "But you forgot the first rule of the hunt: Never trap something that's hungrier than you."
I looked up at the disciples. They turned and fled into the night, screaming about a demon.
I turned to the General, who was standing at the edge of the crater I'd created. He looked at me with a mixture of terror and fanaticism.
"Sire," he whispered. "You didn't just break the array. You... you devoured a Grandmaster."
"He was in my way," I said, looking at my hands. The golden runes were now etched deeper, glowing with a faint violet tint. "Who's next?"
Before the General could answer, every street lamp in the district turned blood-red. A low, rhythmic thumping began to vibrate through the earth—not the sound of drums, but the sound of giant footsteps.
From the shadows of the skyscrapers, a figure three times the size of a man emerged, clad in armor made of human bone.
"The Sovereign of the Deep," the giant rumbled, raising a massive, jagged cleaver. "The Void Eye has doubled the bounty. They don't want you alive anymore."
Behind the giant, dozens of similar shadows began to crest the rooftops.
I didn't back down. I felt the stolen power of Master Yan surging in my veins, begging to be let loose.
"General," I said, a dark smile crossing my face.
"Yes, Sire?"
"Don't bother with the car. I'm going to need the space."