Chapter five: Shadows, Swords, and Secrets
The Hunt: Bonefield Ravine
The Bonefield Ravine was a graveyard of failed cultivators—corpses buried in shifting ash, their resentments seething in silence.
Lin Yu moved like a ghost.
His target: **Yao Hanzhi**, once a prodigy of the Inner Sect, now a madman banished for consuming the souls of his own martial brothers.
A shriveled voice echoed from the dark:
"You smell like death, boy. But you're still warm enough to feast on."
Lin Yu didn't speak. He let his presence unfold—**draconic, demonic, unholy**.
Yao lunged, his claws blackened by years of soul decay.
> *\[Wish System: Triggered – Combat Sync: Hellfang Dragon Body Form (Stage One)]*
Lin Yu's body ignited with bonefire. Claws lengthened. Horns surged from his skull. He no longer looked like a man.
He looked like judgment.
The fight was brutal. Yao summoned imprisoned souls—wailing shadows—but Lin Yu devoured them mid-air, clawing through illusions and flesh alike.
In the final moment, Lin Yu drove his claws through Yao's heart and **consumed his Nascent Soul**, flames devouring it from within.
> *\[System Update: 2nd Layer Unlocked – Infernal Maw of Bonefire]*
> *Passive Mutation: Soul-Reaper Veins awakened.*
Power flooded his body—hotter, hungrier, **unstoppable**.
---
A Daughter's Dream
Far across the sect boundary, **Xue'er**, daughter of Mu Yuelan, awoke from a vivid dream.
She was walking through a battlefield, surrounded by dragon bones. A man stood in the storm—burned, broken, but proud. He turned.
His face blurred. But his **eyes**—they looked just like hers.
She gasped.
"Who was that?" she whispered.
The next day, while training in the Cloud Crystal Sect, she broke a spirit dummy in half with a single stroke—something only **Golden Core** disciples could do.
"She's awakening early," said an Elder. "A divine beast bloodline perhaps?"
Mu Yuelan, watching from a distance, clenched her hands."His blood… it's rising in her."*
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The Enforcer's Warning
That night, Mu Yuelan knelt in a hidden cave before a being cloaked in chains and starlight: the **Heaven-Eater Enforcer**, emissary of her Upper Plane clan.
"Long Tian still breathes," he hissed. "You failed."
"I left nothing," she said. "His soul was shattered."
The enforcer's eyes glowed black."He is reborn. And worse—he's gathering power. Demonbone is only the start."
"If he survives till he remembers… he will tear the heavens open."
Mu Yuelan's voice trembled. "I will fix it."
"No. You will prepare your daughter. If she does not kill him, we will. And your entire bloodline will pay."
---
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Serpent Eyes, Shattered Memories, and Schemes in the Bonehall**
Lin Yu stood at the black gates of the **Inner Sect**, the Bonefield Ravine's ashes still clinging to his cloak.
He had been promoted by decree of Elder Qian himself. Outer disciples whispered, watching the black-robed youth with dragon eyes walk unbent past them.
"He's a monster," someone muttered.
"He's a king," another said, hushed.
Waiting for him on the Inner Sanctum path was **Li Yuyan**, a famed *True Disciple*, known as the Crimson Veil Serpent.
Long-legged, eyes like bleeding rubies, she leaned on her scythe and smiled.
"You're the new beast everyone's talking about?"
"Beast suits me," Lin Yu replied, calm.
"Then perhaps we'll dance, little beast."
But her eyes betrayed a plan. She had felt the dragon inside him. Something ancient… forbidden. She wasn't here to flirt. She was here to test—and to use.
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Xue'er's Visions: The Sword and the Flame**
Meanwhile, back in Cloud Crystal Sect, **Xue'er** meditated beneath a Spirit Tree. The world turned to mist. And in that fog… she saw a battlefield of fire and frost. A man stood bleeding in front of her.
He blocked a blade meant for her. The world screamed as it shattered.
"Father?" she whispered. "But… you're…"
The vision shattered. She gasped, sweat dripping down her brow.
She ran to her mother, trembling. "Who was the man in my dreams?"
Mu Yuelan's face paled. She looked away.
"Just a shadow of the past. Forget him."
But Xue'er had inherited more than blood. The Dragon within her stirred.
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. Council in the Bonehall: The Rising Threat**
Deep within the Demonbone Sect's *Hall of Authority*, seven Elders sat in debate.
Elder Qian slammed a bone-tipped staff.
> "Lin Yu must be given resources. He has the aura of an ancient. His body may be… a reincarnated Divine Beast."
Another Elder sneered. "Or a threat in disguise. You forget—we are a demon sect. We create monsters. But monsters, untamed, destroy us too."
"Then let him rise," said a third. "And if he ascends beyond control—**we sacrifice him** to empower the Sect's foundation."
High above them, in a shadow neither light nor darkness could touch, a black-robed man smiled faintly.
"No. He is not to be sacrificed. He is the key."
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Coils of Fire, Echoes of the Past, and the Crimson Ultimatum**
In the jade-glass arena behind the Inner Sanctum, **Li Yuyan** waited, veil fluttering, crimson qi coiling around her.
"I promised you a dance, didn't I?" she purred.
Lin Yu entered the ring, shirtless, calm. He didn't trust her smile. Serpents didn't smile. They watched, then struck.They clashed.
Her whip-blade hissed like a serpent, cutting through air and illusion. Lin Yu answered with **Infernal Maw of Bonefire**, enhanced now by another wish—its flames purple-black and reality-tearing. But she was faster.
She pushed him—into releasing a move he'd never used: *Dragon Howl of the Sixth Vein*.
The sky cracked. Yuyan flew backward, bleeding at the lip, eyes wide.
"You… You're not just a beast. You're... a Heir," she whispered.
He walked toward her, slow. "Why did you lure me?"
She stared up at him. "Because they fear you. And because I wanted to see if it was true."
"What?" "That a dead man's soul… walks again."
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Xue'er's Pendant: Memory Ignites**
In the forbidden ruins of the Cloud Crystal Sect, **Xue'er** followed the pull of her dreams.
There, buried under the moonroot tree, she found a cracked **pendant**—half scorched, half pure white jade.When she touched it, time tore.
She saw a man's face. Long dark hair. Gold-dragon eyes.
He stood before her, roaring, as hundreds of enemies closed in. "Live, Xue'er. Live for both of us."Her knees buckled.
"That was him," she whispered. "That was… my father."
When she awoke, the pendant glowed faintly—and so did the dragon veins in her arm.
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Mu Yuelan's Chains: The Ultimatum**
Mu Yuelan stood in the **Mirror Palace** of her ancestral clan in the Upper Plane.
The **Patriarch**, her grandfather, a half-immortal lord cloaked in silver mist, gazed at her with cold cruelty. The Dragonspawn survived.
"I handled it—" "You failed. The daughter has inherited his blood. She will be a problem. Or a tool."
Mu Yuelan bit her lip, bowed low.
"Give me time. I will mold her. She will become our blade."
"Good," he said. "Because if she becomes a dragon… then she becomes our enemy."
"And you will kill her yourself."
Mu Yuelan's fists clenched behind her back.
But she bowed again.
"As you command… grandfather."