Ancient Legacy

His consciousness drifted in the abyss of darkness, like a leaf on the verge of shattering. Cold and heat tore at his soul in turn, while the sinister curse power and the ferocity of the Crimson Sun continued their silent war within him. After an unknowable stretch of time, a faint, steady warmth pulled Li Yuan back from the brink of utter oblivion.

He snapped his eyes open. His pupils contracted in the absolute darkness, and only after a moment did they adjust enough for him to make out his surroundings by the faint, dark-red glow in the distance.

He was in a vast underground cavern. Its ceiling soared high overhead, swallowed by darkness and lost from sight. The air was hot and dry, thick with the overwhelming stench of sulfur that scratched at his lungs. Somewhere in the distance, an underground river rumbled past. The dark-red glow came from cracks in the rock wall in the direction of the river, casting shifting shadows across the cavern and lending it an even more eerie air.

At that moment, he lay on a relatively flat patch of ground strewn with fine gravel. A strange warmth seeped up from beneath him. It didn't come from molten rock below the earth; it felt more like... a restrained, pure, masculine energy, which had settled over countless years, seeping thread by thread through the gravel and the skin of his back into his nearly shattered body.

It was the aura of this ancient ruin!

Li Yuan struggled to sit up, but tearing pain shot through his entire body. His arms and chest were worst, as if they had been crushed and then hastily pieced back together. He groaned, managing only to prop up his upper body on one elbow and lean against a cold, broken stone pillar half-buried in the ground.

He lowered his head to examine himself. His body was covered in dried blood and dust, his skin crisscrossed with wounds, some deep enough to expose bone. The worst damage was to his internal organs. The consequences of forcibly devouring curse power and detonating his own strength had caught up with him: his meridians were damaged in many places, his blood and qi sluggish, and every breath brought a searing pain.

He tried to circulate his Crimson Sun Qi and Blood. The Crimson Sun in his qi sea glowed dimly and turned sluggishly, as if it had exhausted its strength. He could only coax out a faint trickle of energy to inch through his main meridians and repair the damage, its pace maddeningly slow.

At this rate, forget recovering his fighting strength; even moving freely would take three to five days. And the Netherworld Cult would never give up after the cave-in above. They could come down at any moment!

He was still trapped in a dead end.

Li Yuan leaned against the pillar, panting hard. Sweat mixed with blood ran into his eyes, stinging them. He looked around, carefully examining the ruin by the dark-red glow.

Broken reliefs covered in moss showed carvings too blurred to make out, though he could just discern seated figures and flame-shaped totems. Fractured pillars and collapsed building fragments lay scattered all around, bearing witness to former glory and present ruin. The architecture here was unlike that of any school he knew in Black Mountain City, imbued with an ancient, savage air.

At last, his gaze settled on the metal fittings embedded in the rock walls, their luster long since faded. Their arrangement seemed to follow some kind of pattern, forming incomplete designs. The lines of some of those designs bore a striking resemblance to the markings on the Talisman Fragments in his arms!

Could this ruin... be connected to what the Netherworld Cult was searching for? Or to that so-called "Sacred Sacrifice"?

Suppressing the pain, he reached into his clothes and took out the three Talisman Fragments and the few Black Fragments he had never been able to examine.

The Talisman Fragments were still cold and slick, but when they came into contact with the restrained, masculine energy in the ruin, the sinister markings on them seemed to dim ever so slightly. The Black Fragments were still heavy and cold in his hand. But the moment he took them out and exposed them to the air of the ruin, something changed!

Under the distant dark-red glow, the rough patterns on their surfaces, like natural grain, began to shimmer with an extremely faint, matching dark-red light! A trace of warmth came from them, so faint as to be almost imperceptible, yet of the same origin as the earth beneath his feet and the masculine energy in the air!

Li Yuan's heart shuddered! He had always thought the Black Fragments were some useless mineral or tokens of the Netherworld Cult. He had never imagined they were connected to this ancient ruin!

He endured the pain and brought one Fragment close to his eyes, examining it carefully. The warmth was faint but extraordinarily pure and ancient, carrying a majestic, righteous intent that suppressed evil and smelted all things. It even seemed to resonate faintly with the Crimson Sun's aura within him!

A daring thought flashed through his mind like lightning.

He looked at the Fragment glowing with faint light in his hand, then felt the unending warmth rising from the earth beneath him. Finally, he turned his gaze to the metal fittings embedded in the rock wall, which formed an incomplete design.

What if... these Fragments were keys? What if this ruin itself was a vast, damaged formation—or a place of cultivation? And what if this accumulated masculine energy was its source of power?

Could his own Crimson Sun Qi and Blood... rouse it?

The idea was perilous in the extreme. This place was strange; the slightest misstep could make him play with fire and perish without a grave. But sitting still and waiting for death was a dead end too!

A ruthless glint flashed in Li Yuan's eyes. Struggling with all his might, he dragged his nearly broken body toward the nearest section of rock wall, where metal fittings were embedded in a relatively intact design.

Every inch he moved brought stabbing pain. Sweat soaked his scabs, only to be quickly dried by the scorching air.

At last, he reached the base of the wall. The metal fittings were already rusted and mottled, forming an incomplete design shaped like a cauldron. At its center was a recess.

Panting heavily, Li Yuan stared at the recess, then at the Black Fragment in his hand. Its size and shape seemed... to fit perfectly?

Without hesitation, he raised a trembling hand and carefully pressed the Black Fragment toward the recess.

The instant the Fragment touched the recess—

"Hummm...!"

A deep, sonorous vibration rang out as if from the depths of ages spent in slumber, instantly resounding through the entire cavern!

The Black Fragment in Li Yuan's hand blazed to life! It no longer gave off a faint light; it glowed like red-hot iron, radiating a blinding dark-red light! At the same time, the earth beneath him shuddered violently. The restrained masculine energy awoke like a raging dragon, turning frenzied and scorching!

One by one, the lines of the incomplete Cauldron Pattern on the rock wall lit up, radiating the same dark-red light! A masculine energy countless times purer, mightier, and hotter than before surged toward Li Yuan's arm, which was pressed against the recess, following the markings in the wall. Like a dam bursting, it forced its way into his body!

"Agh—!"

Li Yuan let out a bloodcurdling scream! The energy was too vast, too violent! It far surpassed any curse power he had devoured before—even the limit his own Crimson Sun could bear!

He felt as if he had been thrown into a real furnace. Every inch of flesh and every bone in his body was being scorched and smelted! His meridians snapped one by one, then were forcibly reforged under the energy's impact! The dim Crimson Sun in his qi sea was flooded with an enormous force from without, like a furnace fed with a mountain of fuel. It swelled and spun wildly, its light turning blinding in an instant!

Pain! Agonizing, unbearable pain!

Yet through the agony that seared his flesh and gnawed at his bones, he could clearly feel his damaged meridians and internal organs being repaired and strengthened at an astonishing speed! His broken bones were knit back together in the torrent of energy, becoming denser and harder than before! His depleted qi sea quickly filled, and the Crimson Sun grew larger and larger, its color deepening until the scarlet-gold at its core seemed ready to liquefy and flow!

From the collapsed cave entrance above came the uncertain shout of a Netherworld Cult Deacon. The sudden change and surging energy seemed to have shaken him; he didn't dare come down lightly.

Li Yuan had no attention to spare for anything else. He clenched his teeth so hard that his gums bled, relying on sheer unyielding will to guide the ancient energy flooding into him, hot as magma. He fused it with his Crimson Sun Qi and Blood, forcing it through the clogged wounds within him and the remnants of curse power he had yet to refine.

Dark-red light and scarlet-gold patterns shone in turn across his body. His muscles twisted and writhed unnaturally under the energy's impact, as if undergoing a complete metamorphosis.

The legacy of the ancients—burning his body to keep him alive.

Would he be reborn from the ashes, or reduced to them?

The answer lay in the clash between the scorching torrent and his unyielding will.