The pitch-black little box opened, and that drop of crimson essence flowed with an eerie luster beneath the dim oil lamp. Wang Quan did not hesitate. He tipped back his head and swallowed it.
The instant the essence entered his throat, it was as though he had swallowed a red-hot iron pellet. Agony plunged from his throat straight into his dantian, then transformed into a prairie fire that swept through every limb and bone. Wang Quan grunted, his skin flushing an unnatural red, his veins bulging as blood vessels rapidly spread across the whites of his eyes.
Activate Echo... trace the memories within this blood... he roared inwardly.
[Command confirmed. Skill Points consumed: 30. Remaining: 160.] [Echo activated... Using the blood essence as a guide, tracing its source... Warning! The obsessions and memory fragments contained within this blood essence are excessively vast and complex. Forced fusion carries the risk of losing oneself...]
Wang Quan could no longer spare any thought for the system's warning. Amid the pain and scorching heat, he felt himself dragged into a blood-red vortex.
Illusionary Realm · Torrent of Shattered Memories
Act One: The City Falls
The northern wind carried the charred stench of blood into the nostrils. An old man crouched inside the collapsed kitchen, clutching his three-year-old grandson tightly to his chest. Outside, the demons' snarls and the screams of their victims tore at the night sky. He covered the child's ears with all his might, yet the reek of blood made him cough up flecks of blood. A crisp crack rang out from the mouth of the alley. An old smith was using his last ounce of strength to smash an anvil into the skull of a Wolf Demon that had crawled through the courtyard gate. Sparks scattered across his grizzled beard. "Protect... the child..." he mumbled, before his body crashed down. The anvil rolled into a pool of blood, merging with the blood flowing through the alley into a dark-red stream.
He stood atop the shattered city wall, clad in black battle robes embroidered with dark-gold demon-slaying patterns, now soaked through with dark-red blood. Beyond the city stretched an endless, black mass of demon armies, their banners painted with hideous skulls. Flames soared within the city, and the people's cries mingled with the demons' howls.
"General! The eastern gate defenders have been wiped out!"
"More than half of the Black Robe Guard are dead or wounded!"
"The people... the people are still inside the city!"
His hand trembled around his sword. This was not his city. By the time he had been ordered to reinforce it, half the city had already fallen. Three thousand Black Robe Guards had charged into the city. This special force, whose mission was to slay demons and exorcise monsters, now sought only to rescue as many living people as possible from beneath the demons' slaughtering blades.
"Form the Profound-Heaven Demon-Execution Formation! Break through the western gate!" he ordered hoarsely, pointing his blade toward the densest mass of demons. "Black Robe Guard, heed my command: use your bodies as barriers and protect the people as they leave the city!"
"General, you mustn't—"
"Carry out the military order!"
That night, eight hundred Black Robe Guards fought to the death as the rearguard. He watched young faces turn to minced flesh beneath the demons' claws and fangs. He watched them use their black robes as a fuse, detonating the demon-slaying qi within their bodies to perish alongside the demons, roaring with their last strength, "Go! Take the people and go!"
When the last Black Robe Guard was torn apart by three Wolf Demons, he cut off the wolves' heads before collapsing from exhaustion. Blood blurred his vision. All he remembered were those black robes soaked through with blood.
Act Two: The Cage
Footsteps came from outside the dungeon. Several purple-robed men entered, led by a scholar with a lean, refined face and eyes so deep they seemed bottomless.
"General Chen." The scholar's gentle voice was chilling. "Linyuan City... what a pity."
The scholar walked forward slowly, his fingertip brushing the bloodstains on the shackles. "General, do you know that the 'Black' in Black Robe Guard has another meaning in ancient speech?"
Chen Qingzhi's pupils contracted slightly.
"Black means remote and profound, unfathomable." The scholar chuckled. "Just like your northern expedition... recapturing fifty-two cities was certainly a glorious military achievement. But some people are wondering whether your merit... was simply too great."
He suddenly leaned closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. "His Majesty is advanced in years, and no crown prince has been appointed. General, which prince do you think is best suited to inherit the throne?"
Chen Qingzhi's entire body shook. The words sounded like idle chatter, but they were murderous at heart!
The scholar straightened and drew a fragment of a secret letter from his sleeve. It was a memorial Chen Qingzhi had previously submitted regarding military affairs, but the crucial passages had been altered beyond recognition.
"General, take a look. These four characters, 'request reinforcements'—the ink seems... somewhat different, does it not?"
The scholar's fingertip glided lightly over the handwriting. "If this reaches the court, I wonder how many people will believe that General Chen... is deliberately fostering bandits to build his own power?"
Act Three: Demon Execution
The scene of memory leaped forward. This time, he stood atop the walls of an isolated city. Beneath it stretched an endless demon army, its banners blotting out the sun. From within the city came a children's rhyme, sung amid the cries of children:
"Black-robed warrior, guard the wall, blades know no eyes, lives rise and fall.
The court commands, demands grain and pay; no reinforcements, only doom today.
Mother weeps for son, son calls for mother; white bones fill the moat, one after another.
At Golden Mausoleum Palace, rewards are bestowed in haste; who remembers the cold tears of the north?"
The rhyme was a blade, every word striking straight at the heart. Chen Qingzhi closed his eyes. When he opened them again, only resolve remained.
"General, the reinforcements... they're not coming, are they?" the deputy general asked softly.
Chen Qingzhi did not answer. He looked at a secret report just intercepted, sent from the rear and stamped with the seal of the Secretariat. It accused him of relying on his troops to defy authority and delaying military operations, recommending that the emperor recall him to the capital at once and send another able general.
An able general? Where was there still an able general? Most of the thirty-six provinces had fallen. Factions in court fought without end, while the princes busied themselves winning over powerful officials. Who still remembered this isolated city abandoned amid the demons' encirclement?
"General!" A messenger staggered onto the wall, his face covered in blood. "The southern gate... Wang Huan, the commander of the southern gate, has opened the city and surrendered to the enemy!"
A heaven-shaking cheer rose from below. The demon army began surging toward the southern gate.
Chen Qingzhi closed his eyes. Wang Huan had been his old subordinate for twelve years. His elderly mother was gravely ill, and he had repeatedly requested leave to return to the capital to visit her, but military duties had delayed him each time. Three days earlier, Wang Huan had received a letter from home. His mother had died.
When he opened his eyes again, neither sorrow nor joy remained in them.
"Pass on my order." His voice was frighteningly calm. "Abandon the outer city. Withdraw everyone to the inner city. Set fire to every granary and armory... What we cannot take with us, we cannot leave to the demons."
"General! What about the civilians—"
"Those willing to leave will evacuate through the secret passage at the western gate. Those unwilling..." He paused. "Give them weapons."
That night, Linyuan City became a sea of fire.
"Black robes soaked in blood beneath the frontier moon, a hundred thousand banners turned to ash.
"Before Golden Mausoleum Palace, the register of merit—who records the frozen bones wrapped in leather?"
Act Four: The Truth
When he awoke again, he was beside a rushing river. He did not know how many bones throughout his body were broken. His dantian was shattered, and his cultivation had been lost. A silent fisherman had saved him, along with the fisherman's wife, whose eyes were of different colors.
Every day, the fisherman brewed medicine for him without a word, merely staring blankly southward from time to time. It was not until three months later, when he could get out of bed, that the fisherman finally said one night, drunk and red-eyed, "Back then... at Tianyuan Pass... I was the one who opened the gates."
Chen Qingzhi's hand trembled around the medicine bowl.
"They threatened me with my mother's life..." The fisherman was none other than the former Prince of Yuzhang, now a man seeking atonement. He gave a miserable laugh. "They said that if I opened the gates, they would spare her life. I opened them, and they fed my mother to the demons right in front of me."
"Then why did you..."
"Why am I still alive?" Prince of Yuzhang tipped back his head and gulped down a mouthful of strong liquor. "Because when I wanted to die, I met her." He looked toward his wife, who was busy by the stove. The woman turned back and smiled at him tenderly.
"She is the princess of the Northern Monster Kingdom. She fled." Prince of Yuzhang lowered his voice. "She said her people were at war as well, with brothers slaughtering brothers. It was more brutal than the war between humans and demons. She said there were ordinary people everywhere who only wanted to survive."
Chen Qingzhi remained silent for a long time.
On the day he left, Prince of Yuzhang escorted him to the village entrance and suddenly asked, "General Chen, tell me... does someone like me still have the right to return south?"
Chen Qingzhi did not answer. Leaning on a crutch made from a tree branch, he limped southward. Behind him came Prince of Yuzhang's hoarse singing, another folk song passed down through the north:
"Frontier moon, shining on iron robes; every household longs for its son to return.
The sons' blood dyes the war banners; when victory comes, ten thousand bones turn to ash.
At Golden Mausoleum Palace, a victory feast is held; who sees the lonely spirits flying each night?"
He walked for seven months. At last, he reached the river. On the southern bank, banners fluttered, and the emperor himself had led every civil and military official to welcome him at the ferry crossing.
He knelt in the mud, his voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible. "Your servant... failed in the northern expedition. Linyuan fell, and the Black Robe Guard was wiped out... I beg Your Majesty to punish me."
The emperor hurried down from his carriage and personally helped him up. Tears glimmered in his eyes, yet he raised his head and called toward the northern bank in a ringing voice, "Ziyun, what crime have you committed?"
The river wind lifted the dragon banner behind the emperor and blew the white from Chen Qingzhi's temples. Soldiers on both banks shouted as one, their voices shaking the heavens:
"Black robes soaked in blood beneath the frontier moon, a hundred thousand banners turned to ash!"
"Before the Golden Mausoleum Terrace, the seal of ennoblement—who remembers the frozen bones returning?"
He slowly raised his head and looked at the civil and military officials in purple robes and jade belts behind the emperor, then at the bright-armored imperial guards lining both sides of the riverbank. His gaze passed over them and reached farther still—to the northern refugees huddled behind the crowd in ragged clothes, to the faces of those who had lost husbands, sons, and fathers.
Suddenly, an old voice rose among the refugees, hoarsely singing a northern folk song. At first, the voice was faint. Gradually, it gathered into a muffled, suppressed sob:
"The moon shines cold on iron robes; the wind carries the fragrance of war bones."
"Victory wins ten thousand households their lord; who asks after the buried soldier?"
As the song rose, the riverbank fell utterly silent. The emperor's expression shifted almost imperceptibly, while some civil and military officials frowned and others lowered their eyes.
Listening to the song, Chen Qingzhi slowly closed his eyes, then slowly opened them again. He did not look at the emperor or the officials. He merely gazed northward and quietly continued the second half in a voice only the few beside him could hear:
"Buried soldier, buried soldier, year after year you gaze toward your homeland."
"Homeland distant, homeland forgotten; at Golden Mausoleum Palace, the victory feast goes on."
[Echo ended. Successfully comprehended special artistic conception: Seeing Strength!]
Wang Quan's eyes flew open. Cold sweat had soaked his entire body. He gasped violently, as though he had just personally lived through that entire succession of fallen cities, betrayal, desperate defense, the burning of a city, and exile...
This was no simple inheritance of memories. It was the imprint of another person's entire life—its joys and sorrows, love and hatred, despair and perseverance—slammed wholesale into the depths of his soul.
He lowered his head and looked at his hands. It seemed the blood-crusted grip of a sword still lingered in his palms, while the charred smoke of Linyuan City's flames still seemed to fill his nostrils.
"Chen Qingzhi..."
"Strength rises from the earth, and the blade is born from the heart. If one has never seen demon blood stain the mountains and rivers, how could one understand the feelings of the common people?" Wang Quan murmured to himself, his expression complicated.
At that moment, the Turtle Snake Coiling Dragon Strength within his body began circulating on its own in a way it never had before. It was no longer merely moving his qi and blood, but seemed to be resonating with the earth beneath his feet, the air around him, and some vaster force hidden in the darkness.
The barrier to the Mortal Transformation Realm was already before his eyes.
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