Tempered Rebirth

The cold edges dug deep into Xiang Yi's palm, nearly cutting through his skin. He clenched the Vibranium fragment so tightly that his knuckles turned white. The shard pulsed in his hand, a strange, restrained energy dormant within it—ancient, pure, and carrying the unyielding solidity of bedrock. It stood utterly at odds with the sinister, tyrannical Ten Rings energy at Lanling King's wound. The study reeked heavily of blood and seawater, mingled with the metallic chill emanating from the shard. The stifling weight pressed against his chest, every breath carrying a rust-flavored suffocation.

"Mr. Guiguzi!" Xiang Yi's voice rasped like sandpaper, yet it carried an unquestionable resolve. He held the shard out toward the old man sitting cross-legged and struggling to maintain the seal. "Look at it! Find a way to break the poison! Lanling King... he doesn't have much time!"

Guiguzi's withered hands hovered above Lanling King's chest. The pale golden flow of Xuan Weizi light flickered like a dying candle in the wind. His bloodshot eyes opened with difficulty, falling upon the fragment in Xiang Yi's palm, where a cold silver gleam flowed. A flicker of surprise flashed through his exhausted pupils before turning into grave solemnity.

"This object... is no ordinary metal." Guiguzi's voice was hoarse and weary, but it carried an insight that pierced through appearances. "Its substance is supremely pure, its nature supremely hard and resilient... Within it lies a vast aura... almost akin to the origin of life itself. It stands in complete opposition to that vile, malevolent force. It may indeed be the key to restraining it. However..." His tone abruptly shifted, steeped in helplessness. "Maintaining this seal has already drained this old Daoist to the last drop. If I divide my focus to analyze the origin of this object... I fear I will not have the strength, and the seal will collapse at once!"

Xiang Yi's heart plunged into an icy abyss. His gaze locked onto Lanling King's shoulder blade—the blue-black poison markings were like living creatures, creeping upward along his collarbone, writhing faintly and radiating an ominous aura of death. Then he looked at Guiguzi's hands, trembling like sieves, and the bead-sized drops of sweat rolling down his face. Cold despair, like venomous vines, tightened around his heart once more.

See through it! Xiang Yi's will roared from the depths of his near-collapsing consciousness. Hurry! Find a way out!

An icy, inhuman will seized him in an instant, forcibly carving information into his mind:

Primordial Vibranium... absorbs impacts, imperishable through countless calamities... faint affinity with the origin of life...

Poison: Compound Soul-Eroding Bone-Corroding Venom (mutation catalyzed by Ten Rings Malevolent Energy)...

Deadlock: the poison's root exists through Ten Rings Malevolent Energy... Vibranium's power can disrupt its nature and suppress its activity, but... cannot sever its root...

Desperate deduction...

Only path to survival: use immense spiritual strength as a guide, force the pure life essence within Vibranium (weak) into the victim's heart meridians, neutralize the activity of Ten Rings Malevolent Energy, render the poison inert, then supplement with conventional treatment...

Death trial: guidance must be as precise as walking on thin ice. The slightest discrepancy... spiritual depletion will be like a river bursting its banks... If the guide is exhausted or loses focus, under the backlash, the victim's heart meridians... will shatter inch by inch!

The spiritual strength required made Xiang Yi feel as if he had fallen into a bottomless frozen abyss! More than half of his own spiritual power had already been exhausted; now it was nothing more than a drop in the ocean! And Guiguzi... was already at the end of his rope merely maintaining that precarious seal!

A frigid tide of despair mercilessly swallowed him whole.

At that moment, a brilliant light burst from Guiguzi's clouded old eyes, as though the last drop of oil in a lamp had been burned away! "Young friend! Place the shard... on the wound! Quickly!"

Xiang Yi did not hesitate for a moment. Like an arrow released from its bow, he lunged to Lanling King's side. His small, blood-smeared hand trembled almost imperceptibly as he pressed the cold Vibranium fragment hard against the black poison dart, at the most grotesquely swollen part of the blue-black poison markings!

The instant the fragment touched skin—

Bzzzz—!

A sudden transformation erupted!

The blue-black poison markings, like living things splashed with boiling oil, instantly began to boil and twist violently! Violent blue-black evil light exploded forth like a ferocious beast breaking free of its cage, crazily tearing at and battering the pale golden seal! The sealing light shook violently, giving a wail on the verge of collapse! Worse still, a dense barrage of piercing shrieks erupted from the wound, enough to make one's scalp crawl and marrow turn cold, as though countless tiny venomous insects were madly gnawing and screeching deep within the flesh! The violent vibrations shot from Xiang Yi's fingertips straight into his brain. It felt as though a giant hammer forged from ice and fire had slammed together in his palm, while a scorching, bone-piercing current of poison surged wildly up his arm, nearly knocking his entire hand away!

"Urgh—!" Lanling King's unconscious body suddenly arched upward. Veins bulged on his neck as he let out a miserable howl that hardly sounded human! Every muscle in his body tightened like iron and stone. Blue-black veins beneath his skin writhed and protruded like countless enraged venomous snakes!

"Steady your spirit! Hold it down!" Guiguzi's beard and hair flared outward as his low shout crashed through the room like muffled thunder. The scattered starlight maintaining the Xuan Weizi map instantly withdrew, pouring entirely into the crumbling seal! The pale golden light forcibly stabilized, beginning a brutal inch-by-inch struggle against the savage blue-black poison light!

A supple layer of silver-white radiance suddenly lit up across the surface of the Vibranium fragment pressed against the skin! The glow was pure and unyielding, carrying an ancient, vast breath of life as it firmly resisted the frenzied counterattack of the blue-black evil light! The two utterly opposed, irreconcilable energies collided, tore at each other, and annihilated one another at the tiny wound!

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—!

A teeth-grinding sound of burning accompanied an even stronger wave of nauseating stench and black smoke! The black poison dart embedded deep in the flesh shuddered violently, its color rapidly fading and decaying before their eyes!

"It works!" A faint glimmer of hope burst from Xiang Yi's eyes amid the desperate situation! Yet that glimmer was immediately overshadowed by something worse—Guiguzi's withered hands were trembling like sieves, and blood flowing from the corner of his mouth was horrifyingly vivid! Lanling King's convulsions had also become so violent that it was as if invisible giant hands were repeatedly crushing him!

At the line between life and death—guiding the Vibranium energy into the heart meridians! Guiguzi had no strength left to divide his attention!

What should he do?!

Xiang Yi's eyes fixed on Lanling King's twisted, agonized face and Guiguzi's swaying form. A mad thought, like lightning tearing through chaos, split apart his despair—amid exploding flames, Lanling King's broad back had shielded him completely; in the icy seawater, A Ke's bloodstained hand had pressed the shard into his palm, her gaze resolute as though entrusting him with her life!

That's it! Xiang Yi's will carried the determination to burn everything away. I'll guide it!

An icy warning, as though it had risen from the depths of the netherworld, pierced his consciousness at once:

Warning! Soul power is too weak, far insufficient for guidance! Forcing the attempt means nine chances of death out of ten! Permanent Soul Core damage! Confirm?!

"Do it!" Xiang Yi roared without the slightest hesitation! He abruptly sat down cross-legged. His small hand, smeared with blood and sweat, landed firmly atop Guiguzi's withered hand maintaining the seal!

"Young friend?!" Guiguzi cried in alarm.

"Sir! Xuan Weizi... lend it to me!" Xiang Yi's voice was hoarse and broken, but his will was absolute. "The seal... is yours! The guidance... is mine!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Xiang Yi shut his eyes. The Returning to the Hidden Formula surged through his body with unprecedented violence! It was as though a bottomless black hole had opened in the depths of his consciousness, madly draining every drop of his potential! At the same time, his weak spiritual tendrils, carrying the resolve to perish together, stabbed fiercely into Guiguzi's vast and pure torrent of Xuan Weizi energy!

Boom—!

It was like hurling a fragile soul into boiling magma and an eternally frozen abyss at the same instant!

A vast, pure, yet incomparably violent force of heaven and earth, carrying Guiguzi's mountain-like protective will, rushed through Xiang Yi's spiritual tendrils and violently poured into his small sea of consciousness! This power exceeded his own by a hundred, a thousand times! Soul-rending agony instantly swept through every nerve! It felt as if invisible giant hands had gripped and kneaded his brain, about to crush it into dust the next moment! His vision drowned in thick, glaring blood-red!

"Urgh—!" Xiang Yi let out a shriek like a dying beast. His small body convulsed violently! Crimson streaks of blood, like twisting venomous snakes, slowly seeped from the corners of his eyes, his nostrils, and his ears. Yet the little hand pressed atop Guiguzi's remained as immovable as forged iron! Every shred of his will, every ounce of his life, burned into one mad command: Guide it! It must work!

A terrifying brilliance burst from Guiguzi's clouded eyes! He no longer divided his attention to suppress the poison. Instead, he transformed all his focus into the most precise bridge and the toughest buffer, fiercely protecting Xiang Yi's soul flame, which flickered like a dying candle amid the torrent of violent energy and could extinguish at any moment. At the same time, he precisely cast Xiang Yi's weak yet bedrock-firm guiding will toward the Vibranium fragment!

Go in! Xiang Yi's soul roared amid boundless infernal agony, like an ant trying to shake a mountain!

Bzzzz—!

The Vibranium fragment suddenly erupted with an unprecedented, dazzling silver radiance! Dense silver-white energy, guided through the fragile passage Xiang Yi had built with himself as kindling and Guiguzi's Xuan Weizi, became like a spear of judgment falling from the nine heavens. Ignoring the crazed counterattack of the blue-black poison flames, it drove forward with unstoppable resolve and stabbed fiercely into the depths of Lanling King's heart meridians!

Pffft—!

Lanling King's body jolted upward as though struck by a hammer weighing ten thousand tons, then crashed heavily back down. He spat out a massive mouthful of thick, foul-smelling black poison blood, like tar! At his heart, pure silver-white and savage blue-black twisted together like two cursed dragons fighting for their lives in a final, brutal slaughter and devouring!

Xiang Yi endured the double torment of soul and flesh, his consciousness already on the brink of dispersing. He seemed to stand at the center of a vortex of destruction, his soul torn apart and scorched by invisible power. Broken memories surged wildly through the burning pain: the cold loneliness of an office lit by a single lamp late at night, the joy when his fingertips had brushed the screen and drawn Lanling King, his parents' despairing tear-filled eyes beside a hospital bed, the moment Lanling King had knelt on one knee and said in a deep voice, "At your command," A Ke's bloodstained robes sinking into dark seawater... and now, the icy sting of the Vibranium fragment against his fingertips, along with the unextinguished light in Tony Stark's caramel-colored eyes on the glowing screen in his memories—sharp as a blade, seeing through everything!

Just as he felt his soul was about to be completely crushed by that endless violence and reduced to empty dust—

Crack!

An incredibly soft yet sharply distinct sound seemed to come from the deepest, most fundamental core of his soul, like ancient glass that had endured for ten thousand years finally breaking beneath its burden and forming its first crack!

Then, an entirely new force, clear and incomparably resilient, erupted from the crack in that near-shattered core like an ancient spring vein forcibly awakened from sleep! It instantly soothed part of the soul-scorching, bone-eroding agony, bringing a thread of clarity as precious as driftwood clutched by a drowning man!

Soul Core... exceeded limits!

Potential... burned dry... breaking free from the cocoon!

Returning to the Hidden Formula... entering the minute realm!

This transformation of breaking free and being reborn was like drawing the first breath of air before drowning in an abyss! Xiang Yi drained the last drop of this newborn power, turning all his remaining burning will into an invisible giant hand that fiercely pushed the silver Vibranium radiance embedded in Lanling King's heart meridians!

Disperse—!

Pure silver-white radiance flared furiously at Lanling King's heart! Like a miniature silver moon rising from the darkest abyss! Wherever its light reached, the core of blue-black evil energy lodged in the heart meridians like gangrene clinging to bone became like filthy snow exposed to blazing sunlight. It gave a shrill, piercing sizzle, then was instantly scattered, broken apart, and completely purified!

Without the support of Ten Rings Malevolent Energy, the blue-black poison markings spread across his body rapidly faded and dissolved like a receding tide! The poison dart at his shoulder blade, already gray and rotten, dropped off with a clatter, hitting the floor and shattering into several lifeless black fragments! A faint dark-golden wisp, carrying endless resentment and unwillingness, tried to escape from the fragments, only to be immediately enveloped by the lingering pure silver-white aura of Vibranium, purified and erased without a trace!

Thud!

Xiang Yi could no longer hold on. His small body, as if every bone had been pulled from it, crashed heavily onto the thick carpet, completely losing consciousness. His face was as pale as golden paper, and his breathing was so faint it was nearly nonexistent. The bloodstains flowing from his seven orifices had long dried and congealed, drawing shocking dark-red trails across his pallid face. His body occasionally twitched faintly from extreme exhaustion.

"Young friend!" Guiguzi let out a low cry and immediately separated a thread of weak Xuan Weizi to support Xiang Yi and examine him. His old face was grave enough to drip water. His soul power was depleted, and his meridians had been ravaged as though by a heavy plow. Fortunately, although his spiritual core was covered in spiderweb-like cracks, it had miraculously stabilized through its breakthrough transformation and had not completely shattered.

On the bed, Lanling King's violent, tearing convulsions finally subsided. His tightly furrowed brows gradually relaxed. Though his ashen face remained frighteningly pale, the heart-palpitating blue-black aura of death had vanished completely. His weak, intermittent breathing slowly became steady and deep. A faint yet undeniably real current of vitality began to flow once more through his cold body.

Guiguzi let out a long breath of utter exhaustion, as though it had taken the last of his strength with it. He slowly withdrew his dimmed, still faintly trembling hands. He looked at Xiang Yi, unconscious and barely breathing, then at Lanling King, whose breaths were steadily stabilizing. At last, a bitter smile of relief appeared upon his deeply furrowed face. He sat cross-legged and closed his eyes to regulate his breathing.

The study still reeked of blood and rot, but the suffocating deathly aura, thick enough to feel tangible, had dispersed. Only the Vibranium fragment on the floor, its radiance restrained as though it had exhausted all its miraculous power, and the two unconscious figures on the carpet, one large and one small, silently told of the brutal spiritual battle that had just reversed life and death.

The first stingy glimmer of dawn struggled through the gap in the curtains, casting several long shafts of light across the carpet, where dust motes drifted.

Lanling King's eyelashes trembled violently a few times before he slowly opened his eyes. Bone-deep pain and extreme weakness crashed over his senses like waves, but more clearly, he could feel the dormant power within him struggling to revive, flowing weakly with a prickling sensation. He laboriously turned his neck, urgently searching the dim room with his eyes.

When his gaze caught the small curled-up figure on the carpet—the face pale as paper, the dark-red bloodstains congealed on the cheeks, ears, and neck... it felt as though an invisible, icy iron hand had seized, crushed, and torn apart his heart! A pain and suffocation a hundred times worse than when the Ten Rings poison had corroded his heart meridians instantly drowned him! A suppressed, beastlike whimper rose from his throat!

"My lord!" He struggled to prop himself up, but his drained body only fell heavily back onto the bed in vain, making a dull impact.

"Do not move." Guiguzi's low, hoarse voice sounded. He had regulated his breathing for a while, and though his face remained ashen and exhausted, some clarity had returned to his eyes. He walked to Xiang Yi's side, bent down again, and placed his withered fingers on Xiang Yi's slender wrist. "His soul power has been excessively depleted, and his meridians severely damaged... Fortunately, his life is not in danger, and his foundation remains intact. He needs... prolonged rest."

Lying on the cold bed, Lanling King felt the emptiness and weakness left by the complete removal of the poison, along with the faint yet remarkably resilient warm current remaining deep in his heart meridians, carrying a strange metallic texture—the mark left by Vibranium's salvation. Everything was obvious.

It was his lord... who had used such a young, frail body to endure unimaginable soul-rending agony and the risk of utter destruction, forcibly dragging him back from the gates of the underworld!

A torrent of emotion hotter and heavier than the Ten Rings poison, so intense it nearly melted his soul, engulfed him at once. Something deep within his soul was completely ignited, hammered, and forged into shape. Using the final thread of strength left in his body, he struggled to turn onto his side, facing the unconscious Xiang Yi. With immense difficulty and incomparable solemnity, he raised his right hand, pressed his fingers together like a blade, and firmly placed it against his still-aching heart. His gaze, like an unmatched cold edge tempered through a thousand hammerings and reborn through fire, locked onto Xiang Yi's bloodless little face. Every word was like a searing brand, carved deep into his bones and soul:

"This body, this soul, shall forever be a blade." His hoarse voice rang through the deathly silent dawn, carrying an unshakable, indelible weight like bedrock. "Wherever my lord points, even the nine netherworlds and Yellow Springs... I shall go."

Guiguzi stroked his beard in silence. Deep currents also stirred in his aged eyes.

In the living room, the volume of the television's morning news had been deliberately turned up, its sound clearly penetrating the door:

"...Breaking news! In the early hours of last night, the Panama-registered ocean freighter Sea Serpent suffered a massive explosion in international waters of the East China Sea! Cabin 7 sustained severe damage, and the exact cause remains under urgent investigation. Anonymous sources have revealed that intense gunfire may have occurred aboard before the explosion, possibly involving an internal conflict within an international smuggling syndicate... Search and rescue efforts are ongoing..." The background footage shifted to aerial shots, where thick black smoke rose into the sky from one side of the Sea Serpent's enormous steel hull.

Then the footage switched again:

"...This station interrupts with the latest report! Genius inventor and Stark Industries CEO Tony Stark, who had been missing for over three months, was successfully rescued yesterday! A military spokesperson confirmed that Mr. Stark escaped his harsh captivity by relying on his extraordinary intelligence and engineering skill to construct a high-tech armored suit! He has now returned to the United States aboard a military aircraft and is expected to hold a press conference later today..." The footage showed Tony Stark being helped down an aircraft stairway. His face was covered in stubble, and he looked utterly haggard, but his signature caramel-colored eyes shone with the relief of survival and a sharper edge, like one reborn from flames. A line of stock information silently flashed across the bottom of the broadcast: [STARK INDUSTRIES (SI) - DOWN 32.7%...]

Guiguzi's gaze shifted slightly from the unconscious Xiang Yi to the flickering television screen. An unreadable thought passed through his deep eyes.

Lanling King had also caught fragments of the report. Looking at Stark's figure on the screen, his expression turned grave. His lord had once said that this man's appearance often marked the beginning of drastic change.

At that moment, Xiang Yi, curled up on the carpet, unconsciously furrowed his brow even tighter despite his deep coma. His dry, pale lips moved weakly a few times, as if he were still carrying out some silent deduction and struggle beyond his limits within an endless, chaotic nightmare. Then, a vague, hoarse whisper, as though it had consumed the last trace of his life force, drifted from him like a wandering ghost's sigh:

"...Energy... stocks... time to... buy in..."

The sound was so faint it was almost inaudible, instantly swallowed by the growing chirping of birds outside the window and the television news in the background.

Lanling King and Guiguzi's gazes met briefly in the air. Lanling King's eyes held deep confusion, while Guiguzi's profound gaze flashed with knowing understanding and even graver contemplation. He slowly turned toward the window. The faint morning light gilded the city, which had just survived a night of life and death and was awakening from sleep, in pale gold. Beneath the city's clamor, his spiritual senses, sharp enough to verge upon the mystical, quietly spread outward like an invisible web. They caught several powerful, hidden presences lurking in deeper shadows—cold and meticulous, like precision gears meshing soundlessly (S.H.I.E.L.D.); sinister and savage, radiating an ancient, primal bloodthirsty aura (Ten Rings Syndicate); strange and unfathomable, slithering silently through the shadows like venomous snakes (The Hand); and another... blazing, flamboyant, like an explosive newborn star that had just ignited and longed to burn away every shackle (Stark?)... Beneath the calm surface, a greater storm vortex was silently gathering and brewing in the distance.

And their lord, even while trapped in the mire of unconsciousness, remained the invisible hand stirring this chaotic chessboard of an age through the scattered words spilling from his unconsciously moving lips and the faint, lingering sensation of cold metal that seemed to still cling to his fingertips.