In the square at Mermaid Cove.
A magic circle ten meters in diameter had already been drawn.
Wangchuan stood outside the circle, looking down at his work.
"Beautiful."
He raised his hand.
In his palm, the last thread of blood seeped from his fingertips, condensed into a talisman-like inscription in midair, and fell into the center of the circle.
The magic circle lit up.
Dark red light seeped from its patterns like ignited gunpowder, spreading rapidly along the bloodlines and staining the entire circle a dazzling red.
The light pulsed and breathed like something alive.
Wangchuan sat cross-legged outside the circle, formed seals with both hands, and whispered.
His voice was soft, yet carried a strange penetrating power, like a bell ringing underwater.
"With the kan trigram as the anchor."
"With the lunar phases as the path."
Beneath his feet, the Moon Wheel began spinning faster, its silver radiance intertwining with the circle's red light to form an eerie purple.
The air began to tremble.
At the center of the magic circle, the paving stones cracked.
A pitch-black fissure spread from the center, as though something were pushing it open from below.
Inside the fissure, a transparent mass wriggled.
Like liquid, yet also like some kind of mollusk, it slowly squeezed out of the fissure and gathered into an irregular shape at the center of the circle.
A transparent vessel.
An embryo.
The embryo floated in the center of the magic circle, wrapped in a transparent membrane, with a blurry mass of flesh inside that had yet to take shape.
It had an outline, but no details.
Like ink soaked in water, not yet dry.
Wangchuan did not stop.
System.
He called out inwardly.
Open the Soul Passage.
``` [Command confirmed.]
[Constructing Soul Passage...]
[Based on authority link: Dui Trigram