Chapter 15: Blood and Fire

  In the Crimson Sky Domain, where mountains burned crimson in the twilight and rivers shimmered like molten gold, no name bore more weight than that of the Huo Clan. Their ancestors’ legends were not sung in taverns. Instead, they were etched into the bones of the land itself. At the pinnacle of those stories stood one man, the Sky Blazing Sun, the ancient cultivator who had shattered a thousand enemies in a single breath and turned the tide of an age-old war. Because of him, the Huo Clan became more than a family… they became an institution. Monarchs bent the knee. Martial sects dared not speak out of turn. If power was a throne, then the Huo Clan sat upon it with their heads high and eyes looking only skyward.

  Yet even gods could be caged.

  And legends could die.

  The Crimson Sky Domain, once saturated with vibrant qi, now whispered of fading life. Rivers no longer pulsed with spiritual essence. Mountains cracked in silence. Qi, the breath of the world, had thinned over generations. And though the cause was buried under rubble, corpses, and forbidden scrolls, everyone with a sliver of perception knew this depletion was no accident. Other realms had suffered the same fate… realms bled dry by unseen wars and histories hidden beneath the whitewash of time.

  In one such realm, inside an ornate palanquin lined with phoenix-feather silk and guarded by ten elite cultivators, Huo Jian stirred.

  The youth opened his eyes. Dark irises the color of cooled obsidian flicked toward the ceiling. He could feel it… the subtle imbalance in the air. The qi was weaker here than yesterday. It was always weaker.

  “Like watching a fire die one ember at a time,” he thought.

  The palanquin swayed gently as it made its descent along the road carved into the sky-reaching cliffs. Then, without warning, it came to a halt.

  A voice boomed outside, clear and proud. “Behold! The Rising Phoenix of the Huo Clan! Scion of Flame! Heir of the Sky Blazing Sun! May the heavens tremble before him, may the earth bow!”

  Huo Jian exhaled through his nose.

  “So much noise for such a small kingdom.”

  He parted the silken curtain.

  The sun met him immediately, a golden blaze across his sharp features. His long black hair rippled like ink against firelight, bound loosely by a crimson thread bearing the clan’s emblem… a blazing sun crossed with a sword.

  He stepped down. The moment his boots touched the ground, the monarch… some petty ruler from a border kingdom… bowed so deeply his forehead brushed the marble tiles of the palace stairs.

  “Welcome, Young Master Huo Jian!” the monarch cried. “Your presence honors this humble land! May your flames bring prosperity to our soil!”

  Jian’s gaze was calm. He said nothing at first, letting the silence stretch and weigh down the monarch’s shoulders.

  “You’ve prepared the altar?” he finally asked, voice smooth and controlled.

  “Yes, Young Master! The altar is ready. The array has been inscribed exactly as your clan requested, and the tribute of spirit stones has been gathered in full…”

  “I don’t care for stones,” Jian interrupted. “Qi. That is what I want.”

  The monarch paled. “Y-Yes… the gathering site is atop the northern cliffs. The qi there is… faint, but still active.”

  Jian nodded, already stepping past him. His guards followed in perfect formation.

  As they walked, he glanced skyward. The clouds were thin today. The sun blazed, but it lacked the fury he carried within.

  “Nine layers,” he thought. “Nine perfect spirals of qi. My dantian strains beneath them. It is almost time, but not quite yet.”

  He had reached the Peak of Qi Gathering, something unheard of in a land like this. Most cultivators plateaued at the sixth layer, maybe seventh if they were lucky. But he had formed nine. All of them pure, all of them stable. His body now hung on the cusp of something greater… the Foundation Establishment!

  He clenched his fist. Heat surged from his core, radiating out into his limbs.

  “The Crimson Sky Domain has been starved for too long. I will be the first to shatter its ceiling in centuries. I will show them that this realm can still burn.”

  They reached the altar site within the hour. The stone platform was old, cracked by time, but the formation etched into it pulsed faintly with power. It would do.

  Jian walked to the center and sat cross-legged. His guards moved to form a protective circle around the perimeter.

  He closed his eyes and began to breathe.

  Inhale. Qi flowed in… scarce, reluctant, but real.

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  Exhale. Impurities fled.

  Inhale. The world dimmed around him.

  “Soon,” he whispered inwardly, “I will carve my name into history. And when the Foundation forms… they will see me not as heir, not as child, but as the first flame to rise from the ashes.”

  After some time of circulating his qi and entering the proper mindset, Huo Jian decided he was ready. The chamber was silent, save for the low crackle of array-forged fire and the faint hum of suppressing talismans clinging to the stone walls like ivy.

  Slowly, Huo Jian opened his eyes.

  They were sharp, glowing faintly red like embers stirred from sleep.

  Without a word, he stood, his expression unreadable. He reached up and unfastened the upper layer of his crimson robes, letting them fall from his shoulders. His torso, bare and unblemished, radiated a faint sheen of spiritual light… his flesh tempered by years of cultivated flame, each muscle honed not through battle, but through relentless refinement.

  Then he sat again upon the obsidian slab, legs crossed, back straight, and closed his eyes.

  A breath.

  Then came the surge.

  His qi exploded outward, flooding his meridians with fierce intensity. Like a tide of flame rushing through a network of silver rivers, his energy moved without pause, without obstruction. The nine qi layers that orbited his dantian like defensive walls shimmered into view, each a testament to his perfection in the Qi Gathering realm.

  But they were no longer enough.

  The Clan had done their part. They had emptied resources, offered ancient manuals, and even begun trades with other realms, begging for rare elixirs and long-lost techniques. It was all to push Huo Jian… their pride and their hope… into Foundation Establishment.

  And still, it had not been enough.

  That was when the rumor reached him… a demonic bird, a strange beast that spoke in the human tongue, encountered by a cultivator of their clan. An impossibility, or so the elders thought. The demonic beasts had long been hunted to extinction. The Crimson Sky Domain had been bled dry, not just of qi, but of life that could contain it.

  Admittedly, it was not impossible for new demonic beasts to appear in the domain.

  Huo Jian had not hesitated.

  He had funded the expedition himself.

  “If the heavens are stingy,” he had declared to the elders, “then we’ll wring it from the flesh of beasts.”

  The result was in front of him now: a cluster of qi-filled orbs, each the core organ of slain cultivating beasts… dantian equivalents in monstrous form. Glowing faintly with life essence, they pulsed like hearts, defiant even in death.

  One by one, Huo Jian lifted the orbs, and set them aflame with his own inner fire.

  They burned.

  And then, so did he.

  The flames coiled up his arms, crawled across his chest, and entered his pores like serpents of light. Each orb’s destruction released a torrent of qi, refined through flame and discipline, filtered through his meridians and directed toward the bottleneck that had plagued him for months.

  He grit his teeth.

  A tremor ran through the chamber.

  His breath grew ragged.

  “A little bit more,” he thought, sweat beading on his brow as he pounded again and again at the invisible wall barring him from advancement.

  The wall cracked.

  “More!”

  The cracks spread.

  “Break… damn you!”

  With a soundless roar, the barrier shattered.

  Qi erupted from within like a storm breaking free of a cage. Huo Jian’s body convulsed as the nine spiraling layers around his dantian collapsed, not into ruin, but into transformation. Like molten gold poured into a mold, the energies were reabsorbed, reshaped, and reconstructed into something greater.

  A single, resilient dantian, condensed and unyielding, emerged from the chaos.

  He gasped, then laughed… wild, triumphant laughter that echoed off the stone.

  His aura surged. The flames around his body dimmed as his Divine Sense was reforged anew. It reached inward first, studying the new world within him. His vision… no longer bound by flesh alone… traveled through his own body, marvelling at the core he had forged.

  “Foundation Establishment…” he murmured.

  He clenched his fists and felt the solidified qi respond instantly.

  “No Awakening Pill needed after all,” he chuckled. “The heavens must have realized who I am.”

  His Divine Sense stretched further, touching the edge of the chamber and even brushing against the guards waiting outside. They flinched. Some stumbled back.

  “Tell the Elders,” he called, voice calm now, “their gamble has paid off.”

  He reached for his robes again, still smiling.

  “Now,” he said to no one in particular, “find me more of those… demonic beasts!”

  “Young Lord Huo,” the monarch started, lips quivering. “Your name brings glory to our humble province. My daughter… she is virtuous, refined in tea ceremony and poetry. She would be honored to serve you in any manner that pleases your Excellency. The people will risk there flesh and bone to hunt demonic beasts if it pleases you. In your wait, I only ask for your patience.”

  Huo Jian’s expression twisted.

  Disgust, sharp and immediate, curled across his face. He flared his qi in a suffocating wave of heat rolling outward in a sudden burst. The gathered mortals from officials and servants alike, staggered from the heat. The monarch fell to his knees with a choked gasp, his face drained of all color.

  “Why,” Huo Jian said flatly, without looking at the man, “does this cattle speak to me? Has it mistaken me for an equal?”

  One of his guards stepped forward, expression stoic. He bowed at the waist.

  “How do you wish to deal with him, Young Lord?”

  The monarch began kowtowing with frantic abandon, forehead striking the stone with audible thuds.

  “Forgive me! Forgive this fool, great one!”

  The sound of bone against marble echoed pitifully.

  Another guard, a bit older, chuckled lowly.

  “His daughter is indeed quite beautiful, Young Lord. It would not be inappropriate to reward yourself… at your leisure.”

  Huo Jian turned his eyes toward the man. Then, he looked away.

  “Reward the cattle with gold. They cling to such things like it's their lifeblood. It's trash to us, but it will make them squeal in joy.”

  The guards nodded, not questioning the order.

  Huo Jian narrowed his eyes, then added in a colder tone:

  “As for the daughter… do what you like. If you’re so enchanted, keep her. Share her. Parade her. I don’t care what becomes of her. But don’t you ever suggest to me, to engage in bestiality ever again.”

  The first guard bowed again.

  “Forgive me if I have spoken out of turn, Young Lord. Thank you for your generosity.”

  A younger guard approached the still-trembling monarch and spoke with an edge of mockery.

  “What do you say to the Young Lord, hm?”

  The monarch looked up with hollow eyes, tears streaking his cheeks.

  “T-thank you,” he stammered, voice breaking.

  Huo Jian observed him for a moment, brow furrowed in something that might have been curiosity.

  “Why is he crying?”

  Another guard answered, ever helpful.

  “It must be tears of joy, Young Lord. To be acknowledged by your greatness, even briefly… what cattle wouldn’t weep?”

  Huo Jian said nothing. He stepped forward, brushing past the bowed figures without a glance. As his aura receded, the heat faded, but the taste of ash lingered in the air.

  “They call this a kingdom,” he thought aloud. “Yet it bows like a dog at the first breath of power. How pitiful.”

  He returned to the palanquin.

  There was still much to do.