Chapter 67 · Aurora City Is Bleeding
Church of Radiant Grace · Saint’s Bedchamber — Midnight
Cecilia jolted upright.
Cold sweat soaked through her nightgown in a single, icy sheet—
clinging to her skin as though someone had pressed frost directly against her ribs.
The bedside lamp flickered once.
Twice.
Then spasmed violently, its glow stuttering across the room.
The sigil on her palm burned.
The Tri-Star Halo twisted under her skin—
three interlocking star-patterns pulsing like living veins,
thrumming with a feverish, unnatural rhythm.
A thin whimper escaped her throat.
“Not again…”
She stumbled out of bed, feet cold against the marble floor,
half-running, half-falling into the bathroom.
Her hands slapped against the sink.
She doubled over—
gagging.
Then her body convulsed.
And something non-human tore free.
A clot of gold-black mist ripped out of her mouth,
warping into hundreds of distorted faces midair—
open mouths, hollow sockets—
before crumbling into dust.
Cecilia choked on a sob.
“Please… stop…”
But her plea dissolved beneath the next impact—
A tidal wave of prayer crashed into her mind.
Voices—
thousands of them—
colliding, bleeding, screeching through her skull:
“Saint, save me—!”
“My son’s fever—it won’t break—!”
“Where is your blessing?”
“Why won’t God answer us?!”
“Why won’t you answer?!”
Not devotion.
Not reverence.
Demand.
Accusation.
Hunger.
The force drove her to her knees.
Golden fissures cracked across her skin—
hairline fractures glowing like molten faultlines
as something inside her clawed wildly for release.
The Halo’s mark ignited across her forehead.
Light speared from her pores—
thin, blinding threads of gold
stringing her limbs upright
like a marionette held together by divine wire.
Her breath hitched—
And the vision struck.
?
She floated above a sea of worshippers.
Her white robes fluttered in a storm wind,
ragged at the edges—like the wings of a dying bird.
Below—
thousands of hands.
Upturned.
Desperate.
Clawing toward her ankles.
Hands rotted with hopelessness.
Hands dripping with need.
Each one gripping her,
dragging her down,
down,
down—
“You are our God!”
“Save my family—!”
“Bring light—!”
“Purify the Fiends—!”
“I’m not—”
Her voice cracked, splintering.
“I’m NOT—!!”
Her scream severed the vision—
and reality tore open with it.
?
She slammed her fist into the sink.
A blast of gold-black power detonated outward.
Marble exploded.
The shockwave hurled her across the room
and into the far wall with bone-jarring force.
Porcelain shrapnel raked across her skin—
thin crimson lines blooming instantly,
staining her trembling arms like cracks in a porcelain statue.
Footsteps thundered down the hall.
“Lady Ilena?!”
“Saint Maiden—!”
But Cecilia lay curled on the cold tiles,
blood and tears pooling beneath her in thin, trembling lines.
Her fingers dug crescents into her arms.
Each breath rasped like bone being sawed apart.
The last motes of golden dust drifted down—
dying embers from a broken ritual.
She stared blankly at the flickering ceiling light.
Her voice slipped out in a cracked whisper,
small and lost:
“If this is God’s place…”
“Why does it hurt so much…?”
By the time the attendants forced the door open—
they froze.
Their Saint—
the Maiden of Light—
lay crumpled amidst shattered stone and blood.
Her skin still glowed faintly with divine radiance—
a broken porcelain idol
scattered across the floor.
—————
Dawn at the Church — Blood on Porcelain
4:00 a.m. · Ruined Bedchamber
Shattered porcelain littered the floor
like the remains of a broken idol.
Blood stained the marble in thin, trembling arcs—
as if someone had tried to claw their way out of their own skin.
Bishop Branden Wood and Patriarch Satian Gray stood amid the carnage,
their shadows stretching unnaturally long across the cracked walls.
The flickering lamp warped Wood’s silhouette—
jagged, predatory, almost monstrous.
A trembling attendant knelt at their feet,
forehead pressed to the cold tile.
Wood tapped his fingers against the altar table of the Tri-Star Halo—
a slow, suffocating rhythm
that felt like it was counting someone’s remaining heartbeats.
His voice, when it came, was soft.
Too soft.
“Five days?”
The attendant flinched.
“F-Forgive us… L-Lady Cecilia forbade us to report—”
CRACK—!
Wood’s palm slammed down.
A heavy candlestick shattered,
molten wax hissing across the floor
as it struck the edges of Cecilia’s dried blood.
Wood leaned in, voice a velvet blade.
“If she breaks,”
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he hissed,
“then what, exactly, are we supposed to use
to counter City Hall’s Footsteps of a God?”
The attendant collapsed deeper into a bow.
Behind them, a soft chime rang.
Gray had lifted a shard of Cecilia’s broken basin—
its edge stained dark with her blood.
The shard glinted coldly in his palm.
“You knew she was forcing herself.”
He let it fall.
Ding.
A tiny, perfect funeral bell.
“Look at this blood,” he said quietly.
“Is she your Saint…
or the sacrificial lamb you’ve been fattening for slaughter?”
Wood whipped around, robes cutting the air with a metallic whisper.
“The Radiant Lord grants trials,” he snapped.
“She summoned the Holy Light herself during the rite.
Why do the people kneel?
Because we need a living miracle, Gray.”
Gray’s expression hardened into stone.
“Desire is carving her soul apart,” he said.
“You feel it. Don’t pretend you don’t.”
His fists clenched.
“You will let her die
on the throne you built for her.”
Silence pulsed—
thick, oil-dark, suffocating.
Then Wood laughed.
A low exhale, cracked at the edges.
A sound too broken to be amusement,
too steady to be grief.
He turned to the dim altar, murmuring like a man reciting a fractured scripture.
“No leaks,” he said.
“Not a whisper. Not until the city is already in chaos.”
He flicked his hand.
“Stabilize her. At noon, she appears on the Grand Plaza.
No exceptions.”
The attendant scrambled away—
not walking, but fleeing.
As if Wood’s words had teeth.
Gray stepped forward, voice low and dangerous.
“You’ll kill her.”
But Wood didn’t seem to hear him.
His tone shifted—
slipping into something strange, feverish,
half-prayer, half-delirium.
“I only meant… to channel the public’s wishes,” he murmured.
“To guide them. To shape them.
Why did it become this?”
His fingers tightened on the edge of the table.
“The Radiant Lord seeks balance…”
His gaze drifted to the smear of blood on the floor.
His pupils contracted—slow, reverent.
“Cecilia is already in this state…
and still, faith has never felt this heavy.”
Then—
a flicker.
A realization sparking behind his eyes.
“Or perhaps…”
he whispered,
“someone else tasted it first.”
Gray went rigid.
The nearest candle snapped—
flame bowing low,
as though acknowledging an unseen sovereign.
Wood lifted his head.
Their eyes met.
“You don’t think…”
Wood breathed, voice trembling between awe and dread,
“that he might already be…”
He didn’t finish.
Outside, the sky remained ink-black.
Dark mist curled around the church’s spires—
quiet, coiling, awakening.
Across the plaza’s megascreen,
under buzzing neon light,
the same footage flickered endlessly:
YiChen Caelestis—barehanded—
ripping a Fiend apart
in the depths of the hydro station.
—————
Three Days Later
Radiance Preparatory Academy · Late Night
The emergency siren split the night in two.
Elena’s eyes snapped open—
rose-gold Spirit Flame still curling around her fingertips like living silk.
On her nightstand, the crystal orchid she’d been nurturing with Spirit Energy
shuddered beneath the sudden wash of warning-red light.
“ALL STUDENTS, ASSEMBLE IN THE MAIN HALL!
Repeat—emergency assembly!”
Footsteps thundered down the hallway.
Elena swiped on her training uniform,
breath still syncing with the fading rhythm of her circulation technique.
She was part of the first cohort of the Clearheart Division—
a brand-new program carved out for high-aptitude Spirit users.
By the time she reached the main hall,
sixteen hundred trainees stood in tense silence.
Elena stood near the front.
Out of over two hundred thousand applicants city-wide,
only ten girls had received special admission.
She was one of them.
Always watched.
Always judged.
Always expected to prove she deserved it.
She could still remember the examiners’ faces—
that sharp, jolting instant when her Spirit Flow ignited pure white,
rimmed with rose-gold flame strong enough to force dormant seedlings awake
and bloom right there on the testing plate.
But aptitude wasn’t enough.
Her physical scores ranked near the bottom.
Her reflex scores weren’t much better.
Some girls whispered behind her back:
“Special admission… and that’s it?”
Her instructors didn’t echo the whispers—
but their silences hurt more.
So she trained.
Every night after lights-out,
she practiced under her blanket until her palms burned gold-pink
and even her dreams smelled faintly of Spirit Flame.
Her roommates called her insane.
But Elena knew the truth:
This was her only chance to ever reach him.
To earn the right to stand on the same battlefield as YiChen.
Another wave of footsteps shook the corridor.
Lisa, half-asleep and swearing under her breath, tightened her belt.
“God, I didn’t even grab my tactical kit…”
The main hall blazed with harsh overhead lights.
Instructors stood in rigid formation—
faces carved from stone.
On the stage, Logan and Xu Wei faced a towering live projection:
Dawn Central Hospital—
swallowed whole by rolling mist.
Even through the grain of the hologram,
the image was suffocating.
Logan spoke first,
voice sharpened to command.
“Dawn Central Hospital is under attack by Mist Fiends.
One-third of the city’s vaccine reserves are inside.
Four thousand patients.
One thousand medical personnel.”
A beat.
“This is not a drill.”
Xu Wei took over.
“Ten combat squads will deploy—twenty-four trainees each, three medics.
Three assault tiers. Logan, senior instructors, and I will lead the fronts.”
His gaze swept the hall like a blade.
“Objective: lockdown and evacuation of all sectors.”
“And remember—
Mist Fiends nest inside fear.”
Elena’s fists clenched.
A rose-gold spark burst from her palm—uncontrolled.
A few trainees stiffened, whispering.
She remembered:
The examiners’ astonishment.
The instructors’ hesitation.
Her roommate calling her a greenhouse flower.
Logan saying:
“Only the best may stand beside him.”
Her heartbeat stumbled—
then steadied.
An instructor barked:
“High-Spirit-Force users to the front!
Physical fighters—anchor the flanks!”
He reached her row…
and moved on.
Elena’s breath stung her throat.
“Sir!”
Her voice cracked through the hall like a bell.
She stepped forward—spine straight, chin lifted.
“Requesting to join the operation.”
The instructor frowned.
“Elena Lin, you’re underage. And your physical evaluation—”
“I turned eighteen yesterday!”
“Your file says you turn eighteen in two days,” he said flatly.
“My Spirit Force rating is excellent,” she pushed, breath trembling.
“Please—just give me one chance.”
Logan had already turned.
He walked toward her—
broad-shouldered, shadow long across the floor.
“You know what you’re walking into?” he asked quietly.
Elena met his gaze without flinching.
“Yes.”
Her voice shook—
but did not waver.
“I want to help.”
A beat.
Then Logan nodded.
“She’s with my unit.”
Whispers tore through the hall like thrown knives:
“Playing hero?”
“She’ll break in five minutes—”
Elena bit down on her tongue.
Another spark jumped from her palm—
Not anger.
Resolve.
“Unit One, move out!” Logan barked.
Chaos erupted into order.
Students surged into formation as Fiends shrieked overhead—
drawn like smoke toward the hospital.
Elena climbed into the transport truck,
heart hammering hard enough to bruise her ribs.
Ahead, Dawn Central Hospital loomed—
its silhouette swallowed in blood-tinted mist.
Behind her, on her nightstand in the empty dorm—
the crystal orchid continued to bloom quietly,
glowing with soft rose-gold light,
a fragile, stubborn dream
she refused
to let die.
————
Meanwhile
Spirit Realm Forest · Boundary Zone
The last thread of dusk bled out beneath the towering silhouettes of Blackpine Forest.
The squad made camp at the border.
Heavy gear sank into the mulch with each step—
the air thick with resin, the earth humming with the low pulse of ancient Spirit Veins.
YiChen shrugged off his thirty-kilogram pack.
The metal frame hit the ground with a dull, exhausted thud.
Night fell fast.
Inside his tent, YiChen sat cross-legged, breath leveled.
Every night, he performed the same ritual:
Purging the poison of faith.
But tonight—
the Faithstream struck like shattered glass.
“Save us, YiChen—!”
“Someone—please—my mom’s still in the hospital!”
“If you’re still out there—help us!!”
YiChen’s eyes flew open.
These weren’t prayers.
These were screams.
He pushed his awareness into the Faithstream—
riding it backward like a current—
and the world split.
A vision slammed into his mind:
Dawn Central Hospital, drowned in black mist.
Glass exploding in synchronized waves.
Corridors jammed with civilians sprinting for their lives,
only to be dragged back, clawing at the air,
by pale fog-tendrils that moved like hungry veins.
And at the center—
YiChen’s pulse stopped.
A Mist Fiend—
not vapor. Not spectral.
Fully manifested.
Phase Three.
A towering mass of crimson-black flesh perched atop the main ward,
its chest cracked open to expose a throbbing, heart-like core,
pulsing with malignant, blood-red light.
The smaller Fiends had evolved as well—
dense bodies, defined limbs, serrated jaws.
They weren’t drifting through the halls.
They were consuming the building.
Patients sobbed behind overturned beds.
Nurses screamed as tendrils tore through the ceiling.
Reality itself warped beneath the gravity of the Mist Domain.
YiChen’s pupils narrowed to razor slits.
“Impossible…”
His breath came sharp, a violent exhale.
This event—this catastrophe—
wasn’t supposed to happen for another two months.
In the original timeline,
the Mist Fiends devoured Aurora City for seven nights.
Thousands died.
The Church held the line with a desperate faith-barrier—
and the cost was everything:
A total transfer of power.
Not again.
Not this time.
YiChen tore open the tent flap.
His voice—cold iron.
“Everyone—emergency return. Now.”
No explanation.
No hesitation.
Six people dropped everything but weapons.
Gear abandoned.
Armor half-fastened.
Only combat essentials taken.
They sprinted.
The forest parted under YiChen’s pressure—
Spirit beasts flattened themselves into the undergrowth.
Fiends that leapt from the dark didn’t even hit the ground—
their bodies shredded into dust
by a force too fast to be seen.
This was no longer the squad Aurora City had dispatched.
This was something far more dangerous.
?
Highway · Deep Night
David gripped the steering wheel so hard the leather groaned.
The transport truck’s engine screamed—
the speedometer trembling at its maximum edge.
YiChen sat in the passenger seat, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Behind his ear, the Star-Dome Pact Mark pulsed—
a heartbeat carved in drifting starlight.
In his Consciousness Sea,
Shadowfang’s voice rolled like a storm-tide:
【Will we make it in time?】
YiChen didn’t answer.
He glanced into the rearview mirror.
His squad sat in the back—
silent, focused, loading magazines with hands that shook
only when they thought no one was looking.
Far behind them,
the silhouette of the Spirit Realm Forest
sank into darkness—
like a doorway closing.
Ahead of them—
Aurora City was bleeding.
