"If I stay here, I die, so don't you dare look back, Chen Mo."The whisper tore from Chen Mo’s throat as he crouched behind the jagged perimeter rocks. His chest didn't just hurt, it throbbed with a sickening, heavy heat that threatened to split his ribs apart. Ahead lay the boundary line of the Forbidden Mountain, swallowed by a dense, toxic gray mist that smelled of rot and old blood. Behind him lay the estate that had stripped him of his humanity."Hey, did you hear something over by the eastern fence?"A guard's voice sliced through the dark, accompanied by the sharp clank of iron armor.Chen Mo pressed his back harder against the freezing stone, his breath catching in his throat. He forced his hand over his mouth to muffle his desperate wheezing."Probably just a stray mutt," another guard muttered, his voice fading as their footsteps drifted toward the main gates. "Let it freeze. We have better things to do than watch an empty border.""Right, let's grab some wine."Chen Mo wait

"They didn't just throw me out, they sent executioners to make sure I never find my way back."Chen Mo breathed the words into the freezing moss, his body pressed flat against the muddy earth. His heart was a wild thing, slamming against his ribs, but it wasn't just fear anymore. It was an intense, suffocating awareness. His newly forged iron pathways hummed, expanding his senses until the heavy drops of condensation falling from the thorny canopy sounded like distant drumbeats."Spread out, you idiots," a sharp voice cut through the gray mist a few dozen yards away. "He is a cripple with no meridians. He couldn't have gone far after entering the boundary."Chen Mo recognized that voice. It belonged to Ge Xuan, one of Chen Feng’s most vicious sycophants from the outer sect."But did you see that red light earlier, Brother Ge?" a second, younger disciple stammered, his boots squelching loudly in the swampy ground. "The whole mountain shook. What if some high-level demon beast got to hi

"Look at him, he carries the primordial fire our ancestors lost ten millennia ago."Grand Elder Chen Jue’s voice did not crackle with anger, it trembled with a terrifying, reverent awe. The crushing pressure pinning Chen Mo to the stone floor did not vanish, but it shifted, allowing him to raise his head slightly. The dark sky above began to part as a dozen figures clad in grand ceremonial crimson robes floated down into the ruined clearing, their spiritual tracking arrays humming silently."Grand Elder," one of the accompanying elders stepped forward, his eyes darting to the cooling corpses of Ge Xuan and the others. "He murdered the outer disciples. He broke the clan covenant. He must be executed.""Silence, you short sighted fool," Chen Jue hissed, stepping right past the bodies without a single glance. He knelt in front of Chen Mo, his ancient, deep set eyes wide with a manic, obsessive light. He reached out, his long fingers hovering just inches from the black scales on Chen Mo’s

"I am going to tear this entire estate to pieces if it means getting her out alive."The vow hissed past Chen Mo’s lips as he dropped straight through the floorboard joists, bypassing the study entirely by plunging into the dark, filthy expanse of the estate’s main drainage system. The foul, rushing water swallowed the sound of his descent. He scrambled through the muck, his primordial senses screaming at him, charting a direct path toward the subterranean cells. The air grew progressively colder, thick with the scent of stagnant iron and despair."Stop right there, who goes—"The guard's voice was cut short as Chen Mo burst from a drainage grate directly into the lower corridor. He didn't hesitate. His right arm surged with black, overlapping scales, his Tiger-Grip clamping onto the guard’s chest plate with devastating force. The reinforced steel buckled, throwing the man violently against the stone wall."An intruder, call for backup," another guard yelled from down the hall, his ha