2025-12-19 04:23:31The cold in the Bone Prison was absolute, but it was the only thing that kept the burning inside Lin Jin’s marrow from consuming him alive.
Lin Jin sat on a bed carved from Thousand-Year Black Ice. Chains the width of a man’s arm, inscribed with suppression runes, shackled his wrists and ankles. He wasn't a criminal. He was the Young Master of the Lin Family. But to the world, he was something else. A monster. A plague. Creak. The heavy stone door groaned open. A beam of warm light cut through the freezing darkness, illuminating Lin Jin’s pale, gaunt face. "Father?" Lin Jin’s voice was hoarse, scraping against his throat like sandpaper. A middle-aged man in luxurious violet robes stepped in. It was Lin Xiao, the Patriarch of the Lin Family. Behind him followed a withered old man carrying a rusted, blood-stained wooden box. "Jin'er," Lin Xiao said, his voice unusually soft. "How is the pain today?" "It hurts, Father," Lin Jin whispered, clutching his chest. "It feels like... like ants are eating my bones from the inside." Lin Xiao nodded, a flash of complicated emotion crossing his eyes—pity? Or perhaps, relief? "Endure it a little longer," Lin Xiao said, stepping closer. He didn't touch his son. He never did. No one dared to touch Lin Jin without protective gear. "Elder Gu has found the cure. Today, we extract the poison from your body. Today, you will be free." Lin Jin’s eyes widened. For eighteen years, he had been a prisoner in his own home. He had been told his body was a cursed vessel, leaking a corrosive energy that rotted wood, rusted iron, and killed flowers. "Really?" Hope, fragile and desperate, bloomed in his chest. "I can... I can walk outside? I can see the sun?" "Yes," Lin Xiao said. He looked away. "Prepare the formation, Elder Gu." The withered old man cackled dryly. He opened the wooden box. Inside wasn't medicine. It was a set of saws. Chisels. And a long, hollow spike engraved with blood grooves. Lin Jin’s heart skipped a beat. "Father? What are those?" "The poison is in your marrow, Jin'er," Elder Gu rasped, his voice like grinding stones. "To cure the tree, one must cut the roots. To save the man... we must open the bone." "It will be painful," Lin Xiao added quickly. "But it is necessary." Lin Jin grit his teeth. He nodded. "I can take it. If it means I can be normal... do it." He wanted to make his father proud. He wanted to stop being the family's shame. Elder Gu approached. He didn't use anesthesia. He raised the hollow spike and aimed it directly at Lin Jin’s spine. THUD! The spike pierced flesh. It scraped against the vertebrae. "AAAAHHH!" Lin Jin screamed, his body arching off the ice bed. The chains rattled violently. But the pain wasn't the worst part. As the spike penetrated his bone, Lin Jin felt something being pulled out. It wasn't poison. It was his life force. It was his essence. And then, he heard them talking. "Pure," Elder Gu muttered, his eyes gleaming with greed as he watched a pitch-black, viscous liquid flow through the hollow spike into a jade jar. "The 'Corrosion Bone Marrow' is of the highest quality. Patriarch, with this, your eldest son Lin Feng will definitely break through to the Spirit Realm!" The pain vanished for a second, replaced by a cold shock that froze Lin Jin’s soul. Lin Feng? My brother? "Father?" Lin Jin gasped, blood trickling from his mouth. "What... what is he talking about?" Lin Xiao stood with his back to him, watching the jade jar fill up. He didn't turn around. "Your brother Lin Feng is a genius," Lin Xiao said, his voice devoid of the earlier warmth. It was cold. Business-like. "But his talent has hit a bottleneck. He needs a boost. A supreme foundation." Lin Xiao finally turned. He looked at his screaming, bleeding son not with love, but with the appraising look one gives to livestock. "You were born with the Cursed Body. You cannot cultivate. You bring only disaster. But your marrow... it is a treasure." "You... you lied..." Tears mixed with blood on Lin Jin’s face. "You aren't curing me." "I am making you useful," Lin Xiao said indifferently. "Sacrificing a piece of waste to create a god. You should be honored, Jin'er. This is your contribution to the family." Honor? Waste? Eighteen years of isolation. Eighteen years of enduring the gnawing pain, believing his father was searching for a cure. It was all a lie. They were just waiting for him to ripen. He was a pig raised for slaughter. "No..." Lin Jin growled. "NO!" "Suppress him!" Lin Xiao ordered. Elder Gu sneered and pressed down on the spike. "Don't struggle, brat. It will be over soon. Once I drain your spine dry, you won't feel a thing ever again." Despair swallowed Lin Jin. His vision blurred. The coldness of the ice bed seeped into his heart. Is this it? Am I going to die here, as food for my brother? "Pathetic." A voice. It didn't come from the room. It didn't come from his ears. It came from the hollow of his spine. From the very marrow they were trying to steal. "You act like a sheep, so they butcher you like a sheep." The world seemed to turn grey. Time slowed to a halt. Lin Jin’s consciousness was pulled into a deep, dark abyss. "Eighteen years I have slept in your bones," the voice was ancient, dripping with a malice that made the Devil look like a saint. "I kept you alive. And you want to give my power to that mediocre trash standing over there?" "Who... who are you?" Lin Jin thought, his mind trembling. "I am the rust on the blade. I am the rot in the wood. I am the end of all things eternal." A surge of black energy, far darker than the night, erupted from Lin Jin’s spine. "Do you want to live, boy? Do you want to tear them apart?" Lin Jin looked at his father’s cold face. He looked at Elder Gu’s greedy grin. The love in his heart turned to ash. In its place, something else ignited. "Yes," Lin Jin mentally screamed. "I want them... to ROT." "Good deal." SNAP. In the real world, the hollow metal spike stuck in Lin Jin’s back didn't just break. It dissolved. It turned into grey dust in an instant. Elder Gu’s eyes bulged. "What—?" He didn't finish his sentence. The black liquid in the jade jar suddenly boiled. It shot out like a living serpent, wrapping around Elder Gu’s arm. "ARGH!" There was no blood. There was no fire. Elder Gu’s arm simply... withered. The skin turned grey and flaked off like dry paint. The muscle disintegrated. In the blink of an eye, his arm was nothing but a brittle white bone. "My arm! My arm!" Lin Jin slowly lifted his head. His eyes were no longer black. They were a swirling, catastrophic grey. The chains on his wrists rusted and shattered into dust. He stood up from the ice bed, the "poison" they feared so much now wrapping around him like a cloak of death. "Father," Lin Jin spoke. His voice overlapped with the ancient entity, creating a demonic harmony. "Did you say I am waste?" He took a step forward. The Thousand-Year Black Ice beneath his feet hissed and melted into foul water. "Let me show you what this 'waste' can do." End of Chapter 1
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 333: The Silver Anchor
The blue fluid poured through the cracked window. It was not water. It was thick and heavy. It smelled like pure ozone. The fluid touched the hot iron console. It hissed loudly. Toxic white smoke filled the small cabin. Elena Cross stood up. She did not wear a heavy hazard suit. She only wore her torn silver uniform. Zero unplugged the thick black data drive from the ship. It looked like a heavy metal spike. She handed it to the older girl. "The virus is inside," Zero said. Her small hands shook. "You must push the silver button after you stab the nerve. It will release the code." Su Qing grabbed Elena's arm. "You cannot breathe that fluid. The pressure will crush your lungs instantly. It is suicide." "My ancestors built this monster," Elena said softly. "My blood is the key to its cage. I will not drown." Elena looked at her arm. She forced her ancient power to the surface. Silv
Chapter 332: The Stellar Harvester
The Core-Diver sank into the red meat. The heat was intense. The black iron ship melted the cosmic flesh easily. It left a burned tunnel behind them. The tunnel healed and closed up almost instantly. The sleeping god was regenerating. Zero watched the biological radar. She did not act like a scared child. She acted like a cold doctor in a bloody emergency room. "The patient has a terrible fever," Zero said. She tapped the glass screen. "Heart rate is rising fast. Massive muscle spasms in the lower mantle. The patient is waking up. We need to administer the anesthetic right now." Su Qing gripped the dual flight sticks. Her knuckles were white. "Give me a clear path to the brain." "Go straight down," Zero replied flatly. "Aim for the central nervous system." ... The General. Up in the broken city General Jaxen Thorne watched the steel walls crack. Huge
Chapter 331: The Tectonic Shift
The Iron-Abacus roared to life. The great forges burned bright orange. The terrible cold was gone. Men and women threw off their thick blankets. They picked up heavy hammers. They wiped sweat from their foreheads. They went back to work. Su Qing stood on the high command balcony. She watched the sparks fly in the giant industrial square. They had limitless power now. The thick orange blood of the sleeping god flowed through the city pipes. General Thorne stood next to her. He watched the massive assembly lines. "The old rifles are useless," Thorne said. His voice was loud over the noise of the hammers. "The bone-spiders proved that. We need better guns." "We are building them," Su Qing replied. She pointed to a glowing vat of liquid metal. "We are mixing the cosmic energy directly into the steel. We are forging Sun-Rounds. The bullets will burn at three thousand degrees. They will melt the white bone easily." Thorne nodded. He liked the sound of that. The Great Zhou was no long
Chapter 330: The Silver Line
The monsters charged. Fifty white bone-spiders leaped into the air. They moved like a single terrifying wave. Their jaws dripped with white acid. They wanted to tear the silver girl apart. Elara did not step back. She gripped the glowing spear. She swung it in a wide arc. The silver light cut through the dark square. It hit the first line of spiders. The ancient weapon did not just break their bones. It erased them. Five monsters turned into gray dust instantly. The dust fell onto the freezing metal floor. But Elara was not a soldier. She was a Navigator. Her body was human and fragile. A spider slipped past her spear. It slammed its heavy skull into her chest. The impact threw Elara backward. She hit the ground hard. The silver spear slid out of her hands. The monster raised its sharp claw to pin her down. "Fire!" General Thorne roared. Thorne emptied his heavy pistol into the spider's face. The bullets did not kill it. But the kinetic force pushed the monster off balance. Ela
Chapter 329: The White Swarm
The Core-Diver flew straight up. Liquid rock washed over the black iron hull. The plasma field melted the earth ahead of them. They moved incredibly fast. Zero held the dual control sticks. Her small hands shook. The heat inside the cabin was terrible. The orange blood of the sleeping god sat in the tank behind them. It radiated pure cosmic energy. It felt like they were carrying a tiny angry star. Su Qing watched the rear radar. The screen was completely red. "They are gaining on us," Su Qing said. Her voice was tight. "Physics Lesson 627," Zero said through her teeth. "Viscosity." "The molten rock slows us down. But the bone-spiders do not care about friction. They are swimming through the magma like water. They are adapted to the extreme heat. We are not." Elara sat in the gunner seat. She watched the rear camera feed. The white bone-spiders crawled right behind the engine fire. Their sharp teeth snapped at the metal hull. Their empty eye sockets glowed with orange light.
Chapter 328: The Immune System
The Core-Diver hovered in the dark. Su Qing stared at the red flesh below them. The ground breathed. It moved up and down very slowly. It was a massive living thing. "We have to land," Su Qing said. Her voice shook. Zero looked at the radar. "The flesh is soft. The ship might sink." "Turn the heat off completely," Su Qing ordered. "Extend the landing claws." The heavy iron teardrop dropped the last twenty feet. It hit the ground with a wet thud. The ship sank a few inches into the dark red meat. It stabilized. The smell was terrible. It leaked through the air filters. It smelled like ancient copper and rotten meat. Elara unbuckled her seatbelt. Her golden eyes were wide. She pressed her bare hand against the cold metal wall of the cabin. "It is dreaming," Elara whispered. "It is dreaming of burning stars. It is so angry." Su Qing ignored the warning. She looked out the window at the giant black veins. They were as thick as city buses. They pulsed with dull orange light. The c
You may also like