Heaven's Only Men Cultivator

Chapter 14 - Escaped to the Dragon Mountains

The moonlight needle hissed as it bit into the wood of the doorframe, missing Li Feng's ear by a fraction of an inch. The wood around the needle instantly turned a brittle, crystalline white, shattering under the weight of the freezing energy.

"She's here!" Ying Yue screamed, her voice cracking with a mixture of terror and urgency. "Feng, we have to move now or we'll be frozen into statues before the sun even thinks about rising!"

"The window!" Li Feng shouted back, grabbing his meager satchel. "We can't go through the front. The High Executioners will have the street blocked."

"I know!" she snapped, already vaulting over the sill. "Don't just stand there staring at the ice! Jump!"

Li Feng didn't hesitate. He dived through the shattered window, his boots hitting the cobblestones of the alleyway with a heavy thud. The cold from the Saintess's needle was already spreading through the air, making every breath feel like he was inhaling broken glass.

"This way!" Ying Yue hissed, grabbing his arm and dragging him into the labyrinthine shadows of Azure Port. "If we can reach the North Gate before the city-wide seal is activated, we have a chance."

"What about Captain Zhao and the others?" Li Feng asked, his heart hammering against his ribs.

"They're mercenaries, Feng! They know how to disappear!" she shouted over her shoulder as they sprinted past a row of silent, shuttered warehouses. "Right now, you're the only one they're hunting. If we stay together, they all die. Do you want their blood on your hands?"

"No," Li Feng panted. "But I don't want yours either."

"Then keep your legs moving and your mouth shut!"

They burst out of an alleyway and into the main thoroughfare. The city was a chaotic storm. Torches flickered in every direction as the City Guard clapped iron sandals against the stone. Above them, silver beams of light—Lin Yue's search-spells—scoured the rooftops like predatory eyes.

"Halt!" a voice boomed from the darkness ahead.

A squad of female guards, their armor shimmering in the moonlight, stepped into the street with crossbows leveled. "Identify yourselves! No one leaves the sector under the Saintess's orders!"

"Identify this!" Ying Yue roared.

She didn't draw her sword. Instead, she threw a handful of small, black spheres onto the ground. A cloud of thick, violet smoke erupted instantly, smelling of sulfur and heavy musk. The guards coughed, their aim faltering as the mist clogged their lungs.

"Run through them!" Ying Yue commanded.

Li Feng didn't wait. He put his shoulder down and charged. He expected to feel the impact, to feel the resistance of their shields. But as he hit the line, the Ancient Yang Core in his chest flared. A sudden surge of heat rippled through his muscles, and he felt like he was running through paper.

"Out of the way!" he bellowed.

He slammed into the lead guard, sending her flying ten feet back into her companions. He didn't stop. He felt the golden heat in his veins pushing him faster, harder, until the stone of the street seemed to blur beneath his feet.

"Feng! Slow down! You're leaking light!" Ying Yue caught up to him, her face pale with effort.

They reached the North Gate, a massive portcullis of reinforced iron. The heavy chains were already beginning to groan as the mechanism started to lower it.

"We won't make it!" Li Feng shouted, looking at the closing gap.

"We have to!" Ying Yue's eyes turned a fierce lavender. She grabbed a vial from her belt and smashed it against the portcullis. A corrosive, acidic liquid hissed against the iron, but it wasn't enough. "I can't stop the mechanism! It's too heavy!"

Li Feng looked at the gate, then at his hands. He felt the roar of the Core—the same roar that had decimated the Shadow-Crag Panther. Stop being afraid, he told himself. Stop being a slave.

"Get back, Ying Yue!"

"What are you doing?"

Li Feng didn't answer. He stepped forward and shoved his hands into the descending iron teeth of the portcullis. The metal was freezing, but as he touched it, his skin turned a brilliant, molten gold. The screeching of metal against metal echoed through the port as he forced the entire structure to a halt with nothing but his bare hands.

"Go!" he gasped, the veins in his neck bulging. "Get through!"

"You're holding up a ten-ton gate!" she whispered in shock. "Feng, your arms... they're glowing!"

"I said GO!"

Ying Yue dived through the opening. Li Feng waited until she was clear, then gave one final, primal heave, pushing the gate upward before rolling through the gap himself. The portcullis slammed shut behind them with a force that shook the ground, sealing the city of Azure Port away for good.

"You're insane," Ying Yue said, staring at him as he collapsed onto the grass outside the walls. "You shouldn't be alive."

"I'm tired of being the one who runs," Li Feng replied, his hands still smoking. "Let's go. Before they find a way over the wall."

The next two days were a blur of exhaustion and vertical climbs. They left the coastal air behind, moving into the jagged, snow-capped giants of the Dragon Peaks. The further they climbed, the thinner the air became, and the more the world felt like it was made of silence and stone.

"Do you feel that?" Li Feng asked on the second evening.

They were huddled in a shallow crevice halfway up a cliff face. The stars above were so bright they looked like holes punched in the fabric of the universe.

"Feel what? The frostbite or the hunger?" Ying Yue grumbled, rubbing her arms.

"No. The mountain. It's... it's singing."

Ying Yue paused, looking at him with concern. "Feng, the altitude does strange things to the mind. We're in the Forbidden Territory. The energy here is unstable."

"It's not unstable," Li Feng said, placing his palm against the rough granite wall. "It's old. The Core... it's matching the rhythm of the stone. It feels like I'm finally breathing for the first time."

"The dragons lived here for ten thousand years," she said softly, her voice losing its defensive edge. "They say the mountains are their bones and the rivers are their blood. If the Core is responding, it means you're not an intruder anymore."

"I feel like I've been here before," Li Feng whispered. Like a dream I had in the dirt.

"Don't get too comfortable," she warned. "The peaks have guardians. They don't distinguish between a slave and a kaisar."

As if on cue, a shadow blotted out the stars.

A screech that sounded like tearing metal ripped through the night. Above them, a creature with a wingspan of thirty feet circled the cliff. It looked like an eagle made of jagged ice, its eyes glowing with a malevolent, frozen blue light.

"A Frost-Winged Terror," Ying Yue hissed, drawing her sword. "It's seen us. We have nowhere to run on this ledge."

"Then we don't run," Li Feng said.

He stood up, his height dwarfing Ying Yue in the narrow space. He didn't look for a talisman. He didn't look for a weapon. He simply stepped out onto the exposed edge of the cliff, his silhouette framed against the moon.

"Feng, get back! Its talons can shear through steel!"

"Let it come," Li Feng said.

The bird dived, a missile of ice and fury. Li Feng watched its descent with a calm that terrified him. He felt the Core in his chest expand, not as a shield this time, but as a spear.

When the beast was inches away, its talons outstretched to crush his skull, Li Feng moved. He didn't dodge. He caught the creature's leading claw in his right hand. The impact cracked the stone beneath his feet, but his arm didn't move an inch.

"My turn," he whispered.

He channeled the golden heat upward, letting it explode from his palm. The Frost-Winged Terror didn't even have time to scream before it was engulfed in a pillar of white-gold fire. The ice of its wings evaporated instantly, and the creature was blasted back into the abyss, a falling star that vanished into the clouds below.

Li Feng stood on the edge, his chest heaving, his eyes burning with a steady, golden light. He turned back to Ying Yue.

"You've changed," she said, her voice trembling. "Two days ago, you were a boy running for his life. Now... I don't know what you are."

"I'm the man who's going to find the dragons," he said.

They continued their climb in silence. By dawn, they reached the summit—a vast, hidden plateau that seemed to sit above the world itself. The ground was covered in a strange, silver grass that glowed in the morning light. In the center of the plateau sat a massive, ruined temple made of white jade, half-buried in the snow.

"Is this it?" Li Feng asked, his voice hushed.

"The Grave of the Heavens," Ying Yue whispered. "The last place the dragons were seen before the Architect's curse."

Li Feng walked toward the temple, each step feeling like a homecoming. He reached the entrance, where two massive statues of coiled serpents stood guard. He reached out to touch the jade, but stopped.

A small, rhythmic scratching sound came from behind the base of the statue.

"Ying Yue, stay back," Li Feng warned.

He leaned over the edge of the stone. There, huddled in a nest of silver grass, was a creature no bigger than a kitten. Its scales were a brilliant, shimmering silver, and its eyes were wide, intelligent pools of liquid mercury. It didn't have wings yet, but it had the unmistakable horns of a royal lineage.

The tiny creature tilted its head, looking at Li Feng. It didn't hiss. It didn't run.

Instead, it let out a soft, trilling chirp and crawled toward his hand, sniffing the golden light that still lingered beneath his skin.

"It can't be," Ying Yue breathed, her sword clattering to the ground. "They were all supposed to be dead. All of them."

Li Feng reached down, his fingers trembling as the small creature nuzzled into his palm. The moment their skin touched, a mental roar shook Li Feng's soul, more powerful than the Core itself.

The sun has returned, a thousand voices whispered in his mind. And the hunger has begun.

Li Feng looked up at the sky, where the clouds were beginning to swirl in a violent, unnatural circle. The mountains were no longer silent. They were waiting.

"Something is coming," Li Feng said, his voice cold with a new, terrifying certainty.

***