SON OF THE MANOR

CH2

A voice—cold, mechanical, and louder than any thunder—echoed from the deepest trenches of the abyssal lake, resonating inside his mind. The suffocating cold of the water vanished, replaced by a blinding golden matrix that exploded from his core to shatter the dead silence of the deep.

[WARNING: HOST LIFE ESSENCE AT 1%. MORTAL THRESHOLD CRITICAL.]

[DETECTING UNPARALLELED KARMIC DESPAIR... MAXIMUM VALUE REACHED.]

[CORE IDENTITY VERIFIED: SOLE RIGHTFUL HEIR OF THE LONG SOVEREIGN BLOODLINE.]

[SOVEREIGN ASSET REPOSSESSION SYSTEM INITIALIZING... 10%... 50%... 100%.]

A blinding, violet light erupted from the center of Jingchen's shattered chest, cutting through the eternal darkness of the abyss like a rising sun. The water in his lungs turned into warm, pulsing energy as a massive grid of glowing digital lines rapidly mapped his entire body.

[WELCOME, MASTER LONG JINGCHEN. COMMENCING SOVEREIGN RECLAIM.]

[HOST SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE. CORE AUDIT ENGAGED.]

[SCANNING GENETIC HISTORY... IDENTIFYING SYSTEMIC MALICIOUS CORRUPTION.]

[TOTAL BLOODLINE INVENTORY IN PROGRESS... WARNING! UNAUTHORIZED ILLICIT ACCESS DETECTED.]

Jingchen couldn't move his physical lips, but his mind reeled as a transparent blue screen flashed before his eyes, rewriting his entire life. The "Cursed Trash Talent" that had forced him into slavery for six years wasn't a birth defect or a curse from the heavens. It was an artificial, cold-blooded lie manufactured by the monsters who had murdered his parents.

[ANALYSIS: SOVEREIGN LEECH-SEAL INFLICTED SIX YEARS AGO BY CHU MANA-ARCHITECTS.]

[TARGET SECT EFFECT: CONTRACTED SYPHONING OF THE LONG CLAN'S ROYAL PRIMORDIAL BLOODLINE.]

[RECIPIENT DECLARED: CHU TIANYOU. CURRENT STATUS: ARTIFICIAL GOLD CORE CULTIVATION.]

A wave of hot, unadulterated fury cut through the freezing water as Jingchen realized the sickening truth behind his suffering. Every single day he had spent bleeding in the dirt, Chu Tianyou was growing stronger by drinking his stolen destiny. The genius of the Chu family was nothing more than a parasite wearing his father's crown.

[LEGAL CLAUSE ENGAGED: UNLAWFUL ADULTERATION OF THE SOVEREIGN ASSETS DECLARED AN ILLEGAL LOAN.]

[INITIALIZING 10,000X IMMEDIATE ASSET FORECLOSURE AND ASYMMETRIC COMPOUND INTEREST LIQUIDATION.]

[REPOSSESSING STOLEN DESTINY, EIGHTEEN YEARS OF SPIRITUAL INTEREST, AND ANCESTRAL LUCK FROM THE CHU BLOODLINE.]

The black lake around him began to boil as a massive vortex of golden energy erupted from the depths, drilling straight into Jingchen’s chest. A terrifying surge of raw power flooded his veins, turning his blood into liquid lightning as the stolen fortune of the Chu lineage was forcibly ripped back. The sheer volume of energy was multiplied ten thousand times by the system's merciless protocol.

Inside his flesh, his shattered, broken skeleton began to pop and snap as the energy remolded his bones into pure, celestial ivory. His severed, twisted meridians tore open, widening into roaring cosmic rivers that devoured the incoming tide of primeval power. The agonizing pain of the reconstruction was instantly drowned out by a thick, heavy wave of pure authority.

[UPGRADING SOUL-CORE... BREAKING MORTAL LIMITS... 100% SUCCESS.]

[MYTHIC PRIMORDIAL CHAOS FOUNDATION ACHIEVED. CURRENT POWER RANK: SUPREME UNBOUND.]

Jingchen opened his eyes beneath the ice, his gaze now burning with a deep, terrifying violet light that illuminated the entire lake. He could feel the pulse of the entire mountain, the flow of the palace’s spiritual arrays, and the weak, pathetic energy of the mages walking on the surface. He was no longer a slave; he was a god sleeping in the dark.

"Chu family," Jingchen whispered, his voice creating a localized shockwave in the water that shattered the ice layer twenty meters above him. "Every single drop of blood you took from my sister and me... you will pay it back in screams."

[ALERT: DETECTING ENTRENCHED FORCE LEVELS OF THREE SOVEREIGN HOUSES. IMMEDIATE EXPOSURE RISKS FATAL ALLIANCE RETALIATION.]

[RECOMMENDATION: ENGAGE SOVEREIGN CONCEALMENT PROTOCOL. MASK POWER SIGNATURE.]

Jingchen clenched his fists, his mind clearing as the system’s warning reminded him of the hundreds of elders sitting on the peaks. Rushing out to slaughter the disciples would only bring the high-tier patriarchs down on his head before he could secure his sister. He needed a calculative, cold execution, not a reckless suicide mission.

"Mask it," Jingchen commanded in his mind, his eyes narrowing. "Make me look exactly like the trash they threw into the water."

[CONCEALMENT PROTOCOL ACTIVE. AURA REGISTERED AS FLUID INFUSED, MORTALLY WOUNDED HUMAN.]

The violet light vanished, the massive pressure around his body pulling back until he looked like nothing more than a shivering, pale boy. He floated to the surface, his hands gripping the jagged edge of the cracked ice as he pulled himself out of the freezing water. He didn't look at his healed skin or his new clothes; he focused entirely on the path to the slave quarters.

He moved through the dark storm like an invisible wraith, his footsteps leaving no prints in the thick mud as he sprinted toward the shack. His heart hammered with a sudden, sharp panic as he remembered the red light on Xiaoxiao’s extraction watch. He had been gone too long.

When he reached the outer edge of the ruined sector, the sound of a harsh, tearing sob made him stop dead in his tracks. Through the broken wooden slats of the shack, the dim yellow light of a spiritual array flickered, casting a long, twisting shadow on the dirt outside.

"Please... please stop," Xiaoxiao’s weak, trembling voice came through the cracks, followed by a wet, painful cough. "I don't have any more nectar... it hurts..."

"Shut your mouth, you little drain on resources!" a rough, angry voice roared from inside the small room. "The extraction room needs to be cleared for the new batch of spirit herbs, and you're taking up space. Get up!"

Jingchen approached the door, his vision turning completely red as he saw a massive Chu family guard gripping Xiaoxiao by her thin hair. The guard didn't care that her body was burning with fever; he lifted his heavy leather boot and kicked her small thigh to force her onto her knees. He wanted her to crawl out so he wouldn't have to carry her to the furnace room.

"Master Tianyou said we can still mine your bones even if you're unconscious," the guard spat, pulling her hair tighter until she let out a sharp cry of agony. "So don't pretend you're too weak to walk. Move your legs, you pathetic little freak, or I'll break them myself."

Xiaoxiao collapsed against the leg of the rotting bed, her tiny hands covering her face as she wept, her spirit entirely broken. She didn't look at the door; she was just waiting for the next blow to land, her tiny frame shaking under the guard’s shadow.

Jingchen stepped through the broken doorway, his voice dropping into a flat, freezing whisper that cut right through the dim room. "Take your filthy hands off my sister, and back away from the bed. Now."

The guard froze, then turned his head slowly, a look of utter disbelief crossing his rugged face when he saw the drenched, bleeding slave. On the bed, Xiaoxiao’s tear-filled eyes widened to the absolute brink of bursting. She had just heard the guard brag about her brother being tossed into the bottomless abyss. Seeing him standing upright and tall—completely healed—sent a shock of pure disbelief through her fragile mind.

The guard let out a loud, mocking laugh, intentionally yanking Xiaoxiao’s hair even harder until she whimpered in pain. "Or what, you mana-less piece of garbage?" the guard sneered, planting his heavy boot firmly onto Xiaoxiao’s trembling shoulder, pressing her down. "Master Tianyou threw you into the abyss to feed the fish, and you actually crawled back? You’re just a walking corpse."

Jingchen didn't blink. His eyes darted around the dark room, his newly awakened Primordial Chaos senses scanning the perimeter to confirm the coast was clear. No spiritual eyes were watching; no elders were patrolling this rotting sector.

In a fraction of a second, Jingchen blurred across the dirt floor, his hand moving like a streak of dark lightning as it wrapped tightly around the guard’s thick throat. The impact was heavy, his fingers digging into the flesh with a hyper-strong, crushing grip. Xiaoxiao let out a muffled gasp, her heart freezing in her chest as she watched her powerless brother handle a trained cultivator with raw, terrifying speed.

"Let go of me, you crazy rat!" the guard choked out, his face turning red, though his eyes were still filled with arrogant disgust. He dismissed the sudden burst of physical strength as nothing more than a dying loser’s powerless, frantic adrenaline.

The guard sneered, his right hand instantly flaring with a jagged, brown Earth-Armor spell to crush Jingchen's fingers. "You think a slave can choke a cultivator? I’ll shatter every bone in your arm, trash!"

But the moment his magic touched Jingchen's hand, the earth energy didn't just fail—it shattered like cheap glass against an iron wall. Jingchen’s grip didn't loosen by a single millimeter; instead, his fingers tightened, slowly lifting the massive hundred-kilogram guard entirely off the floor.

Xiaoxiao watched the scene unfold, her hands trembling as a wave of pure shock washed over her. Her brother, the one born without a single drop of mana, was actively suppressing a high-tier guard's spell with his bare skin. The sudden, suffocating pressure filling the room was a god-like energy she had never felt from him before.

A wave of pure, primal terror finally broke through the guard’s eyes as he realized his magic was completely useless against this boy. "What... what kind of forbidden black magic is this?" he gasped, his legs kicking wildly in the air as his throat began to collapse under the weight of his own misunderstanding.

"This isn't black magic," Jingchen whispered, his violet eyes locking onto the guard's face with a lethal, unforgiving glare. "This is the bloodline you stole from my family."

Realizing he was completely outmatched, the guard’s arrogance dissolved into pure panic as Jingchen slammed him back onto his feet. The man stumbled backward, fearfully trying to sprint toward the open door to shout for the outer patrol guards. "Help! There's a—"

Before the first real shout could escape his mouth, Jingchen flicked his left hand, releasing a microscopic pulse of his repossessed gravity energy. The invisible weight slammed directly onto the guard's lower limbs, pinning his boots to the dirt floorboards.

"Move... why can't I move?!" the guard screamed internally, his legs completely locked in place, paralyzed by an immense pressure. Before he could try to scream again, a wet cleaning rag flew from the floor, wrapping itself tightly around his mouth like an iron gag.

The guard’s muffled cries were swallowed by the dirty cloth as Jingchen walked up to him, his presence like a dark mountain closing in. The massive cultivator was trembling violently, tears of absolute horror streaming down his face as he stared at the slave he had been kicking moments ago.

"You said the weak are meant to be stepped on in this city," Jingchen murmured, his hand wrapping around the top of the guard's head. "I like your rules, guard. Let’s see how well you follow them."

With a slow, deliberate twist of his wrist, Jingchen unleashed a concentrated burst of his cosmic rivers, completely obliterating the man’s inner soul-core. The guard’s eyes widened to the brink of bursting, his body convulsing in sheer agony before his consciousness was totally erased.

The lifeless corpse fell forward, landing with a soft, muffled thud as Jingchen effortlessly caught it by the collar, dragging it into the dark space beneath the rotting straw bed with total silence.

He stood over the hidden spot, his gaze cold and unblinking as he looked down at the area where the body lay. "You brought this upon yourself by touching my sister," Jingchen whispered to the silent corpse, his voice dropping into a dark, dual-toned resonance that made the room’s wooden frames tremble. "And from now on, anyone who touches her in this world doesn't get to breathe the next day."

He turned back to the bed, the coldness vanishing from his face the moment his eyes landed on Xiaoxiao’s small, shivering form. She was still curling into a ball, her eyes tightly shut, too terrified to realize that the monster who had been beating her was gone.

"Xiaoxiao," Jingchen said softly, sinking to his knees and wrapping his arms around her frail shoulders, pulling her close to his chest. "It’s over. I’m here. Your brother is back."

Xiaoxiao gasped, her eyes snapping open as she recognized the deep warmth of his tight embrace. She looked up at his face, her tiny, trembling fingers reaching up weakly to touch his bruised cheek, her voice cracking with a mixture of immense relief and pure terror.

"Brother Jingchen? Is... is this really you?" she whispered, hot tears rolling down her pale cheeks and soaking into his frayed collar. "They said... the guards said they threw you into the bottomless lake. I thought I’d lost you forever, brother."

"The lake couldn't hold me, and neither can this wicked family," Jingchen said, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, violet light as he adjusted the thin blanket around her shivering shoulders. "I will never leave you alone again, Xiaoxiao. I promise you."

He leaned in close, pressing his forehead gently against hers, his voice dropping into a fierce, resolute whisper that echoed from the depths of his soul. "We just have to endure a little longer until we systematically destroy our parents' murderers and reclaim every inch of this magnificent manor."