2025-10-10 21:46:36Mist gathered thick over the western ridge again, curling around tree trunks like silent spirits. The sun struggled to pierce it, scattering pale light through leaves that dripped from the morning’s rain.
Somewhere within that fog, Lin Dong crouched low beneath a cluster of roots, heart hammering. He could hear them boots crunching, blades whispering from their sheaths. Clan scouts. “Spread out,” one voice ordered. “The pulse came from this direction. Don’t let anything escape.” He bit his lip, fingers pressed against the earth. The mark on his palm burned faintly reacting to something. Power. Energy. Fear. Not now, he thought desperately. Please, not now. But the rune pulsed anyway soft gold leaking through his fingers, faint but visible. A twig snapped to his right. He turned sharply, eyes wide. A scout was less than ten paces away, scanning the undergrowth. “Who’s there?” The man stepped closer. Lin Dong held his breath, every muscle screaming to move. The moment the scout reached for his sword. Flash! A burst of light erupted from Lin Dong’s palm, wild and uncontrolled. The ground trembled, throwing dust into the air. Roots split and twisted like snakes, flinging the man backward into a tree. He slumped, stunned. Lin Dong froze, staring at his hand. The rune had acted on its own not gentle this time, but violent, raw. Another shout rang out. “Over there! Did you see that?” He bolted. Branches whipped his face as he tore through the forest, his breath ragged. The glow on his palm pulsed faster, in rhythm with his heartbeat, like it was alive guiding him, protecting him, or perhaps… using him. He vaulted over a fallen log, landing hard near a creek. Behind him, voices closed in. He could see the faint shimmer of armor between the trees. He backed up, cornered. Water rushed cold against his heels. “I don’t want to fight,” he muttered. “Just stop…” But they didn’t stop. Three scouts burst into view, swords drawn. The leader’s voice rang out “You there! Show your hands!” Lin Dong lifted them slowly. The moment the mark caught sunlight, it flared like molten gold. Energy rippled outward visible, tangible. The creek water rose in spirals, defying gravity, circling him in threads of light. The men hesitated, faces pale. “That’s…..That’s not possible…” The world seemed to listen to him. Every leaf, every breath of air. He could feel the currents of Yuan energy bending at his command, instinctive, chaotic. He thrust his hand forward. The water answered. A wave exploded from the creek, slamming into the scouts and sweeping them off their feet. Silence. The forest fell still again, only the sound of dripping leaves and Lin Dong’s ragged breathing breaking the air. He stared at his palm,the glow fading. “What… are you?” he whispered to the rune. It pulsed once, softer now. Then it went dark. Somewhere deeper in the woods, unseen by him, a shadowy figure lowered its hood. A stranger tall, wrapped in travel-worn robes had been watching. The glint of a sigil shimmered faintly on their wrist. “So… the talisman awakens again,” the stranger murmured. “After all these years.” They turned and vanished into the mist.
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Chapter 258 — The Forbidden Crucible
The path to the Forbidden Crucible did not exist on any map. Not the Celestial Order’s star-charts, not the Phoenix Clan’s ancestral scrolls, not even the living constellations Lin Dong had begun to decipher since stepping into the Celestial Frontier. It revealed itself only when silence aligned with intent—when one walked not with ambition, but with defiance tempered by resolve. The whispering ember burned faintly within Lin Dong’s sealed palm, its presence muted yet unmistakable. It no longer spoke in words. Instead, it pulsed in slow, deliberate rhythms, guiding him through folds of space that bent away from sanctioned divine routes. Arius hovered close, his glow dimmer than before, the scars of corruption still etched into his essence like hairline fractures in crystal. “This place…” Arius murmured as the world around them shifted. “It feels wrong. Even the heavens avoid it.” Before them, the Celestial Frontier peeled open—not torn, but recoiling, as though reality itself re
Chapter 257 — The Whispering Ember
Silence returned to the depths of Skyforge—but it was no longer empty. It pressed in from every direction, thick and watchful, like a presence holding its breath. The ancient cavern still bore the scars of the battle: fractured stone, frozen rivulets of corrupted flame hardened into jagged obsidian, and at the center of it all, a single ember pulsing faintly on the forge floor. The remnant of the cursed flame. Lin Dong stood before it, unmoving. The ember was no larger than a grain of rice, black at its core and rimmed with a dim, bruised violet glow. It looked fragile—harmless, even. Yet Lin Dong could feel it, tugging subtly at the Nine Flames within him, not with force, but with familiarity. Like an old scar aching before a storm. Arius hovered weakly at Lin Dong’s side, his once-brilliant form now subdued, streaked with faint lines of darkness that pulsed in slow rhythm. Though he had stabilized, the corruption he absorbed had not vanished—it slept. “This ember…” Arius murm
Chapter 256 — The Cursed Flame
The Skyforge slept like a slumbering god beneath the city. Deep below layers of divine stone, law-forged metal, and celestial sigils, the ancient forge core throbbed with a rhythm older than the Celestial Frontier itself. Each pulse sent tremors through the underground arteries of Skyforge City—imperceptible to most, but to Lin Dong, it was as loud as thunder in his bones. He stood alone within a cavern vast enough to swallow palaces. Above him, the ceiling arched like the inside of a colossal furnace, layered with concentric rings of ancient inscriptions. They glowed faintly, not with sanctioned divine fire, but with something rawer—primeval flame, stripped of law and hierarchy. Rivers of molten gold flowed through channels carved by forgotten hands, feeding into a central crucible the size of a mountain. And at its heart… Something was wrong. Lin Dong narrowed his eyes, his Nine Flames stirring uneasily within his core. Since his arrival in the Celestial Frontier, he had felt
Chapter 255 — Secrets of the Skyforge
Skyforge City never truly slept. Even in the deepest hours of the celestial cycle—when the divine suns dimmed to embers and the floating continents drifted in slow, deliberate orbits—the city hummed. Flame veins beneath the streets pulsed with restrained power, carrying heat, law, and will through structures older than most gods remembered. Lin Dong felt it the moment he crossed the threshold into the lower sanctums. This was not the Skyforge the Celestial Order displayed to visitors. This was its heart. The descent began beneath the Phoenix Clan’s outer district, through an aperture that only revealed itself when Lin Dong pressed his palm to a seemingly solid obsidian wall. The Nine Flames within him responded instinctively, releasing a controlled resonance. The wall rippled, folded inward like liquid metal, and revealed a spiraling stair of dark-gold stone descending into silence. Arius hovered closer than usual, his flame dim but alert. This place… it remembers, he whispere
Chapter 254 — Duel with the Fire Disciple
Fame arrived before Lin Dong did. By the time he returned to the outer districts of Skyforge City, whispers had already ignited into open discussion. Divine message arrays crackled with speculation. Flame mirrors replayed distorted visions of the Smoldering Vault’s awakening—blurred silhouettes, surges of ancient fire, the unmistakable tremor that had rattled half the Celestial Frontier. A forbidden place had stirred. And one name surfaced again and again. Lin Dong. He felt it the moment he crossed the Phoenix Clan’s threshold—eyes lingering too long, divine senses brushing against him with poorly disguised curiosity. Some gazes burned with awe. Others with calculation. A few with outright hostility. Arius, now brighter than ever, hovered at Lin Dong’s shoulder in a restrained form, his glow tempered but alert. They’re watching, the spirit murmured. Not like before. This time, they’re measuring you. Lin Dong nodded inwardly. “Let them.” He had barely taken three steps into th
Chapter 253 — The Smoldering Vault
The invitation did not come in words. It came as heat. Not the violent, devouring kind that roared when gods clashed or realms burned—but a low, persistent warmth that threaded itself through Lin Dong’s forge flame like a half-forgotten memory. It pulsed once… twice… then settled into a steady rhythm, guiding rather than commanding. Arius felt it first. This flame… the spirit whispered, his glow flickering with unease and awe. It’s old. Older than Heaven’s Laws. Lin Dong opened his eyes. He stood alone on the highest terrace of the Phoenix Clan enclave, Skyforge City spread beneath him like a constellation of living embers. The Celestial Frontier shimmered under layered divine arrays, yet beyond them—far beyond—he sensed something buried, sealed, and deliberately forgotten. “The Smoldering Vault,” he murmured. The name surfaced unbidden, carried by ancestral memory rather than knowledge. Behind him, the air rippled. Matriarch Feng Hualin stepped into view, her expression gr
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