2025-10-10 16:32:48The sun had long fallen, leaving only the bruised violet of twilight clinging to the sky. Down the slope behind the Lin compound, Lin Dong ran until the shouts from the clan faded into the hum of the forest. Branches whipped his arms; stones bit at his soles. Every breath burned like fire, yet he didn’t stop.
He reached a lonely ridge where the wind howled through crooked pines. From here, the town below was a scatter of fireflies. He dropped to his knees beside a half frozen stream, scooping a handful of water over his face. His reflection rippled the same boy, same eyes, only now filled with fury and shame. “Unranked,” he hissed, the word slicing through him again. “Father lost the duel, and now his son can’t even make the pillar glow.” A rock went flying from his hand into the dark, clattering somewhere deep. The sound echoed back but softer, hollow, wrong. Curious despite himself, Lin Dong rose and followed the echo to a cleft in the cliffside, half hidden by roots. Inside, the air was cold and dry, heavy with the smell of dust older than memory. Moonlight spilled through a crack, touching something wedged in the earth a flat stone tablet etched with faint, twisting runes. It pulsed once, like a heartbeat. Lin Dong stepped closer, heart thundering. He reached out. The instant his fingers brushed the surface, the runes blazed alive, searing white-gold light that filled the cavern. The ground shook. Pebbles rose and hung in mid-air. He tried to pull away too late. The stone shattered into light, coiling up his arm like liquid fire, burrowing beneath his skin. Pain exploded through him every vein a river of lightning. He screamed, the sound swallowed by the storm forming around him. Visions flashed behind his eyes: mountains floating in an endless sky, beasts of shadow and flame bowing before a single radiant talisman. Then silence. The light collapsed inward, leaving only the soft whisper of falling dust. Lin Dong lay on his back, chest heaving. The stone tablet was gone, but on his palm a mark shimmered the same runes, faintly alive, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. The pain ebbed, replaced by a warmth that spread through his limbs like flowing water. The night air no longer bit at him; it seemed to listen. He lifted his hand. Tiny motes of light drifted toward him Yuan energy, the very essence he’d never been able to touch. They swirled between his fingers, playful, obedient. “It’s… real,” he breathed. “I can feel it.” Far below, in the depths of the Lin estate, a candle trembled. Lin Langtian, deep in meditation, opened his eyes. The still air quivered with a vibration he couldn’t name. “That surge…” he murmured. “Someone has awakened something ancient.” He rose, frowning toward the mountains. The candle went out. Back on the ridge, Lin Dong stood beneath a sky now clear and vast, the rune on his palm glimmering like a new-born star. For the first time, he felt the world breathe with him and in that breath was promise, and peril.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
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
You may also like
I AM BEYOND HUMAN
South Ashan19.5K viewsIce Monarch
RidiculousRobinn69.9K viewsMakiya
Blentkills49.3K viewsWake Up With Super Villain System
Oceanna Lee13.6K viewsThe laughing God's Gambit
Beth writes27 views《The Arcanum Algorithm》
Arcadia676 viewsThe Mage's Burden
Bimbo tv 191 viewsThe Arsenic Melody
K.B Wedderburn1.5K views