Void Veins: The Forbidden Ascension

Chapter 57: The Price of Truth and the Curse of Blood

The air inside The Thousand Faces hung heavy and still. Other patrons seemed to feel the sudden shift in tension—an unseen weight pressing down—and hurried to finish their tea, slipping quietly away until only their table remained. Old Rat waited, tapping a slow, restless rhythm against the wood.

“What do you mean?” Ratna kept her voice steady, though her palms were damp. “What does the Black Jade have to do with a curse?”

Old Rat sighed, reaching beneath the table to lift out a small, unadorned box carved from dark wood that seemed to swallow light. He opened it gently. Inside rested a scroll of yellowed, thin parchment—aged, brittle, and written in ink that had long since faded to rust.

“The Black Jade is no ordinary relic,” he began, low and rough. “It was forged from the heart of the Demon Emperor Mo Yuan. But long before Mo Yuan was bound, the Lin Clan—Lin Ye’s ancestors—seized it for their own forbidden work. They sought to build the Perfect Vessel.”

Ratna stared. “The Lin Clan? His own family… cast him out?”

“Exactly.” Old Rat leaned forward. “They have guarded the Void threshold for millennia. But they grew greedy. They wanted its power without losing their minds. So they created the Cursed Meridian—bred into their bloodline, a flaw woven into flesh. Leaking by design, empty by birth, meant to be filled and refilled by the Jade.”

Goran’s grip tightened on his hammer. “So Lin Ye… was made to suffer? Built to be nothing more than a living battery?”

“Not merely a battery,” Old Rat corrected. “He is the Key. The Jade requires a host of pure Lin blood with broken meridians to fully unlock Mo Yuan’s seal. Every slight, every abandonment, every wound he bore… was meant to mature him. Pain deepens the bond. The more he suffered, the tighter the hold.”

Ratna’s stomach turned. Every scar, every memory of loneliness and shame—none was accident. All had been engineered by his own kin. Valerius was a thief; the Lin Clan were the architects.

“Then how do we break it?” Elara stepped from the shadows, rejoining them. “If the bond is blood and suffering, how do we sever it without killing him?”

Old Rat met each of their eyes in turn. “There is one way: the Soul-Reversal Art. It needs three things: pure Lin lineage blood—within Valerius’s vessel now—primal Void energy from the Jade itself, and… a willing sacrifice. Someone bound to him by love or loyalty, who wills to give a piece of their own soul to replace the Jade as his anchor.”

Silence settled over the table. A willing sacrifice. Not a weapon, not a spell—something far costlier. A part of oneself. Memories. Humanity. Perhaps even life.

“Who?” Krog asked, his voice low.

“That is yours to answer,” Old Rat said sadly. “But time is gone. Valerius nears the end. If the seal shatters, Mo Yuan rises. And Lin Ye will be left an empty shell forever.”

The door flew open with a crash. Cold wind swept in, carrying figures cloaked in black—not street thugs, but killers. At their head stood the young man Krog had struck, his face wrapped in bandages, eyes burning with hatred.

“Old Rat!” he snarled. “Hand them over! Their heads fetch high price on the black market!”

Old Rat calmly rolled the scroll shut. “It seems our meeting must move elsewhere. Or… do you choose to fight here?”

Ratna drew her magic pistol. Goran hefted his hammer. Krog bared his teeth. The space was tight, the odds unknown—but there was no retreat.