The Dregs didn't sleep anymore. They vibrated.
Yang Yi stood on the balcony of the command hut, looking down at the industrial anthill he had kicked over. It had been three days since Luo Bing left his ultimatum in the mud. Three days of nonstop labor.
The Centipedes had torn down the ruined tenements and used the debris to reinforce the ravine walls. The Vipers had turned the drainage ditch into a moat of toxic sludge, pumping the runoff from the Alchemy Hall directly into the perimeter defenses.
It wasn't a slum anymore. It was a fortress made of garbage and spite.
Yang Yi gripped the railing. The wood creaked. He looked at his hand. The gray skin from the Bone-Hardening Paste was flaking off, revealing something harder underneath. Darker. The color of wet slate.
He flexed his fingers. The joints didn't pop; they ground together like tectonic plates. The pain was a constant, low-frequency hum that he had learned to ignore, burying it under the heavier weight of his ambition.
"The miners are back."
Iron Hand Zhang limped onto the balcony. He had ditched the crutch for a heavy iron staff he used as a cane and a club. His leg was still wrapped in dirty bandages, but he moved with the stubborn momentum of a landslide.
"Yield?" Yang Yi didn't turn around.
"Low. The surface veins are tapped out. They're bringing up dust and slate. We need to go deeper."
"Deeper means beasts. Deeper means things that eat miners."
"They're willing to risk it. They're eating meat every night, boss. Loyalty is bought with calories."
Yang Yi turned. His eyes were currently round, human, but the irises were a toxic, swirling violet—the lingering effect of Liu Feng's cocktail.
"Stop the surface mining. Reassign the crews to the forge. I want shields. Big ones. Lined with lead and coated in the Viper's resin."
Zhang frowned, the scar on his forehead wrinkling. "Lead? That's heavy. And soft."
"It stops radiation. And it slows down acid. We aren't fighting men next."
Yang Yi walked past him into the hut. The main room had been converted into a war room. A massive map of the sect's underground, drawn on tanned rat skins, covered the floor.
Liu Feng was on his hands and knees, tracing a line with a charcoal stick. The alchemist looked exhausted, his silk robes stained with soot, but his eyes were manic. He was doing the impossible with garbage, and it thrilled him.
"I found it," Liu Feng muttered, tapping a black void on the map deep below the sewer layer. " The Sump."
Yang Yi squatted next to him. "Talk."
Liu Feng wiped a smudge of charcoal from his nose. "It's a drainage reservoir for the old sect. Pre-Dragon era. The plumbing down there is massive. Stone, not iron. And the ambient temperature is steady."
"Perfect for a reptile," Yang Yi noted.
"A big reptile. The seismic readings—which I measured using a bowl of water and a very steady table—suggest movement. Something heavy dragging itself through the tunnels. And the air quality readings show traces of petrified dust."
"Basilisk."
"A mature one. Probably an escaped guardian from the Beast Taming Hall that got flushed down a century ago. It's been eating whatever washes down the drain. It will be fat. And mean."
Yang Yi touched the map. The black void called to him. The Dragon Token at his hip pulsed, a hungry heartbeat syncing with his own.
"We leave in an hour."
Lin entered the room, carrying a tray of steaming bowls. Rice and medicinal broth. She set it down with a clatter.
"We?" She crossed her arms. "You, me, and the cripple? Against a basilisk? Yang, look at the roster. We have thugs with pipes. They'll turn to stone before they even see the thing."
"I don't need the thugs for the kill. I need them for the haul." Yang Yi took a bowl and drank the broth in one go. "I need you to freeze the ground. Basilisks are slow on ice. And I need Zhang to be the bait."
Zhang, leaning in the doorway, grunted. "Bait again? I'm sensing a pattern."
"You have the strongest constitution. If anyone can resist the petrification aura, it's you. Plus, you're already half-metal."
Yang Yi stood up. He walked to the corner where his new gear waited.
It wasn't elegant. It was a suit of armor cobbled together from boiler plates and scavenged leather, treated with Liu Feng's anti-corrosive lacquer. It looked like the shell of a beetle.
He picked up his weapon. He had melted down the iron truncheon and fused it with the shattered remains of the flying sword he had trapped. It was a jagged, ugly cleaver, heavy enough to split a skull and sharp enough to cut paper.
"Suit up. We're going to kill a king."
The descent took two hours.
They bypassed the regular sewer tunnels, descending through the collapsed service shaft Yang Yi had found earlier. The air grew stale, losing the scent of rot and gaining the dry, dusty smell of a tomb.
The architecture changed. The brickwork of the Outer Sect gave way to massive blocks of granite, carved with fading reliefs of hydras and storms. This was the foundation of the mountain, the bones of the sect before the Dragon era.
Yang Yi took point. The cleaver rested on his shoulder. His modified eyes pierced the gloom, shifting to a thermal spectrum.
Behind him, Lin held a glow-stone, wrapped in cloth to dim its light. Zhang brought up the rear, dragging a sledgehammer he had welded together from mining scrap. Four of the strongest Vipers followed, carrying empty crates and nervous expressions.
"Quiet," Yang Yi hissed.
He stopped at a massive archway. The stone doors had been smashed outward long ago.
Beyond lay the Sump.
It was a cavern the size of a cathedral. The ceiling was lost in darkness. The floor was a labyrinth of stagnant pools and islands of gray rock. Stalactites hung like teeth, dripping milky water into the silence.
But it was the statues that drew the eye.
Dozens of them. Scattered across the cavern floor.
Yang Yi walked up to the nearest one. It was a cultivator, frozen in a running pose, looking back over his shoulder. The detail was horrifying. You could see the individual strands of hair, the terror etched into the wide eyes, the scream silent on the open lips.
He wasn't carved. He was transmuted.
Yang Yi tapped the statue with his fingernail. Clink. Solid stone.
"Tier 2 disciple," Lin whispered, holding her light near the statue's chest. "Look at the robes. That style is fifty years old."
"He made it far," Zhang muttered, looking at a cluster of statues near the water. "Those poor bastards didn't even draw their weapons."
"Don't look at them," Yang Yi ordered. "Focus on the water."
The Sump was quiet. Too quiet.
Yang Yi knelt by the edge of a pool. The water was black, oily. He dipped a finger in.
Ripples spread out.
"It knows we're here."
The Myriad Beast Assimilation Record in his chest pocket felt warm. He had memorized the Basilisk chapter.
The Basilisk hunts with vibration and scent. Its gaze is a concentrated beam of earth essence that calcifies organic matter instantly. Its blood is a potent acid that melts stone.
"Lin. Ice the floor. Create a path to that central island."
Lin nodded. She stepped forward, channeling her qi. "Frozen Path."
Frost shot out from her boots, snapping across the black water, creating a bridge of white ice.
They moved onto the island. It was a mound of bones and broken stone, the high ground in this watery hell.
Yang Yi stabbed his cleaver into the ground. He pulled a glass jar from his belt—Liu Feng's Explosive Blood Pill dust mixed with sulfur.
"Zhang. Make noise."
Zhang grinned. He hefted his sledgehammer. He swung it down onto the granite floor of the island.
BOOM.
The sound echoed like a gunshot in the enclosed space. Dust rained from the ceiling.
They waited.
One minute. Two.
The water began to boil.
Not from heat, but from displacement. Something massive was rising from the depths.
A head broke the surface.
It was immense. The size of a carriage. Covered in scales the color of moss and wet stone. Eight yellow eyes glowed with a dull, malevolent light. A crest of spines ran down its back, dripping sludge.
It opened its mouth, revealing rows of serrated, stone-like teeth. It hissed—a sound like steam escaping a vent.
The Basilisk.
"Eyes down!" Yang Yi roared.
A beam of gray light shot from the creature's central eyes.
It swept over the island.
Zhang raised his lead-lined shield.
The beam hit the metal. The lead sizzled, turning gray and brittle instantly, but it held. The petrification energy dispersed around the curve of the shield.
"It works!" Zhang shouted, bracing against the force.
"Lin! Its legs!"
The Basilisk lunged, dragging its massive bulk onto the ice path. It expected traction. It got glass.
Its claws scrabbled on the slick surface. It stumbled, its heavy belly slamming onto the ice.
Yang Yi moved.
He didn't run away. He ran toward it.
He activated the Bone-Hardening coating on his legs. He became a pile driver. He leaped, aiming for the creature's neck, right behind the frill where the scales were thinnest.
The Basilisk sensed him. It whipped its tail.
A slab of muscle and scale slammed into Yang Yi mid-air.
It was like being hit by a train.
Yang Yi flew sideways. He crashed into a stalagmite, shattering the stone column.
Pain exploded in his ribs. If he hadn't fortified his bones, he would be paste. As it was, he felt a crack.
He hit the ground, rolling. He tasted blood.
"Good," he spat, scrambling up. "Pain means I'm not stone yet."
The Basilisk turned its gaze toward him. The gray light gathered.
Yang Yi grabbed a handful of the sulfur dust. He threw it.
Not at the beast. At the air between them.
The beam hit the dust cloud. The particles calcified instantly, turning into a cloud of falling gravel. The beam was blocked by the debris.
Yang Yi charged through the falling stones.
"Zhang! The hammer!"
Zhang roared. He abandoned his shield. He swung the sledgehammer with both hands, aiming for the Basilisk's snout.
CRACK.
The hammer connected. A scale shattered. The beast roared, shaking its head, disoriented.
Lin slid in from the flank. She thrust her hands forward. "Glacial Spike!"
A spear of ice erupted from the frozen lake, stabbing into the soft underbelly of the beast.
Acid blood sprayed out.
It hit the ice, hissing violently. The ice melted instantly.
"Watch the blood!" Lin screamed, dancing back.
Yang Yi was already there. He jumped onto the beast's back. The scales were slick with slime. He dug his hardened fingers into the cracks, finding purchase.
He climbed.
The Basilisk bucked. It thrashed, trying to dislodge the parasite. It smashed its side against the island, grinding Yang Yi against the rock.
Yang Yi roared. His armor crumpled. His skin tore. But he held on.
He reached the neck.
He raised his jagged cleaver.
He didn't slash. He reversed the grip, holding it like a spike.
He drove it down.
Between the scales. Into the spine.
The beast shrieked—a sound that shattered the smaller stalactites above.
It wasn't deep enough. The muscle was too dense.
Yang Yi let go of the handle. He placed both palms on the pommel of the cleaver.
He pushed.
He channeled everything. The Wolf's strength. The Rat's frenzy. The weight of his stone bones.
"Break!"
The blade sank. It severed the spinal cord.
The gray light in the Basilisk's eyes flickered and died. The massive body went rigid, then slumped, crashing into the black water.
Silence returned to the Sump.
Yang Yi sat on the back of the dead king, chest heaving. His armor was ruined. He was bleeding from a dozen cuts.
But the Dragon Token was vibrating so hard it bruised his hip.
"Harvest," he gasped, sliding off the carcass.
He walked to the head. He pried open the massive jaw. He crawled inside the mouth, ignoring the stench of rot and acid.
He cut the gland sac from the roof of the mouth. The source of the acid.
Then he moved to the brain. He carved through the skull.
He found it. The Core.
It wasn't a crystal. It was a stone sphere, perfectly round, pulsing with a heavy, gray gravity.
An Earth-attribute Beast Core. Peak Tier 2.
Yang Yi crawled out, covered in sludge. He held the core up to the glow-stone light.
"Beautiful."
Zhang leaned on his hammer, looking at the dead beast. "That's a lot of meat. And those scales... we can make armor for the whole Pack."
"Take it all," Yang Yi said. "Skin it. Drain it. Leave nothing but bones."
He looked at Lin. She was staring at him, her eyes wide.
"You're going to eat that," she said, pointing to the stone sphere. "You're going to turn into a statue."
Yang Yi wiped the slime from his face. His violet eyes glowed in the dark.
"No, Lin. I'm going to become the mountain."
He pocketed the core.
"Pack it up. We have twenty-seven days left. And I have a lot of digestion to do."
As the Vipers moved in to butcher the carcass, Yang Yi walked to the edge of the water. He looked at his reflection.
The gray skin on his face was receding, but the texture remained rough. His pupils were slits. His teeth felt sharper.
He was becoming a Chimera.
And he had never felt more alive.
"Luo Bing," he whispered to the reflection. " sharpening your sword. You're going to need it."