The return to Block 9 wasn't a march; it was a parade of meat and stone.
Yang Yi walked at the head of the column, blood-slicked and gray-skinned. Behind him, fifty men dragged the sledges loaded with the dismembered Basilisk. The massive head, severed and dripping acidic sludge, sat on the lead cart like a grotesque trophy.
The residents of the Dregs poured out of their shacks. They didn't cheer. They stared. In a place where a rat was a feast, a carriage-sized reptile was a miracle. It represented armor. It represented weapons. Most importantly, it represented calories.
"To the square," Yang Yi ordered. His voice sounded like grinding gravel. The Basilisk blood on his skin had begun to itch, a chemical burn that felt more like a tickle to his altered physiology.
They dumped the carcass in the muddy clearing between the Viper and Centipede barracks.
"Liu Feng!"
The alchemist scrambled out of his makeshift lab, eyes widening as he took in the haul.
"Processing," Yang Yi pointed to the mountain of flesh. "Drain the blood into ceramic jars. It melts iron, so be careful. Skin it. I want the scales cleaned and drilled for lamellar armor. The meat goes to the kitchens. Smoke it. Salt it. Nothing goes to waste."
"The bones?" Liu Feng asked, eyeing the massive ribs.
"Grind the small ones for calcium powder. The big ones... give them to Zhang. He needs a new club."
Yang Yi didn't stay for the butchery. The hunger in his gut was a physical weight, a black hole pulling at his navel. He had the core.
He walked to the command hut. Lin followed, carrying a basin of water and a stack of clean rags. She closed the door and barred it.
"You're twitching," she noted.
Yang Yi sat on his mat. His hands shook. Not from fear, but from the conflicting energies warring in his meridians. The Wolf wanted to run. The Rat wanted to hide. And the lingering poison wanted to shut his heart down.
"The core."
He pulled the stone sphere from his pouch. It was heavy, dense as lead, pulsing with a slow, gray light. The air around it felt thick, heavy.
"It's Earth attribute," Lin said, setting down the water. "Peak Tier 2. If you eat that, your blood will turn to sludge. Your heart won't be able to pump it."
"Then I need a thinner."
Yang Yi reached for a jar on the shelf—one of the Explosive Blood Pills.
"You're mixing earth and fire? That's a bomb, Yang."
"It's a combustion engine."
He placed the pill and the core on the floor. He opened the Myriad Beast Assimilation Record. The pages seemed to glow in the dim light, the gold leaf writing twisting into shapes that hurt the eyes.
The Chimera Principle. Earth grounds Fire. Fire hardens Earth. The balance lies in the breath.
Yang Yi stripped off his ruined tunic. His chest was a mess of scars and gray patches where the bone-hardening paste had leached into the skin.
"Stand back, Lin. If I explode, I don't want to take you with me."
"If you explode, I'm taking your boots."
She retreated to the far corner, creating a barrier of ice in front of her.
Yang Yi picked up the Basilisk core. It felt cold, sucking the heat from his palm.
He put it in his mouth.
It tasted like grave dirt and old iron. It was too big to swallow easily. He had to dislocate his jaw slightly—a trick learned from the Snake chapter he had skimmed—to force it down.
It slid down his throat like a stone.
He chased it with the Explosive Blood Pill.
He closed his eyes.
Impact.
The core hit his stomach. The pill hit the core.
Reaction.
Fire met Earth.
Yang Yi arched his back. A silent scream tore from his throat.
It didn't feel like burning this time. It felt like crushing. It felt like being buried alive under a mile of granite. The gravity inside his body increased tenfold. His blood stopped flowing. It thickened, turning into wet concrete.
His heart seized. Thump... ... ...
Silence.
The Wolf essence panicked. It clawed at the walls of his soul, desperate to escape the tomb.
Yang Yi focused. He grabbed the panic. He didn't suppress it; he used it.
Burn.
He forced the Explosive Blood Pill to detonate fully.
A shockwave of Yang fire exploded in his gut. It hit the solidified blood. It liquefied it.
Magma.
His veins turned a glowing, angry red. The gray skin turned black, then cracked, revealing lines of molten light underneath.
Yang Yi slammed his fists into the floorboards. The wood shattered. The stone foundation beneath cracked.
"Heavy," he gasped. "So heavy."
The Basilisk essence flooded his system. It didn't just harden him; it altered his density. His muscles knitted together, fibers becoming tighter, heavier. His bones, already calcified, absorbed the earth qi, turning from limestone to granite.
His skin began to flake. Large, gray scales pushed through the dermis on his shoulders and forearms. Not armor worn, but armor grown.
The Dragon Transformation Token vibrated violently. It siphoned the excess lethal radiation, purifying the earth qi, feeding it back as raw power.
Yang Yi slumped forward. Steam rose from his back.
His heart restarted. THUD. THUD. THUD.
It was slower. Much slower. But each beat was a hammer blow, driving the heavy, magma-like blood through his new veins.
He opened his eyes.
Lin gasped.
The violet pupils were gone. His eyes were solid, burnished gold. Vertical slits. Reptilian. And heavy.
When he looked at the wooden support beam across the room, the wood groaned. It didn't turn to stone, but it warped, as if under sudden, intense pressure.
"Gravitational pressure," Lin whispered, peering over her ice wall. "You have the King's Gaze."
Yang Yi blinked. The pressure vanished.
He looked at his hands. They were covered in fine, interlocking gray scales. His fingers ended in black claws that looked like obsidian.
"I feel... solid."
He stood up.
CRACK.
The floorboards disintegrated under his feet. He sank six inches into the dirt foundation.
"Too heavy," he muttered. "I need to learn to control the density."
He stepped out of the hole. It took effort, like walking through deep water.
"How long was I out?"
"Six hours. It's night."
Yang Yi grabbed a fresh tunic. He ripped the sleeves off to accommodate his scaled shoulders.
"The Pack needs to see this. They need to know the King is dead, but the Emperor is awake."
The courtyard was lit by bonfires fueled with Basilisk fat. They burned with a bright, smokeless green flame.
The smell of roasting meat filled the air. The Vipers and Centipedes sat together, tearing into chunks of reptile flesh. They were loud, drunk on victory and full bellies.
Iron Hand Zhang sat on a crate, polishing his new weapon—a massive club made from the Basilisk's femur, reinforced with iron bands.
The chatter died as Yang Yi stepped out of the hut.
The heavy, rhythmic thud of his footsteps silenced the square. He didn't walk; he drove the earth down with every step.
He stood in the firelight. The green flames reflected off the gray scales on his arms and the gold of his eyes.
He didn't look like a disciple. He looked like a demon crawling out of the underworld.
"Eat," Yang Yi commanded. His voice had deepened, acquiring a subsonic resonance that vibrated in the chest. "Fill your bellies. Because tomorrow, the real work begins."
He walked to the center of the square. He picked up a piece of scrap iron—a two-inch thick plate used for hull plating.
"Liu Feng says we have twenty-seven days."
Yang Yi gripped the plate with both hands.
"I say we have ten."
He squeezed.
He didn't use a technique. He didn't flare his qi. He just used the raw gripping strength of his new physiology.
The iron groaned. It bent. Then, it folded like wet paper.
He crumbled it into a ball and tossed it into the fire.
"The Inner Sect thinks we are trash. Luo Bing thinks we are weeds."
Yang Yi looked at the faces around the fire. Scars. Tattoos. Broken noses.
"We are not weeds. We are the foundation. And when the foundation shifts, the house falls."
A roar went up from the men. A primal sound.
Yang Yi turned to Zhang.
"Start the drills. The Vipers need to learn to fight in close quarters. The Centipedes need to learn stealth. Mix the squads. If a Viper dies because a Centipede was too slow, I kill the Centipede."
"Understood, Boss."
Yang Yi walked to the edge of the perimeter, looking out at the dark ravine.
The assimilation was complete. But the Myriad Beast Assimilation Record had opened a new page.
The Chimera's Hunger.
He was starving. The Basilisk meat wouldn't be enough. The spirit stones wouldn't be enough. To maintain this body, to fuel the density of his muscles, he needed high-grade energy.
He needed pills. Real ones. Not the trash from the disposal bin.
"Lin."
She appeared at his elbow, wrapping her cloak tight against the night chill.
"You're planning a robbery."
"I'm planning a withdrawal. The Dragon Transformation Palace owes me back wages."
"Which vault?"
"The Herb Garden is too guarded. The Armory is locked by blood seals."
Yang Yi looked up at the floating island of the Inner Sect. He focused his golden eyes. He could see the qi currents swirling around the peaks.
"The Auction House."
Lin choked. "The Crimson Pavilion? That's where the Elders trade. It's in the neutral zone between the Inner and Outer sects, but the security is tighter than a drum."
"It's tight for cultivators. It's designed to stop qi signatures."
Yang Yi tapped his chest.
"I don't have a cultivator's signature anymore. I read as a beast. A pet."
"You want to sneak in as a pet?"
"No. I want to sneak in as cargo."
He turned back to the fire.
"Liu Feng has contacts in the supply chain. He used to sell his poisons to the black market. Get him. We're going to ship a very rare, very dangerous statue to the auction."
"A statue?"
Yang Yi smiled. His teeth were white daggers in the green light.
"Me."
He flexed his skin. The gray scales shifted, interlocking perfectly. He stopped breathing. His heart slowed to one beat per minute. His aura vanished, replaced by the cold, inert frequency of stone.
He stood perfectly still.
To the naked eye, he wasn't a man. He was a masterpiece of carving. A terrifyingly realistic statue of a demon warrior.
"The Trojan Horse was wood," Yang Yi whispered, his lips barely moving. "I prefer granite."
The next three days were a blur of preparation.
Block 9 transformed. Under Zhang's brutal supervision, the thugs became soldiers. They drilled in the mud, learning shield walls and pincer movements. They wore armor fashioned from Basilisk scales—light, acid-resistant, and harder than steel.
Liu Feng worked in his lab, brewing batches of Mist of the Sleeping Dragon and refining the Basilisk acid into grenades.
Yang Yi spent his time in the Sump.
He practiced stillness.
He stood on the island in the center of the black lake, holding his breath for hours. He let the Basilisk essence saturate his skin, turning it harder, grayer. He learned to suppress the Wolf's fire and the Rat's twitching.
He became an object.
On the fourth night, a wagon arrived at the perimeter. It was pulled by two spirit-oxen and driven by a nervous merchant named fat Cai—one of Liu Feng's old associates who owed him a life debt.
Cai looked at the massive wooden crate sitting in the square.
"This is suicide," Cai wiped sweat from his bald head. "The Crimson Pavilion scans everything."
"They scan for life," Liu Feng said, checking the manifest. "This crate contains a 'Petrified Demon Relic' found in the lower ruins. Inert. Decorative."
"And if it wakes up?"
"Then you run," Yang Yi said from inside the crate. His voice was muffled, deep.
He stepped in. He assumed the pose—one knee bent, arm raised as if striking, face twisted in a silent roar.
"Seal it."
Lin hammered the lid shut. Darkness swallowed him.
Yang Yi exhaled all the air in his lungs. He slowed his heart. Thump... ... ...
He pushed the Earth essence to his skin. He felt the transformation take hold. His flesh stiffened. His temperature dropped to match the ambient air. His mind drifted into the gray void of hibernation.
The wagon lurched.
The journey began.
They passed the checkpoints of the Outer Sect.
"Cargo?" A guard's voice, bored.
"Art," Cai squeaked. "For the auction. Master Elder Zhou requested it."
"Open it."
Light flooded in as the lid was pried open.
Yang Yi didn't flinch. He didn't breathe. He stared unseeingly at the guard's face.
The guard poked Yang Yi's arm with a spear tip.
Clink.
"Stone. Ugly thing. Looks like a goblin."
"It's... uh... avant-garde," Cai stammered.
"Move along."
The lid slammed shut. Darkness returned.
They moved higher. The air grew thinner. The road smoother.
They entered the neutral zone. The Crimson Pavilion.
The wagon stopped.
"Unload it! careful with that crate, you oafs! It's worth more than your lives!"
Yang Yi felt himself being lifted. The crate swayed. Then, a heavy thud as it was set down on a marble floor.
The sounds of the auction house drifted in. Polite laughter. The clinking of crystal glasses. The hum of immense wealth.
Yang Yi waited.
He counted the heartbeats of the people nearby. One... two... three guards.
"Lot 45. The Petrified Warrior. Storage Room B."
The crate was moved again. Wheels rolled over stone. A heavy door opened and closed. Silence.
Yang Yi waited another hour.
Then, he inhaled.
The sound was like a bellows filling with air.
Stone cracked. The gray skin softened, returning to flesh. The gold eyes snapped open in the dark.
He punched the lid of the crate.
CRACK.
Wood splintered.
Yang Yi stood up in the storage room of the Crimson Pavilion. Shelves of rare artifacts surrounded him. Ancient swords. Dragon eggs. Grimoires.
And pills.
He smelled them. To his right, a cage filled with jade bottles. Heaven Reaching Pills. Soul Condensation Pills.
The hunger roared.
"Buffet is open," he whispered.
He stepped out of the crate. He didn't need to pick the lock of the storage cage. He grabbed the bars.
He squeezed.
The star-steel bent like warm wax.
Yang Yi slipped inside. He grabbed the first bottle.
Tonight, he wouldn't just eat. He would feast. And when the auction started tomorrow, the main attraction would be the massacre.