The jade bottle shattered between Yang Yi's teeth. Shards of precious stone mixed with the Heaven Reaching Pill inside. He didn't spit the glass; he chewed it. His new molars were harder than the jade anyway.
The pill tasted like ozone and honey. A concentrated blast of pure, refined qi meant to help a cultivator break through a bottleneck.
Yang Yi didn't have bottlenecks. He had a furnace.
The pill hit his stomach. The Myriad Beast Assimilation Record flared in his mind. The Dragon Transformation Token at his hip spun like a turbine, sucking the energy in before it could dissipate into his meridians.
It didn't go to his dantian. It went to his muscles.
Snap. Pop. Grind.
His biceps thickened, tearing the cheap fabric of his borrowed tunic. The gray scales on his forearms darkened, shifting from the color of slate to the color of gunmetal.
"More."
He grabbed a handful of Soul Condensation Pills. These were worth a fortune, used to stabilize mental energy during meditation.
He ate them like peanuts.
A cool, blue wave washed over his brain. The Wolf's rage, usually a roaring fire, settled into cold, calculated malice. The Rat's twitchy paranoia smoothed into hyper-awareness. The Basilisk's lethargy vanished, replaced by the immovable patience of a mountain.
He was stabilizing. The Chimera wasn't a chaotic mess of instincts anymore. It was becoming a singular organism.
He stripped the shelf bare. Twelve bottles. Three boxes of spirit herbs. A jar of Golden Toad venom which he drank as a chaser.
He burped. A puff of purple, toxic steam escaped his lips.
" Appetizer finished."
He stepped out of the broken cage. He felt heavy. Dense. If he stood still, he could feel the floor joists beneath the marble groaning under his weight.
He scanned the room.
To his left, crates of artifacts. To his right, weapons.
But his nose led him to the back corner. A heavy, lead-lined box sat on a pedestal, covered in talisman papers.
Lot 10.
The manifest pinned to it read: Blood-Root Lotus. 500-year age. Volatile. Handle with gloves.
"Bingo."
Yang Yi ripped the talisman papers off. They sparked, stinging his fingers, but his skin was too thick to care.
He opened the box.
Inside, resting on black velvet, was a lotus flower that looked like it was carved from raw meat. It pulsed. Veins ran through the petals.
This was the stabilizer. The root that bound the soul to the flesh, preventing the beast spirits from tearing the host apart.
He didn't admire it. He grabbed it.
The lotus screamed—a high-pitched psychic wail.
Yang Yi shoved it into his mouth.
He bit down.
Bitter blood filled his mouth. He swallowed the pulp.
The effect was instantaneous.
A shockwave traveled from his gut to his extremities. It felt like staples were being driven into his soul, locking the Wolf, Rat, and Basilisk essences into a rigid framework.
The pain was blinding. Yang Yi dropped to one knee. His fist slammed into the floor, cracking the marble.
"Fusion."
His vision cleared. The world looked different. Sharper. He could see the dust motes floating in the air. He could hear the heartbeat of a mouse in the wall. He could smell the fear of the guard standing outside the door.
Wait.
Guard.
The heavy iron door handle turned.
Yang Yi didn't panic. He stood up. He exhaled, purging the air from his lungs. He locked his joints.
His skin turned gray. His eyes glazed over.
He became the statue again.
The door swung open.
A guard in the red and gold armor of the Crimson Pavilion stepped in, holding a lantern.
"I heard a crack. Did something fall?"
The guard scanned the room. He saw the broken cage. He saw the shattered jade bottles on the floor.
"Thief!"
He reached for the alarm whistle at his neck.
He looked at the statue standing in the center of the aisle. The "Petrified Warrior" he had helped unload earlier.
The statue wasn't in the same pose.
Earlier, the arm was raised. Now, the arm was lowered.
The guard frowned. "Wait..."
The statue blinked.
The guard's breath hitched. He opened his mouth to scream.
Yang Yi moved.
He didn't lunge. He simply uncoiled. The kinetic energy stored in his stone form released in a blur of gray motion.
He backhanded the guard.
It wasn't a slap. It was a collision with a moving wall.
CRUNCH.
The guard's helmet crumpled. His neck snapped. He flew across the room, smashing into a shelf of antique vases. He hit the floor and didn't move.
Yang Yi stood over him. He checked the hallway. Empty.
"Sloppy," Yang Yi muttered, dragging the body into the shadows. "I broke a vase."
He looked up at the ceiling.
Muffled voices drifted down. The rhythmic gavel of the auctioneer.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Crimson Pavilion. Tonight, we have treasures that defy the heavens!"
Applause.
Yang Yi walked to the center of the room, directly under the main chandelier. He gauged the thickness of the ceiling. Wood beams, reinforced with soundproofing arrays and a layer of marble flooring above.
Maybe two feet of material.
He checked his pouch. He had two Explosive Blood Pills left. And he had a pouch of the Basilisk acid grenades Liu Feng had prepped.
"Defy the heavens," Yang Yi whispered, looking at the ceiling. "How about we defy gravity first?"
He took the acid grenades—glass spheres filled with green sludge—and jammed them into the cracks between the ceiling beams.
He placed an Explosive Blood Pill in the center of the cluster.
He lit a small fuse on the pill.
He walked to the corner of the room, behind a stack of heavy crates. He crouched, covering his head with his armored arms.
Above him, the auctioneer's voice boomed.
"For our first item... a sword forged in the breath of a Thunder Drake. Bidding starts at one thousand spirit stones!"
"Sold," Yang Yi said.
BOOM.
The storage room disappeared in a flash of green and red.
Upstairs, the main hall of the Crimson Pavilion was a sea of silk and arrogance. Elders from the Inner Sect sat in private booths, sipping wine. Wealthy merchants crowded the floor.
Luo Bing sat in the VIP box, swirling a glass of nectar, looking bored.
"Thunder Drake sword," he scoffed to his attendant. "Toy for children."
The floor exploded.
It wasn't a normal explosion. It was a fountain of green fire and melting stone.
The center of the auction stage disintegrated. The auctioneer, a fat man in gold robes, vanished into the hole with a shriek. The Thunder Drake sword fell into the abyss.
Debris rained down. Dust coated the expensive silks. Panic erupted.
"Attack! Enemy attack!"
"Protect the goods!"
From the smoking crater in the center of the stage, a hand reached up.
A gray, scaled hand, tipping with black claws. It grabbed the edge of the broken flooring.
The wood hissed and smoked under the grip.
A figure pulled itself up from the hell below.
Yang Yi stood on the ruined stage. His clothes were burnt rags. His skin was a mosaic of gray scales and human flesh. His eyes burned gold.
He held the guard's lantern in one hand and the Thunder Drake sword—which he had caught mid-fall—in the other.
He looked at the crowd of terrified elites.
He saw Luo Bing in the VIP box. The Core Disciple had spilled his wine. He was staring at Yang Yi with a mix of shock and recognition.
Yang Yi raised the stolen sword. He pointed it at Luo Bing.
"I tried to return your book," Yang Yi roared, his voice amplified by the acoustics of the hall and the sheer volume of his lungs. "But the front door was locked."
He swung the sword. He tested the balance.
"So I came in through the basement."
Guards rushed the stage. Ten of them. Tier 3 cultivators with spears.
"Kill the intruder!"
Yang Yi grinned. The Blood-Root Lotus held his soul tight. The Heaven Reaching Pills fueled his muscles.
He didn't need technique. He was a raid boss.
He stomped.
Earthquake Stomp.
The remaining floorboards shattered. The shockwave knocked the guards off their feet.
Yang Yi charged.
He swung the Thunder Drake sword. He didn't use qi. He used velocity.
The blade sheared through the first guard's spear. Then the guard's armor. Then the guard.
"Next!"
He spun. The heavy tail he didn't have seemed to guide his balance. He moved with the fluidity of water and the impact of a landslide.
Luo Bing stood up in his box. He crushed the glass in his hand.
"That's not a disciple," Luo Bing whispered. "That's a calamity."
He leaped from the box, his own sword appearing in his hand.
"Clear the hall!" Luo Bing ordered the guards. "He's mine."
Yang Yi watched the blue figure descend. The rematch.
"Come on, pretty boy," Yang Yi growled, tossing the lantern aside. "Let's see if you bleed blue too."