The rain didn't wash the blood away; it just diluted it into a pink slurry that coated the square.
Yang Yi sat on the steps of the command hut, watching the cleanup. It was organized chaos. The Centipedes stripped the armor off the dead Inner Sect disciples, fighting over jade pendants and silk under-robes. The Vipers collected the flying swords, piling them like firewood near the forge.
Victory smelled like wet ash and greed.
"You're leaking," Lin said, standing over him. She held a wet rag.
Yang Yi looked down. Black ichor oozed from the cracks in his gray scales. The Void-Iron technique had stressed his body to the breaking point. His muscles felt like overcooked meat, tender and threatening to pull apart from the bone.
"Structural stress," he grunted, taking the rag. He wiped the sludge from his chest. "I weighed three tons for a few seconds. The human frame isn't built for that."
"You aren't human anymore, Yang."
She handed him a bowl of dark, viscous liquid. Liu Feng's latest brew. Concentrated healing herbs mixed with the marrow of the Basilisk.
Yang Yi drank it. It tasted like copper coins.
"Is he awake?"
"He's screaming," Lin said, nodding toward the hut. "He promised to flay us all alive. Then he promised to make us rich. Now he's just cursing."
Yang Yi stood up. His joints ground together, a sound like stones in a riverbed. He grabbed the Thunder Drake sword.
"Let's see what a god has to say when he's tied to a chair."
Inside the hut, Elder Kuang looked less like a deity and more like a roadkill victim.
His purple robes were shreds. His silver-braided beard was matted with mud and blood. He was bound to a heavy iron chair with the Basilisk chains—metal infused with the beast's petrifying aura, which dampened qi flow.
Every time Kuang tried to circulate his energy, the chains glowed gray, and his muscles locked up.
He looked up as Yang Yi entered. One of his eyes was swollen shut. The other burned with impotent fury.
"Abomination," Kuang spat. "Do you think this ends here? The Sect Master will level this entire mountain to kill you."
Yang Yi dragged a stool over. He sat down, the heavy Thunder Drake sword resting between his knees.
"The Sect Master is busy keeping his islands from falling out of the sky," Yang Yi said. "I cut the fuel line, Kuang. You're running on batteries."
Kuang sneered. "Batteries that will last long enough to exterminate a few rats."
"Maybe. But you won't be around to see it."
Yang Yi leaned forward. The gold slit-pupils of his eyes widened, adjusting to the dim light.
"I have a question."
"I have no answers for trash."
Yang Yi reached out. He didn't hit Kuang. He grabbed the Elder's broken leg.
He squeezed.
Kuang screamed. It was a raw, human sound. The dignity of the cultivator vanished instantly under the pressure of Yang Yi's grip.
"The Dragon Heart," Yang Yi said, his voice calm. "The pods. Who selects the victims?"
Kuang panted, sweat cutting tracks through the grime on his face. "It... it is not random. It is an honor."
"Honor?" Yang Yi laughed. It was a dry, rasping bark. "To be a filter? To have your soul scrubbed away so you can heat the bathwater for the Inner Circle?"
"The Dragon... the Dragon is poison," Kuang gasped. "Its energy is chaotic. Ancient. If we tapped it directly, everyone would mutate. Like you."
Yang Yi paused. He looked at his own clawed hand.
"We use the pods... to refine the flow," Kuang continued, the words tumbling out now. "The disciples... those with specific spirit roots... they act as sponges. They absorb the corruption. What comes out the top is pure Yang essence."
"And the sponges?"
"They burn out. We replace them."
Yang Yi let go of the leg. He sat back.
"So the tournament. The Dragon's Crucible."
Kuang went silent. He realized he had said too much.
Yang Yi tapped the flat of the sword against the floor. Clack. Clack.
"Luo Bing invited me. He said the winner enters the Inner Sect. But that's a lie, isn't it? The winner doesn't get a robe. The winner gets a pod."
Kuang stared at him. The silence was confirmation enough.
"The best cultivation," Yang Yi mused. "The strongest meridians. The perfect filter. That's why you hold the tournament every ten years. You need a fresh batch of high-grade filters to keep the lights on."
Yang Yi stood up. He walked to the window, looking out at the red rain falling on his army of outcasts.
"How do I get to the control room?"
"You can't," Kuang whispered. "The Ascendance Hall is sealed. Only the Sect Master and the three Grand Elders can open the barrier. Or..."
"Or?"
"Or the winner of the Crucible. They are granted passage... to be 'anointed'."
Yang Yi turned back to the prisoner.
"Good. Then I have a schedule to keep."
He walked to the door.
"Wait!" Kuang shouted, straining against the chains. "You can't win. The Crucible isn't just fighting. It's a test of Dao. You have no Dao! You are a beast!"
"I have a Dao," Yang Yi said, stopping in the doorway. "It's called Hunger."
He signaled Lin.
"Keep him alive. He's our insurance policy. If the ships come back, tie him to the roof."
Yang Yi walked into the forge.
The heat was intense. The miners had diverted a vent from the deep shaft directly into the blast furnace. The fire burned a strange, deep crimson.
Iron Hand Zhang was hammering a sheet of metal. He stopped when he saw Yang Yi.
"Boss. The sword."
Yang Yi handed over the Thunder Drake blade.
"It's unbalanced," Yang Yi said. "The lightning is too wild. It fights me."
Zhang inspected the blade. "It's Thunder Sect work. High quality, but it requires a lightning spirit root to control. Without it, the sword just discharges randomly."
"I don't have a lightning root. I have a Chimera root."
Yang Yi pulled a pouch from his belt. He dumped the contents onto the anvil.
Scales from the Basilisk. The core of the Basilisk. And the shattered remains of Luo Bing's flying sword, Frost-bite, which he had scavenged from the mud.
"Can you reforge it?"
Zhang whistled. "You want to mix Thunder steel, Frost steel, and Earth essence? That's metallurgy blasphemy."
"I'm a blasphemer."
"It'll require a catalyst. Something to bind the opposing elements."
Yang Yi reached into his tunic. He hesitated, then pulled a small vial of his own blood. It was black, heavy, and smoked when the light hit it.
"Use this."
Zhang looked at the vial, then at Yang Yi. He didn't ask questions. In the Dregs, you learned not to ask.
"It'll take two days. I'll need the hottest fire we have."
"Use the heart vent," Yang Yi said. "Cook it until it screams."
Yang Yi spent the next two days in the Sump.
He needed isolation. The battle with Kuang had pushed the assimilation to 60%. The Void-Iron Body was powerful, but it was eating his lifespan. He could feel the gray creeping into his hair, the stiffness in his joints that didn't go away with rest.
He stood on the island in the black lake.
He practiced the Gravity technique.
He held a stone in his hand. He focused on increasing its density.
Push. Compress.
The stone cracked, turning into dust.
"Too hard," he whispered. "Control."
He picked up another stone.
He focused on the Rat essence. Precision.
He poured his qi into the stone. He didn't crush it. He made it heavy.
He dropped it.
It hit the mud with the force of a cannonball, sinking three feet deep.
"Better."
He practiced with his own body. Making himself light as a feather to jump, then heavy as a mountain to strike.
Shift. Strike. Shift. Dodge.
It was a rhythm. A dance of mass and momentum.
On the third morning, a tremor shook the cavern.
Not an earthquake. An explosion from the surface.
Yang Yi looked up.
"Time's up."
He climbed the shaft.
When he emerged into the square, the sky was filled with lights.
But not ships.
Projections.
Massive, shimmering illusions floated above the Outer Sect. The face of the Sect Master—a man who looked like he was carved from jade—looked down on the slums.
"Disciples of the Outer Sect," the voice boomed, calm and terrifying.
"The Dragon's Crucible begins in three days. Due to... recent disturbances... the rules have changed."
Yang Yi walked to the center of the square, watching the giant face.
"Entry is now open to all. No rank restrictions. No background checks."
The Sect Master smiled benevolence that didn't reach his eyes.
"The winner will receive the Dragon's Blessing. The losers... will serve the sect in other ways."
The projection faded.
"It's a trap," Lin said, standing beside him with her daggers drawn. "They're casting a wide net. They want to lure you out."
"They want to lure everyone out," Yang Yi corrected. "They need bodies. Lots of them. The explosion in the heart chamber must have destroyed more pods than I thought."
He looked at the Pack. They were watching him. waiting.
"Zhang!"
The smith emerged from the forge. He held a bundle wrapped in leather.
He unwrapped it.
The sword was different.
The blade was darker, the color of a storm cloud. A line of jagged, moss-green Basilisk scales ran down the spine of the blade. The edge crackled not with blue lightning, but with a dirty, purple energy—a mix of thunder and poison.
Yang Yi took it.
It was heavy. Absurdly heavy. A normal man couldn't lift it.
Yang Yi swung it one-handed. The air screamed.
"What do we call it?" Zhang asked, wiping soot from his face.
Yang Yi looked at the purple arc trailing the blade.
"The Grave Digger."
He sheathed the massive weapon on his back.
"Pack your gear," Yang Yi ordered. "We aren't hiding in the mud anymore."
He looked at the shimmering barrier of the Inner Sect high above.
"We're going to the tournament. And we're bringing the whole damn slum with us."