The azure glow of Ling Feng's manifested sword faded slowly, retracting into his palm like a coiling serpent returning to its lair.
He stood motionless atop the colossal dragon skull, abyssal winds tearing at his ponytail and the edges of his scale-infused robes. Below him stretched the venerable's blood pool—a vast, viscous sea of azure light that pulsed faintly, as though an ancient heart still beat in the depths.
Pain lingered in his meridians. Not crippling—merely residual. Cracked ribs were knitting unevenly, meridians strained thin from the violent refinement. His body was far from perfect.
But pain was not an obstacle.
It was information.
Status assessment complete, Ling Feng calculated coldly.
Azure sword intent: Nascent stage, stable for limited projection.
Draconic scales: Defensive value equivalent to low-grade spirit armor.
Stage One Sword Insanity—Whispers of Defiance: Active. Intrusive urges manageable. Potentially exploitable.
Essence reserves: Sufficient for recovery. Insufficient for breakthrough.
He descended the jagged surface of the skull, boots sinking slightly into petrified bone older than history itself. The abyss core lay in unnatural stillness, a sanctuary of calm buried beneath eternal chaos. Obsidian walls rose like spears, veined with dormant lightning. The air carried a metallic tang, sharp with ozone and ancient qi.
No light reached this depth from the surface.
Everything was illuminated by the blood.
Cold. Ethereal. Alive.
At the pool's edge, Ling Feng knelt and extended a hand. His fingers skimmed the surface. Warm. Dense. Faintly resistant—like touching the skin of a slumbering beast.
Opportunity persists.
The previous refinement had been passive—absorption forced by proximity. Active extraction might yield more.
He guided a single thread of sword intent into the liquid—thin as a needle, cautious, precise—probing for unbound residual essence.
The response was immediate.
The blood rippled violently, waves spreading outward in defiance of natural law. Bubbles rose and burst with sharp hisses as a hazy illusion condensed above the surface.
A serpentine head emerged.
Azure scales shimmered with spectral light. Vast eyes burned with ghostly fire. It was not the full form of the Azure Dragon Venerable—only a fragment of will—but the pressure it radiated crushed downward like a collapsing mountain.
A voice thundered directly into Ling Feng's sea of consciousness.
"Unworthy ant! You dare drink from my essence? A mortal flea siphoning a god's blood? Your insolence demands annihilation!"
The words carried spiritual authority, attempting to bend his will, to force submission through sheer dominance. An ordinary cultivator would already be kneeling—dao heart fractured, soul trembling.
Ling Feng's face remained expressionless.
No fear.
No rage.
Only analysis.
Pride, he concluded instantly. Unyielding, absolute superiority—even reduced to a remnant.
This flaw destroyed you.
Legends praised the Azure Dragon Venerable for defying the Heavenly Dao—but defiance rooted in bloodline arrogance was not evolution. It was stagnation. He had challenged heaven without severing fate, without discarding supremacy granted at birth.
Heaven adapts. Pride does not.
The Whispers of Defiance stirred within Ling Feng's mind, seductive and sharp.
Slaughter it. Devour everything. Power awaits.
Premature, Ling Feng countered internally. Direct confrontation risks soul destabilization at current realm. Probe. Measure. Harvest selectively.
He did not speak.
Speech was waste.
The sword intent sharpened—condensing, refining—then lashed out like a surgeon's blade toward the illusion's base. There, faintly glowing, hung resentment threads: intangible filaments of undissipated fury anchoring the remnant's existence.
The illusion recoiled.
Illusory lightning cracked along its scales as a backlash wave slammed into Ling Feng's meridians. Pain exploded—fresh fissures tearing through half-healed ribs. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, metallic and hot.
Ling Feng staggered—but did not retreat.
Acceptable, he assessed calmly.
Backlash proportional to depth: approximately twenty percent qi drain. Internal injury—minor.
Adjust vector. Target peripheral threads.
He stepped back, circulating a trickle of stolen essence to stabilize his meridians.
The illusion laughed, sound reverberating through the abyss.
"Pathetic insect! My blood will corrupt you, twist you into a mindless slave! Kneel and beg—perhaps I will grant you a swift death!"
Corruption requires doubt, Ling Feng thought. Or greed.
I possess neither.
Mercy was illusion.
Death was a calculation.
The second probe came—angled, curved, subtle. Sword intent hooked around a thinner resentment filament, one less guarded, dimmer than the rest.
Slash.
The thread severed cleanly.
It dissolved into azure mist, instantly drawn into Ling Feng's dantian. Power flowed in—warm, stabilizing. His ribs knitted faster. Meridians smoothed. His sword intent hummed, clearer, sharper.
A faint azure sheen deepened in his hair.
The illusion flickered.
"You—dare—!"
Confirmed, Ling Feng concluded. Threads are harvestable. Yield without full confrontation.
The Whispers surged louder.
More. Sever all. Dominate.
Controlled escalation, he decided. Three additional extractions. Then retreat.
The third probe met fiercer resistance. A tendril of spectral energy lashed out, grazing his arm. Scale armor scorched. Flesh burned. Blood ran.
Ling Feng severed the thread regardless.
Essence surged in.
The fourth probe pushed deeper—toward a clustered nexus.
Backlash intensified.
Hallucinations flooded his senses: draconic claws crushing his body, bones liquefying into the blood pool. The Whispers magnified them, urging surrender, urging madness.
Illusions, Ling Feng noted calmly amid the strain. Distraction tactics.
Eliminate the source.
Slash.
The cluster shattered.
Essence flooded him violently. Qi reserves rebounded to over sixty percent. Wounds sealed before his eyes. The azure sword manifested unbidden in his hand—denser now, veins of lightning crawling along its edge.
He turned and tested it on a half-buried fragment of petrified scale.
The blade fell.
No sound.
No resistance.
The fragment split cleanly in two, residual qi drawn into him like breath.
The illusion wavered, its form destabilizing.
"Impossible… my pride… my bloodline… eternal…"
Eternal? Ling Feng echoed coldly.
Your pride was a chain.
One final probe—toward a central anchor thread.
The remnant erupted in desperation. Pressure doubled. Ling Feng's sea of consciousness trembled violently. The Whispers screamed.
Kill. Devour. Madness is freedom.
Ling Feng severed the thread—
—and the backlash struck like a hammer.
Qi reversed violently. He dropped to one knee, blood spraying from his mouth. Vision blurred.
Overreach, he assessed instantly. Limit reached.
The illusion collapsed, dissolving back into the blood pool with a final, venomous echo.
"You will regret this, ant… deeper horrors stir below…"
Silence reclaimed the chamber.
Ling Feng rose slowly, wiping blood from his lips without expression.
Regret is emotional residue.
This was profit.
He consolidated the gains.
Body: eighty percent recovery.
Sword intent: heightened clarity and density.
Insight acquired: resentment threads function as extractable fuel—pride made tangible.
His gaze shifted.
A faint qi trail pulsed beyond the pool—subtle, rhythmic—leading deeper into the abyss, toward the petrified heart chamber of the dragon.
Danger increased.
So did opportunity.
The Whispers murmured approval.
Forward. Slaughter awaits.
Ling Feng stepped into the darkness, sword intent humming softly at his side.
The path of madness did not widen—
It descended.