She’d lost everything.

  Ash clung to her lungs when she returned to the burnt Fenixia manor. The stench of charred feathers, her mother’s still body swallowed by colpsing rafters, her father’s torn wings burning on the side while fmes melted his bone. She rushed into the wreckage with third-degree burns and a heart full of gss shards.

  Some said she was lucky she was away that night, but she took that as a sign. Fate had left her behind for a purpose.

  For years, revenge kept her breathing—shallow, toxic breaths that left her hollow. She schemed. She lied. And she pretended to be a commoner girl, stealing food and getting caught by guards so that she could have a spar with them. Because the Fenixia family didn’t have the money to hire a proper teacher anymore.

  Then he smmed into her life.

  Iskandaar Romani—that same spoiled brat who’d sneered at her muddy dress during a childhood banquet. Back then, when he realized she was actually a Duke’s daughter and the muddy dress was a result of a simple accident, he didn’t get to his knees and apologize. At least, in that regard, he’d always been someone who stood his ground.

  Rather, the boy had proceeded to toss a bread roll at her head and called her “pigeon girl” for her singed wings. That brat. All her life until the day of the tragedy, the youngest Romani was an annoyance she couldn’t forget.

  So how did things come so far? He was now a sharp-eyed schemer who patted her back while standing above defeated students and drawled, “Burn them all. I’ll bill you ter.”

  He filled her cracks with wildfire. She, a sick phoenix with crippling abilities, was now reborn as a proper one. All because of him.

  Power she’d cwed for in vain came as easily as his smirk. A flick of his wrist, and she was sparring celestial beasts. A zy suggestion and her fmes carved canyons. Just… how could he hand her divinity so easily? She’d stopped believing she’d ever reach the phoenix from myths. Until him.

  “You’re terrifying,” he joked before they left the illusion realm, watching her control all the fmes and calming them. “Remind me to never dump you.”

  “Oh, you won’t,” she had said, although part of her was scared otherwise. She… didn’t want to lose him. No matter what, she didn’t. She didn’t know what she’d do to herself… do to the world itself, if she lost him.

  Her wings flexed involuntarily now, molten feathers hissing against the snow. Snowfkes melted against her eyeshes.

  Sora blinked, half-buried in a drift, as her body imprinted a steaming trench across the mountainside. “Huh…” Frost crusted her left wing—a novelty, considering her new core radiated enough heat to boil a ke. She pushed upright, fingers sinking into slush.

  “New Core… What?” She was confused for a moment. Distant howls of wolves came from somewhere, and then, memory snapped into focus. Her eyes trembled.

  The dragon. The punch that folded spacetime.

  She whirled, phoenix fme erupting from her pores. A hundred yards uphill, Iskandaar y sprawled like a discarded doll, his dark hair stark against the white. Blood haloed his head—bckened, frozen.

  No.

  She lunged forward, wings igniting—

  A shadow blotted the sun. Faster than her.

  The humanoid dragon who could only be the Green Scale King nded with a crack that split gciers. His scaled tail shed, cleaving a pine trunk in half. The sake gourd in his cw had morphed into a spiked club longer than Sora’s body, its surface etched with glowing curse runes. He loomed over Iskandaar, muzzle peeling back from fangs dripping venom that sizzled holes in the snow.

  “Impressive to still be alive,” the dragon rumbled, raising the club. Iskandaar would not survive another hit from him, Sora knew that. Her mind whirled.

  "NO! STOP!"

  The scream ripped from Sora’s throat as a physical force—a shockwave of raw sound that fttened trees and sent boulders tumbling. Snow vaporized in concentric rings around her. She barely registered the blood dribbling down her chin or the way her jawbone ground against itself.

  Her hands had transformed suddenly—cws now, feathered and hooked—rose to touch her face. Ice-crusted talons met a curved beak where her mouth should be.

  What—

  The dragon’s club halted mid-swing.

  Sora didn’t hesitate. She screamed again, this time shaping the noise into a focused bde. The sonic boom ignited midair, becoming a spiral of fire that smmed into the dragon’s spine. His emerald scales glowed white-hot where it struck, but he didn’t stagger. Didn’t even turn.

  “Pathetic,” he rumbled, tail flicking dismissively. “I… it enrages me seeing a hatchling pilfer my phoenix's powers.”

  Sora’s new beak clicked shut. My phoenix?

  The Green Scale King finally turned, pupils thinning to venomous slits. His club crackled louder, and purple lightning arced into the permafrost. “You reek of grave dust and desperation. All that stolen power…” He took a single step toward her, the ground splintering radially. “And you still fight like a starved alley cat.”

  Fire roared in Sora’s breast—not metaphorically. Literal fmes gushed from between her feathers as her body stretched. Wings unfurled to blot out the sun, talons sinking into bedrock. She towered over the dragon now, a living inferno with a wingspan to shame warships.

  The dragon’s face wrinkled. “Insolent pigeon.”

  He moved. Not with the zy contempt from before, but a predator’s calcuted cruelty. He was fast enough to blur, slow enough to let her track the club’s descent. The spiked weapon fred violet, charged energy warping the air. Sora reared back, phoenix fire coalescing into a shield—

  The club struck her beak.

  Crack.

  The sound echoed across mountain ranges.

  She didn’t feel pain. Not exactly. Her consciousness fragmented into sensory shards—the acidic tang of molten keratin, the blinding fsh of purple lightning arcing through her skull, the weightless sensation of hurtling backward through granite slopes.

  Then, darkness.

  The bckout this time sted longer. When her eyes opened again, though, the world was three spheres of color cshing against one another. Three spheres.

  One jade, coiling like a crushing force.

  One green, destroying the light around it.

  One crimson, that screamed like a caged star.

  ****

  Pain.

  That was all my nervous system screamed as consciousness cwed its way back. My vision swam—snow-streaked sky, jagged peaks, and the silhouette of a dragon-shaped god bringing his club down on a creature made of fire and feathers.

  Sora.

  Her beak shattered like gss under the blow. Fractured chunks of keratin and molten blood sprayed across the snow. She didn’t scream. She couldn’t. Her phoenix cry strangled into a wet, gurgling hiss as she crumpled, passing out.

  “That… that bastard.”

  Every cell in my body burned hotter than her fmes. My fingers dug into the frost, nails peeling back as I dragged myself upright. It didn’t matter that my ribs were splintered, that my left arm hung limp and bent wrong. Rage pulsed in time with my heartbeat, drowning out the howls of distant wolves.

  Ao’kai turned. His golden eyes narrowed, his spiky club crackling with violet lightning. “Ah. The cockroach twitches.”

  “True Demon God Ar—”

  The air imploded.

  He vanished from twenty paces away and reappeared nose-to-nose with me before another sylble left my lips. The club swung—not in a grand, theatrical strike, but a casual backhand flick. I barely crossed my arms in time.

  Crack.

  My forearm bones snapped like dry twigs. Even my Phantom Hand hurt somehow. The force hurled me backward, skidding through ice and rock until my spine smmed into a boulder. Blood filled my mouth, coppery and warm.

  The dragon tilted his head, nostrils fring. “You blocked it… at 5th Ascension?” His tone wasn’t admiration. It was the detached curiosity of a child peeling wings off flies. “Curious.”

  Rage curdled into something colder. I had to be smart here. I spat a chunk of blood and vomit onto the snow between us. “Let’s… talk,” I said. “We’re not here to fight.”

  “I know.” Lightning writhed around his club, casting jagged shadows across his scaled face. “You’re here to steal.” He moved again.

  This time, I saw it—the fractional tensing of his tail, the shift of weight to his forward cw. I threw myself left.

  His fist made a crater on the ground where I’d been. Shockwaves buckled the mountainside, sending avanches roaring into the valleys below.

  [Void Step].

  I blurred behind him, qi fring as my demonic core pumped energy into my shattered arm. It wasn’t regeneration, rather, I was forcing it. Fingers straightened in seconds, tendons snapping into pce. I yanked out a sword from my Soul Storage and swung it—not at him, but at the base of his horn.

  Cng.

  The bde shattered.

  Ao’kai didn’t turn. His tail whipped around, a green blur that caught me square in the ribs. I felt them snap—one, two, three—before I crashed through a pine tree. Splinters embedded in my cheeks.

  “Pathetic,” he rumbled.

  Teeth gritted, I lurched up. My right eye had swollen shut, but the left caught Sora’s still form twitching in the snow. Feathers of her wings smoldered. Her human form had returned, unable to hold form.

  Focus. I charged him. Not with technique, not with strategy—raw, screaming fury. My fist glowed with demonic qi, aimed for his scaled throat.

  He caught it. One cwed hand closed around my wrist, squeezing until bones powdered. I screamed.

  “You mistake survival for strength,” Ao’kai said. His free hand gripped my face, talons piercing my cheeks, my brow. Blood sheeted down my neck. “Let me educate you.”

  Crack.

  He smmed his forehead into mine.

  The world whited out. When it returned, I was on my back, snow melting beneath me from the heat of my own blood. Ao’kai stood over me, club raised.

  “Lesson one,” he said. “Know your pce.”

  The club descended.

  I rolled. Too slow.

  It struck my right shoulder instead of my skull. The joint disintegrated—flesh and bones fttening as if it was made out of paper, cartige and sinew spraying across the ice.

  Agony. Pure, liquid fire seared every nerve ending. Even my Phantom Hand flickered out given the base of the arm wasn’t working. The same, odd howls of distant wolves made my head spin. I choked on a scream, scrambling backward with one arm.

  Ao’kai stepped on my left hand.

  Crunch. Fingers fttened into pulp.

  “Lesson two.” He leaned down, rancid sake breath washing over me. “Theft has consequences.”

  His tail shed out, hooking under my ribs. He lifted me like a ragdoll, dangling me over the cliff’s edge. Snow fell from the sky, spping against my face, and the wind screamed up from the abyss below.

  “Any st words, thief?” He said, watching blood dripped from my lips.

  I met his gaze. “Go… fuck… yourself…”

  He smiled. Then, he dropped me.

  I have to be fast. I noted as I fell. Closing my eyes, I let out a sigh, and then I circuted qi within me at a rapid speed. [Void Step].

  The world fractured into monochrome lines as I blurred behind Ao’kai’s hulking form. My left arm trembled, qi fring brightly as I silently prepared [Flesh Explosion] and [True Demon God Art: Curse of Defying Heaven] – the same techniques that had liquefied Sir Likard. It’d cost me another half a limb, but that was fine, my right arm basically didn’t exist already. So if I could shove it down that scaled throat—

  Ao’kai turned. Not with the zy contempt of before, but a viper’s precision. Golden eyes narrowed. “How slimy. Fine,” he rumbled, club crackling with violet lightning. “I shall just kill you with my own hands.”

  He took a single step. The mountain breathed with him, bedrock rippling like water. My preparation was too slow. I grumbled and braced for it, my teeth grinding hard.

  Right then, a streak of jade light split the sky. It was blinding.

  The impact sent Ao’kai skidding back, cws carving trenches in the stone. Between us stood a woman—no, a being—her antlers glowing like carved moonlight, jade scales rippling down a humanoid form draped in robes of living moss. It was beautiful. Her presence smelled of rain-soaked poetry and gciers older than empires.

  [Bai Xiuying, the Qilin Sovereign, Level 203]

  That must be… Lady Bai, the Qilin Sovereign of Jade Widow Peak. She grumbled at the Green Scaled King. “Do you really not sense that thing on his cheek, Ao’kai?” Her voice was wind through bamboo. “Stop this already.”

  The dragon’s tail shed, shattering a boulder. “You dare interfere?!”

  “Don’t be a child. Feng Huang died nearly a millennia ago.” She didn’t blink, antlers humming with gathering power. “Someone had to inherit her echo one day, just accept it.”

  Ao’kai’s roar shook avanches loose. “You know nothing!”

  He moved.

  So did she.

  Their csh unraveled reality. My eyes trembled. One heartbeat, they grappled atop the cliff—the next, a mile up, tearing holes in the clouds. Shockwaves fttened pines. It was entirely different from my one-sided battle against him. The Jade Widow’s peak cracked, its namesake gcier calving into the valley below.

  I colpsed, coughing blood. My vision swam again. Get up. Get up. This was a prime chance to grab Sora and flee, but my body was done for.

  A soft hoot made me flinch. Vyrn materialized from my pendant, feathers puffed in panic. He darted toward somewhere I couldn’t see from this lying position.

  “Vyrn, no—!” I called but stopped myself. He must be really scared, so he was fleeing. I couldn’t bme him. I closed my eyes and sighed.

  Then, Vyrn dropped onto my chest. My eyes opened, and I stared at his beak. “Hoot!” he screeched and then dropped the thing he was carrying on his beak. A red… feather.

  The feather dropped on my chest, and phoenix fire surged.

  Muscles reknit. Bones snapped into pce with wet cracks. I groaned and arched off the ground, screaming as divine fmes scoured my veins. When it ended, I y gasping, whole for all but my original missing forearm from the Holy Knight.

  Vyrn pecked my ear. “Yeah, yeah.” I ruffled his head, fingers lingering on ghostly plumage. “You’re a menace. Thank you.”

  The owl hooted, smug.

  I looked above again. My senses were clearer, so I could perceive things better. The sky wept jade and violet. Lady Bai’s antlers speared through Ao’kai’s defenses, drawing ichor that sizzled like acid. The dragon retaliated, fangs snapping where her throat had been—

  I stood.

  The world tilted, then steadied. Sora’s feather glowed faintly in my palm, before turning into dust. Time to go.

  ****

  Blood trickled hot down my upper lip as I staggered forward. The whole mountain range trembled as they exchanged cshes. Sora y crumpled between them, far from where I was, her wings reduced to smoldering stumps. Each pulse of the warring attacks made fresh cracks spiderweb across her skin.

  Those demigod bastards. They don’t care about their surroundings. I tried my best to hold back my anger. Vyrn dive-bombed my shoulder, talons pricking through my shirt. His panicked hoots urged retreat. I patted him away. "Sorry, buddy. I can’t leave alone."

  Lady Bai’s voice cut through the vortex of violence, sharp as gcier ice. "You cling to ashes, Ao’kai! She’s gone—"

  "What would you know?!" The dragon’s roar fttened what remained of the pines. "You think I’m like you? Pathetic. You talk so much for someone who's a widowed wench, choosing to whore around while forgetting the man you loved!"

  "Enough. That’s going too far!"

  The air itself warped as she growled. She stood rather than continuing her attack, but Ao’kai’s next words died in a thundercp as a dome of energy and willpower surged out of her, hurling him back a step. “Sure then,” he replied, and his dome fred violently too, tendrils of green lightning shing at the qilin’s jade barrier.

  The air around the cshing domes, jade and viridian light, shredded the mountaintop into swirling debris. The qilin’s antlers bzed. Rock melted where his cws dug in. What damage they did to the area during their earlier battle seemed meaningless as somehow their willpower caused more. The entire realm trembled.

  "You shame her legacy with this tantrum,” Lady Bai said. “Feng Huang chose death to spare this world—and you’d let her sacrifice rot in your hoard? I can’t believe you’ve become such a weak thing. Where is the proud, lovely Ao’kai?"

  “You used to be more pleasant back in the day, Bai. Now you’re ugly and old!” The two of them were arguing about history I didn’t know, nor did I care about.

  What bothered me was the effect their csh had on their surroundings. Including Sora. I reached her side. Her breath came in wet, shallow hitches. Half her face was raw meat. My blood boiled. Their csh of willpower was too much for the unconscious girl, and she was bleeding from all her pores, her skin melting away. My body trembled in rage.

  “Fuck…” Fucking hell. Fuck subtlety.

  My feet smmed onto the permafrost. “You two stupid bastards!” I shouted as demonic qi erupted from my core, a crimson tsunami that drowned the mountaintop in hellfire hues. A third dome entered the fray, red smming into their color.

  My nose erupted in a gush of blood, my vision blurring as capilries burst in both eyes. But the dome held, a jagged hemisphere of screaming scarlet that shoved against the demigods’ cshing wills. Ao’kai’s head snapped toward me. Lady Bai froze mid-incantation. Their eyes widened as they looked at me in pure shock.

  While power-wise I was nowhere near them, my willpower revealed otherwise. For the willpower of the Heavenly Demon backed my dome, and so somehow, the csh looked like three deities were having a test of strength.

  “What the…”

  "Enough!" I roared through the blood filling my mouth. My dome pulsed over Sora, protecting her. "Take your fucking couples’ quarrel elsewhere!"

  Their auras flickered.

  “"We are not—!"”

  The synchronized denial cracked their focus. Their eyes twitched.

  I breathed heavily, gring at them, as the crimson dome continued bzing like a red star ready to devour its competitors. A heartbeat passed before Ao'kai muttered something under his breath, averting his gaze and releasing his willpower.

  Lady Bai relented next, letting out a sigh. The emerald and jade barriers colpsed with an explosive force that would have annihited me if not for my blood-red protection. I let my willpower fade too.

  The moment my crimson dome flickered out, the mountain itself seemed to exhale. Aokai’s scaled nostrils fred as he stared at me. Lady Bai’s antlers dimmed from blinding jade to a soft glow, her moss robes rustling in the sudden stillness.

  My legs gave out. Even with Vyrn's cws digging into my shoulder to steady me, I crumpled to the ground and spat out a mouthful of blood.

  Ao'kai made his way over, his weapon now transformed back into its innocent sake container. “What the hell are you, brat?” Aokai growled, though the venom had drained from his voice. He took a long swig, liquor dripping down his green-scaled throat.

  The battle was over, I could tell. Danger had vanished. So I opened my mouth to give a respectful reply when the air ripped.

  "He's something incredible, isn't he?" An ethereal voice said. The presence descended like a gcier calving into the sea—ancient, inexorable, divine. The pines bent away in unison, their branches forming a living archway. Snowfkes froze mid-fall, crystallizing into diamond dust around the titanic white wolf standing atop the nearest ridge.

  Somehow, one after another, demigods were appearing today.

  Vargathrian’s fur gleamed with the cold light of a thousand winter moons, each of her strands humming with power that made my Demonic Core shrivel in its chest cavity. Her eyes—twin supernovae of gold—locked onto the dragon and qilin. The Mark she’d left on my cheek during Lockdarn burned like a brand.

  It was the Matriarch of the Moon Wolf Tribe.

  [Vargathrian, of the First Apocalypse, Level 240]

  “I am very disappointed.” Her voice unraveled the mountain’s silence, every word cracking stone. Aokai’s tail coiled tight against his fnk, the sake gourd trembling in his cw. Lady Bai dipped her antlers in a bow so deep her muzzle brushed snow. “You’ve both sensed my Mark upon this pup. And yet...”

  The White Wolf’s paw lifted gently—a casual gesture that sent fissures racing down the mountainside. “...You let your petty squabbles nearly shatter the pce I allowed you to rest in.”

  Aokai’s growl rumbled deep, but his cws retracted. “Boss. This whelp stole—”

  “Silence.” Vargathrian’s tail flicked, and the dragon’s jaw snapped shut with a crack of breaking air. “I know Feng Huang far longer than you, you brat, even if you two were married. I know her better. She'd have wanted her Essense not for you to protect it, but for a future generation to inherit it—you know this too. Tsk.”

  I didn’t know what was going on. If this was really Vargathrian in person, or if a spiritual presence. Somehow, I had something more important to care for. I tried to stand. My legs buckled, knees hitting the ice. But I still went toward Sora’s smoldering form y five paces away—so close, her feathers still shedding wisps of gold smoke. Vyrn hooted frantically, pecking at my ear.

  I held Sora in my arms, sighing as I realized she was still alive. Now that there was no csh, she was regenerating. I turned my head to Lilian’s grandmother.

  “Matriarch,” my voice was hoarse through bloodied teeth, “thank you.”

  Vargathrian’s ear twitched. “You had the situation handled, so thank yourself. Take a rest.” She said, and I just stared at her.

  I nodded a second ter, and my world went dark for the umpteenth time today.

  TheVeiledMan