Jiang Wuyu passed through the clan gates without a word, the guards and disciples staring in confusion. Their patriarch was supposed to be fighting against the stone path hall—what was he doing here?
He stopped for a single heartbeat, his chest rising and falling slowly, as if weighing the final nail in his own soul's coffin.
"Everything… for my son."
The resolve hardened. The blade left its sheath.
The first head rolled before anyone could scream. Blood began to paint the stones of the courtyard as Jiang Wuyu carved his way forward without hesitation. His blade sang with cold fury, his one remaining arm never faltering. Those who bore his blood—be they from the main family or branch—were struck down. In the past, he would have spared the main family's children, allowing the clan's bloodline to endure. But now… now the clan meant nothing.
The only weight in his heart was the boy he called son.
One by one, they fell. Wives. Nieces. Nephews. Cousins. Even those who had smiled at him the day before. The air reeked of iron and smoke. When it was over, his storage ring held the cold bodies of everyone who carried his direct blood.
He reached the inner residence, pushing open a familiar door. Inside, the boy lay upon the bed, sweat soaking his hair, tears streaking his pale face.
"...F-Father…" the weak voice called.
Jiang Wuyu felt his chest tighten, something ancient and fragile inside him cracking into dust. Without a word, he stepped to the far wall and pressed his hand to a hidden panel. Stone shifted aside to reveal a shadowed passageway.
He lifted his son in his only arm, holding him as gently as if he were carved from glass, and stepped inside. The door closed behind them, sealing them in darkness.
The path was short. It led to a circular chamber deep beneath the earth. The walls were lined with black crystal veins, each pulsing faintly, as though the cavern itself had a heartbeat.
He set his son down upon a circular altar of obsidian. Strange markings crawled across its surface—sigils that did not belong to this land. At the center was a hollow depression, ready to hold the heart of the ritual.
From his ring, Jiang Wuyu began to take out the tools:
Daggers of bone carved from beasts extinct for centuries.
Bowls of black jade etched with living runes.
Strings of soul-silk that shimmered like moonlight on blood.
And finally… the cold, limp bodies of his children.
He arranged them around the altar in a perfect spiral, their lifeless forms becoming part of the ritual pattern. Each body glowed faintly as he traced symbols over their skin with a blade dipped in his own blood.
From another pouch, he drew forth the prize—the Demonic Core of the Crimson Vein Tree , pulsing with abyssal light.
He began the incantation. His voice was low at first, but soon the chamber shook with the resonance of the words. It was an art whispered of only in the far lands, known as The Phoenix of the Black Dawn—a forbidden resurrection that did not give life back… it rebuilt life anew.
The ritual's first stage tore the blood from the corpses around the altar, red streams lifting into the air, swirling into a vortex above the boy's body. The second stage broke the bodies themselves into dust, their essence threading into the vortex until it blazed like a crimson sun.
Jiang Wuyu then split the Demonic Core in two with the bone daggers, each half shrieking like a living thing. The halves dissolved into the vortex, staining it black and gold.
The swirling mass descended, wrapping his son in light and shadow both. Every vein in the boy's body began to glow—first red, then black, then the molten gold of a rising dawn. The chamber's crystals pulsed faster, as though feeding the rebirth.
The final stage came. Jiang Wuyu bit his own tongue and spat his heart's blood onto the altar, roaring the last words of the incantation. The sigils flared, the vortex collapsed into the boy's chest—
—and the silence that followed was absolute.
The Phoenix of the Black Dawn had taken root.
The air, heavy with the lingering scent of blood and demonic energy, finally settled.
From the center of the ritual circle, the boy stood—no, rose—a figure utterly transformed.
His once frail frame was now carved with lean, powerful muscle, each movement radiating restrained strength. Black hair, now streaked with strands of deep violet, fell in wild, untamed waves around his face. His eyes… they were no longer clouded and dim—they burned, sharp and fierce, mirroring the exact shade and depth of his father's gaze, a reflection of the man who had remade him.
He was taller now, his head reaching just below Jiang Wuyu's massive frame, the perfect stature for a youth of sixteen whose body promised even more growth to come. When he spoke, his voice was deep, resonant, and carried the weight of vitality that had been denied to him all his life.
"F… father."
The single word cracked something inside Jiang Wuyu that years of slaughter and betrayal had failed to touch. Tears, unrestrained and glistening, welled in the eyes of the man who had stood unshaken before countless enemies. He stormed forward and wrapped his son in his sole remaining arm, crushing him against his chest as though afraid the boy might vanish if he let go.
"Finally… I did it. I DID IT!"
"Zhenyu… I brought you back—HAHAHAHA!"
His laughter was wild, unrefined joy. It was the sound of a man who had traded away honor, kin, and the very legacy of his clan for one thing—and finally held it in his grasp.
Zhenyu's hands, once so weak they could barely lift a spoon, now gripped his father's back with strength he never imagined. A storm of emotions clashed within him—shock, awe, disbelief—and above all, the deep ache of love. Only moments ago, he had been trapped in a half-life of agony, his vision blurred, his body unable to obey even the smallest command, his days filled with the endless desire for death's quiet release.
Yet through it all, there had been that voice—the voice of his father—promising him a future free of pain, swearing that no matter the cost, he would be made whole.
The reality was here.
And it was overwhelming.
Tears burst forth, hot and unrelenting, streaming down his cheeks like rivers. He clung to Jiang Wuyu with the desperate intensity of a child who had returned from the brink. His words came out in muffled sobs, half-choked by emotion, but the meaning was clear even through the incoherence.
"Thank you… thank you… thank you, Father…"
In that bloodstained chamber, surrounded by the remnants of the unthinkable sacrifices that made this moment possible, father and son stood—one who had given everything, and one who had been given a second life.
Zhenyu kept hugging his father, his newly strengthened arms refusing to let go, as though he feared Jiang Wuyu might vanish if he did. But after a moment, Wuyu gently pushed him back, his face tightening in visible pain—not just physical, but something deeper.
"Zhenyu… I need you to listen to me very closely, alright?"
The boy nodded, confusion mixing with concern.
"I… I have done terrible things, son. Things that will mark me forever as a demonic cultivator. I have killed many—too many. People from our clan… people from other clans… even innocents. All for one goal."
Zhenyu's eyes widened, but he said nothing, only listening, a knot forming in his stomach.
"And to bring you back… I didn't just kill. I used a forbidden art. I took from the dead, from a demonic beast's core, and twisted life itself. The empire… the great sects of our land—you remember them, yes?"
Zhenyu nodded silently.
"They want me dead for this. And when they come for me, they will not stop at me—they will annihilate anyone carrying the Jiang bloodline."
Zhenyu's frown deepened, but he forced a hopeful tone.
"Then… then we should just leave! We can hide, stay far away from the empire until things calm down, right?"
But the only answer he received was a warm, yet unbearably sad smile.
It was then that Zhenyu's eyes truly took in his father's condition—the empty left sleeve where an arm should have been, the missing eye, the blackened veins crawling across his neck, the deep, unhealed wounds layered across his body. His father's frame was as towering as ever, but it looked… spent, like a mountain eroded by countless storms.
Tears welled in Zhenyu's eyes.
"Father… wait, no—you healed me! I was worse than this! You can heal yourself too, right? Right?!"
Jiang Wuyu shook his head slowly, a faint smile still on his lips.
"My son… I don't have the power to heal this. Nor do I have the time to search for one who can. And even if I could leave this place, the empire would never stop hunting me. Worse… they know you exist."
Zhenyu's voice cracked into a desperate plea.
"No! No, we can find a way! We can pay healers, beg them, bribe them—anything! Someone out there must be able to—"
"Not even the Imperial Healer herself—the greatest master of the medicine path—could heal what I carry now," Wuyu interrupted gently. "This corruption… it is beyond repair. And it's fine, Zhenyu. I accepted my death the day I went after the materials to save you."
His massive hand rested on his son's head, pulling him into one last, unshakable embrace.
"All I ever wanted… was to see you stand on your own two feet. To hear your voice without pain. I have that now. My work is done."
Zhenyu's protests poured out in a stream of frantic words—solutions, bargains, wild ideas born of fear—but his father spoke over them, his tone firm yet unbearably tender.
"Take this ring."
A simple storage ring, worn from decades of battle, was pressed into Zhenyu's palm.
"It holds everything I have—every treasure, every weapon, every scrap of knowledge I've ever claimed. With it, you will have enough to reach the Emberwake Realm… perhaps even the Coreforged Realm if fortune smiles upon you in the Far Lands."
Zhenyu's tears fell harder as he shook his head.
"No… no, I don't want your treasures, I want you!"
"You will take the ring," Wuyu said firmly, his voice leaving no room for refusal, "and you will leave through the secret path in this place. From this day forward… you will abandon the name Jiang. Live. Grow strong. And never look back."
The words struck like a blade to the heart.