The streets of Ling An trembled under the weight of cannon fire.
Zhou had advanced their heavy batteries into the northern quarter, firing directly into the city's heart. Mortar shells arced overhead, bursting against tiled rooftops in showers of sparks. Musketeers exchanged volleys from street corners, their matchcords glowing like dying fireflies.
Citizens fled in blind panic, tripping over broken beams and shattered stone.
But we rode straight into it.
The Black Tigers swept into the alleys, carving through Zhou musketeers in the smoke. The Golden Dragons fired disciplined volleys from behind overturned carts. Every shot echoed like a hammer on bone.
Shen Yue kept close beside me, breath ragged.
"An—take cover—!"
A mortar shell crashed into the street, erupting in a plume of stone and flame. The blast wave struck us like a wall; horses stumbled, men screamed, ears bled.
I didn't flinch.
Something inside me absorbed the shock. The world tilted, the air shimmered, and then everything snapped back into focus sharper than before.
Shen Yue saw it.
She stared at me, horrified. "That blast—no one should've stayed in the saddle— An, what—?"
I didn't answer.
The being inside me pressed against the edges of my mind—
not speaking,
not suggesting,
just shaping.
Sharpening.
Aligning.
Human panic no longer brushed against me.
Human fear no longer stirred anything familiar.
Even the screams blurred into static.
Liao Yun noticed. He watched me as if seeing a stranger in my armor.
"My lord… you didn't even… react."
I turned toward him slowly.
"Reactions waste time."
The words came out colder than I intended.
Or perhaps exactly as the being intended.
Another Zhou volley tore through the street, musket shots ricocheting off stone.
A bullet struck my shoulder.
It should've spun me sideways.
Instead, the force dissolved into a numb spreading heat.
Shen Yue gasped. "An, you're hit—!"
"No."
I looked down.
The bullet had torn through flesh but not slowed me.
My blood fell in a thin line onto the stones, steaming faintly as if the air rejected it.
Shen Yue touched my arm, trembling. "Your blood… it's—wrong."
Liao Yun tightened grip on his reins, dread in his eyes.
"My lord," he whispered, "what did the Hei do to you?"
I didn't have an answer.
Not one they would accept.
But the being surged again—
a cold ripple down my spine, hungry, impatient, amused.
My vision narrowed.
Every corridor, every intersection became geometry.
Every soldier a moving angle.
Every bullet arc a predictable shape.
I raised my hand.
"Forward," I said.
And we moved.
Not as an army—
as a blade.
Zhou forces began to falter.
Not because they lacked discipline.
Not because they lacked numbers.
But because something unnatural began carving through their skirmish lines.
One musketeer screamed when he saw me approaching through the smoke.
"He—he's not falling—! Reload! Reload—!"
Their volley cracked.
Three bullets grazed my armor.
One pierced my coat.
None slowed me.
I closed the distance faster than their eyes followed.
Shen Yue saw what I did to them.
She flinched.
I didn't use a single wasted movement.
No anger.
No fury.
Just precise, detached cuts—throat, artery, tendon.
Like trimming thread.
One soldier dropped his musket and ran.
I caught him by the back of the neck.
He convulsed.
My hand didn't even tighten.
Shen Yue whispered, voice shaking, "An… stop. They're retreating. This isn't battle anymore. This is—"
Liao Yun interrupted, voice barely audible:
"This is slaughter."
I stopped only because a tremor shook the ground hard enough to crack the street beneath our feet.
The tower pulsed again.
A deep, resonant boom rolled through the city.
Not cannon fire.
Not mortars.
The ritual.
The second bell had rung.
And now the lines of the city twisted again, bending in ways that made walls ripple and shadows lean the wrong direction.
In the Lotus Quarter, Wu Jin dragged Wu Shuang across the inner walkway as cannonballs smashed into the outer walls.
"Sister, stay conscious—stay with me—!"
She could barely walk.
Her body convulsed with each pulse of the tower.
"The circle… it's pulling…" she whispered. "I can't… resist. Jin—don't let him—"
The tower's glow reached her eyes.
She went rigid.
Jin clutched her shoulders, terrified. "Shuang! Look at me!"
But she was staring past him, toward the tower's heart, breath shallow.
"I'm not… supposed to survive this," she whispered.
A cannonball crashed into the rooftop above them. Jin shielded her with his cloak as tiles shattered around them.
"We're leaving," he said fiercely.
"No." Her voice was quiet, hollow. "I think Father is already inside me."
Jin froze.
Deep below, the Lord Protector lifted his blade again.
Blood dripped into the basin.
The tower inhaled.
The third offering began.
The ground split in a jagged line down the sanctum, as if something vast beneath the earth reached upward.
He didn't look afraid.
He looked vindicated.
We reached the Lotus Quarter entrance.
Or what remained of it.
Half the district was on fire. Musketeers traded shots from windows. Swivel guns rotated atop balconies, throwing iron scrap down the streets. The Lotus gates had been blown outward by cannon fire. Zhou grenadiers marched inside, lighting fuses on clay grenade pots.
My men stopped, horrified.
"Lord Wu An… this is a killing ground—"
"It is," I said.
"And we walk through."
Shen Yue grabbed my wrist.
"An—look at yourself. You're not blinking. You're not bleeding. You're not—"
Human.
She didn't say it, but she didn't have to.
The being inside me tightened again—
a cold, serpentine coil readying itself.
I gently removed her hand from my wrist.
"We move," I said.
Liao Yun swallowed hard, nodding.
The Black Tigers steeled their resolve.
The Golden Dragons raised their banner again.
Smoke curled around us like a living thing.
Ahead, the tower's glow blazed through the haze.
Somewhere inside it —
my father waited,
my sister trembled,
and the ritual devoured the city breath by breath.
I stepped forward.
And I did not feel my heartbeat.
Not anymore.