The Silent Bell's echo faded, leaving behind a hush thick with root dust and slag vapor.
Li Tianyin lay curled in the cracked cradle — ribs aching with fresh fissures, marrow pulsing with ember heat that never cooled.
Above him, the Wilting Dao Tree's branches rattled in the night wind — bark flakes drifted down like black snow, feeding the flaw's endless hunger one final drop at a time.
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The forge ghost hummed through his bones: Iron beyond root. Iron beyond ruin.
The wolf's echo gnawed at the marrow hammer seed — impatient, craving more than root sap and cradle grit.
The pact pulsed: Step out. Devour more.
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His tiny fingers uncurled from the cradle's broken lip. The stone that once tried to seal him in crumbled under his touch — veins of cold iron flaking to dust that the flaw drank greedily.
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He turned his head toward the mouth of the hollow root — where moonlight cut through hanging vines like a knife.
Beyond the root tunnel sprawled the Wilting Dao Sect's outer ruin — cracked terraces buried in bramble, half-fallen pavilions that once rang with disciples' hammer chants.
No torch flickered. No elder's lantern waited to guide him.
Only moonlight. Only ruin.
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His limbs trembled under him — sap-fed muscles thin as wilted reeds.
But the ember-hammer seed glowed steady.
The marrow flame hissed, hungry for new ore.
He pushed himself upright.
A newborn stance — ribs cracking faintly as flawed bone braced flawed flesh.
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On Earth, he'd once stood behind a shed door for three hours straight, just to keep warm air inside the scrap yard forge.
Legs shaking, palms bleeding — but he'd grinned when the rebar glowed cherry red under his master's hammer.
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Here, there was no shed, no warmth to steal.
Only iron waiting beyond dead roots.
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He pulled himself to the root tunnel's mouth. Each drag left flecks of cradle dust, bark grit, and slag smear behind — offerings to the forge that birthed him flawed.
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When his head broke past the hanging vines, the night air struck him cold — sharp enough to bite where the ember flame burned inside.
His eyes cracked open.
Black irises rimmed with faint silver, reflecting the ruin beyond.
Stone terraces overgrown with thorn creepers.
Rust-eaten forge racks half-buried in moss.
Collapsed shrines where spirit ore once slept.
No footstep marked the path.
No sect disciple tended the warding stones — the Silent Bell's roar had shaken them loose, scattering their runes like dead leaves.
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The pact quivered inside his marrow: Step. Feed. Forge.
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He pressed a tiny palm to the cracked threshold stone — cold iron veins hummed beneath the moss. The marrow flame sniffed it through bone.
A flawed breath.
A flawed step.
One foot dragged over the threshold, slipping root cradle for ruin stone.
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The Silent Bell's echo drifted after him — a hush that carried the promise: Root-fed child walks iron's ruin.
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Above, the Wilting Dao Tree's trunk split in silence — sap oozing black as dusk, sealing its final breath into the marrow crack that carried its echo away.
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Li Tianyin stumbled forward — ribs hissing under each breath.
The ember-hammer seed pulsed hotter.
The wolf's echo snarled low: iron ahead, prey ahead, forge ahead.
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Step by broken step, Heaven's flaw left the root's belly — crossing ruin stone toward slag veins waiting in the darkness.
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No master's chant guided him.
No elder's hand steadied him.
Only the pact's growl: Devour iron. Forge again.
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And in the ruin's hush, the flaw answered: Limit devoured. Limit devoured. Limit devoured.
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End of Chapter 13
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