The Flowing East was a study in contradictions. It smelled of blooming lotus and the faint, coppery tang of spilled blood on the training grounds. Lin Chen stood, an unmovable monolith of the Fleshlands, knee-deep in the placid water of a rice paddy. The Tyrant Ox horn-spear in his grip was a blasphemy here, its dripping, golden ichor staining the clear water. The Heavenly Curse Mark had spread like a venomous, black ivy, climbing his throat. Each pulse was a shard of divine ice in his veins, met only by the hotter, fiercer defiance of the ember in his chest.
Pandemonium. Farmers fled, their tranquility shattered. A Qi patrol boat, a low skiff etched with glowing meridian runes, cut through the water toward him, silent and swift.
Three figures stood upon it, their robes the colour of a deep abyssal current, embroidered with silver veins that mimicked the flow of Qi. Outer disciples of the River Pulse Hall. All at the early Meridian Realm.
The leader was a girl of sixteen, her hair a severe warrior's knot, her eyes sharp as the Jade Flow Sword she leveled at his heart.
"Name yourself,Fleshlands savage!" Her voice was crisp, cutting through the humid air. "You trespass upon Hall territory."
Lin Chen slowly wiped a smear of Ox blood from his cheek, the gesture unnervingly calm.
"Lin Chen.And I'm not trespassing," he said, his voice a low gravel. "I am passing through."
The girl's gaze locked onto the horn-spear, sensing the immense, dormant power within. "Tyrant Ox essence… impossible. You're Tempering Realm. How could you—?"
Her words were severed.
The Curse Mark on his chest flared like a black sun.
---
Agony. It was not a wave, but a glacier—a thousand needles of black ice piercing inward. He felt the pathways of his potential, the 108 meridians that were his bridge to the next realm, slam shut in a brutal, systematic cascade.
The Gate of Flowing Breath in his lungs—sealed.
The Gate of Crimson Pulsein his heart—sealed.
The Gate of the Jade Riverin his dantian—sealed.
One by one, the doors to heaven were barred by heaven's own decree.
Inside him, the ember screamed in silent fury. Lin Chen coughed, and the blood that spattered the rice stalks was a grotesque tapestry of black corruption and threads of defiant gold.
The girl's sword arm lowered slightly, her bravado replaced by a stunned whisper. "You're… cursed. A Heavenly Curse Mark. You are a Heaven-Defier."
The patrol boat closed in, its disciples now looking at him not as a savage, but as a condemned relic.
---
RIVER PULSE HALL – OUTER COURTYARD
They bound him in Meridian-Locking Chains, cold, intricate metal that hummed with a energy designed to suppress any Qi flow. He was a prize, a paradox, dragged across floating bridges of polished driftwood to the River Pulse Hall itself—a sprawling complex of blue jade and white stone, built directly over a roaring Qi Spring Node.
Whispers followed him like a tide.
"A Dustborn from the Fleshlands…"
"They say he slew a Tyrant Ox with his bare hands."
"Look at the mark…he is a dead man walking."
He was thrown into a Meridian Cleansing Chamber, a stark room where the walls were etched with flowing, luminous runes. In its center lay a pool of Origin Stream Water, glowing with a soft, inviting azure light, said to be able to coax open even the most stubborn meridian gates.
The one who examined him was Elder Shui Lan, a woman whose age was written in the silver waterfalls of her hair, but whose eyes held the sharp, assessing glint of a master physician. She pressed two cool fingers to his wrist, her Qi a delicate probe.
Her face lost all its colour. "One hundred and eight gates… sealed by Heaven's own Will. This is not a mere curse, child. This is a decree. You crossed a forbidden threshold. The Veil itself has branded you."
Her gaze was heavy with a pity that felt like another chain.
"You have two choices.We cut out your heart. The mark dies with you. Or, you become a Cleansing Subject. We attempt to break the seal. If you survive… you serve the Hall for life."
Lin Chen laughed, a raw, bloody sound.
"Third choice,"he rasped, meeting her eyes without a flicker of fear. "I break it myself."
Elder Shui Lan's eyes flashed with impatience. "Arrogance. The last subject lasted three breaths. His meridians exploded from the inside."
Lin Chen stood. The Meridian-Locking Chains, forged to restrain Meridian Realm experts, did not break. They melted, dissolving into molten slag that dripped to the floor, not from heat, but from the sheer, unbending will of the ember within.
---
THE FIRST MERIDIAN: GATE OF CRIMSON PULSE
He walked into the pool of Origin Stream Water. The liquid was not cold, but alive, soaking into his skin with a thousand whispering tendrils of energy. He did not breathe air; he breathed in the Qi of the world.
The water around him began to glow, brighter and brighter, as if a star were being born in its depths.
His sealed heart-gate, the Gate of Crimson Pulse, trembled.
The Curse Mark fought back, black veins crawling over the organ, a cage of divine malice.
He remembered the truth of the First Flame Mantra.
"Blood is fire. Fire is will. Will is the key that opens all gates."
He focused, forcing a single, brilliant strand of ember-fire into the gate. Then another. And another.
The divine seal strained, then shrieked in protest.
BOOM.
The first meridian burst open. Qi, pure and violent, flooded his being like a dam giving way. His heart did not just beat; it ignited. A pillar of golden flame erupted from his chest, not scorching his flesh, but scouring it, purifying it.
The Curse Mark recoiled, retreating a single, significant inch.
Elder Shui Lan staggered back, her professional composure shattered. "Impossible… one gate… in a single breath?"
Lin Chen opened his eyes. They were pools of molten, unforgiving gold.
"One hundred and seven to go."
---
THE TRIAL OF FLOWING VEINS
The Hall elders, intrigued and terrified, convened. They offered a devil's bargain: Pass the Trial of Flowing Veins. Open thirty-six meridians in seven days within the Spiral River.
Succeed, and become an Inner Disciple.
Fail,and your heart is forfeit.
Lin Chen agreed. The trial ground was the Spiral River, a tributary where the Qi flow was reversed, a torrent meant to tear a cultivator's spirit apart.
He dove in.
Day 1: The water was a fist of solid energy, hammering against his sealed pathways. He burned the Tyrant Ox Blood still cycling within him, turning his body into a furnace. The water around him boiled and steamed. Twelve gates opened.
Day 3: He adapted, creating a technique from instinct—Ember Flow Circulation. He cycled his Qi in a violent spiral, mirroring the river's own reversed flow, using his ember-flame to burn the seals with every rotation. The river itself began to run with threads of gold. Fish floated to the surface, cooked. Disciples gathered on the banks, their faces masks of awe and fear. Thirty-six gates opened.
Day 5: The Curse Mark, a living entity of spite, began to adapt, absorbing his hard-won Qi. Feeling his progress slow, he remembered the horn-spear. He drove it into the riverbed, unleashing a concentrated torrent of Tyrant Ox essence into the water. He drank it in, and his meridians screamed as they expanded, reforged in the crucible of a titan's power. Seventy-two gates opened.
Day 7: The final day. The Spiral River did not freeze with ice, but with pressure. Vice Hall Master Liu Feng, a peak Meridian Realm expert who coveted Lin Chen's heart for his own cultivation, stood on the bank. He unleashed his Domain Prototype: Tidal Prison.
The river became a cage of solid energy, crushing down with the weight of a mountain. Lin Chen was driven under.
The 108th gate, the Gate of Eternal Flow in his dantian, remained shut, a final, unyielding fortress. The Curse Mark's voice was a gleeful whisper in his mind: "YOU ARE MINE."
Lin Chen smiled, there in the crushing, silent dark.
He remembered the Ashen Valkyrie's last wish: "Burn brighter."
He did not ignite his Qi. He ignited his very soul.
The ember in his chest became a supernova.
BOOM!
The Tidal Prison shattered. The Spiral River exploded upward in a colossal column of steam and golden light, and Lin Chen rose with it, borne aloft by the torrent, every one of his 108 meridians blazing like a constellation brought to earth.
He landed on the bank, naked, glowing, and utterly unbroken. The Curse Mark had been forced back, now contained over his heart alone.
Vice Hall Master Liu Feng could only stare, his ambition crumbling into dust.
Lin Chen walked past him, his voice calm.
"Inner Disciple?"
Elder Shui Lan, her expression one of profound, terrified reverence, bowed. "Core Disciple."
---
Night draped over the tranquil Hall. It was then that a ship of solidified shadow appeared in the sky above—no sails, no oars, a vessel of pure void. The Ascendant Hunters.
Three figures descended. Meridian Realm peak. Their cloaks were woven from night itself, their faces hidden behind bone masks that held no expression.
One spoke, its voice the sound of a tomb sealing:
"The Heaven-Defier is here.
His heart belongs to the Veil."
Lin Chen stood on the balcony of his new floating pavilion, the horn-spear resting on his shoulder. The Curse Mark pulsed, a beacon he could not extinguish.
He smiled, a flash of white in the moonlight.
"Come and take it."
---
The lead Hunter raised a shard of obsidian that hummed with a familiar, devastating song—a Veil Shard, a fragment of the very Ascension Gate he had crossed. As it activated, Lin Chen's heart stuttered in his chest, seized by a divine arrhythmia.
Deep within, the ember roared in answer.
And miles away, the entire surface of the Spiral Sea began to rotate, a vast, hungry vortex awakening.
---