Chapter 39
Iron Burial City slept with one eye open.
Seals layered over seals as the night deepened, formation lights dimmed to a low, watchful glow. The streets emptied, doors barred, windows shuttered with talismans etched in hurried strokes. No celebration followed the Envoy's fall—only fear sharpened into discipline.
Shenping sat alone in a stone chamber carved deep beneath the city.
The room was circular, its walls inscribed with overlapping arrays—ancient brushwork intersecting with precise, machine-cut grooves. In the center, a shallow basin reflected no light. It swallowed it.
"You feel heavier," Gu Tianxu said from the doorway.
Shenping did not look up. "I feel louder."
Gu Tianxu stepped inside, staff now bound with metal braces where it had cracked. "That is the price of forming a principle. The world hears you."
Shenping flexed his fingers. The air resisted, then yielded. "I didn't mean to shatter it."
"You didn't," Gu Tianxu replied. "You refused it."
Silence stretched.
Above them, faint tremors rippled through the city as new wards settled into place.
"They'll come again," Shenping said.
"Yes."
"Soon."
"Yes."
Shenping finally looked up. "Then teach me how not to kill everyone standing near me."
Gu Tianxu's gaze sharpened. "That is not a small request."
"I know."
Gu Tianxu walked to the basin and placed his palm just above its surface. The darkness within rippled.
"Cultivation was once about harmony," he said. "Then it became power. Then survival. What you're doing… is none of these."
The basin trembled.
"You are cultivating assertion," Gu Tianxu continued. "A statement so firm that reality must answer."
Shenping frowned. "That doesn't sound controllable."
"It isn't," Gu Tianxu said. "Not yet."
The door scraped open behind them.
Luo Heng entered, followed by two elders whose cultivation felt uneven, patched together like scavenged armor. Their eyes never left Shenping.
"You've already started," Luo Heng said flatly.
Shenping stood. "I didn't mean to hide it."
"That makes it worse," one elder muttered.
Luo Heng raised a hand. "Enough. We've reviewed the residuals from the Envoy's collapse."
"And?" Gu Tianxu asked.
"And Iron Burial City cannot survive repeated exposure," Luo Heng said. "Our lower layers are aging unevenly. Time pockets are forming."
Shenping clenched his jaw. "Then exile me."
"No," Luo Heng replied. "Then we waste the only chance we have to learn how to survive what's coming."
He stepped closer. "You will train. Publicly controlled. Privately monitored."
Gu Tianxu's eyes narrowed. "You want to turn him into a deterrent."
"I want to turn him into a shield," Luo Heng said. "Or a warning."
Sang Sang's voice came from the doorway. "He's not a thing."
All eyes turned.
She stood there barefoot, wrapped in borrowed robes, her gaze steady despite the tension thickening the air.
Luo Heng studied her. "You're the anchor."
She nodded. "And I remember everything you're afraid of."
One of the elders inhaled sharply. "She shouldn't be here."
"She's already everywhere," Sang Sang said quietly.
The basin rippled violently.
Gu Tianxu moved instantly, slamming his staff down. The inscriptions flared, stabilizing the room.
Shenping turned to Sang Sang. "You shouldn't be near this."
She shook her head. "When you do that thing—when the world bends—it pulls on me too."
Gu Tianxu stared at her. "Explain."
She pressed a hand to her chest. "It feels like being asked a question. Over and over. And every time, I answer the same way."
"What answer?" Luo Heng asked.
"No," Sang Sang said.
The elders exchanged uneasy glances.
Luo Heng exhaled slowly. "Then this city owes you more than we thought."
He turned to Shenping. "Training begins at dawn. Lower Hall. No spectators."
Gu Tianxu nodded. "I'll oversee."
Luo Heng hesitated, then added, "There's something else."
The air thickened.
"Our scouts detected a pattern shift," Luo Heng said. "They're not sending Envoys alone anymore."
Shenping felt the pressure inside his chest stir. "What are they sending?"
Luo Heng's jaw tightened. "People."
Silence fell.
"Captured cultivators," one elder said grimly. "Rebuilt. Conditioned. Returned."
Gu Tianxu's grip whitened on his staff. "They're wearing the living now."
"Yes," Luo Heng said. "And they're aiming for something specific."
Shenping met his gaze. "Me."
"No," Luo Heng replied. "Your connections."
Shenping's blood ran cold.
Sang Sang whispered, "They're going to make you choose."
The basin cracked.
A hairline fracture split its dark surface, light leaking through like a wound.
Gu Tianxu swore under his breath. "They're probing already."
Luo Heng straightened. "Iron Burial City will not hand you over."
Shenping shook his head slowly. "That's not what scares me."
He looked at Sang Sang.
"They're going to hand me someone else."
Far away, beyond Iron Burial City, in a place where time was indexed and emotion reduced to variables, the CORE completed a new construction.
A human body.
A familiar face.
Designation loaded.
Emotional leverage initialized.
The next move was no longer annihilation.
It was temptation.