Time became a forge. With Bone Sage's guidance, the catacomb wasn't just a tomb—it was an academy of forgotten arts. Lin Feng didn't just cultivate Death Qi; he understood it. He learned to shape it, to give it purpose beyond mere consumption.
He moved through the stances of the Rust-Sword Form, the Swift River Technique, the Turtle Shell Defense. Bone Sage watched, a silent critic, then spoke. YOU SEE THE TREES, NOT THE FOREST. THE TECHNIQUES ARE VESSELS. YOUR ENERGY IS THE WINE. DO NOT POUR NEW WINE INTO OLD SKINS. MIX THE KEGS.
The advice clicked. Lin Feng stopped practicing the forms separately. In the dark, with only the panther as a moving target, he began to blend them. He took the flowing footwork of the Swift River, the abrupt, piercing aggression of the Dragon-Severing Blade Art's initial thrust, and the silent, predatory initiation of the panther's Cloak of Shadows.
He failed. Again and again. His energy spluttered, conflicting.
YOU ARE FORCING, Bone Sage observed. DO NOT COMMAND THE ENERGY TO BECOME A TECHNIQUE. COMMAND IT TO BECOME AN EFFECT. SEE THE RESULT: A STRIKE FROM NOWHERE THAT CUTS DEEP. NOW, MAKE THE ENERGY OBEY THAT VISION.
Lin Feng closed his eyes. He didn't think of forms. He thought of result: a shadow that became a killing blow.
He moved.
Death Qi surged from his core, not along the pre-set meridians of a stolen technique, but in a new, instinctual pathway. It wrapped around him, bending the light, muffling his sound for a single, crucial second. Then it coalesced in his fist, shaping itself into a concentrated point of penetrating force.
He struck a stone pillar.
The impact was a dull thud, not a crack. But when he pulled back, the stone had a perfect, inch-deep impression of his knuckles, with hairline fractures spreading out like a web. The surface around the impression was unnaturally dark, as if all color had been leeched away.
[New Technique Synthesized: Shadow Dragon Strike.]
[Effect: Brief stealth initiation followed by concentrated armor-piercing force. Amplified by Death Qi.]
He breathed heavily, a fierce grin touching his lips. He had created something that was his own.
[Cultivation Breakthrough: Qi Condensation (Death-Aspected), Stage 4.]
Power, equal to Lin Tao's, thrummed in his veins. It was not the bright, showy power of the clan's正统 cultivation. It was a silent, deep, and cold current. But it was real.
The urgent whistle from the catacomb entrance—Han Wei's signal—shattered his focus.
The branch disciple's face was ashen. "The council," he panted. "Lin Tao has been lobbying all night. He's gathered three elders to his side. They're claiming geomantic instability—bad harvests, Qi blockages in the junior disciples—all because of 'unquiet dead' in the forbidden catacombs. They've called a voice-vote at dawn, in the main hall. To authorize a 'cleansing expedition,' led by him."
Lin Feng's blood went cold. If Lin Tao entered the catacombs with authority and witnesses, he would find the opened door. He would find Bone Sage. He might, in his ignorant greed, break the remaining seals on the coffins or worse, disturb the Corruption Source itself.
The careful plan of gradual revenge was incinerated in the face of imminent catastrophe.
"He moves tomorrow," Lin Feng stated.
"At dawn," Han Wei confirmed.
Then I move tonight.
Bone Sage's voice resonated in his mind. THE SHADOW GAME ENDS. YOU MUST MEET THE SUN TO CAST A LONGER SHADOW. YOU HAVE THE STRENGTH TO CHALLENGE. BUT YOU LACK THE RIGHT.
"I'm dead in their eyes."
THEN COME BACK TO LIFE. NOT AS A CORPSE, BUT AS AN AVATAR. CLAN LORE IS RIPE WITH TALES OF ANCESTRAL SPIRIT POSSESSION—THE WEAK SCION TOUCHED BY THE MIGHT OF THE FOREFATHERS, RETURNED WITH WISDOM AND POWER. IT IS A TROPE THEY WILL WANT TO BELIEVE. IT COVERS THE CHANGE IN YOUR ENERGY, YOUR NEWFOUND STRENGTH. PLAY THE PART, HEIR OF KAELON.
It was a gamble of staggering arrogance. To walk in and claim a divine mandate.
But it was the only play left.
He spent the remaining hours of darkness practicing not cultivation, but performance. He rehearsed his bearing—straighter, older, with a distant look in his eyes. He softened the cold, necrotic edge of his Death Qi, letting it feel more like the chill of an ancient tomb, less like the grip of a grave. He became Lin Feng, but Lin Feng as painted in the legends of his clan.
As the first true light of dawn bleached the stars, he stood at the edge of the main courtyard, looking at the Great Hall. His family's banners hung limp in the still air. Inside, his fate and the clan's would be debated.
He wore simple, clean disciple robes Han Wei had procured. He looked like the Lin Feng they remembered. Only the eyes were different.
"Showtime," he whispered to the empty air, and stepped out of the shadows.
He walked across the flagstones. A servant carrying a tea tray saw him, froze, and dropped the porcelain with a spectacular crash. Lin Feng did not look over. His gaze was fixed on the hall's open doors.
Whispers became stares. Stares became gasps. A crowd began to form, a silent, widening wake behind him as he walked.
He entered the Great Hall.
The murmur of elder debate died instantly.
The hall was lined with the clan's leadership. At the head, on the twin thrones of jade and ironwood, sat Lin Zhan and Qing Mei. His father looked weary, his mother stern. Lin Mei stood at her mother's side, her eyes red-rimmed from sleepless worry.
And there, standing before the elders, making his case with sweeping gestures, was Lin Tao. His voice, so confident a moment before, trailed off into nothing as he followed the frozen gaze of the entire room.
Lin Tao turned.
His face, so full of cunning ambition, drained of all color. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged. He looked like a man seeing his own nightmare woven into flesh.
Lin Feng walked down the central aisle, every footfall echoing in the perfect silence. He stopped, halfway between the doors and the thrones. He looked at his parents.
In his father's eyes, he saw a storm of emotion—shock, a desperate, wild hope, and a deep, wary confusion. In his mother's, he saw a piercing analysis, searching for a trick, for an impostor. In Lin Mei's, he saw pure, unadulterated joy, instantly brimming with tears.
He gave her the faintest, smallest nod. I am here.
Then he turned to the assembly, his voice clear and calm, carrying to every corner.
"I am Lin Feng. Son of Lin Zhan and Qing Mei. I did not die."
The silence broke into a torrent of murmurs.
He continued, overriding them. "I was sent into a death-like sleep by poison. Buried alive. And in the darkness of the tomb, where our ancestral spirits reside… I was tested. I was judged. And I was found worthy."
He let a wisp of his energy, carefully filtered to feel old and austere, brush against the room. It was a chilling sensation, but not a corrupt one. It felt like the opening of a long-sealed vault.
"The ancestors have granted me a return. A purpose. They have shown me the true poison that afflicts our clan. It is not in our catacombs. It walks among us in daylight."
He raised his arm, his finger unerring, accusing.
"Lin Tao. You poisoned me. You seek now to desecrate our ancestral resting places for your own gain. You conspire with those who would break sacred seals for power."
Lin Tao found his voice, a shrill, outraged thing. "Lies! This is a demon! A trick! He is–"
"SILENCE." The word was not shouted. It was spoken with a finality that came from the grave. It carried the weight of Lin Feng's Death Qi and Bone Sage's ancient authority. Lin Tao flinched as if struck.
Lin Feng looked to the elders, to his father. "The ancestors demand justice. The heavens require proof. I invoke the clan's oldest law. I have returned from the dead to claim my place. I challenge my cousin, Lin Tao, to a mortal duel in the arena of the Clan Youth Tournament. Let our blades, and the will of heaven, decide the truth of my words and the blackness of his soul."
He locked eyes with Lin Tao, who was now pale and trembling, not with fear, but with furious, cornered panic.
"Do you accept, cousin? Or do you admit your guilt before all?"
The Great Hall erupted. Elders shouted over one another. Lin Mei was crying openly. Qing Mei's hand was clamped over her mouth, her eyes wide. Lin Zhan rose from his throne, a mountain of a man trembling with emotion, looking at his returned son as if he were a miracle and a thunderclap all at once.
And Lin Feng stood in the center of the storm, a cold, still point. The hidden war was over.
The war had just begun.