Left alone in the vast, echoing hall, Hu Gan walked over to the massive glass window that overlooked the sprawling expanse of Jia Nan City and the dark, treacherous Buffer Zone beyond it. The moon cast a silver glow over the Black-Corner Region.
The white-haired Deputy Headmaster placed his hands behind his back, a profound sense of anticipation warming his ancient blood.
"Boy," Hu Gan murmured to the empty room, looking up at the starry sky. "What more terrifying surprises will you bring us in the future? I suppose... we shall just wait and see."
While the titans of the academy plotted the future of the continent, the silent, heavy hours of the deep night settled over the freshmen dormitory district.
In a standard, yet comfortably furnished room located in the upper tiers of Sector D, Xiao Yu lay fast asleep.
The moonlight filtered through the bamboo blinds, casting long, striped shadows across her resting face. But beneath the surface of her peaceful slumber, a violent, beautiful storm was raging within her subconscious mind.
She was dreaming. Or rather, she was reliving the profound, emotionally explosive moments from the garden just hours prior.
In the depths of her mind, she felt it all over again. The crushing, suffocating despair of being left behind on the dirt while her brother soared into the heavens. The sudden, absolute weight of his crimson eyes locking onto hers.
The deep, rumbling resonance of his voice echoing an unbreakable oath: I will not allow it. Even in her sleep, an overwhelming, profound sweetness blossomed in the center of her chest. It was a mixture of absolute relief, unadulterated familial love, and a fierce, burning desire.
Her outburst of emotion in the garden had not just been a moment of weakness; it was a crystallization of her entire existence. Her conviction forged itself into a singular, unbreakable spear: I will stand by his side. I will not be a burden. I will bleed, I will break, and I will rebuild myself until I am worthy of his blade.
This sheer, unparalleled force of will, driven by the absolute purity of her desire to protect her bloodline, acted as a catalyst.
Deep within the darkest, most microscopic recesses of her bone marrow, something... clicked.
It was a soundless snap, like an ancient, rusted lock finally giving way under immense pressure. It wasn't the standard Dou Qi breakthrough of a Dou Zhe. It was something profoundly strange. Something that felt like an awakening.
It was ancient. No—it was primordial. It carried a heavy, terrifying majesty that defied the very logic of the current Dou Qi Continent, a lingering whisper from an era when gods walked the earth.
From the shattered remnants of that microscopic, genetic seal, a single, impossibly small drop of blood emerged.
It was no larger than the absolute point of a needle, yet it radiated a heat that rivaled the core of a volcano. It was not crimson; it was a deep, mesmerizing violet laced with brilliant, iridescent streaks of rose.
The primordial drop detached from her marrow and flowed directly into her bloodstream, instantly mixing with her ordinary, mortal blood.
The reaction was instantaneous and violent.
GASP!
Xiao Yu's eyes snapped wide open. She bolted upright in her bed, a strangled, terrified gasp tearing from her throat as if she were waking from a suffocating nightmare.
Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a war drum, beating at a speed that should have ruptured her mortal veins.
"What... what was that?" Xiao Yu panted, her hands clutching the thick quilt to her chest. Her eyes darted wildly around the dark, empty dormitory room, expecting to see an assassin or a magical beast standing over her bed.
There was nothing. Just the quiet hum of the night.
But her body was in absolute turmoil. She felt an intense, overwhelming heat radiating from her very core, spreading rapidly to her fingertips and toes. It wasn't the burning pain of a fire-attribute attack; it was a deep, flush heat, like a dormant furnace violently igniting inside her chest.
She quickly realized she was completely drenched. Her thin nightclothes were sticking uncomfortably to her skin, soaked through with a heavy layer of sweat.
"Heavens, did I catch a fever from the Buffer Zone fog?" she muttered to herself, shivering slightly as the cool night air hit her sweat-drenched skin.
Trying to calm her racing heart, Xiao Yu closed her eyes and immediately initiated her clan's basic cultivation method. She drew upon her pale blue, water-attribute Dou Qi. With practiced ease, she flushed the cool, refreshing energy through her meridians, pushing the Dou Qi outward to the surface of her skin.
Within seconds, the layer of sweat rapidly evaporated into a faint mist, leaving her skin perfectly clean and cool.
She slipped out of bed, her legs feeling strangely light and incredibly powerful, though she was too distracted to notice. She quickly stripped off the damp sleepwear and changed into a fresh, dry set of light silk nightclothes from her travel pack.
Crawling back under the thick quilt, Xiao Yu let out a long, exhausted sigh. The terrifying, heart-pounding sensation of the nightmare was already fading, rapidly replaced by that lingering, profound sweetness in her chest.
She curled onto her side, hugging a pillow tightly. A small, involuntary smile tugged at the corners of her lips as the memory of the garden resurfaced. She remembered jumping on Yoriichi, the sheer shock on his usually stoic face when she kissed his cheek, and his dry, infuriatingly calm humor.
"This must be that guy's fault," Xiao Yu whispered into the dark room, her tone a mixture of fond annoyance and deep affection. "Hmph. Always trying to impress me with those grand, god-like promises, messing with my head until I have weird fever dreams."
She closed her eyes, the rhythmic, comforting sound of the crickets outside lulling her back toward the edges of sleep.
Her breathing steadied. Her heart rate returned to normal. To Xiao Yu, the bizarre, terrifying moment had passed, chalked up to nothing more than exhaustion and an overactive imagination. She went back to a normal, peaceful sleep.
Her body appeared to be working perfectly normally.
But deep within her veins, the blood flowing through her circulatory system felt profoundly different. The tiny, microscopic drop of violet-rosy had entirely assimilated, silently and irrevocably altering the very fabric of her existence, waiting for the perfect moment to fully ignite.
And if someone had been standing in the dark room, silently observing her as she drifted back into unconsciousness, they would have been absolutely terrified.
Because just as Xiao Yu's breathing leveled out into a deep slumber, her closed eyelids fluttered.
For a single, breathtaking fraction of a second, her eyes dilated in the dark. The irises did not glow with her usual human color, nor did they reflect the pale blue of her water Dou Qi.
They ignited with a brilliant, ancient, and terrifyingly majestic violet-rosy light that pierced the shadows of the room, before instantly fading back into the mundane darkness.
Only the silent passage of future time knew exactly what monstrous, unprecedented fate now awaited the girl who refused to be left behind.
--------------------------
Ahhh.... Finally 1M🥳🥳