Volume 2, Chapter 18: The Rusting of the Rose
The sun was slowly sinking behind the horizon, painting the sky in warm shades of orange and purple. Long shadows stretched across the perimeter forest outside Anito Academy. It was that peaceful time of evening when the daytime birds had gone quiet and the night insects had not yet begun their chorus. Tang Ya enjoyed moments like this. The quiet helped her clear her mind after a long day of training.
She walked along a familiar path, her boots making soft sounds on the dry leaves. As a senior student in the Hall of Execution, she had been given a simple task — clear away some lingering spiritual debris near the old boundary stones using her "Pa" (ᜉ) markings for purification. It wasn't the most exciting job, but she liked the calm feeling when her Blue Silver Grass responded to her will.
"Almost finished," she whispered softly to herself. She raised her hand and traced a small symbol in the air. A healthy vine of Blue Silver Grass sprouted from the base of a tree, its leaves giving off a gentle, clean white glow that slowly pushed away the faint darkness clinging to the area.
But then the air changed.
The temperature dropped sharply. It wasn't the normal coolness of evening — this cold felt deep and unnatural, like something was draining the warmth straight from her bones.
A short distance away, the vibrant green of the forest floor began turning grey. Not the soft grey of winter, but a dull, lifeless ash-grey. The color itself seemed to be sucked out of everything, starting from one single point where a boy in a matte-black cloak stood waiting.
Chen Feng.
His body had changed after his underground refinement. He looked less like a person and more like an empty hole in the world. In his hands, he held a jagged obsidian scythe that seemed to drink in the surrounding light.
"Tang Ya," he said. His voice carried an eerie, unnatural echo. "The pride of the Hall of Execution. You're exactly the test I needed."
Tang Ya didn't waste a second. She was a prodigy for good reason. "There's a disruption here," she said, her voice turning sharp and focused like a true Enforcer. She flicked both wrists, and dozens of strong Blue Silver vines shot forward like living whips. "You're trespassing on Federation grounds. Stand down or be dealt with."
Chen Feng didn't even try to dodge. He simply raised his scythe.
The vines never reached him. The moment they entered the ten-meter space around his body, they began to slow down dramatically. The clean white glow of the "Pa" markings started flickering weakly. The grass didn't just stop growing — it began to wither. Small orange-brown flakes fell from the leaves as they turned brittle and snapped apart.
[Draining Force: Decay.]
[Targeting: Pa marking harmony.]
[Effect: 40% corruption of the natural order.]
Tang Ya's eyes widened in shock. "What… what is this?" she gasped. A heavy, numbing weight pressed down on her soul. Every time she tried to send more power into her vines, it felt like she was pouring water into dry sand — the energy simply vanished.
"It's the future," Chen Feng replied, taking one slow step forward. "Your markings are pretty and clean, but they depend on the world being in perfect balance. My Kamatayan markings don't care about balance. They only know how to consume."
He swung his scythe in a wide arc. The blade didn't just cut the air — it tore a jagged wound through it. A wave of dark, devouring energy rippled straight toward Tang Ya.
She quickly crossed her arms and activated her Crystalline Vessel. A faint pearlescent sheen covered her skin, and for a brief moment the dark wave bounced off. But she could feel the strain. The black energy wasn't just attacking her body — it was searching for any weakness in her stream of soul power, trying to slip inside and corrupt her from within.
'He's not really fighting me,' Tang Ya realized, her heart pounding hard. 'He's trying to rewrite me.'
•••••••
Back at the academy dorms, Huo Yuhao had been sitting on his bed, quietly eating a piece of dried salted fish. It was tough and very salty, but it was what he had after training. Suddenly, he dropped the fish onto the floor.
His All-Seeing Library didn't just activate — it flared blood-red in warning.
"Yuhao!" Electrolux's voice boomed inside his mind like thunder. "The forest perimeter! Someone is tearing a hole in the resonance field. It's that boy with the black scythe again."
Yuhao shot to his feet so fast his chair fell over. There was no time to call for teachers. He could sense Tang Ya's presence growing weaker, flickering like a candle in strong wind.
"Xiaotao!" he shouted, banging on the door of the next room.
Ma Xiaotao burst out immediately, orange embers already dancing in her hair. "I felt it too. The stream of soul power is being disturbed. Where is it coming from?"
"North-east, near the old boundary stones," Yuhao answered quickly. He pulled out a small glowing pill from his pouch — the Mutya ng Daloy, Pearl of the Flow. "I have to use this now. If I don't open my meridians wider, I won't be able to keep up with you."
"Are you sure?" Xiaotao asked, worry clear in her eyes. "Professor Zhou Yi said your body still needs more time to stabilize the Silver-Bone."
"We don't have time," Yuhao said firmly. He swallowed the pill in one gulp.
BOOM!
The world around him exploded into motion. The medicine spread through his body like a rushing river. His meridians expanded rapidly, feeling like high-pressure pipes replacing his old veins.
"Don't let it overwhelm you!" Electrolux warned. "Guide the stream of soul power! Use the Eight Directional Flow to control the pressure!"
Yuhao's eyes glowed with deep violet light. He grabbed Xiaotao's hand. "Let's go! I'll match your speed!"
They shot forward like lightning. Xiaotao spread her phoenix wings and glided through the air, while Yuhao ran on the ground, each step cracking the earth beneath him. He had pushed into x5 Overdrive using Heart-Pulse Ignition. His Crystalline Vessel hummed under the strain, but the Silver-Bone foundation held firm.
'Stay with her. Don't fall behind,' Yuhao thought through gritted teeth. His heart pounded like a tiny engine, pushing power through his body at a dangerous rate. Heat built up in his chest, but he kept running.
In the forest clearing, Tang Ya had fallen to her knees. Her Blue Silver Grass lay scattered around her in withered, rusted piles. Chen Feng stood over her, scythe raised for what looked like the final strike.
"You were a useful test," Chen Feng said coldly, his eyes empty of any feeling. "But your Pa markings are too weak. They can't purify what they don't understand."
Tang Ya looked up at him, exhausted and breathing hard. Her soul power was almost gone. But deep inside, something stirred — an old echo from her bloodline, a connection that went all the way back to Lakan's era.
'I am not just any student,' she thought. 'I am an Enforcer of the Sovereign's Law.'
She reached out and grabbed one single withered blade of grass. "You think you've won just because you broke my tools?" she whispered. "But grass… always finds a way to grow back."
She didn't rely on the normal Pa markings. Instead, she reached for something deeper — the Seven-Tone vibration she had seen in ancient records. She focused on the living rhythm of the world itself.
A new symbol formed clearly in her mind. It wasn't a standard Baybayin marking. It was something older and stronger — a Phoenix variant that didn't just purify, it rooted life firmly in place.
"ᜇ" (Da — Daluyan).
The single blade of grass in her hand didn't glow white. It burst into a deep, brilliant emerald green. And then it exploded outward.
In seconds, the dead grey ground around Tang Ya was covered by a surging tide of healthy grass. The new growth didn't just resist the decay — it completely ignored it. The devouring force had nothing to latch onto because the grass was no longer something that could be corrupted. It had become a pure expression of life itself.
"What is this?!" Chen Feng shouted, swinging his scythe wildly. The black blade struck the emerald grass and bounced back hard, as if hitting solid metal. "My power says this shouldn't be possible! You're too weak for this!"
"Then your power is wrong," Tang Ya replied, her eyes shining with calm emerald light.
A blazing streak of fire and a loud sonic boom suddenly tore through the clearing.
Ma Xiaotao landed like a falling star, her phoenix flames burning away the dark mist in seconds. Right beside her, Yuhao skidded to a stop, steam rising from his overheated body as his Crystalline Vessel worked to cool down.
"Tang Ya!" Xiaotao shouted, her hands wrapped in bright gold-orange fire. "Get away from her, you monster!"
Chen Feng looked at the three of them. Warning messages flooded his corrupted system.
[Multiple high-resonance targets detected.]
[Target Huo Yuhao is projecting a counter-force field.]
[Success chance: 12%. Recommendation: Immediate retreat.]
"This isn't over," Chen Feng spat. He looked like a cornered animal now. "You can keep your perfect Sovereign world for a little longer. But every marking you use, every tool you build — you're just giving me more things to break down. I'll see you at the gates of Slaughter City."
He slammed his scythe into the ground. Thick black oily smoke exploded outward. When Xiaotao's flames finally cleared the smoke, Chen Feng had already vanished.
•••••
High up in the faculty lounge, Professor Lakas let out a long, tired breath. He was slumped in an armchair, his hands still shaking slightly from the tension.
He had watched the entire fight through the academy's resonance network. Several times his hand had hovered over the emergency override, ready to erase Chen Feng completely.
But he had held back.
Lakan looked down at his mortal hands. He remembered being a child on Earth, watching his little brother fall off a bicycle and scrape his knee. He had wanted to run over and hold the bike for him, to keep him safe. But his father had stopped him, saying, "Let him learn to balance on his own. If you always hold it, he'll never learn to ride by himself."
He felt that same ache now. He had built this world and given them tools, but he couldn't hold their hands forever. They needed to face threats like Chen Feng and grow stronger through their own efforts.
"She actually found the Da marking," Lakan whispered to the empty room, a small proud smile forming on his face. "She really did it."
He picked up his cup of coffee. It had gone cold, but he drank it anyway. The bitter taste helped ground him.
"They're growing up," he said softly. "And they're doing it without me holding the bike."
•••••••
In the forest clearing, Yuhao finally collapsed onto the soft grass. His muscles felt like heavy lead. The Mutya ng Daloy had worked, but the price on his body was heavy.
"You okay?" Xiaotao asked, kneeling beside him. She looked exhausted too, her flames finally gone.
"I'm… fine," Yuhao panted. He turned to Tang Ya, who stood in the middle of her beautiful emerald garden. "Sister Tang Ya… that was incredible. What kind of marking was that?"
Tang Ya looked down at her own hands. The emerald glow was slowly fading, but she felt a new strength and solidity in her soul. "I'm not completely sure," she admitted. "It felt like I was finally speaking the language the world itself wanted me to use."
She walked over and helped Yuhao stand up. "But we're still not ready. That boy… he wasn't normal. We need to train harder. We need to perfect our Crystalline Vessels."
Yuhao nodded, looking toward the dark mountains in the distance. "Because he won't stop coming."
As the three of them walked back toward the academy, the moon rose high above the trees. The night seemed peaceful, but beneath the surface, a dangerous new tension was spreading. The real struggle for the future of the Douluo Continent had only just begun.
End of Volume 2, Chapter 18