The descent was a blur of shrieking wind and corrosive malice.
Lu Chen plummeted into the pitch-black throat of the Sword Graves, his eyes locked on the rusted hand of sword intent dragging Ye Xiyue downward. Her golden Qi Yun—a radiant ocean of providence—was violently flickering against the encroaching dark.
Mine, Lu Chen thought, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. Her luck belongs to me. I won't let some rotting corpse steal my harvest.
He summoned his Void Sword Intent, condensing the invisible, formless energy to the tip of his fingers. As he closed the distance in freefall, he slashed downward. There was no flash of light, no thunderous boom. The Void simply erased the space the rusted wrist occupied.
The ancient, severed hand dissolved into a cloud of iron-scented ash. Released from the grip, Ye Xiyue's unconscious body went limp, her internal Heart of the Sword desperately fighting the dark miasma she had absorbed.
Lu Chen caught her waist, twisting his body mid-air to take the brunt of the impact. They crashed through a brittle canopy of petrified roots and slammed onto the cold, damp stone of a subterranean cavern. Pain flared up Lu Chen's spine, but the Perfect Foundation he had forged in the canyon absorbed the worst of it. He rolled to his feet instantly, his senses expanding.
The cavern was thick with a cloying, gray mist. The spiritual energy here was entirely stagnant, tainted by thousands of years of rot. Cultivators who breathed this in would find their meridians clogged within hours.
He glanced at Ye Xiyue. She lay against a cracked stalagmite, her pale skin marred by dark, spider-web veins creeping up her neck. Her golden providence was actively suppressing the curse, buying her time. She would live, but she wouldn't wake up for a while.
"Perfect," Lu Chen muttered. He dragged her into a shallow alcove and hastily arranged a few stones into a rudimentary concealment array. It wouldn't hold up against an elder, but it would hide her from the lesser horrors of the dark.
He needed to scout the area and find an exit before the ancient entity sealed beneath the graves realized its meal had been stolen.
Slipping into the gray mist, Lu Chen adopted the shuffling, hunched posture of 'Chen Lu', the mediocre sweeper. After walking for half an incense stick of time, the sound of heavy, panicked breathing echoed through the tunnels.
Lu Chen paused, peering around a jagged rock formation.
Stumbling through the gloom was a young man in the flowing white and azure robes of an Inner Disciple. His face was smeared with dirt, his spiritual aura erratic and dangerously low. Lu Chen recognized the insignia on his collar—a sword crossed with a serpent. It was Zhao Feng, one of Fang Tianyou's notorious enforcers, a Late Qi Refinement bully known for terrorizing the outer courts.
Zhao Feng had likely sneaked into the Sword Graves to find the ancient treasure Fang Tianyou was hunting, only to fall through a fissure when the ground shattered.
Zhao Feng stopped, leaning against a wall and hacking violently. He was starving for spiritual energy, his body failing under the weight of the miasma. Then, his bloodshot eyes snapped toward Lu Chen.
"You!" Zhao Feng snarled, recognizing the gray rags of the sect's punishment detail. "A sweeping dog? How did you survive the collapse?"
Lu Chen immediately hunched his shoulders, trembling his hands. "S-Senior Disciple! I... I don't know! I was sweeping, and the ground just gave way!"
Zhao Feng pushed himself off the wall, his face twisting into a desperate, cruel sneer. "Heaven has not abandoned me. You sweepers are issued Pure Spirit Grain rations to survive the ambient death aura of the graves. Hand over your spatial pouch. Now."
Lu Chen clutched his meager leather pouch tightly. "Senior, please! If I don't eat these, the miasma will eat my lungs! I'll die!"
"Better you than me, trash!" Zhao Feng lunged forward, drawing a serrated dagger. "Give me the rations, or I'll carve them out of your stomach!"
Lu Chen cowered, throwing the leather pouch to the ground at Zhao Feng's feet. "Take it! Just don't kill me!"
As Zhao Feng greedily snatched the pouch, Lu Chen's eyes shifted. The terrified facade vanished for a fraction of a second, replaced by the calculating coldness of a predator. Beneath his sleeve, the Luck-Binding Mirror grew warm against his skin.
His vision inverted, the physical world washing away into an overlay of shifting golden lights. He focused entirely on Zhao Feng.
[Target: Zhao Feng]
[Cultivation: Late Qi Refinement]
[Providence: Faintly Golden (Temporary Surge)]
[Destiny Line: Extorts the sweeper's rations, recovering enough physical stamina to survive the miasma. In his search for an exit, he will strike a hollow wall to his left. Behind it lies the hidden grotto of the Blood-Iron Ancestor. He will obtain the 'Blood-Iron Sword Manual' and a crystallized core of sword intent, instantly breaking through to Foundation Establishment and elevating his Spirit Root to Earth-Rank.]
Lu Chen's mind raced. An Earth-Rank Spirit Root and a breakthrough? Heaven was truly blind, blindly tossing a Heavenly Opportunity to this pathetic bully just because he happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Not today, Lu Chen thought.
"Scram!" Zhao Feng barked, tearing open the pouch and aggressively chewing the dried spirit grains. "If I see your ugly face in these tunnels again, I'll use you as bait for the corpse-fiends!"
Lu Chen didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled backward into the mist, playing the coward perfectly. But the moment the fog concealed him from Zhao Feng's sight, Lu Chen's posture straightened.
He channeled his Void Sword Intent, turning his body practically immaterial. He didn't run down the tunnel; he glided through the shadows with terrifying speed, bypassing the winding path and heading straight for the hollow wall the mirror had indicated.
He arrived at a dead end of jagged limestone. Pressing his palm against the rock, he felt the faint, thrumming pulse of ancient energy on the other side. Instead of smashing the wall and alerting Zhao Feng, Lu Chen allowed his Void Intent to coat his fingertips. He sank his hands directly into the solid stone, the matter dissolving silently around his forearms. With a sharp pull, he widened the gap just enough to slip through.
Inside was a small, undisturbed grotto lit by the eerie red glow of a fist-sized crystal.
Sitting in the lotus position in the center of the room was a skeleton clad in rusted iron armor. In its bony lap rested an ancient jade slip. Floating above the remains was a dense cloud of golden Qi Yun, waiting for the 'fated person' to claim it.
"A shame the fated person is a bit too slow," Lu Chen whispered to the empty room.
He walked forward and grabbed the glowing red crystal—the core of sword intent. The moment he touched it, his Perfect Foundation roared to life, eagerly devouring the pure, concentrated energy. He felt his cultivation base stabilize and condense, pushing him closer to the peak of the Mid Foundation Establishment realm.
Next, he snatched the jade slip. He pressed it to his forehead, using the Luck-Binding Mirror to instantly copy the contents of the Blood-Iron Sword Manual into his memory. It was a brutal, overbearing technique, one that would perfectly mask his Void Intent in the future.
With a deep breath, Lu Chen activated the mirror's true power. He inhaled sharply, and the floating golden cloud of providence hovering over the skeleton rushed into his mouth, flooding his meridians. The warm, euphoric sensation of stolen destiny settled into his bones.
But Lu Chen wasn't finished. Leaving an empty room would only confuse Zhao Feng. A true Sovereign of the Void didn't just steal destiny; he rewrote it.
Lu Chen took a blank jade slip from his own ring. He thought back to the horrific, rusted hand of sword intent that had dragged Ye Xiyue into the abyss. He still had a trace of that corrupted, dark energy trapped within his Void Intent from when he severed it.
Slowly, carefully, he channeled that apocalyptic curse into the blank jade slip, masking it with a thin veneer of his newly acquired Blood-Iron energy. He placed the booby-trapped slip back into the skeleton's lap.
Then, he slipped back through the wall, using his Void Intent to seal the stone perfectly behind him.
He didn't have to wait long.
Less than five minutes later, heavy footsteps echoed down the tunnel. Zhao Feng appeared, his face flushed with the vitality of the stolen spirit grains. He was striking the walls in frustration, looking for a way out.
Crack!
Zhao Feng's fist hit the limestone wall, and the fragile rock gave way. A faint red glow seeped through the crack.
Hidden in the dense mist near the cavern ceiling, Lu Chen watched like a spider waiting for a fly.
Zhao Feng's eyes widened in manic glee. "A hidden chamber? Hahaha! My luck! Fang Tianyou sent me down here to die, but the Heavens have favored me!"
He brutally kicked the wall down and rushed into the grotto. Lu Chen watched as Zhao Feng fell to his knees before the skeleton, ignoring the fact that the 'glowing red crystal' was mysteriously absent. All of Zhao Feng's attention was locked onto the jade slip resting in the skeleton's lap.
"An ancient inheritance..." Zhao Feng breathed, his hands trembling as he reached out. "With this, I won't just be an outer court enforcer. I will crush Fang Tianyou! I will be the Chosen One!"
He grabbed the slip and slammed it directly against his forehead, violently drawing in the knowledge.
For a single heartbeat, there was silence.
Then, Zhao Feng's eyes rolled back into his head.
"AGHHHHHHHH!"
A blood-curdling scream tore from the disciple's throat as the cursed, rusted sword intent of the abyss entity flooded his mind and meridians. Black, rotting veins exploded across Zhao Feng's face and arms. The sheer malice of the ancient curse violently collided with his fragile Qi Refinement foundation.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
The sound of Zhao Feng's meridians systematically detonating echoed in the small cavern. He convulsed on the floor, vomiting black blood, his Spirit Root violently withering away into ash. In mere seconds, the arrogant bully was reduced to a crippled, paralyzed husk, weeping blood onto the cavern floor.
Lu Chen descended silently from the ceiling. He stood over the twitching body of Zhao Feng, his expression devoid of pity.
"You stole my rations," Lu Chen said softly, his voice echoing with the hollow resonance of the Void. "So I stole your future. The scales are balanced."
With a wave of his hand, Lu Chen siphoned the last, shattered fragments of Zhao Feng's luck, ensuring the man would never recover. He left the crippled disciple in the dark to await whatever scavengers roamed these tunnels.
Lu Chen turned and sprinted back the way he came, his mind shifting back to his primary objective. He needed to extract Ye Xiyue. Her massive Qi Yun was too valuable to leave unguarded in this cursed place.
He navigated the mist, arriving back at the jagged stalagmite formation.
However, as he rounded the corner, his blood ran cold.
The crude concealment array he had built was shattered, the stones crushed into fine dust.
Ye Xiyue was awake. She was kneeling on the cavern floor, her elegant sword drawn and glowing with pure, unyielding moonlight. But she wasn't looking at Lu Chen. She was frozen, her entire body trembling in absolute terror as she stared at the darkness directly behind him.
Lu Chen slowly turned his head.
Rising from the black chasm at the edge of the cavern was a towering shadow. It had no distinct form, only a swirling vortex of rusted, decaying swords. But at its center burned two massive eyes, glowing with the color of freshly spilled blood.
The ancient entity of the Sword Graves had found them.
A voice, sounding like grinding metal and crushed skulls, bypassed Lu Chen's ears and resonated directly within his soul.
"The Sovereign of the Void..."the entity whispered, the cavern trembling with the sheer weight of its malice."I smell my stolen era on your skin..."