Three days after Yin Wuji's funeral, Cain descended into the dark.
He still saw the old man's gold-toothed grin every time he closed his eyes. Still heard the wet rattle of his final breaths. *"Below the meditation chambers. The Blood Pool."* Yin Wuji had died for this knowledge. Cain would not waste his death.
The passage beneath the old meditation chambers was exactly where the old man had said it would be—a narrow stairwell cut from black stone, hidden behind a collapsed bookshelf that no one had moved in centuries. The air that rose from below was cold and thick, carrying a scent that made Cain's blood nucleus pulse despite its cracks.
*Iron. Old blood. And something else. Something that remembers me.*
Su Yao followed close behind, a spirit lantern in her hand. Its light caught the walls, revealing carvings so ancient the stone had begun to absorb them—serpents coiled around moons, figures with open mouths drinking from rivers of red.
Xiao Lian brought up the rear. Through the progenitor bond, Cain felt her unease—not fear, but *recognition*. Like she had dreamed this place before.
"How far down?" Su Yao asked.
"The old man said it was sealed for centuries. However far that is."
They walked for what felt like an hour. The stairs spiraled, switched back, descended through layers of rock that had not seen sunlight since before the sect was founded. The air grew heavier. The carvings on the walls became more vivid—scenes of battle, of sacrifice, of figures kneeling before a throne made of bone.
*Yin Wuji, you said the key was in my blood. I'm about to find out if you were right.*
And then the stairs ended.
---
The cavern was cathedral-vast.
Cain had seen cathedrals before. He had burned in one. But this space made those stone vaults feel like children's toys. The ceiling was lost in darkness. The walls were raw rock, veined with crimson lines that pulsed like arteries. And at the center of the cavern—
*The Blood Pool.*
It was not a pool in the way he had imagined. It was a *lake*. A basin of dark red liquid that stretched a hundred paces in every direction, its surface perfectly still, perfectly black, reflecting nothing. The liquid did not smell of decay. It smelled of *age*. Of power so old that it had forgotten its own origin.
Cain's blood nucleus hammered against his ribs. The cracks in its surface began to glow—faintly at first, then brighter, as if the pool was calling to something buried deep inside him.
"Cain." Su Yao's voice was tight. "Your arm."
He looked down. Dark veins were crawling up his forearm—not from the Seeker's wound, but from the air itself. The pool's vapor was *alive*, and it was trying to enter him.
*Pollution. Corrupted blood essence. The same residue that turns blood cultivators demonic.*
He tried to pull back. The veins resisted.
"Su Yao—try to cleanse it. Like before."
She pressed her palm to his arm. Her wood-qi flowed—but nothing happened. The dark veins kept crawling, slow and relentless.
"I… I don't know how," she said, her voice cracking.
"You don't need to know how," Cain said. "You just need to *want* it. Want the corruption gone. The same way you wanted to heal me after the pass."
She closed her eyes. Her breathing steadied. Her hand tightened on his arm.
And this time, when her wood-qi flared, it was different. Brighter. *Intentional.* The dark veins recoiled. They writhed, hissed, and dissolved under the green light of her touch. The corruption flaked away like dead skin, and Cain's arm was clean.
Su Yao stared at her own hand. The wood-qi was still glowing—brighter than he had ever seen it.
"I did it," she whispered. "I actually did it."
"You did." Cain looked at her. "Yin Wuji said wood-element healing was the opposite of blood corruption. Maybe… maybe it's more than healing. Maybe it's *purification*."
"I've never heard of a wood cultivator purifying blood."
"You've never met a blood cultivator like me."
She lowered her hand. The glow faded, but her expression remained—wonder mixed with something heavier. Responsibility. *If I could have done this for Yin Wuji…* She didn't say it. She didn't need to.
"We should be careful," she said instead. "If the vapor does that to you, the pool itself—"
"I know." Cain turned to face the lake. "But I have to go in."
"Cain—"
"The key is in my blood. Yin Wuji said it. The dragon said it. I can feel it." He touched his chest. "The pool is calling me. Not the corruption. Something deeper."
He walked to the edge of the basin. The liquid was still, dark, patient.
He stepped in.
---
The cold was immediate and absolute.
Not the cold of ice—the cold of *absence*. The pool was drinking his warmth, his qi, his very sense of self. Cain forced himself forward, each step a battle. The liquid rose to his knees, his hips, his chest.
And then his blood nucleus *screamed*.
Not in pain. In *recognition*.
The pool's essence found the cracks in his nucleus and poured through them—not to harm, but to *complete*. He felt the Ancestor's blood in his veins sing in harmony with the liquid around him. They were the same. They had always been the same.
*The Blood Ancestor. The first of our kind.*
Images flooded his mind.
A throne made of skulls. A figure in crimson robes, standing before a sea of blood. A circle of stones, each pulsing with a different shade of red, arranged in a formation that hummed with ancient power. The figure reached out and touched one of them—
*The Blood River Sect. The eastern mountains. A stone is there.*
—and the vision shifted.
*Another stone. Hidden in the depths of the Blood River Sect's forbidden zone. Guarded by something old. Something that remembers the Ancestor's face.*
The figure turned. For a heartbeat, Cain saw its face—not a face at all, but a *mask* of coagulated blood, featureless and ancient. And behind the mask, eyes that had watched civilizations rise and fall.
*Find them. Gather them. Or everything you have built will burn.*
*Was that a warning? A promise?* Cain couldn't tell. The mask had no expression. But the weight of the words pressed against his soul like a seal being stamped into wax.
The vision shattered.
---
Cain opened his eyes.
He was standing in the pool, the liquid at his shoulders. Su Yao was calling his name from the shore, her voice distant, panicked. Xiao Lian was holding her back.
"I'm here," he said. His voice echoed off the cavern walls. "I'm fine."
He waded back to the edge. As he climbed out, something caught his eye—a fragment of red crystal, no larger than his thumb, embedded in the rock at the pool's rim. It pulsed with the same light as his blood nucleus.
*A bloodstone fragment. A key. A guide.*
He pried it loose. The crystal was warm, almost hot, and it hummed with a purpose that was not his own.
"What did you see?" Su Yao asked.
"The Blood Ancestor. A circle of stones. One of them is in the Blood River Sect." He held up the fragment. "This will guide us."
"And the others?"
"I don't know yet. The vision was fragmented. But the Ancestor wanted me to find them." He looked at her. "I'm not just a blood cultivator. I'm *his* heir. His… continuation."
Su Yao said nothing. But her hand found his—the same hand that had cleansed the corruption—and held tight.
---
Xiao Lian had been silent throughout. But as Cain stepped away from the pool, she spoke.
"Master. There's something else."
He turned. She was staring at the far side of the cavern, her eyes unfocused, her blood-sense stretched to its limit.
"In the pool. Deeper than we can see. There's a powerful blood-qi signature. Ancient. Like the stone you took, but stronger."
Cain's hand went to the fragment in his pocket. "Another bloodstone?"
"I don't know. But it's there. Waiting."
Cain looked back at the dark lake. The fragment pulsed in his pocket—warm, insistent.
"We're leaving," he said. "Now."
---
They climbed the stairs in silence.
The fragment pulsed in Cain's pocket, warm against his hip. His blood nucleus had stopped aching—the pool's essence had sealed the cracks, though the damage wasn't fully healed. He felt stronger. Clearer. Like he had remembered something he had forgotten centuries ago.
*The Blood River Sect. One stone. And after that, more. The Ancestor's legacy is scattered. I'll need to find them all.*
When they emerged into the meditation chamber, dawn was breaking. The sect was still asleep. No one had seen them come or go.
Su Yao stopped him at the door to his quarters.
"The purification," she said. "What I did to your arm. I've never done that before. I didn't know I could."
"You didn't. Your body did. Your wood-qi responded to the corruption the way a tree responds to fire—by growing, by protecting." He met her eyes. "You're not just a healer, Su Yao. You're something else. Something the Ancestor's blood recognizes."
"What?"
"I don't know. But we'll find out."
She nodded slowly. Then, without another word, she turned and walked to her own quarters.
Cain watched her go. Through the progenitor bond, he felt Xiao Lian's exhaustion—and something else. *Determination*. She had sensed something in the pool. She knew, now, that her gift was useful.
*We're all changing. The question is whether we change together.*
---
He lay on his cot, the bloodstone fragment on his chest, and stared at the ceiling.
His blood nucleus pulsed—once, twice—and then, distinctly, he felt a *pull*. East. Toward the Blood River Sect. Toward the stone.
*The Ancestor's call.*
He closed his eyes.
*I'm coming, Yin Wuji. I'll make your death mean something.*