CLANG!
The heavy metal bar slammed down, locking the only exit of the old warehouse. The echo reverberated between the stone walls, dry and final, like a sealed death warrant.
Tian Cang stood silently amidst the dense shadows. He suppressed his breathing to a minimum, his ears straining to catch the slightest vibration in the air. The warehouse was damp and low-slung; the smell of old engine oil settled in layers on the brick floor, and the scent of rust clung to every fiber of the tilted wooden shelves. The darkness here was literal—thick and weighty—the kind that takes the human eye several minutes to begin distinguishing shapes.
He didn't need several minutes.
CLICK.
A mechanical sound rang out from above, sharp and brief like a round being chambered. Immediately after, strips of deep red fluorescent lights flickered to life along the rusted shelves, sweeping through every corner with a glow insufficient to see a face clearly, yet enough to turn every shadow blood-red.
The warehouse was larger than he had imagined. Abnormally large compared to what the exterior suggested—three stories high, stretching inward like a colossal hallway. Metal shelves were arranged in vertical rows, creating countless blind spots and narrow passages. And scattered among those shelves, installed so carefully they could be missed at a glance, were small observation points—elevated wooden platforms, taut ropes, and footholds positioned for those wishing to strike from above.
This place had been prepared. Long before he stepped inside.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Three iron doors at three different corners opened simultaneously. From the darkness, grim figures emerged, moving in pre-calculated directions. They fanned out into a circle, surrounding Tian Cang with the proficiency of those who had done this so many times it was second nature.
Ten people.
Tian Cang glanced around, his veteran mind instantly analyzing and categorizing like a war machine: Two archers held elevated positions to the left; a crossbowman hid behind a row of shelves to the right—three long-range fire points forming a triangle that covered the entire central space. Three melee combatants armed with light swords and single-headed axes held the inner ring, spaced far enough to assist each other but not so close as to collide. Two martial artists stood on the flanks, their centers of gravity low, feet primed for explosive movement. A heavy-shield guardian stood at the center like a mobile wall, the short sword at his hip merely an afterthought.
And the last one stood the most silent of all, carrying no obvious weapon, wearing dark clothes, hands resting naturally at his sides. He stood behind everyone else, observing with the cold eyes of a man who didn't need to join the fray because he had already arranged everything in advance.
This was a standard hunting formation. They came to finish him.
The only thing missing from this battle was a starting signal—they all moved as one, like puppets jerked by the same string.
SWISH!
Two arrows tore through the air from opposite directions, forming a treacherous diagonal aimed at his vital points. Tian Cang spun, dodging the first arrow by a hair's breadth, letting it graze his ear, before immediately lunging toward the nearest archer. Close the distance to the firepower source. Break the safety range. Turn their long-range advantage into a burden.
A knife-wielder lunged out to block his path, the blade swinging in a cold arc toward his throat. Tian Cang decelerated abruptly for half a beat, causing the opponent to overextend, then exploded with speed an instant later, closing in on the melee fighter's chest before he could recover his stance.
He seized the opponent's wrist and twisted it ruthlessly.
CRACK!
The sound of bone snapping echoed. Tian Cang yanked the man behind him, turning him into a meat shield the exact moment a third arrow streaked down from above.
THUD!
The arrow pierced the shoulder of the shooter's own comrade. The archer above faltered for a brief second, a flicker of hesitation appearing in his eyes for the first time. Tian Cang shoved the twitching corpse forward and unleashed an armored punch into the throat of the archer who had just exposed an opening.
Thud.
The archer collapsed. Before Tian Cang could catch his breath, a massive pressure slammed into his side.
BOOM!
The heavy steel shield struck him with immense force, hurling Tian Cang several meters away. He rolled with the momentum, his shoulder slamming into a row of metal shelves. The entire row tilted, sending dozens of scrap crates crashing to the floor with a deafening din.
The heavy-shield guardian stepped forward, each stride making the floor tremble under the weight of his armor and the body within it.
"Hold him down!"
The two martial artists lunged like hungry wolves surrounding injured prey. A barrage of punches and kicks targeted his weak points, coordinated with such rhythm that as one attacked, the other was already prepared for the next strike before the target could react. Tian Cang was forced against the wall, his space to dodge narrowing with every step.
BANG!
A kick caught him in the ribs, slamming Tian Cang against the stone wall. He coughed up a mouthful of thick black blood and slid down the wall, one hand bracing against the floor to keep his body from collapsing entirely. Behind him, the sound of bowstrings tightening rose.
He looked down at the hand braced on the floor.
The glowing red fissures had reached his neck, throbbing violently beneath his skin as if wanting to explode from within. He knew the price of activating it again in this state—his consciousness would be submerged; the thing sleeping deep in his blood would awaken and steer this body to a place from which he wasn't sure he could pull it back.
The arrows were notched once more, aimed directly at him.
A brief silence followed, heavy as a stone before it falls.
Tian Cang lifted his head. His gaze swept across the ten men surrounding him—their positions, distances, weaknesses, and the order in which they would be dealt with. He calculated it all within a single breath.
Then he smiled. Light and cold, the way one looks at a chessboard and realizes there is still one move left.
"Then die, all of you."
He lunged straight at the heavy-shield guardian.
He didn't attack the shield itself. He gripped its metallic edge, his fingertips suddenly sinking deep into the cold steel as if it were damp earth after a rain.
[Skill: Blood Devour — Deviation, Tier 2]
The blood of the man behind the shield was pulled by a terrifying suction through the metallic gaps, soaking Tian Cang's hands. This was entirely different from the previous times—no skin contact needed, piercing through obstacles, draining from a distance.
"What—" The guardian blinked, looking down at his arm. The skin began to shrivel, muscles contracting like wet cloth drying rapidly in the sun. "What kind of sorcery is this?!"
He screamed in agony, but his hands no longer had the strength to release the shield handle. Strength deserted him faster than his scream, flowing back into Tian Cang's palms like water following a groove.
Tian Cang let go, hurling the hundred-pound shield away. The shield spun through the air, completely breaking the formation of the two melee fighters standing behind it, throwing both into the metal shelves with a deafening crash.
Tian Cang lunged into the opening.
A punch pierced the esophagus of the martial artist on the left—he collapsed before the sound of the impact could fade. A sweeping kick snapped the shin bone of the one on the right—he shrieked and fell, the sword in his hand flying off to impale a melee fighter charging from behind.
Tian Cang's speed at this moment exceeded anything his Mortal Firmament body could produce with normal strength. Blood Devour had converted the enemy's life force into fuel, burning directly within his every muscle fiber. The price to pay later would be immense. He understood this and continued forward.
The five survivors retreated, the weapons in their hands trembling uncontrollably.
A crossbowman—who had stood still throughout the fight because he had never encountered a target moving this fast—dropped his crossbow to the floor. The sound of metal hitting the ground rang out in the enveloping silence.
"He..." he stammered, fear clear in his wide, dilated eyes. "Is he even human anymore?"
Amidst the ruins and the pungent stench of blood, the man who had remained still from the beginning slowly stepped forward. His dark clothing was spotless amidst a space filled with blood and dust—a fact that spoke volumes about the distance he had maintained from everything that had transpired. He walked past the corpses, through the pools of blood, never looking down once, his eyes fixed straight on Tian Cang.
The pressure radiating from him made even the red lights in the warehouse seem to dim.
"Enough," he said, his tone that of someone who could end everything with a single word. "You have proven enough."
He stopped about four paces from Tian Cang—a distance intended not for negotiation, but to observe the target's entire body at once. His eyes moved from the red fissure on the wrist down to the open wounds on the shoulder, from the pool of blood at his feet to the way Tian Cang stood—leaning slightly to the left because the right shoulder was restricted, center of gravity lower than usual because broken ribs were forcing it.
That gaze read Tian Cang like a report.
"You truly are a rare specimen, No. 17-46," he said, his voice carrying the nuance of someone admiring something valuable. "Do not misunderstand what just happened."
He paused for a beat.
"We came here to collect you for the laboratory."
The silence lasted long enough for the sound of blood dripping from Tian Cang's fingertips onto the wooden floor to become strangely clear. Rhythmic. Patient. Like something counting down.
"Your Blood Firmament deviation is at a level that neither the Upper Firmament nor the Lower Realm has recorded in two hundred years," the dark-clad man continued, his voice calm in the manner of a field report. "The laboratory has been waiting for a specimen like you for a very long time."
He tilted his head slightly, his gaze sharpening.
"Therefore, you will come with us, whether voluntarily or carried out."
Tian Cang stood there, blood dripping from his fingertips.
He heard him. But what was happening in his mind far exceeded the language the man was using.
In the memories of his past life, he had heard of the Blood Flame laboratories. Those who entered as "specimens" never walked out in any sense that people usually understood. They were returned in other forms, as other tools—things that had once been human, but where the only thing remaining was the outer shell.
He understood this better than anyone.
And in that moment, from deep within his marrow, a voice rang out. Deep, gutteral, ancient, and filled with killing intent like a great bell tolling at midnight:
KILL.
It was the instinct of the Blood Firmament surging up. Tian Cang's gaze slowly lost focus; the red in his pupils grew deeper, denser, becoming empty in the sense of a pit into which light falls but never reflects back out.
Tian Cang slowly turned his head, locking his target on the man who had just stepped forward—the way a predator locks its gaze on prey before pouncing.
"Your turn..." his voice sank, carrying a raspy, heavy timbre that hadn't been there before. "...to taste death."
The dark-clad man gestured behind him, signaling the others to retreat.
They retreated. Fast.
The shadows behind Tian Cang twisted with his every breath; the red fissures on his body began to glow enough to illuminate the face of the man standing before him—and that face, for the first time since entering the warehouse, carried something other than calculation.
It was caution.
The predator and prey had swapped roles.