Chapter 14: Echoes of Steel and Blood
Exactly three days had passed since the bronze core sank into the cavern floor and the facility evolved. Three days that, for the members of the Morningstar Clan, felt like three decades in the ninth circle of hell.
The interior of Skull Rock no longer resembled a simple desert cave in the slightest. By merging with the Gravity Pagoda and absorbing the two thousand spiritual stones, the local geography had mutated radically. Now, it was the Celestial Void Tempering Chamber.
The floor beneath the disciples' feet had transformed into a perfectly polished black obsidian mirror, so smooth it reflected their agonizing faces. Running through that dark stone were thick veins of what appeared to be burning, liquid gold. These golden veins pulsed rhythmically, like the circulatory system of a titan, and with every heartbeat, the gravitational force inside the cavern fluctuated and crushed the bodies of those present.
From the obsidian ceiling hung massive black stalactites that dripped a dense, heavy mist. It was the ambient Qi, filtered of all the toxic impurities of the Dragon Bone Desert, condensed until it became a pale violet haze. The air was so thick that breathing felt like swallowing mercury. It was a space of breathtaking, gloomy beauty, yet absolutely suffocating.
In the center of this obsidian purgatory, Samael supervised from a slightly elevated platform, his face as stony and unreadable as his own will. His arms were crossed over his bare chest, where the scales of his Void Dragon Physique gleamed faintly under the light of the golden veins.
Currently, the multiplier was set at 4x Gravity.
The air inside the chamber vibrated with a symphony of muffled groans, the hiss of sweat evaporating as it touched the hot floor, and the heavy thud of bodies falling. Every disciple was being forced to transcend their mortal limits. Every push-up, every step, every practiced lunge required burning Qi simply so their bones wouldn't splinter under their own weight.
Samael watched his vanguard. Elder Marcus was in a horse stance, holding an illusory stone shield above his head. His muscles trembled, the veins in his neck looked ready to burst, but the clan's "anvil" didn't emit a single sound. He was forging his body so that no beast could ever pierce it. A few meters away, Elder Torian attempted to execute katas with his heavy black saber; every slash was slow, clumsy compared to his normal speed, but the density of the killing intent in his steel was purifying by leaps and bounds.
In the lower-pressure zone, near the walls where the violet mist was thickest, Seraphina practiced her elemental arts.
The bluish-silver-haired young woman moved with a grace that defied the oppressive gravity. Unlike the warriors who used brute force to resist, she used control. A thin layer of frost covered her pale skin, cooling the suffocating Yang heat of the cavern.
"Frost Lotus: First Bloom," Seraphina whispered.
From the tips of her pale fingers sprouted threads of Ice Qi that attempted to take the shape of a flower. However, the 4x gravity crushed the ice construct before it could solidify, turning it into crystalline dust. Seraphina frowned, her deep blue eyes showing an unusual frustration. For a fleeting millisecond, undetectable to almost everyone but Samael, the young woman's posture changed. Her chin lifted a millimeter, her shoulders relaxed, and an aura of absolute majesty—the ghost of an Empress who did not take "no" for an answer from nature—flashed through the room.
In that microsecond of instinctive pride, the next ice lotus she formed did not break. It held firm, perfect and lethally sharp, floating in the dense gravity. Seraphina blinked, surprised by her own success, and the regal aura vanished as quickly as it had arrived, leaving her panting from the effort.
Samael nodded imperceptibly. The Empress was waking up, layer by layer.
He shifted his gaze to a secluded corner of the chamber, a circular area where the liquid gold veins glowed with greater intensity, creating a zone of extreme Yang heat. There, resting on beast pelts, were the twins.
Unlike the rest, Violeta and Eris were not training physically. Their bodies, fragile and marked by the Taboo Red Destiny, could not yet withstand the muscular strain of 4x gravity. However, the training they were undergoing was just as lethal. Under Elder Livia's strict watch, the twins were passively absorbing the dense Yang energy of the obsidian cave to counteract the fever and cellular stress that the resonance with Samael's awakening had caused them.
Violeta sat in a lotus position, her eyes closed. Her delicate face was beaded with sweat, and her light blue robes were soaked. Her body trembled slightly as she struggled to channel the burning energy into her meridians without scorching them.
Beside her, Eris lay back, her breathing still erratic. The red tips of her white hair almost seemed to glow in the gloom. Her explosive temper and desire to fight were being forcibly contained by the fever of her own destiny.
"Don't you dare give up, Eris..." Violeta whispered without opening her eyes, her Tsundere tone laden with fierce concern. "If you die from a little heat, I will revive you myself just to kill you again."
Eris let out a weak laugh that ended in a dry cough.
"Relax, Vio..." Eris replied, slowly opening her crimson red eye and her violet eye, fixing her gaze on the black ceiling. "I haven't burned the world down yet. I'm not going... anywhere."
Samael stepped down from the platform, his bare feet making no sound on the obsidian.
"In here, strength without technique or control is just fresh meat for the desert," Samael said aloud, addressing the exhausted disciples at the back of the room, who could barely stand. "And the desert does not forgive the weak. If you cannot control your Qi flow under this pressure, out there you will be decapitated before you can blink. Break your limits, or be crushed by them."
Right at that moment, a sharp, electric vibration shook Samael's chest. It didn't come from the outside; it came from his Soul Vault.
With a thought, Samael extracted the Dragon Bone Compass. The heavy disk carved from primordial femur was restless. The bone needle spun frantically until it stopped abruptly, emitting an intense ocher glow, pointing fixedly to the east, cutting straight through the thick cavern walls.
The System lit up in his vision with golden letters.
[Exploration Alert: Ancient Spiritual Residue detected.][Estimated Origin: Ruins of the Celestial Twins Sect (Sun and Moon).][Distance: 45 Kilometers East.][Note: Strong concentration of Yin-Yang harmonic energy detected. Probability of finding Taboo Destiny stabilizing resources: 85%.]
Samael's violet eyes narrowed. If the System indicated Yin-Yang resources, it was exactly the medicine he needed to stabilize Violeta and Eris and allow them to begin their true cultivation.
Samael put the compass away and turned to his fittest warriors.
"Kael. Lady Seraphina. With me," Samael ordered, his voice cutting through the hum of gravity.
Kael, who was in a corner executing invisible slashes with his sword, Whisper of the North, to accustom his new Wind Essence to the heaviness of the air, immediately sheathed his weapon and approached. Seraphina dispelled the ice lotus floating above her hand and walked toward him, her breathing quickly returning to normal.
"Patriarch?" Kael asked, his golden eyes shining with the anticipation of leaving that oppressive confinement.
"The compass has found something. Ancient ruins of a Sun and Moon sect less than fifty kilometers from here. If there are treasures or medicines that can stabilize my sisters, we will take them today." Samael turned to the white-and-ash-haired woman organizing the supplies. "Grand Elder Lilith."
Lilith approached, her only arm resting on the pommel of her saber.
"Yes, Samael?"
"Guard the cave. Keep the gravity at 4x for the disciples, but reduce the pressure in the Yang zone for the twins," Samael instructed. "If the Path-Devourer decides to poke its massive, ugly head near Skull Rock, do not engage it. Activate the Tempering Chamber's total lockdown barrier and evacuate the youngest into the lower obsidian tunnels. We won't be long."
Lilith nodded with military gravity.
"No one will breach our defenses while I draw breath, Patriarch. May the Heavens not stand in your way."
The trio left the suffocating safety of the obsidian cave and ventured into the white hell of the Dragon Bone Desert.
They advanced at extreme speed, gliding over the bone-dust dunes. Kael took the vanguard, using the Wind Essence to lighten his steps and leave no deep tracks that could attract sand worms or lesser beasts. Seraphina followed closely, subtly freezing the sand beneath her leather boots to create solid footholds, moving with the innate elegance of royalty. Samael brought up the rear, his Spiritual Sense expanded to its maximum two-kilometer radius, sweeping the red and white horizon for ambushes.
After nearly an hour of travel at cultivator speeds, the landscape changed. The massive dragon ribs scattered across the desert began to cluster, forming a sort of dead valley. In the center of this valley, half-swallowed by a vortex of petrified sand, stood the entrance to the ruin.
It wasn't a simple cave. It was a monumental archway carved from white marble and black basalt, intertwined in a perfect spiral. The right half of the arch radiated a dry heat that distorted the air (Yang), while the left half was covered in a thin layer of perpetual frost that did not melt under the desert sun (Yin).
"The ruins of the Celestial Twins..." Seraphina murmured, observing the masonry with analytical eyes. "This type of architecture hasn't been seen on the continent in over three thousand years. It was a sect that believed the pinnacle of power could only be reached through the perfect balance of opposites."
"And it seems that balance didn't save them from being swallowed by the sand," Samael replied coldly, unsheathing the heavy Odachi of the Ravenous Eclipse from his back. The black metal of the weapon absorbed the sunlight. "Stay alert. Ancient sects didn't leave their treasures without guard dogs."
Upon crossing the threshold of the giant arch, the boiling desert air was replaced by a sepulchral stillness and an unnatural cold. They descended a massive two-toned stone spiral staircase, delving deep into the earth.
The main hallway was a hundred-meter-long corridor flanked by decapitated statues of ancient disciples.
"Watch your step," Samael warned, his violet eyes detecting subtle Qi fluctuations in the floor tiles.
Kael nodded, focusing his combat senses to the maximum. Barely on his third step, his boot imperceptibly brushed a slightly sunken tile.
Click!
The metallic sound echoed down the empty hallway. Instantly, dozens of holes opened in the side walls, and a hail of spiritual energy arrows—half scorching fire, half piercing ice—shot toward them at terrifying speed.
The Kael from three days ago would have been impaled. But the Kael who had survived Silas's defeat and the hell of 4x gravity reacted on pure refined instinct.
"Back!" Kael roared.
The redhead unsheathed the Whisper of the North in a blur of motion. Emerald green Wind Essence enveloped the blade. Kael became a whirlwind in the narrow corridor, unleashing dozens of precise slashes that didn't seek to block the energy, but to deflect its trajectory by altering the air currents.
Clang! Fssshhh! Clang!
The energy arrows bounced off Kael's gusts of wind, crashing into the ceiling and floor, leaving smoking craters. A single ice arrow managed to bypass his defense, grazing his left shoulder and tearing the fabric of his black and red tunic, leaving a shallow cut that welled with a trickle of blood.
Kael sheathed his sword, breathing deeply, ignoring the sting in his shoulder.
"It won't be a sightseeing tour," Samael grunted, walking forward, satisfied with his cousin's reflexes. "In here, only the paranoid and the lethal survive. Kael, keep the vanguard, but watch the ceiling. Lady Seraphina, cover our blind flanks. If something moves that isn't us, freeze it."
They traversed the massive hallway plagued with forgotten traps. They survived tiles that inverted local gravity to launch them into stone-spike-covered ceilings, passed through illusory corridors attempting to confuse their senses, and dodged invisible obsidian pendulums in the dark. The chamber training, their instincts, and above all, the absolute trust they had in each other, kept them alive. Every trap overcome was a silent warning from the desert: there was no mercy here for the hesitant.
Finally, they reached the central hall.
The massive chamber was illuminated by phosphorescent crystals embedded in a dome thirty meters high. At the far end, blocking access to a massive double-leaf vault, stood the guardians.
They were two colossal statues, five meters tall, forged in alloys of spiritual metals unknown in the current era.
The Guardian on the left was made of bronze that appeared to be red-hot; its mechanical eyes burned with literal fire that dripped magma onto the floor. It was the Solar Guardian (Yang). The Guardian on the right was sculpted from bluish-silver steel, covered in perpetual frost, with crystal eyes that emitted a paralyzing cold. It was the Lunar Guardian (Yin).
[Analysis System Activated.][Targets: Sun-Moon Automaton Guardians.][Base Threat Level: Transcendent Stage 5 (Per unit).][Critical Danger: They possess a linked "Twin Core". If they fight together and are within ten meters of each other, their defense, speed, and destructive power multiply exponentially, reaching the lethality of Stage 9 (Peak).]
CLANK! CLANK!
Both metal guardians stepped forward simultaneously. The sound of their internal machinery echoed like funeral bells.
"INTRUDERS!" thundered a soulless, mechanical voice, projected from the Solar Guardian. "PURIFICATION BY FIRE AND FROST!"
The Solar Guardian did not hesitate. It opened its heavy bronze hands and unleashed a wall of dense, liquid fire, a tsunami of Yang flames that spanned the entire width of the room, forcing the trio to retreat rapidly.
Almost at the same time, the Lunar Guardian used the smoke from the fire as cover, rushing forward with a speed terrifying for its massive size. Its giant fists of freezing steel aimed directly for Seraphina's heart, recognizing her ice attribute as an anomaly to be purged.
"Kael, intercept the fire one! Don't let it channel a second AoE attack!" Samael ordered, leaping to the left.
"Understood!" Kael propelled himself with the Wind Essence, flanking the wall of flames. He launched himself directly at the bronze colossus's legs, unleashing slashing gusts to try and immobilize its thick joints. The metal shrieked under Kael's sword intent, but the automaton's defense was absurdly high.
In the center, the Lunar Guardian's ice fist descended like a meteor on Seraphina.
The future Empress did not attempt to block a strike weighing tons. With glacial coldness, she crossed her arms in front of her.
"Frost Lotus: Shattered Mirror."
A massive hexagonal shield of absolute ice materialized in the air. The colossus's fist slammed into it. The ice cracked violently and shattered into hundreds of shards, but the kinetic force was sufficiently absorbed. Seraphina used the recoil to slide ten meters backward, releasing a freezing aura that froze the vapor around the Lunar Guardian, slowing its gears for barely a second.
But it was enough.
Samael intervened. His dragon eyes, shining with a lethal vertical golden slit, scanned the battlefield in a blink. Thanks to his Peak Transcendent Spiritual Sense, he didn't just see metal statues; he saw the threads of Qi animating them. He saw a thick cord of translucent energy, half red and half blue, connecting the Solar Guardian's chest to the Lunar Guardian's, keeping them in perfect synchrony.
"They use the perfect balance of Yin and Yang to share their power source," Samael shouted, brandishing the Odachi. "We have to break the scales! Kael, Seraphina, attack the geometric center between them NOW!"
Kael, without questioning his Patriarch's order, launched a horizontal Gale Slash aimed at the empty space between both golems. Seraphina, with lethal elegance, fired three compact ice spears toward the same invisible coordinate.
The wind and ice collided in the center, creating a visual distortion.
That was the moment Samael had been waiting for. He injected his Void Qi into the black and crimson blade of the Eclipse Odachi. He didn't use a divine Law, he didn't need to; he used the brute force of his bloodline and the destructive capacity of his Heaven Grade weapon.
Samael vaulted over Seraphina and Kael, tearing through the air like a dark missile.
"Sword Art: Black Horizon!"
The gigantic crescent of absolute void did not aim for the guardians' armor. It aimed directly at the distortion where Kael and Seraphina had struck, colliding exactly with the invisible Qi cord linking the two giants.
The Void didn't cut the energy; it devoured it. It consumed it completely, erasing the connection from the plane of existence.
The harmonic flow between the Sun and Moon broke abruptly.
The reaction was instantaneous and catastrophic for the automatons. Deprived of their energy exhaust valve, both flickered violently, losing their perfect synchrony. The Solar Guardian, unable to transfer its excess heat, began to overheat; its bronze joints melted from the inside out, and its legs buckled. The Lunar Guardian, glutted with stagnant Yin Qi, froze itself; ice coated its main gears, immobilizing it like a grotesque statue.
"Now," Samael whispered, his boots touching the floor.
Without giving them a millisecond to reboot their emergency systems, Samael moved with the speed of a wraith. In two fluid, brutal, and precise motions, the Eclipse Odachi traced two arcs in the air.
The molten head of the Solar Guardian went flying. The torso of the Lunar Guardian was cleanly bisected into two perfect halves. Both massive energy cores, hidden in the machines' chests, exploded in a cloud of thick smoke and spiritual sparks, extinguishing the colossi's eyes forever.
Sepulchral silence reigned in the ruin once more.
Kael lowered his sword, breathing heavily, awestruck by his Patriarch's surgical lethality. Seraphina simply smoothed out her blue tunic, her serene face showing no fatigue whatsoever.
The enormous vault door, sensing that the guardians had been destroyed, emitted a deep sound of releasing gears. The stone split down the middle, and the heavy leaves slowly swung open. The air that flowed from inside wasn't stale; it smelled of ancient parchment and pure, preserved Qi. It seemed that the ruin itself, having waited millennia, approved of the conquest by someone truly strong.
Samael sheathed the Odachi and led the way into the treasure chamber.
It wasn't a massive hall overflowing with useless gold. It was a small sanctuary, lined in white marble. Resting on six intricate pedestals of pure jade, under the light of preserving crystals, shone the true treasures of the Celestial Twins. Objects that had survived the erosion of time.
Samael approached the first pair of pedestals, his violet eyes lighting up with satisfaction. The System identified the treasures immediately.
"This... this is exactly what I needed for my sisters," Samael murmured, picking up the objects.
For Eris, the explosive and fierce fire warrior, the pedestal offered a Red Jade Manual, warm to the touch, alongside an imposing weapon. It was the "Heaven-Piercing Phoenix Spear" (High Earth Grade). Its black shaft was covered in crimson scales, and its tip was designed to unleash explosive attacks and imbue every thrust with ultra-compressed Fire Qi. It was the perfect weapon for someone who didn't seek finesse, but to lay waste to everything in her path.
For Violeta, the cold, calculating, and distant older sister, the second pedestal held a Blue Jade Manual emitting freezing vapor, accompanied by a weapon of lethal beauty. It was a sword as long and thin as a silver needle: the "Lunar Frost Waltz" (High Earth Grade). A weapon designed not for frontal clashes, but for extreme speed, the creation of cold illusions, and freezing the enemy's fluids with a single cut.
Samael stored both sets in his spatial ring, securing the twins' martial future.
He moved to the third pedestal and picked up a heavily worn scroll made of translucent skin. He tossed it to Kael, who caught it in mid-air.
"For your new wind essence, cousin. Sword Technique Manual: 'Phantom Gale Slash'. The scroll says that, at its peak level, it allows you to unsheathe, kill, and sheathe before the enemy's blood touches the ground or the sound of steel cuts the wind. Train it."
Kael pressed the scroll to his chest, nodding with fanatical devotion.
Samael reached the fourth pedestal. Resting on a silk cushion that inexplicably hadn't rotted away was a delicate White Jade Ring, carved in the shape of a closed lotus. He picked it up and turned to Seraphina.
System, evaluate this, Samael thought.
[Identification: "Ring of the Forgotten Empress". Contains microscopic engraving of the first volume of the "Imperial Lotus Sutra".][Effect: Allows a cultivator with Supreme Yin affinity to exert basic mental control over "Battle Aura", imposing paralyzing terror upon lower-ranked enemies and purifying the user's mind.]
Samael approached the bluish-silver-haired woman and, with a gentleness he only showed to his own, slipped the white jade ring onto Seraphina's index finger.
"An ornament worthy of an Empress, my Lady. The manual inside this ring will teach you to use your mere presence as a weapon. You won't just freeze their bodies anymore; now you will freeze their will to fight."
Seraphina looked at the white jade ring on her finger. Her translucent eyes shone with an unfathomable emotion, and a subtle, almost imperceptible smile curved her pink lips.
"I will ensure the will of your enemies breaks before their swords ever reach your neck, my Lord."
Samael nodded, gathering from the last two pedestals two heavy bamboo books bound with earth dragon leather. They were tactical techniques for the clan: the movement manual "Shifting Dune Steps", ideal for not sinking or leaving tracks in the desert, and the "Iron Phalanx Formation", a group defense array designed to repel massive charges by linking the Qi of multiple cultivators.
"This... this will give us much more than just a fighting chance," Samael said, his calculating mind already planning how to distribute the knowledge. "Let's go. I don't like being away from the clan's core for too long."
The journey back to Skull Rock was fast and silent, driven by urgency. The desert sun was beginning to set in the west, dyeing the bone dunes an ominous blood-red color, like an omen.
The trio reached the outer plateau at dusk, wounded by the minor traps of the ruins but undefeated in spirit. Just as Samael set foot on the skull stone and was about to order the obsidian doors to open, a sharp, strident alarm echoed in his mind.
The bronze core of the Tempering Chamber, linked directly to the Patriarch's mind, was emitting a frantic warning beep.
[Perimeter Intrusion Alert!][Multiple high-level hostile signatures detected (20 Units).][Approaching from the North flank. Charge speed: Extreme.][Identification: Mutant Qi Hounds / Valois Blood Hunters.]
Samael stopped dead. His violet eyes rose toward the northern dune. In the distance, kicking up a massive cloud of bone dust in the waning light, twenty armored figures in dark red were riding toward Skull Rock on the backs of horrifying three-headed beasts of flayed flesh.
The Valois Hunters had found them.
Samael glanced over his shoulder at the sealed obsidian door. He sighed deeply, but a sharp smile, devoid of any humanity, spread across his face.
"We just obtained new techniques and weapons in the ruins," Samael murmured, drawing the Eclipse Odachi from his back, the black blade vibrating with anticipation. "It would be a real shame not to test their edge tonight, wouldn't you agree?"
Kael immediately took his place at his right side, unsheathing Whisper of the North, the wind already swirling at his feet. Seraphina positioned herself to his left, the white jade ring on her finger emitting a soft, cold glow, ready to claim lives.
Samael connected his mind to the cave's core.
"Elder Lilith, Elder Marcus. Open the cave formation. Lift the gravity and bring all uninjured disciples out to the exterior plaza right now," Samael ordered through the array. "I want them forming ranks behind us."
The heavy obsidian leaves of the skull opened with a dull groan. From inside the cavern, the violet mist escaped outward, followed by the disciples of the Morningstar Clan.
They did not look like the same emaciated refugees from three days ago.
Although their faces were sunken from exhaustion and their clothes stained with sweat and blood, the 4x gravity had forged something new in them. Their backs were straight. Their muscles, now hyper-densified by the extreme pressure, looked compact like steel cables. They no longer trembled with fear watching the Northern Empire's assassins approach. They held their swords and spears with a firmness born in purgatory.
Elder Marcus, the anvil, took the vanguard of the disciples, slamming his massive shield into the plateau stone. Elder Torian took his side, his black saber ready. Elder Sela literally melted into the shadow cast by the obsidian door, vanishing from sight.
"Phalanx formation!" Marcus roared, and the thirty-odd youths closed ranks, linking their Qi into a joint barrier, intuitively applying their endurance training.
Fifty meters away, the infernal Valois cavalry skidded to a halt on the rocky plateau.
The leader, a massive man with his face split in two by an old burn scar and encased in red scale armor, raised a heavy curved dagger. His mutant three-headed hound howled, spitting acid from its blind maws, drooling at the scent of Morningstar blood.
The Valois commander analyzed the group in front of him. He had expected to find terrified refugees hiding in a hole. Instead, he found a miniature army, led by a white-haired monster looking at him as if he were the prey.
"Patriarch Morningstar!" the Valois commander bellowed, his voice rough as sandpaper, pointing his dagger at Samael. "The Northern Empire has decreed your total annihilation! Hand over the two white-haired girls hiding in that cave and I promise your death and the deaths of these dogs will be swift! Resist, and my hounds will eat your entrails while you still breathe!"
Samael tilted his head. The massive Eclipse Odachi hung relaxed in his right hand, grazing the stone.
Samael did not shout. He did not negotiate. He simply raised his left hand, fingers extended toward the darkening sky, and brought it down sharply like the gavel of a divine judge dictating a death sentence.
"Kill them all. I want no prisoners."
The battle that followed was not a skirmish; it was a choreographed, brutal carnage under the pale light of the desert moon.
Kael didn't wait for the riders to charge. He was the one who closed the distance. Debuting his new comprehension of the Wind Essence, Kael literally glided on the air fifteen centimeters above the ground. He tore through the lines of the first three Valois riders before they could even raise their shields. Their heads rolled across the stone before their hounds could register their masters were dead.
Seraphina did not move from her position beside Samael. She simply raised her hand, and the Ring of the Forgotten Empress glowed. She channeled her pure Supreme Yin aura and amplified it with the ruin's treasure. An invisible wave of absolute cold and terror swept the enemy lines. Several of the riders experienced a lethal paralysis, a tightness in their chests that made them hesitate for a vital second; a second in which they lost control of their mutant beasts.
The blind hounds, enraged by the death of the riders and disoriented by the ice, charged blindly into the line of disciples.
"Hold firm!" bellowed Elder Torian.
The hounds crashed into the disciples' defensive line. The bestial kinetic force should have broken the ranks and massacred the youths, but the bodies tempered in 4x gravity absorbed the impact. The shields rang out, but the Morningstar line didn't yield a single millimeter. From between the gaps in Marcus's shields, the disciples' spears thrust out with lethal precision, piercing the hearts of the aberrant hounds and the falling riders. Sela, rising from the shadows of the Valois themselves, slit the stragglers' throats in absolute silence.
The Valois commander, seeing his elite squad being torn apart by a clan of "refugees," let out a roar of blind rage. He dug his spurs into the sides of his alpha hound and charged directly at Samael's imposing figure.
"DIE, BASTARD!" the commander screamed, his dagger glowing with lethal poison Qi, aiming for Samael's neck.
Samael didn't even blink.
He used no majestic skills, nor the power of the stars. In the final nanosecond, just as the alpha hound's jaws were about to snap at his face, Samael took a single step forward. His Dragon Physique exploded with overwhelming force. He grabbed the mutant hound's massive central head with his bare left hand and, using the beast's own charging momentum, smashed it against the plateau's stone floor with such violence that the creature's skull pulverized, killing it instantly.
The Valois commander was launched into the air by inertia, landing heavily at Samael's feet. Before the Northern assassin could even attempt to get to his knees or beg for mercy, the Odachi of the Ravenous Eclipse came down in a clean, vertical slash.
The heavy red scale armor and the commander's body were split into two symmetrical halves.
Valois blood splattered Samael's boots, feeding the black sword's ravenous thirst, which vibrated with a sickening crimson pleasure, adding a new percentage to its passive cutting power.
Silence returned to the desert.
The twenty elite hunters and their abominations were dead. There were no serious injuries on the side of the Morningstar Clan. The sand, now dyed deep red under the cold moonlight, was the mute witness to an inescapable new truth.
The Morningstar Clan was no longer fleeing prey. They were the new predators of the white hell.
Samael flicked the thick blood from his Odachi's blade with a sharp snap of his wrist, sending a shower of red drops onto the stone, and sheathed the weapon on his back.
He turned to his disciples, who were breathing heavily, the adrenaline of their first true group victory pulsing through their tempered veins. There was no pity in Samael's eyes, only the frigid pride of a monarch watching his soldiers forge themselves in the fire.
"Clean up this trash and throw the corpses into the sand abyss. Let the Path-Devourer feed on them if it wants," Samael ordered dryly. "Collect their rings and weapons. And then... everyone back inside."
Samael looked into the obsidian cavern, where Eris and Violeta were still sleeping, now under the care of the healing Yang energy, oblivious to the massacre outside, awaiting the treasures that would soon be in their hands.
Samael turned back to the elders. His voice brooked no argument.
"You will rest for two hours. Tomorrow at first light... the chamber's gravity goes up to level 6. And the exercises will begin with extra weight."
The disciples swallowed hard, dread briefly replacing the euphoria of victory. But not one of them complained. They gathered the bodies in silence and absolute obedience.
Deep below, in the dark depths beneath the ocean of crushed bone sand, the gigantic Bone Path-Devourer shifted its massive bulk in the dark. It had smelled the blood of combat. The beast was impatient, its mutilated claw slowly healing and burning with a desire for revenge.
The battle was over, yes. But the true danger of the Dragon Bone Desert had yet to emerge.