Chapter 14

The Heart of the Iron Serpent

The thermal draft rising through the inner shaft of the Imperial Clock Tower was suffocating.

With every step Ming Xian climbed, the ambient air grew hotter, thick with the oily stench of scorched iron and vaporized spiritual medicine. Massive bronze cogs, each twice the height of a man, ground against each other in endless, relentless rotations above his head. Their rhythmic clanking reverberated through his teeth, vibrating through his bones like the heartbeat of a mechanical leviathan.

"The Qi concentration up here is lethal," Baihua warned, her small spectral form wavering slightly as she hovered close to his throat. "Song has diverted seventy percent of the capital's ley-lines into the upper chamber's converter. It's no longer just an array anchor, Ming Xian. It's an artificial soul furnace."

Ming Xian didn't slow his pace. He adjusted the leather strap binding his sheath, his eyes fixated on the narrow catwalk ahead. "If it's a furnace, it has a vent. Energy cannot be compressed indefinitely without a release point."

"The vent is Song himself," Baihua replied sharply. "He's using his own body as the vessel to contain the compressed essence. Once the alignment peaks at midnight, his fragile Core Formation realm will be forcibly burned away, replaced by the boundless capacity of a Nascent Soul. But if his mind snaps during the fusion, the whole tower will detonate, wiping out half the Middle Ward."

"Then we make sure he doesn't complete the fusion," Ming Xian said.

He stepped off the spiral stairs onto a narrow iron catwalk that ringed the highest chamber of the tower.

The cavernous space was dominated by a colossal, suspended iron sphere—the Heart of the Clockwork. Thick conduits of liquid copper pulsed with brilliant crimson light, snake-like tubes running from the walls directly into the center of the sphere.

Hovering in the center of the sphere, suspended inside a cage of solid spiritual flame, was Grand Elder Song.

The old man's long silver hair floated wildly around his head, his grey robes torn open to reveal a glowing, crimson seal carved directly over his chest. His skin had taken on a translucent, glass-like sheen, veins pulsing with violent, raw Qi that looked like liquid fire beneath his flesh.

As Ming Xian's boots hit the iron floor, Grand Elder Song's eyes snapped open.

They were no longer human eyes; they burned with twin sparks of blinding crimson light. A heavy, suffocating pressure instantly expanded from his body, filling the high chamber like an invisible tide of solid lead.

"Ming Xian," Song's voice echoed, not from his mouth, but directly through the air, resonant and terrifying. "The stray dog returns to the butcher's shop. I felt the Southern Anchor break, yet I could not register a single thread of Qi approaching my domain. I should have guessed it was you."

Ming Xian stood calmly at the edge of the catwalk, his straw hat casting a sharp shadow over his cold eyes. He drew his notched hunting knife with his right hand and unbuckled his broken steel saber with his left.

"You look uncomfortable, Grand Elder," Ming Xian said, his tone casual, almost conversational. "Forcing a Nascent Soul breakthrough using stolen ley-lines and a dying man's core... You look less like an immortal and more like an overfilled boiler."

Song's glowing eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Arrogant insect. You were a failure when you possessed a core, and you are a cripple now without one. Do you truly believe that physical blade-work can breach the domain of a rising deity?"

Song raised a single finger.

BOOM!

A wave of concentrated, red spiritual pressure slammed down on the catwalk like a falling mountain. The thick iron plating buckled instantly, rivets snapping with the sound of gunshot reports.

Normal cultivators below the Core Formation stage would have had their bones crushed and their internal organs ruptured instantly by the sheer weight of the intent.

Ming Xian didn't even bend a knee.

Because he possessed no spiritual core or active meridians, the spiritual pressure found nothing to compress. The invisible mountain of Qi passed right through his physical form like wind through a net.

Song's eyes flickered with a rare flash of genuine surprise. "What...?"

"Your spiritual domain affects souls and Qi channels, Song," Ming Xian said, stepping forward through the buckling metal floor. "I have neither. To your grand array, I'm just a falling rock."

Before Song could adjust his technique, Ming Xian broke into a full sprint.

He didn't move in a straight line. He zig-zagged across the narrow iron beams, using the massive, rotating bronze cogs as physical cover.

"Baihua, the left conduit!" Ming Xian barked.

"On it!"

Baihua transformed into a streak of emerald frost, shooting across the chamber toward the thick copper pipe feeding liquid Qi into the cage's left side. She expanded her spectral roots, plunging them directly into the seam of the overheated valve.

CRACK-FREEZE!

The sudden, violent thermal shock of spectral ice meeting superheated liquid Qi caused the copper pipe to crack violently. A massive jet of scalding blue vapor erupted outward, severing one of the four main power feeds to Song's protective flame cage.

The crimson fire surrounding Song flickered, dimming by a fraction.

Song hissed in fury, flicking his left hand toward Baihua. "Vermin of the woods!"

A bolt of crimson lightning shot from Song's palm, streaking toward the pine spirit.

Ming Xian anticipated the move. He vaulted off a rising bronze gear, throwing himself directly into the trajectory of the lightning bolt. As he crossed the beam, he threw his broken steel saber straight into the path of the arc.

SPARK!

The lightning struck the broken steel blade, grounding through the metal and scattering harmlessly into the iron frame of the tower.

Using the momentum of his mid-air leap, Ming Xian landed heavily on the main iron ring surrounding Song's central cage. He swept his notched knife in a sharp, upward arc, aiming directly for the exposed crimson seal on Song's chest.

Song's eyes widened. With his power feed disrupted and his spatial domain useless against a coreless fighter, he was forced to bring up his physical hands to block.

CLANG!

Song's glass-like fingers caught the spine of Ming Xian's notched knife, sparks flying as raw Qi fought against hardened steel. The sheer kinetic force of the impact sent a shockwave through the upper chamber, shattering the nearby glass pressure gauges.

"Imbecile!" Song roared, his face twisting with rage as he felt the cold, physical weight of Ming Xian's blade pushing against his palms. "Even if you touch me, my skin is reinforced by the city's entire subterranean network! You cannot cut me!"

"I don't need to cut you," Ming Xian whispered, his face inches from Song's glowing eyes, a cold, ruthless smile touching his lips. "I just needed to get close enough to see where the core is seated."

Ming Xian's left hand, which had been hidden beneath his grey sleeve, flashed forward.

He wasn't holding a weapon. He was holding a small, rusted iron wedge—a piece of the broken Southern Anchor pillar he had scavenged earlier.

Before Song could react, Ming Xian jammed the blood-soaked, rune-carved granite fragment directly into the glowing seal on Song's chest.

ZZZZZZZT!

The corrupted crimson energy of the Southern Anchor violently clashed with the pure Qi inside Song's chest. The Grand Elder let out a blood-curdling scream as his own body began to reject the compressed energy. The glass-like skin on his arms cracked like dry porcelain, bright veins of wild, uncontrolled fire bursting outward from his skin.

"AAAGHH! YOU CURSED WORM!" Song screamed, his body expanding dangerously as the internal pressure went out of control.

With a desperate, violent surge of raw force, Song struck Ming Xian's shoulder, sending the young man flying backward off the platform.

Ming Xian tumbled through the air, crashing hard onto a lower iron catwalk. He rolled twice, coming to a stop near the edge, coughing up a mouthful of dark blood. His left shoulder was dislocated, hanging limply at his side.

"Ming Xian!" Baihua flew to his side, her green light flickering with panic.

"I'm fine," Ming Xian spat out blood, using his right hand to brutally pop his shoulder back into its socket with a sickening CLICK. He didn't even flinch.

He looked up toward the central sphere.

Grand Elder Song was floating in the air, but he was no longer in control. His body was swelling, wrapped in a chaotic storm of red and blue lightning. The entire upper ceiling of the clock tower was beginning to crack, stone dust raining down as the central engine screamed under the sheer, uncontained pressure.

"He's going to detonate!" Baihua yelled over the deafening roar of grinding metal. "The array is completely corrupted!"

"Not yet," Ming Xian said, getting back to his feet, his right hand gripping his notched knife tightly once more.

High above, deep within the blinding sphere of exploding energy, Song's wild, bloodshot eyes locked onto Ming Xian. The old man raised his trembling, cracked arms, drawing upon a hidden, ancient mechanism beneath the central dais.

From the dark pit beneath the clockwork engine, a massive, black obsidian coffin rose into the light, suspended by four heavy blood-iron chains.

"You think... you've won... boy?" Song's voice rasped, echoed by the dying roar of the machine. "Look upon... the true core of Tianzhou!"

Ming Xian's eyes narrowed as the lid of the obsidian coffin slid open, revealing what lay inside.