天命五劫

The stench of the Western fire oil was nauseating, as if the rotting entrails of a camel had been left to decay under the scorching sun. As Ling Tian carefully pried open the bottom panel of the bronze carriage, a faint rolling sound echoed from within. Moments later, seven hidden compartments slid open, revealing seven ancient copper coins that tumbled to the ground.

These coins were entirely different from the "Xuan"-inscribed one Ling Tian carried. Each bore intricate flame patterns, as though real fire would burst forth at any moment. But the most chilling detail was at their center—where the hole of a traditional copper coin should have been, each of these had a piece of pale, withered human ear bone threaded through it.

Slowly, a dark, viscous liquid began seeping from the coin holes, pooling on the ground into eerie Persian script:

"A blood sacrifice to the Gray Wolf; the stars shall fall at Jade Gate Pass."

Hundreds of miles away, a deafening roar tore through the night—the howling of an immense sandstorm ravaging the distant Jade Gate Pass. Ling Tian quickly crouched behind a towering sand dune, silently observing the scene. A massive convoy from the Ministry of Works was approaching the fortress, but something was amiss. The guards were not ordinary imperial soldiers. Instead, a group of towering Persian warriors clad in pristine white robes flanked the convoy.

These warriors were formidable, their every step causing the earth beneath them to tremble. Their faces were cold and expressionless, like statues cast from iron, exuding an aura of pure menace. But what truly made Ling Tian's skin crawl were the pulsating lumps protruding from their necks—some a deep purple, others a sickly black, with writhing patterns resembling countless parasitic worms burrowing just beneath the skin.

Ling Tian's breath hitched. He had seen these before—the exact same tumors had disfigured the pawnbroker's body back in Jiangnan. A terrible premonition gripped his heart.

Before he could react, an explosion shattered the uneasy silence.

At the rear of the convoy, a carriage laden with glass jars suddenly erupted in flames. The explosion sent shards of glass flying in all directions, their jagged edges glinting under the moonlight. From the wreckage, a figure emerged, drenched in a thick, viscous liquid. The person staggered forward with labored movements, as though struggling against immense pain.

Ling Tian's blood ran cold as the figure came into focus—

The person was clad in the robes of a Ling family physician.

Worse still, embedded in the physician's chest was an all-too-familiar copper coin, inscribed with the same "Xuan" character as the one Ling Tian carried.

The midnight stars hung low as bonfires blazed atop the fortress walls. The Persian warriors cast their copper coins into the flames, and in an instant, the fire turned an eerie green, forming the spectral shape of a twin-headed wolf.

At that moment, the blood bodhi within Ling Tian's chest convulsed violently. Its roots burrowed into the sand, unearthing a massive bronze chain—the very Starfall Shackles that had once bound the iron coffin in the mass grave.

The moment the shackles ensnared the spectral wolf, an eerie voice echoed within its howls:

"The seventy-ninth generation… still incomplete…"

Ling Tian yanked the chain, shattering the spectral wolf into a cascade of meteor-like embers. As they struck the ground, the embers solidified into stone tablets inscribed with ancient Western script.

The inscriptions detailed the ritual for creating the first generation of Ling family alchemists:

"Carve their bones from Snow Mountain Amethyst, forge their souls from fallen stars."

"Turns out you're an antique yourself."

A voice, playful yet laced with menace, drifted down from the fortress walls.

A barefoot woman lounged atop the battlements, silver anklets inscribed with Persian script glinting in the firelight. She idly tossed a flame-etched copper coin into the air before flicking it toward Ling Tian's forehead.

The coin whizzed past his ear, shattering an incoming crossbow bolt—the shaft bore the mark of "Xiao", the signature of Chasing Wind.

"Your dear third brother wants you dead," she chuckled. "I wonder, does he know that the coin buried in his chest was polished from his own mother's rib bone?"

Another arrow shot toward Ling Tian. He shattered it mid-air, but the splintered shaft released a poisonous mist. As the fumes enveloped him, memories flooded his mind—

A ten-year-old Chasing Wind, bound to an altar with chains. The eunuchs of the Eastern Depot branding a "Xiao"-inscribed copper coin onto his chest. The molten metal sizzled as it seared his flesh, drinking in Ling Tian's own blood.

The barefoot woman flicked her wrist, sending silver threads entwining around the Starfall Shackles. The razor-thin wires sliced into Ling Tian's wrist, his blood seeping into the intricate engravings on the chains.

The dormant bronze war beasts buried beneath the sand suddenly roared to life. Fire-fueled, their eyes gleamed with embedded Snow Mountain Amethysts. The moment the violet light shone upon Ling Tian's body, he saw it—

The roots of the blood bodhi had already spread up his throat.

"Amethyst suppresses the soul. Too bad you're too late," the woman mused. With a flick of her fingers, she ignited the fire oil.

Flames engulfed the fortress.

"Your ancestor, Ling Huaiyuan, should have done this thirty years ago," she sneered. "Instead, he created defective remnants like you."

Within the inferno, Ling Tian fought his way through the mechanical beasts, their amethyst shards embedding into his skin. Amidst the searing pain, a vision emerged—

Deep within the mines of the Snow Mountains, hundreds of alchemists labored with skeletal pickaxes, harvesting amethysts. Each bore the character 'Shi' upon their chests—the mark of Iron Bone's clan.

As the night reached its darkest hour, Ling Tian stumbled into an underground chamber beneath the fortress.

Nailed to the stone wall was the desiccated corpse of a Persian Grand Magus, clutching a fragment of The Art of Heavenly Craftsmanship—Western Codex.

Tucked between the bloodstained pages lay a single piece of Snow Mountain Amethyst. Within its crystalline depths, something was suspended—

A fetus.

And its features were unmistakable.

It was the mirror image of Ling Yuan, the youngest brother Ling Tian had lost the night his family was massacred.

At the very end of the brittle, yellowed pages, delicate handwriting chronicled a forgotten history:

"In the forty-seventh year of Eternal Prosperity, Ling Huaiyuan carried the sacred Snow Mountain Amethyst on his journey back to the capital. It was on this very night that the celestial stars shifted… and the tides of fate began to turn."

And then, the ink bled.

As though the script itself mourned the horrors it concealed, fresh blood seeped from the parchment, gathering into a single mark upon Ling Tian's palm—

The Hexagram of Fire and Marsh—A divided fate, bound by a common vengeance.

As the first rays of dawn struggled through the relentless sandstorm, the ancient star map clutched in Ling Tian's hands flickered once more.

The star representing Chasing Wind surged toward the Purple Tenuity Enclosure, its brilliance intensifying.

At the same moment, in the distant Jiangnan province, another star ignited—

A star aligned precisely with an abandoned well in the long-deserted Xuan family manor