Ashes Of The Phoenix: The Crimson Pact

Three days after the banquet, Nine Gates Sect awoke to the scent of smoke in the wind.

It came from the south border — the distant village of Hualin. A quiet place, known for rice terraces and moon festivals.

Now, it was gone.

Reports came in before dawn: burned fields, livestock torn to pieces, entire homes gutted like fish. But worst of all — there were no bodies.

Not one.

Just blood. Streaked across walls. Pooled under broken carts. As if something had come to feed.

Li Feng stood before the council, expression unreadable.

"It's not raiders," Elder Xun said grimly. "No mortal could've done this."

Another elder spoke, her voice brittle: "We believe... it's the Mist-Cursed Ones."

A cold silence fell.

Li Feng narrowed his eyes. "That's a myth. They were sealed a hundred years ago."

"Precisely," Elder Xun replied. "But something must have broken the seal. And now... they've returned."

The Mist-Cursed Ones were not beasts. Not quite demons. Not quite ghosts.

They were humans once — cultivators who lost control of forbidden arts, until their souls were twisted into hunger and shadow.

When banished to the mists of the Dead Marsh, they had vanished from history. A sealed realm. Forgotten.

Until now.

Li Feng left that afternoon.

He didn't take Shen Yun. He didn't tell Shen Yun. He couldn't afford distractions, not with the poison pulsing beneath his veins.

The mark over his heart was darker now. Faintly iridescent. Like the scale had begun to bloom inside him.

But he couldn't stop.

If the Mist-Cursed Ones were truly back, the entire sect was at risk.

The First Encounter

By nightfall, he reached the ruins of Hualin village.

The moon was high, but the mist that rolled over the fields was thick. Too thick. It twisted unnaturally, curling like fingers through grass and shattered tiles.

He stepped over a broken gate.

Then he saw it.

A thing.

It stood like a man. Tall. Ragged robes hanging like wet moss. Its limbs were too long, its neck too thin. But its face — no, mask — was bone-white, with no mouth. Only black pits for eyes that seemed to breathe.

Its fingers were long. Hooked like thorns.

It turned to him.

And it screamed.

No sound. Only pressure. A psychic howl that slammed into Li Feng's chest like a wave of knives.

His knees buckled. The scale inside him pulsed in response.

The creature lunged.

Li Feng reacted instinctively, summoning the Crimson Thread Seal.

Chains of blood-red light shot from his palm, binding the creature mid-air.

It writhed. Twisted. And then split its limbs, cracking open like a spider molting.

Li Feng's eyes widened.

It wasn't just one.

There were three now.

Back at Nine Gates Sect

Members were starting to vanish.

First, a patrol team at the east cliffs.

Then a messenger headed toward the inner city.

No screams. No traces.

Only a trail of blood in the mist.

And a single message burned into the training ground:

"We hunger. We remember. We are coming home."

Li Feng returned, bloodied but alive. He had slain one. Barely.

Elder Xun treated his wounds in secret, watching the black veins grow bolder under his skin.

"You can't keep doing this," he warned.

Li Feng met his gaze coldly. "I will. Until they're all dead."

And deeper inside, the poison scale inside him pulsed again.

Hungrier.

As if it, too, remembered the Mist-Cursed Ones.

And deeper inside, the poison scale inside him pulsed again.

That Night

Li Feng didn't sleep.

He sat cross-legged by the silent koi pond, moonlight cutting across his pale skin like blades. His robes were half-undone, revealing the now-bloomed mark on his chest.

The scale had changed.

It had grown roots.

Thin, black-veined lines branched out from the epicenter like delicate cracks through porcelain, winding toward his collarbone, toward his core. They didn't hurt — not yet. But they pulsed.

With rhythm.

With awareness.

He pressed two fingers to the skin just above it, and concentrated.

"Three breaths. Silence the flow. Shift the poison."

He was using an ancient technique once designed to suppress soul corruption — Qiuyao Compression Seal.

It was dangerous. It pressed the poison into dormancy by forcing all internal meridians to tighten, like clenching a fist around venom. Even a small mistake could shatter his cultivation base.

His breath trembled.

He pressed harder.

The roots twitched… then froze. Held. Bound. For now.

But he felt it. The resistance. Like the scale didn't just live inside him — it watched him.

"What are you?" he whispered under his breath. "Why do you respond to them?"

He didn't expect an answer.

But somewhere far off, deep within his spiritual sea, a whisper rippled through the stillness:

"Blood remembers blood."

Li Feng's eyes shot open.

Meanwhile… in the Inner Court

Shen Yun trained alone, striking against the bamboo dummies. His blade glowed faintly with spiritual energy, his motions precise. Determined.

But his heart wasn't in it.

Li Feng's been avoiding me. Again.

Three days, and still nothing. No missions assigned. No shared tea. No teasing glances. He hadn't even come to morning review.

"You said we were changing," Shen Yun murmured. "But now you're the one who's vanishing."

He stabbed forward again — too sharply. The blade cracked against the stone pillar, splintering.

"Ugh—!"

A voice called from behind.

"Still practicing?" Wei Lan leaned against the doorway, watching.

Shen Yun nodded stiffly.

Wei Lan approached slowly. "You know… it's strange. The Sect Leader left three nights ago. Came back bloodied. Everyone's pretending it didn't happen."

Shen Yun's grip on the broken blade tightened.

So he had gone somewhere.

And didn't say a word.

Wei Lan lowered his voice. "You think he's hiding something?"

Shen Yun turned sharply. "Why do you care?"

Wei Lan held his gaze for a long beat. Then he raised his eyebrows.

"Why? You think only you can care about the sect leader now?"

And with that, he left.

Shen Yun stared down at the cracked bamboo at his feet.

Something's wrong.

At the Edge of the Sect – Next Morning

They found a body.

Or what was left of one.

A young disciple, barely fifteen. Limbs gone. Eyes missing. Skin marked with thin carved symbols like twisted scripture. The body was wrapped in fog-damp robes, as if he'd wandered into the mist… and never come back out.

Li Feng stood over the remains, his expression unreadable.

Elder Xun beside him. "Same symbols. The Mist-Cursed Ones are drawing closer."

Li Feng's voice was quiet. "They're feeding. Marking territory."

"They're… not hunting at random, are they?"

Li Feng didn't reply.

But his eyes turned toward the mountains beyond the inner court.

Toward the heart of Nine Gates Sect.

Toward Shen Yun's quarters.

Elsewhere… Deep Beneath the Marshes

In a space twisted beyond reality, between rot and dream, the Mist-Cursed Ones stirred.

Dozens now.

White masks. Spindly limbs. Eyes that bled smoke.

And at their center stood a figure far larger than the rest. Its mask was cracked. Its body pulsed with spiritual flame — corrupted and eternal.

It opened its mouth.

"The blood of the gate... walks among them again."

"He carries our memory."

"He will open the path."

The air pulsed with the promise of ruin.

And the march began.

Back at Nine Gates Sect

That evening, Shen Yun found Li Feng in the west wing, staring out across the lake.

"Tell me the truth," Shen Yun said firmly. "You're hiding something. I can feel it."

Li Feng didn't look at him.

The moon lit half his face, making his expression unreadable. Shadowed.

"I'm protecting you," he said.

Shen Yun stepped closer. "From what?"

Li Feng finally turned.

Their eyes met — and for the first time, Shen Yun saw it. The exhaustion. The faint black lines under the skin at his throat. The gleam of something sick and shifting behind his eyes.

But before he could speak—

A scream rang out.

High. Inhuman.

Then another.

Then three bells sounded across the Sect.

Emergency.

The mists had reached the inner wall.

End of Chapter 15