Chapter 21: Chapter 21: The Hour Before
The sun had not yet risen over the black spires of the Tribunal when Jin Mu stirred.
His body was exhausted in a way that felt deeper than bone—like a long burn that had hollowed him from within.
Yet as he sat up in the darkness of their makeshift quarters, he felt something else beneath that ache.
A pressure.
A gathering.
He exhaled slowly, as though he might disperse it, but it only coiled tighter in the center of his being.
The Iron Vein was no longer a single scaffold—it felt as though it had begun to grow.
Carefully, Jin Mu settled cross-legged and sank his attention inward.
At first, he found only what he expected:
The locus pulsing with the Iron Vein's steady thrum.
The lattice of derivements woven into its edges.
The mark of Order—black and perfect—like a brand upon his spirit.
But beneath that, buried in a layer he had never managed to reach in his old life, he felt something waiting.
How long…has this been here?
The question had no answer.
He pressed his will deeper.
It was not a splinter in the way the others were.
Not a Vein.
Not a derivement.
Not a sub-path.
It was a root.
A hidden filament that anchored every other attainment, every sacrifice, every victory and loss.
He had never found it in his past life.
Even standing at the apex of the Black Emperor's Pathway, he had believed there were no further secrets.
Yet here it was:
A coiling signature that pulsed like a hidden artery, connecting him to something beyond Sequence, beyond cultivation.
The sensation was nearly overwhelming.
His breath caught as understanding arrived—no less bewildering for its clarity.
The Primordial Thread.
The term was half-instinct, half revelation.
A fragment of knowledge embedded in the nature of the regression itself.
He did not remember learning it.
He simply knew.
This Thread was a singular inheritance—something that could only be awakened by a life that had fractured and re-formed.
A secret the Pathways themselves had hidden from all who had never died and returned.
I was never meant to find this.
And yet he had.
In this fragile, imperfect life, the Thread had finally emerged.
His hands trembled as he anchored it to his locus.
When the pressure faded, it left him hollowed but somehow steadier.
He flexed his hands experimentally.
The Primordial Thread didn't manifest as raw strength or a surge of Sequence.
It was subtler:
A clarity of purpose.
A way to stitch the disparate aspects of his will into something indivisible.
He knew without arrogance that it would become the foundation of everything he did from this moment on.
Hours later, dawn slipped through the high windows in thin, silver bands.
Su Lin stirred on her cot, her eyes dazed but bright.
Her first words were a hoarse whisper:
"I think…I found it."
Jin Mu turned toward her.
"Describe it."
"It wasn't another facet," she said, sitting up slowly. "Not exactly. It felt like a…pulse. A pressure that grew until it cracked something inside me."
Her fingers traced her sternum absently.
"And when it broke, everything flooded in. The Burning Vein, the Flowing Vein—they didn't just join. They birthed something else."
He felt a chill of recognition.
"Your first derivement," he murmured. "What is it called?"
She hesitated, then spoke the words as though tasting them for the first time:
"The Crimson Torrent."
A fitting name.
He could feel it radiating from her—like standing too close to a wildfire.
He reached out, gently pressing two fingers to her wrist.
The locus thrummed beneath her skin, fierce and clear.
"You've stepped further in one week than many do in a lifetime," he said softly.
Her eyes filled with tears.
And pride.
Shen Yan entered moments later, the door swinging shut behind him with a muted thud.
He looked different.
His sword—an unadorned length of midnight steel—hung at his side, but it radiated a presence Jin Mu had never sensed from it before.
"You did something," Jin Mu said, studying him.
Shen Yan inclined his head, lips twitching in the closest thing to a smile he ever offered.
"I took it to the old shrines," he said. "It was…stubborn. But the Concord's hounds forced my hand."
"And?"
"It yielded."
He unsheathed the blade a fraction.
A glimmering edge, almost translucent, caught the dawn light.
"Three degrees of resonance," Shen Yan murmured. "All aligned."
Jin Mu nodded, feeling an unexpected warmth.
"Then we are all changed."
They ate together in silence, each preoccupied by the knowledge that the Tribunal had summoned them in just six hours.
By the end of that day, they would either be free to continue their campaign…
Or branded conspirators and executed.
When the meal was finished, Su Lin turned to Jin Mu.
"What did you find this morning?"
He studied her for a moment, then simply said:
"Something I should have found long ago."
She frowned but didn't press.
Shen Yan met his gaze across the cold embers.
"Whatever happens," he said quietly, "it was worth it."
Jin Mu looked at them—one student, one comrade—and inclined his head.
"No regrets," he agreed.
But in the back of his mind, he felt the Primordial Thread pulsing in quiet promise.
He had come too far to be broken now.