Before all of this happened—before the tremors shook the surface and blood began to spill aboveground—the Yan twins were already trapped in a battlefield of stone and steel, far below in the twisting veins of the mine.
They were being cornered.
The sound of clashing metal and bursting Qi echoed endlessly down the narrow passage, drowning out all else. The torchlight cast elongated shadows as Yan Bai and Yan Hei retreated step by step, sweat mixing with blood, panting breaths scraping through their throats. Every inch they gave, Xie Lang and Zeng Shiyang claimed with brutal force.
"At this pace, it won't be long before we're deep enough for the demonic beast to feel our presence and come out of wherever it's hiding… we need to find a way to get out of here!" Yan Bai thought, gritting his teeth, trying to hold formation with his brother.
Unfortunately for him, their enemies were not giving them the chance.
Xie Lang's fury was like wildfire—hungry, scorching, and impossible to contain. He advanced again, roaring through gritted teeth, "You should've never even thought about betraying me, you identical apes! Now I'll make sure you die the same way you were born—together!"
His Iron Fist technique had long since passed the threshold of control. His fists were glowing red from the accumulated heat, steam hissing off his knuckles. With every strike, he used his footwork to build explosive momentum, then unleashed it all in a single, concussive blow. Each impact sent a gust of hot wind down the tunnel, forcing the twins further back.
Beside him, Zeng Shiyang was no less relentless. His axe howled through the air in wide arcs, smashing into the ground and walls, spraying debris and dust in all directions. He was the hammer to Xie Lang's fire, and he showed no hesitation in keeping the pressure high.
"High-tier Rank 1 technique—Severing Mountain Flow!" Zeng bellowed.
A vicious arc of force followed the swing of his axe, carving a trail through the stone floor as if it were paper. The raw power of it sent a shockwave into the walls. Rocks loosened and rained down from above, and the entire cavern seemed to groan in protest.
The twins barely dodged, rolling apart and reforming their stance.
The battle raged on like a storm. The earth beneath them trembled. Fist met blade, axe met bone. And yet, even amid the chaos, none of the four combatants struck the supporting walls directly. It was an unspoken rule: no one wanted to die buried in this place.
But soon, it wouldn't matter.
They had gone too deep. Too far. The air was thick with stale Qi and the oppressive weight of something vast sleeping beneath the earth. Their senses were screaming. Even Xie Lang's attacks slowed ever so slightly as a flicker of unease passed across his expression.
The twins burst into an unfinished rest chamber—a new expansion to the mine not yet reinforced with timber or stone. It was meant to be a resting point, nothing more than scattered mining carts, dusty tools, and rough-cut benches. Yet the moment their boots touched the stone floor, both Yan Bai and Yan Hei froze.
Something was wrong.
There was no movement. No sound. But the Qi in the air turned sharp, like knives against the skin.
It felt like danger was watching them from beneath the floor.
From the earth itself.
Yan Hei's voice was barely a whisper, "We finish this. Now."
The twins took a mirrored stance, their movements perfectly synchronized. One breath, one heartbeat. The air around them seemed to shift as their Qi interwove—two halves of the same soul.
"High-tier Rank 1 technique—Unity Slash!"
Their blades gleamed, then vanished. The next instant, a mirrored arc of silver light swept across the chamber like a crescent moon, impossibly fast, impossibly sharp.
Xie Lang's eyes narrowed. He wasn't going to let them land a clean hit.
"High-tier Rank 1 technique—Volcanic Strike!"
His fist ignited—glowing bright orange, magma oozing from between his knuckles. Steam hissed around him as the stone underfoot blackened and cracked from the heat. With a roar, he dashed forward, heat distortion trailing behind him like a mirage.
Zeng Shiyang moved in tandem. His axe trembled, then glowed pale yellow as he growled:
"High-tier Rank 1 technique—Rupture Fang."
A simple technique. Nothing flashy. But devastatingly effective—compressing all of his Qi into the edge of his axe, amplifying a single point of impact until it shattered through defenses.
They clashed.
Twin blades swept down, met by fire and steel.
Qi exploded in all directions, blowing carts across the room, splitting stone with deafening cracks. The ceiling above groaned again. Fine dust trickled down like falling ash.
And then—
Thump.
A pulse.
It echoed beneath their feet. Slow, deep, ancient.
Thump.
Not from the clash. Not from the cave collapsing.
But from below.
All four froze for half a second, blood running cold.
Something had awakened.
And it was already aware of them.
After the explosion of techniques, silence fell—deafening and unnatural. Dust swirled in the fractured rest point, and from within the crater they had carved into the earth, something ancient stirred.
Not a stone.
Not a root.
But a tree vein—thick, dark brown, coiled and alive with unnatural stillness. Black stripes spiraled across its surface like burnt brands, as if some primordial force had marked it. It pulsed once… then again.
At first, it looked dead. Then Yan Bai saw it: a wound. Barely more than a gash, no larger than a claw mark, but it bled. A thick, black ichor oozed from it, slick and cold.
The moment the ichor touched air—
Everything changed.
Both twins froze, their bodies going rigid as if their blood had turned to ice. Their faces lost all color, pale as ash, mouths slightly open in disbelief. Qi, which once flowed like a calm stream, now felt like it was screaming inside them—fleeing their meridians in terror.
Then came the sound.
A roar.
No—not a roar.
A commandment.
It tore through the tunnels like a death curse, shattering walls, ripping through stone like parchment. The cave groaned and howled as veins of rock split open. The ground beneath the tree vein convulsed, cracked—then erupted as the vein moved. It surged upward, revealing its true form: a serpent-thick root, two meters wide, twisting like a sleeping god uncoiling after centuries of slumber.
The air turned vile. Sulfur. Blood. Burnt marrow. Every breath was like inhaling despair.
Yan Bai bit down, hard. Blood flooded his mouth as he punched Yan Hei in the gut, snapping his brother out of the stupor.
"WE NEED TO LEAVE. NOW!"
They bolted.
Ran past Xie Lang.
Ran past Zeng Shiyang.
Didn't speak. Didn't think. Just ran.
Because they saw it too.
Xie Lang, the fire-born brawler, was frozen. His body shook. His fists, still hot from his volcanic strike, had gone limp. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Zeng Shiyang stood like a corpse with his axe dragging behind him, his knuckles white with fear.
It was the first time in their lives they had felt demonic Qi.
Not sensed it.
Felt it.
And it felt like death had reached out and wrapped its hand around their necks.
Then—crack—a rock from the ceiling fell and slammed into Xie Lang's head. His eyes rolled back for a moment, and then the pain snapped him back. But not into courage—into panic. Into the kind of primal terror that made beasts stampede and men abandon their own shadows.
He shoved Zeng Shiyang so hard the latter stumbled to the ground.
"RUN!" Xie Lang shouted, voice shrill and broken.
Zeng Shiyang blinked. Then the fear sank its claws into him too.
They ran.
All four of them—elixirs gulped, pills eaten , bodies pushed past the limit.
The mine behind them howled. Stone twisted and cracked as more tree veins began to emerge, pulsing, waking, rising.
The beast wasn't just awakening.
It was angry.
And now it was awakened and ready to show why Demonic Beasts were a sign of Death and Annihilation.
Outside the mine, the chaos halted in an instant.
The clashing of weapons, the shouts of combat, the roar of Qi techniques—all of it ceased the moment that scream echoed from the depths of the earth.
It wasn't human.
It wasn't beast.
It was something far worse.
A sound that scraped against the soul, stretched the nerves, and made the heart forget how to beat.
All eyes turned toward the mine entrance.
And then they felt it.
Demonic Qi.
Unfiltered. Unrestrained. Pure.
It erupted like a tide, sweeping across the battlefield, a presence so vile and overwhelming that it drowned out everything else. It didn't just press against their bodies—it invaded them. It seeped into bones and marrow, coiled around hearts like a noose.
The students of Stone Path Hall stood paralyzed.
The Jiang clansmen—all proud and battle-worn—froze mid-breath.
None dared speak.
None dared blink.
The Demonic Qi was not just energy. It was terror given form. A death sentence carved into the world itself. It told them, "You've already died. You just haven't realized it yet."
Escape?
There was no escape.
The beast within hadn't even emerged, and yet its fury howled louder than the wind, louder than the clash of war.
The air itself seemed to recoil.
And for the first time in their lives, cultivators—hardened warriors—feared to take another step forward or maybe even accepted their deaths and did not plan on resisting the inevitable.