The air in the Sanctum of Tempering hung thick and cloying, saturated with the metallic tang of blood, the pungent bite of rare, poisonous herbs, and the underlying ozone scent of concentrated demonic Qi. Torches guttered fitfully in iron sconces, their flames casting long, distorted shadows that danced like tormented spirits on the obsidian walls. In the center of the chamber, carved from a single block of blood-veined black marble, sat a basin large enough to drown a grown man. Within it churned the **Crimson Bone Nectar**.
Ju-Mayi, barely days old, swaddled in silk darker than midnight, knew only primal sensation. The cold air on his skin was a shock after the warmth of his mother's arms. The unfamiliar scents assaulted his tiny nostrils. Fear, formless and overwhelming, tightened his tiny chest. Then, the calloused hands of the attending Elders – figures robed in deepest crimson, their faces impassive masks beneath heavy hoods – lifted him.
The descent towards the churning, viscous liquid was slow, deliberate. The Nectar wasn't merely red; it pulsed with an inner light, like congealed fire and shadow. Wisps of crimson steam curled from its surface, smelling of iron and something ancient, rotten, yet undeniably potent. Instinct screamed. His tiny limbs flailed uselessly against the iron grip of the Elders. A whimper escaped his lips, a fragile sound in the oppressive silence.
Then, contact.
It wasn't immersion; it was immolation.
Liquid fire seared through the thin silk, scorching his delicate newborn skin. It invaded every pore, a million needles of pure agony driven deep into his flesh, his bones, his very core. His whimper exploded into a raw, piercing **SCREAM** that tore through the sanctum, raw and primal, echoing off the unforgiving stone. It was the sound of pure, uncomprehending torment.
The Elders held him submerged, their chants deepening, resonating with the Nectar's malevolent energy. Dark glyphs glowed faintly on the basin's rim, containing and intensifying the concoction's power. Ju-Mayi's world dissolved into blinding, searing pain. His tiny body arched, muscles spasming uncontrollably. His amber eyes, wide with terror and agony, saw only shifting shades of crimson hell. He couldn't breathe; the fire filled his lungs, searing his throat. He was drowning in agony.
High above, seated on a simple obsidian stool that radiated cold authority, **Cheonma Suryeong** watched. His expression was carved from the same stone as the walls. No flicker of paternal concern softened the obsidian hardness of his gaze. He observed the convulsing form of his heir with the detached scrutiny of a master smith assessing ore in a crucible.
"Cease your struggle, boy," the Heavenly Demon's voice cut through the screams and chants, colder than the mountain winds outside. It wasn't loud, yet it resonated within Ju-Mayi's very skull, a command impossible to ignore. "Struggle feeds the fire. Resistance is death. **Breathe.**"
Ju-Mayi, lost in the white-hot void of pain, barely registered the words. Breathe? How could he breathe fire? His tiny lungs burned, desperate for air, yet terrified of drawing in more agony.
"Not air," Suryeong commanded, his voice a lash. "The *pain*. The energy. Feel it. It is yours. It is your birthright. **Draw it in.** Make it yours."
Between ragged, choking screams, driven by some desperate, primal instinct deeper than understanding, Ju-Mayi tried. He sucked in a shuddering gasp, not through his mouth, but through his very skin, through his pores screaming under the assault. He focused not on the air, but on the searing, invasive energy tearing him apart.
*Pull.*
It was clumsy, instinctive, a drowning creature grasping at anything. But something *shifted*. Instead of the agony merely consuming him, a fraction of it seemed to… *flow*. It was pulled inward, not as fire, but as a raw, searing current. A faint, almost invisible haze of crimson energy, previously radiating *from* the Nectar *into* him, momentarily thickened *around* him before being violently sucked *into* his tiny body.
The effect was immediate, though minuscule. The all-consuming agony lessened by the barest fraction – a shift from being flayed alive to merely being burned at the stake. A sliver of space opened in the inferno. He gasped again, a ragged, wet sound, and pulled harder, more deliberately this time. Another wisp of crimson energy flowed inwards. The crushing pressure on his tiny chest eased slightly.
The chanting Elders paused, a collective intake of breath shivering through the chamber. Their hooded heads turned fractionally towards the Heavenly Demon, then back to the infant. The Blind Seer, standing apart, his milky eyes seemingly fixed on nothing, murmured, "He… adapts. The vessel accepts the forge."
Suryeong's expression remained unchanged, but a spark of something – not warmth, but intense, predatory *interest* – ignited deep within his obsidian eyes. He gave a minute nod. The chanting resumed, deeper, more forceful, driving the Nectar's power harder against the infant's fragile form.
Ju-Mayi screamed again, but this time, woven indbegun.