The beasts came.
Li Fan met them bare-handed.
His skin split with every blow. His breath turned to steam. But still he fought. Each time he was scorched, the fire didn't weaken him — it purified him.
His blood, once dark and sluggish, now shimmered gold-red under his skin. The impurities were burning away. Every scream he loosed was a note in the furnace's song — the melody of a man reborn in fire.
Hours passed. Maybe days.
The magma rose to his knees. His body trembled, but never fell. His mind should have broken — but his will was steel.
The final beast — a flaming serpent the size of a tree — wrapped around him, trying to strangle the life from him.
He reached deep, deeper, and felt the Fire Cauldron call to him.
> "Burn them all."
He exhaled.
Flames erupted from his body.
Not fire from qi. Not borrowed from talismans. But fire born from within — his blood alight with sacred heat.
The serpent screamed and disintegrated.
The cauldron descended.
It merged into his chest beside the Earth Cauldron — a second ring igniting in bronze and red. His veins glowed. His body radiated warmth and vitality.
He collapsed to his knees, laughing and coughing blood.
> "Two…"
"I've survived two…"
And the voice spoke again, quieter this time — as if approving.
> "The path is open. But from the Fourth, the heavens will resist."
> "Steel your soul, child of the body. The skies will strike you next."