The Iron fang hall lay deep within the mountain hold—carved from volcanic stone and ribbed with obsidian pillars. A massive bonfire burned blue-white in the center, its flames produced by ancient flame array bindings. Around it stood seven high-backed thrones for the Council of Elders—now all filled. I stood at the center, flanked by Felicity and Marla, who now wore simple robes and veils to obscure their cursed auras.
Hammerhead, Faeluxe, and Snake Man remained respectfully near the chamber doors, observing.
Elder Korren's voice echoed off the stone: "Ash ember coil, son of Kollnam. Speak your purpose." I took a step forward, voice calm but charged with conviction. "I've returned to finish the war. Red-Cap's schemes threaten the continent—he has destroyed many Clans, corrupted the land, and nearly overran the sun god bloom. His infection spreads."
I clenched my fist, lightning dancing along my knuckles. "I've declared war. My next move is to strike his remaining airfields and forges before he can unleash more abominations."
Elder Vash snorted approvingly. "Bold. We always said he was a pestilence." Elder Mei leaned forward, eyes shimmering. "And you've grown strong. But you must end this quickly." Elder Jinn raised one hand, signaling for silence. His voice was soft, yet carried the weight of omen. "Because there is far more at stake than Red-Cap."
I blinked, "What do you mean?" Elder Mei answered, voice hushed with reverence.
"The legendary Inheritances of the Beast Vein Continent—have begun to stir."
"Signs in the sky. Spirit domains opening where none should. Ghost trials echoing through the land." Elder Korren picked up, grim. "It is said they awaken only once every few centuries, when fate demands new Lords of Epoch.
Our seers believe the Will of the Continent has judged this era worthy."
I frowned. "Then it's true… the continent itself chooses the next titans?" Jinn nodded, "And you may be among them." Elder Vash stood. "Finish your campaign. Burn Red-Cap to the roots. Then return to us, Ashriel ember coil. The Inheritances will not wait forever, and their trials are not forgiving."
Elder Korren grinned with wolfish pride. "You've come home with storms at your back. Prove you can tame them—and we'll send you to claim one of the legacies of the continent itself." The council adjourned, Elder Mei quietly pulled me aside and whispered, "Your mother's pendant... it began glowing two nights past. I think it's resonating—with one of the Inheritances."
As the elders filed out of the council chamber and the fire dimmed to embers, I stepped into the cool night, thoughts churning. I didn't make it three steps before a rough arm caught me around the neck in a one-armed headlock. "You really thought you'd waltz back in here all storm-god and pirate-king and not get tackled?"
I staggered, grinning as I struggled out of the grip. "Torren, still built like a boulder, huh?"
Torren storm fang—a rugged Iron fang warrior with frost-touched hair, sharp eyes, and that ever-present wolf-tooth necklace—grinned with all his fangs showing. He pulled Me into a firm shoulder-clap embrace. "Brother. five months, and now you drop from the sky like some damn sky-lord." I smirked, "Well I am technically a sky lord now."
"You always were. Just needed a ship to prove it."
I stood on the observation deck of the Star bite, gazing at the twin suns bleeding through iron-colored clouds. The hull beneath him still bore scars from the zombie dragon attack—cracked plates, warped veins of animus-conducting metal—but the ship breathed. Slowly, but surely, the living ship was healing. I turned as Faeluxe drifted up beside me, brushing wind-swept hair from her glowing eyes. "How's the Star bite?" I asked, laying a hand on the living wood of the railing.
Faeluxe tilted her head, eyes briefly glowing as she communed with the ship's core. "She's recovering well. Hull integrity at eighty-five percent. Wound-seals closed. She's skyworthy again."
I gave a firm nod. "Good. We move soon." The Iron fang cultivation emporium — A Familiar Home
With the blessing of the Elders and half the clan watching from a respectful distance, I descended into Iron root hollow, home to the Iron fang Cultivation Emporium—an old haunt of mine from years past. Crates of beast marrow, powdered spirit root, and sealed qi-lotus bulbs lined the vaulted shelves. The air shimmered with latent qi and warm incense. I moved through the aisles like a hunter—Faeluxe, Marla, Snake Man, and Felicity in tow—selecting rare pills and powders with practiced hands.
My eye fell upon a rare display.
Condensed Yin & Yang WONDER PILL – Balance your internal flow. Boosts cultivation at breakneck speed, clears chakra channels. Price: 100,000 Iron Coins • 1,500 Gold Coins • 1 Ruby Spirit Coin
I raised an eyebrow at the tiered pricing. "Interesting conversion rate." Felicity leaned in, whispering, "One ruby coin is worth more than most nobles make in a year." I smirked, flipping a dozen glittering ruby coins onto the counter. "I'll take thirteen." The clerk almost dropped the pill box from shock, but quickly recovered and handed over the goods with a deep bow. "The Iron fang honors your return, Lord Ash."
Returning to the Star bite we had bags of cultivation supplies slung over our shoulders, as we crossed the valley gully, the sight of the great living ship—gleaming slightly in the afternoon sun, veins pulsing with light—felt like home. Marla sniffed the air, "There's fire in the wind again. The sky wants war." I glanced at the pill box in my hand, my mind already running through internal meridians and breath cycles. "Yeah, well when its gets here it will find us ready." The crew of the Star bite gathered in the sky deck mess, seated around a polished bone wood table beneath a canopy of translucent sails fluttering with ambient chi.
The hum of the ship's healing animus was a quiet pulse beneath our feet. I stood at the head of the table, a small black lacquered box in my hand. The condensation runes etched across its surface shimmered faintly. I opened it with a flick of my thumb.
Inside, nestled in soft velvet lining, were a Dozen glistening Condensed Yin & Yang Pills—each a perfect orb of dual energies, black and white swirling in a perpetual spiral. The balance was so refined it exuded a subtle glow that flickered in rhythm with the heartbeats of those present. I spoke clearly. "We have a few days before we hit Red-Cap's territory. I want everyone at their peak. These will help you align your animus qi, temper your chakras, and refine your dantians. One each."
I reached into the box, flicking them across the table one by one with measured precision. Felicity caught hers as it skittered toward her with alien precision, examining it in the light with a sly smile. "Balance, huh? I could use some after last night."
Marla let hers hover an inch above her palm using seething green animus. "I've only tasted Yin and Yang separately… never harmonized. Curious what this will do to the cursed parts of me." Her vipers hissed softly in agreement. Faeluxe cradled hers in both hands reverently. "I'll take this to the spirit garden chamber. Tempest harmony deserves perfect balance." Snake Man sniffed his and grinned. "Qi duality stabilizer? Should help with the bending points of the Thirteen Serpent Bends. Appreciate it, boss."
Hammerhead tapped his against the table once before pocketing it.
"You're giving me the good stuff? I might just punch Red-Cap's war forge in half this time. I haven't cultivated with a treasure pill in years. Time to remind these bones what they're for."
I kept one for myself while I stored the other seven in my bracelet dimension. "We rest, refine, and prepare. We move on Red-Cap in three days. Cultivate like your lives depend on it—because they do." They all nodded, and one by one, rose and dispersed to their personal chambers, training grottos, or meditation alcoves across the Star bite. Outside, the ship glided through thick violet clouds. Far to the north, the first flickers of Red-Cap's stormfront began to poison the sky with copper lightning.
In the dimly lit hold beneath the Star bite's hull, where cursed winds could not reach, Medusa Marla knelt in a circle of cracked salt stone. Cursed candles flickered green and blue, casting elongated shadows across her face and serpentine hair. At the center of her chest, nestled behind bone and sinew, the Hexa hydra crystal pulsed erratically—like a storm trapped beneath ice. For four centuries, it had refused to grow. No matter the bodies consumed, curses weathered, or secrets bargained for—its boundary remained locked. She unwrapped the Condensed Yin & Yang Pill from its silk cloth and pressed it to her lips. "Break, you stubborn beast core!" she whispered to the core, swallowing.
The moment it touched her dantian, her body convulsed—too much harmony poured into too much hatred. Her back arched violently. Her hair-vipers lashed at the air, mouths open in silent shrieks. A surge of duality slammed through her meridians. Yin surged down her left arm—ice, shadow, stillness. Yang surged down her right—flame, light, hunger. Her hydra crystal thrashed, trying to resist the fusion. Then—it cracked. And within that fracture, a flood of animus rushed in like sunlight through a tomb.
The Hydra roared. Not one—but three spectral Hydra heads erupted from her back in a crown of green fire! The chamber trembled. Curse wards shattered. Her breath fogged the air even as it burned. Marla screamed, eyes glowing viridian.
"Yes—YES! I REMEMBER THIS FEELING!"
Her bottleneck snapped then crumbled. In the spectral core within her mind's eye, the Hydra's image unfurled—she had been cultivating the Hexa-Hydra crystal, and now, with the Pill's help, it evolved to tier four! She collapsed forward onto her palms, laughing hoarsely, her voice rich with power.
"Lord Ash… I will serve you until the stars fall. You gave this feeling back to me." Seething green animus slithered around her ankles, parting in reverence. Her Hexa Hydra crystal had now hit tier five mastery. Marla could soon begin bonding and cultivating with the zombie dragon core, still stored in her spirit ring. The cursed witch, long stagnant, was whole again. The Star bite drifted through the clouds under the moon's cold gaze. Wind whispered past the sails. Everyone else slept or meditated below. But not Hammer head. The broad-shouldered pirate stood shirtless on the upper deck, his Saw fish blade embedded in the planks beside him.
Qi-tattoos across his back and arms pulsed like gills in sync with his breath—deep, tidal, blood-heavy. In one massive hand, he rolled the condensed Yin & Yang Pill between scarred fingers. Then, with a grunt, he popped it into his mouth and swallowed it dry. The reaction was immediate.
His veins bulged. His muscles inflated, stretching skin tight. Salty steam hissed from his pores. A roar ripped from his throat—not a man's roar, but the cry of a trench-dwelling leviathan. Water from the Star bite's enchanted reserves surged up around him in a vortex, responding to his deepsea blood. He dropped to one knee as his spine bent—not breaking, but reshaping.
"Damn… thing's dredging me up from the bottom of the ocean…" The Sea Tyrant Physique within him—an ancient hammer head whale shark hybrid. A body-refinement foundation—had stagnated after tier three. But now, infused with the pill's primal harmony, his animus began cycling violently between Yin and Yang. Yin hardened his bones into ocean lava rock. Yang boiled his blood into azure, blue. Hammer head screamed through the pain, pounding the deck with both fists, splintering wood beneath him. From the deep of his flesh, something awakened. Extra gills tore open along his ribs.
A dorsal fin surged up—then receded. His skin shimmered with armored flecks—pebble-scale hide forming across shoulders and jawline. The transformation settled. His body no longer resisted. "Heh… finally," he rasped, cracking his neck. "Tier four. Sea Tyrant Physique: Bloody Depths Baptism." He picked up his saw fish snout blade.
It...looked, smaller now.
Felicity sat on a woven crimson mat, cross-legged in black silk, her breathing so soft it barely stirred the flame of the blood-oil candle beside her.vThe Condensed Yin & Yang Pill sat between her fingers. She tilted her head, lips parting in a grin—hungry, not for blood… but for balance. "Finally, something that doesn't burn or decay me. Let's see what you do, sweet thing." She consumed it in a single swallow. The effect was instant. A shock of light and darkness collided within her veins, racing through her hybrid system of qi conduits and symbiotic feeder roots. She exhaled once.
Then screamed.
Not out of pain—out of evolution. She fell into a void between solar blossoms and blood forests, where golden rivers twisted with crimson sap. Her animus soul tree shimmered at the center—its branches shedding both petals and fangs. A seed pulsed within her spirit—the one she'd stolen and grown inside herself long ago.
It cracked. From within burst a new parasite, but beautiful: A luminous silver blooded vision. Wings of silver blood membrane unfurling like gossamer. Her phageal-core wasn't dying—it was ascending.
"Silver blooded phageal...tier four. Silver blooded queen form… Achieved." Her body lifted several inches from the floor.
A corona of rosy light and silver blood mist encircled her. Her long dark hair levitated, and her fingertips pulsed with tiny halos of blood plasma—not fire, but something else entirely. Her wings—normally hidden—bloomed from her back, wide, now semi-transparent, slick with red-silver veins. They beat once, just once, but the air shuddered.
A fiery crown flickered into existence, her crown chakra! It remained for a few moments before fading back into the ethereal. She landed with a soft click of bare feet on wood. Faeluxe, nearby, opened one eye—speechless. Felicity smiled slowly.
"Oh darling…I think I'm ready to eat a zombie king." The glow from Felicity's transformation had barely faded when Faeluxe sat back on her heels, clutching the Condensed Yin & Yang Pill tightly in her palm.
Her blonde hair fluttered around her face, cheeks flushed from proximity to Felicity's radiant upheaval. She looked at the pill. Then at Felicity. "Should I really… do this? What if I lose control?" Her voice was soft. Honest. Vulnerable.
A flicker of self-doubt.
Felicity turned to her, eyes molten gold, warm with understanding but sharp with purpose. She didn't speak. She didn't have to. She tapped two fingers against Faeluxe's heart—the place where their qi had synchronized during the tempest harmony stance cultivating.
Thump-thump.
"You're ready," her eyes said. "You're mine. Don't look back." Faeluxe swallowed. Then consumed the pill. She plummeted into a storming sea—her spirit ocean. Winds screamed, thunder howled, and blades of water cut the sky. She saw herself reflected in the maelstrom—half-forged, barely assembled. Then came a whisper. From the depths. From her blades. Dozens of spectral swords began to rise around her. They weren't cursed. They were hers. The sea froze.
A lotus of steel petals bloomed from the calm surface. Her animus Tree gleamed like folded starlight, its bark laced with streaks of pale wind, its roots wrapped in a coiled storm sigil. "Harmonized animus achieved. Wind-Edge Variant gained."
Faeluxe gasped. Her eyes burst open—no longer just pale but shot through with spiraling wind runes. Her qi surged outward in petal-shaped blades of air, slicing decorative wall scrolls and stirring Felicity's blood mist aura. Her hands twitched, fingers making subtle mudras from the Tempest Harmony Stance—but they formed new seals now. Refined seals. Her own variation. A gust lifted her hair and robes as her twin blades appeared in her lap, levitating and gleaming like they were singing to her.
Felicity grinned, arms crossed.
"Atta girl."
Faeluxe blinked—then smiled back, fierce and calm. "I'm going to cut through everything in our way."
Snake Man leaned against a mast post. His tongue flicked thoughtfully, pale eyes slitted with that ever-present reptilian calm. "Dual-nature pills like this... don't always break clean." He tossed the pill in his mouth and chewed—biting down like it owed him blood. No flourish. Just quiet resolve.
Snake Man's spirit realm was pitch black—a jungle of shadows, vines like veins pulsing with toxic chi. He stood before a massive obsidian serpent shrine—the same as the one from the Delta Pirate Inheritance—but now its eyes were open. Thirteen glowing rings slithered up from the roots and coiled around him, pressing against his meridians like ancient armor. He smiled—a rare thing—and sank into the coils willingly. As the shrine burst into green-black light, his animus tree hissed and forked, forming a triple-helix serpent branch with venom sacs of liquified qi. Breakthrough Achieved: Tier three Serpent Shadow Cultivator
Aspect: Molting Veil – Temporary Invulnerability plus Shadow Slip
The wind howled across the deck. Snake Man rose, exhaling green mist, his eyes now vertical slits, a faint shimmer of scales along his throat and jaw. "Efficient," he muttered, hands forming the first of thirteen subtle mudras, "I molt again."
The group had gathered in a loose circle. The air trembled with power—Marla's Hydra core still pulsing, Felicity and Faeluxe freshly radiant, Snake Man and Hammer head eerily calm, Hammer head glowing like molten iron. Now it was my turn. I stood quietly, the condensed Yin and Yang Pill resting in my palm, its dual energies swirling—black and white chi orbiting each other in perfect, storm-born tension. "Three main foundations," Faeluxe whispered, "Simultaneous advancement?" "Only Ash," Marla murmured. "Only 'my' Ash " Felicity whispered. Without a word, I swallowed the pill whole. The Star bite itself rumbled. The lights dimmed. I appeared in my spirit realm, standing atop a floating islet of obsidian and electrical fire that drifted among storm clouds, magma rivers, and titanic crab chitin.
Suddenly, all three Beast Cores began to resonate.
Ember Coil Core – Tier six Breakthrough
A volcano split open beneath me. A titan ember serpent, blazing with solar magma! It coiled around my spirit form, tightening—and then merged directly into my spiritual heart! A new trait unlocked, Solar Pyre Veins – My meridians and chakras now glowed with sun fire; and all of my fire-based attacks now gained Purification properties.
I gained a passive aura buff. My qi would now regenerate faster under sunlight and was immune to fire-based decay or corruption. I also gained a ranged qi strike that incinerated undead, curses, and shadow-based foes on contact. Highly effective against necromantic qi.
Storm Claw Raptor Core – Tier six breakthrough
High above, thunder split the clouds. Descending in a flash of blue lightning, the Alpha Storm Raptor slammed its claws into the floating island and shrieked a sound that ruptured space itself. Its storm qi infused my arms and legs, feathered with razor light.
A new trait was unlocked, Raptor Blitz Circuits – Enhanced speed, agility, and reflexes. Brief bursts would now allow me to teleport short-range within my visual field using mirage-step bursts, as well as a passive boost towards my mobility effectiveness of movement techniques like serpent step mirage. A new offensive ability was gained, Claw Arc Nova – I could now unleash charged wind strikes that release a crescent-shaped claw-like storm slash from a palm or kick.
Spire Colossal Crab Core – Tier four breakthrough
Beneath me, the islet cracked—and from the deep, a colossal crab-shell fortress erupted, dragging chains of the abyss with it. The Spire Crab's pincer-plate armor curled around me like a second skin, then folded into my back, forming a shell-like glyph over my spine.
I had achieved a breakthrough and unlocked an new Trait! "Aegis Shell Core" – Temporarily generates a crablike barrier when receiving a death blow. Passive: Boosts natural qi defense and cultivator resilience; my bones and organs took on a semi-crystal toughness. I gained the Crushing Fortress Grip – the ability to unleash two-handed qi pincers- a grapple style attack that could restrain even larger enemies with qi pressure.
Back in the Real World – The Aura Shifted The air detonated with force. I opened my eyes slowly, steam venting from my mouth and fingers. Sunlight began piercing the deck planks above me, even though it was midnight. my body crackled with storm mirage wisps! My skin faintly etched in glowing ember runes and plated crab sigils. Everyone stepped back. Even Marla tilted her head with awe. "You feel that?" said Felicity. "He's not the same."
"He's ascending," Snake Man muttered, "Faster than the Continent wants him to." I exhaled once. Fire, wind, and pressure followed. Then I smiled, small and confident.
"Red-Cap won't survive this."