The moment that massive, dark-gold claw emerged from the blood-red vortex, a fire ignited deep within my marrow.
And I don't mean metaphorically—I mean a real fire.
My blood vessels were no longer carrying blood, but molten lava.The golden sigil in my sea of consciousness began to tremble violently, forcefully dismantling and reconstructing the "Bloodbone Baptism" ability I had just seized.
Veins of blood-red light spread across my skin like spiderwebs, each one glowing faintly like cracked magma.
"ROAR—!"
A bloodfiend beast lunged, its claws already at my throat.
But just as the claws pierced my skin—My right hand snapped up and caught its forelimb.
Crack!
The sickening sound of bone breaking rang out.
My fingers sank deep into the beast's flesh. It howled in pain, and I caught a whiff of burning flesh.Not the beast's—Mine.
The skin on my palm blackened and peeled away from the heat of the contact,but within seconds, fresh muscle had regenerated underneath.
[Warning! Physical breakdown accelerating!]
[Emergency protocol activated—]
[Pain Conversion System: Online]
Suddenly, a golden downpour erupted within my consciousness.Thousands of tiny runes fused into my limbs, and the unimaginable paintransformed into fuel.
Every nerve screaming in agony now fed directly into my meridians,converting into a raging current of raw power.
"Hh-hahhhh…"
The sound that came out of my throat was no longer human.
Still gripping the beast's limb, I swung it over my head and smashed it into the ground.Boom!The mountain rock split with web-like cracks. The beast's spine broke in three places.
But it wasn't enough.The fury churning inside me demanded more—More destruction. More blood.
I lunged at the writhing creature and drove my hands into the gaps between its armored scales—
Rip—!
Warm beast blood sprayed over my body like rain.The bloodfiend was torn in two, its organs spilling across the earth.
Its heart was still twitching in my hand.I shoved it into my mouth.
My sharp canines pierced the tough muscle with ease.
The moment the sweet, metallic blood hit my tongue,the sigil in my mind exploded with light.
[Bloodbone Baptism completion: 37% → 64%][New temporary ability acquired: Bloodthirst Rampage (Basic)]
The other bloodfiends stopped mid-roar.One by one, they backed away.
For the first time, their magma-like eyes showed a flicker of—
Fear.
And then—
The dark-gold claw inside the vortex halted mid-air.
It slowly withdrew.
The vortex began to spin faster and faster.All remaining bloodfiends tucked their tails and retreated, vanishing into the storm.
A few breaths later, the red light disappeared.What remained was a field of mutilated corpses—And me, soaked in blood.
Clap, clap, clap.A slow, deliberate applause broke the silence behind me.
I turned sharply.
A massive man stood ten steps away, built like a fortress.He wore the crimson robes of the Punishment Hall, a cold chain coiled around his waist, glowing faintly with a dark blue hue.
Across his square face ran a long scar, slicing through his left eye.His right eye—cold and gleaming—was fixed directly on me.
"Ripping apart a bloodfiend with your bare hands," he said, voice low and thunderous. "No wonder that useless brother of mine ended up under your boot."
The glow on that chain made the veins at my temples throb.The sigil in my mind flared with sharp warning—Danger. Extreme danger.
"Zhou Li?" I spat out the remaining beast blood, every muscle in my body tense.
The man with the scar—Zhou Li—grinned with savage delight.
"Trespassing on a forbidden zone. Killing fellow disciples. Slaughtering a guardian beast..."He slowly uncoiled the chain at his waist."By sect law, you are sentenced to the Nine Hells Soullock Punishment."
Suddenly, the chain came alive.It hissed through the air like a venomous serpent and wrapped around my neck in an instant.
The cold metal pressed against my skin—and a thousand tiny needles of blue light shot into my meridians.
"AAAHHH—!"
It was worse than pain.It was like a billion soul-eating ants gnawing their way through every nerve in my body.
The sigil surged with golden light, erecting mental defenses—but this was no ordinary pain.It went deeper.To the soul.
Zhou Li yanked the chain, and I was dragged across the sharp rocks like a dying dog.Blood streamed down my back, but even that couldn't compare to the agony inside.
"Do you know why the Nine Hells Soullock Chain is considered a Tier-Three artifact?"His voice came and went like a whisper in hell."Because it finds the weakest points in your meridians...and shatters them. One by one."
As if to prove his point, the light suddenly surged toward my injured right arm—the one fractured during the battle with the Ironhide Rhino.
I nearly bit through my molar just to keep from screaming.
But then... something strange happened.
The blood-colored sigil veins inside my body began to respond.
Wherever the soul chain tried to destroy, they worked to rebuild—and not just repair.
They glowed brighter.Bones cracked, then reformed with terrifying density.
Zhou Li paused, frowning.He squatted down, peering at the strange blood patterns across my neck.
"Bloodbone Baptism?"His rough fingers traced my skin."A mere outer disciple... and you've cultivated a forbidden body-refinement technique from the Bloodfiend Pit?"
The chain tightened.More soul-light flooded into me, targeting those very blood veins.
"Let's see how much of this you can take!"
The pain escalated into madness.
My vision blurred.My body twitched violently on the ground, on the verge of blacking out—when suddenly, the sigil roared in protest.
[High-purity body-refining energy detected][Reverse analysis initiated...][Soullock energy pattern decoding: 12%][Pain Conversion Efficiency: Increased to 170%]
Unbelievably, the destructive soul-light was being guided—redirected.
Each cycle through the new blood-vein pathways left my bones ringing like tempered steel.Muscle fibers regenerated stronger and tighter with every loop.
Zhou Li's expression finally changed.He pulled the chain tighter.
"What are you doing, you little freak?!"
I lifted my head and smiled through bloody teeth.
"Thanks for the... tempering, Elder Zhou."
"YOU'RE DEAD!"
The soul-light tripled in intensity.But the pain had already begun to fade.The sigil had successfully deciphered the artifact's energy patterns—and now it was using them to forge me.
My skin gleamed with a metallic sheen, a dark crimson hue pulsing beneath.The Bloodbone lines and soul-chain energies had started to fuse into something entirely new.
And just as the transformation approached its peak—
Swoosh!
A streak of azure sword light pierced the sky.It landed between us, revealing a robed figure with flowing sleeves.
Elder Yunqing.
His eyes swept over my battered form, then fixed on Zhou Li.
"Elder Zhou. The sect needs every capable disciple it can get. Why go so far with this one?"
Zhou Li snorted.
"He trespassed in a restricted area and killed sect beasts. His cultivation should be crippled and he should be expelled!"
"Oh?" Yunqing raised a brow, glancing toward the blood vortex's remains."Funny. I checked the seal. It was destroyed from the inside."
He gave Zhou Li a long, meaningful look.
"Almost like someone… set it up."
The scarred man's lone eye narrowed with venom.
"Yunqing, are you meddling in Punishment Hall affairs?"
While the two elders traded barbed words, a silent storm was brewing inside me.
The crimson sigil veins and soul-light began to fuse entirely under the sigil's control, forming a new meridian system.
Bones hardened.Muscles tore and regenerated again.Something inside me had evolved.
[Bloodbone Baptism Completion: 64% → 89%]
[New Permanent Trait Acquired: Nine Hells Resistance (Basic)]
Elder Yunqing suddenly turned his gaze toward me.For a brief second, something flickered in his eyes—surprise, curiosity, perhaps even... respect.But he said nothing of it.
Instead, he waved his sleeve lightly.
"I'll report this matter to the Sect Master myself. This one's coming with me."
Before Zhou Li could object, Yunqing had already lifted me by the collar, soaring into the sky with ease.
As we flew, his voice came quietly, like a breeze brushing my ear.
"Surviving the Soul-Lock Chain... and turning it into a tempering tool.""In three hundred years, you're the first."
. . .
That night — Hut No. 7, Block C
I sat cross-legged inside the drafty, leaky hut.Steam rose from my body in waves of crimson mist.The soul-chain's brutal torture had become... nourishment.The Bloodbone Baptism was nearly complete.
Even without activating my Ironhide defense, my skin now could easily withstand blades.
The sigil hovered silently within my sea of consciousness, its golden body now threaded with a few strands of deep blue—remnants of the Soul-Lock Chain's decoding pattern.
It was far from complete.
But even that fragment had strengthened my tolerance to pain severalfold.
Rustle. Rustle...
A soft sound at the door jolted me alert.I curled my fingers into a claw against the dirt floor—ready to strike.
"I-it's me…"
A timid voice.A bundle wrapped in coarse cloth was shoved through the door crack, followed by retreating footsteps.
Inside the package were a few sprigs of wound-healing grass, a single low-grade spirit stone—and a note, written in clumsy, crooked brushstrokes:
"Thank you for saving my life, Senior Brother — Zhao Ming, Yellow Robe Disciple."
I frowned, trying to recall.Then it hit me—he was the kid I'd pulled from the stampede during the test, almost as an afterthought.
Just as I was about to store the spirit stone, the sigil pulsed with intense hunger.It wanted that stone.
After a brief hesitation, I pressed it to my forehead.
The sigil flared with light.The spirit stone dimmed rapidly, crumbling to dust in seconds.
[Essence Restoration: +0.01%][Current Abilities Unlocked:]– Basic Replication (Can copy targets up to two major realms higher)– Pain Conversion (Basic)– Talent Fusion (Temporary)
The gain was minimal.But it was hope—a glimpse of the bigger picture.
I traced the old jade pendant on my chest.Just what was this sigil?And how was it connected to the pendant?And Yunqing... how much did he know?
Knock. Knock.
A firm knock broke my thoughts.At the door stood a stranger—an expressionless disciple in gray robes.
He handed me a jade scroll.
"Report to the Inner Sect Medicine Garden tomorrow at dawn. This is Elder Yunqing's directive."
I scanned the scroll with my spiritual sense.
Only a few short words:
"Heal well. The medicine garden holds... useful things. — Yunqing"
Useful things?I narrowed my eyes.
What exactly is this fox up to?
. . .
Meanwhile — Deep within the Punishment Hall's dungeons
Zhou Li stood alone, glaring at a floating mirror of water.It shimmered, displaying an image of me reading Yunqing's jade scroll.
From the shadows behind him, a cloaked figure let out a hoarse, raspy laugh.
"So... even Yunqing has his eye on the boy.""Then it's time. We move ahead of schedule."
Zhou Li's fists clenched with fury.
"Give me three more days! I'll pry the secrets from that little bastard myself!"
"No need."The black-robed figure flicked his fingers. The water mirror shattered like glass.
"The Bloodfiend Pit anomaly has already drawn the Sect Master's attention. There's no time.""Besides... if the boy survived the Nine Hells Soul-Lock Chain…"
His voice dropped to a chill.
"He'll make the perfect sacrifice."