The tunnel reeked of mold and blood.
Jiang Chen pressed a cloth to his nose as he moved forward, torchlight casting writhing shadows on the slick stone walls. Behind him, Lady Wu stepped silently, eyes scanning every crack for traps, while Xiao Feng walked as though he belonged there—unbothered, almost nostalgic.
The deeper they went, the more unnatural the air became. It wasn't just foul—it was alive. It watched them. The walls pulsed faintly, as if breathing, and the floor twitched under their feet, like flesh barely covered in stone.
"We're close," Xiao Feng whispered, trailing his fingers along a veined column. "I can feel the wards."
Jiang Chen's grip on his sword tightened. "This place… it's wrong."
Xiao Feng smiled over his shoulder. "You haven't even seen the throne yet."
They emerged into a massive underground chamber, the ceiling lost in darkness. Faint red crystals lit the space with a sickly glow, revealing a narrow bridge of bone and sinew stretching over a pit that yawned like a mouth.
And beyond it: the inner gates of Liu Yan's fortress.
It wasn't a palace. It was a living thing.
The walls were ribbed like lungs, breathing in slow, shuddering rhythms. Faces pressed against the fleshy surface—twisted in agony, whispering, their mouths open in silent screams. Some were fresh. Some Jiang Chen recognized.
"Gods…" Lady Wu whispered. "He… harvested them."
Xiao Feng's voice came low, almost reverent. "He doesn't kill anymore. Not really. He absorbs. Their souls feed his power, their pain echoes through his halls. This place is built from every life he's taken."
Jiang Chen turned away from a face that looked like a child's. "We need to move. The longer we stay here, the more it seeps into us."
They crossed the bridge, careful not to step where the bone was cracked or wet with bile. At the gates, Xiao Feng placed a hand on the pulsing sigils and whispered something in a tongue that hurt to hear. The doors shuddered… then split open.
What lay beyond was worse than any of them expected.
The corridors twisted impossibly, defying logic and gravity. Walls bled. The torches lining the halls were not torches, but burning skulls mounted on black spikes. Screams echoed from nowhere and everywhere.
And the air—it spoke. Soft murmurs, ancient languages, promises of power, of glory, of ruin. Jiang Chen's breath hitched as he saw visions flash in the air around him—phantoms of Liu Yan's past atrocities.
A temple of monks, slaughtered and fed to a pit. A mountain village burned in a spiraling glyph of ash. An infant raised in the air, sacrificed for a shard of demonic essence.
The visions blurred into each other, boiling Jiang Chen's blood.
"Keep your mind anchored," Lady Wu said, her voice strained. "Don't let the whispers dig in."
But Xiao Feng… smiled.
"You feel it?" he said, stretching his arms. "This is power. Liu Yan is the fortress now. His mind… spreads through every stone, every heartbeat in this place."
Jiang Chen grabbed him by the collar. "If you betray us—"
"I won't," Xiao Feng said calmly. "I want him dead, just like you. But you won't kill a god with steel and virtue."
They moved deeper into the palace. At one point, the hallway narrowed into a ribcage-like passage. It breathed. With every inhale, the floor dragged backward, slowing their steps.
Finally, they reached the central sanctum.
The throne chamber.
It was shaped like a massive, beating heart. Flesh walls pulsed with veins as thick as tree roots, glowing with corrupted qi. At the center stood a twisted throne made of bone and sinew, and sprawled lazily across it—arms outstretched like a king presiding over hell—was Liu Yan.
He was no longer a man.
His eyes burned like twin suns, his skin a tapestry of swirling shadows. Horns curled from his temples, and wings made of screaming smoke writhed behind him. Shadow Beasts crouched at the foot of the throne, their claws twitching, their mouths dripping black saliva.
Liu Yan rose.
"Jiang Chen," he said, voice smooth as silk, sharp as razors. "I wondered when you'd arrive."
Jiang Chen stepped forward, fury barely held back. "You turned yourself into a monster."
Liu Yan tilted his head. "Monster? No. I'm evolution. You cling to a world that fears power. I became power."
Lady Wu drew her blade. "You butchered children. Absorbed the souls of innocents. You desecrated the sacred arts."
"They gave themselves to me," Liu Yan said, smiling. "Not willingly, of course. But in death, they serve. What greater purpose could a mortal ask for?"
Jiang Chen's sword flared to life with radiant qi. "I'll end this. For them. For all of them."
Liu Yan stepped down from the throne. His aura hit them like a collapsing mountain—dense, suffocating, oppressive.
"You won't leave this place alive," Liu Yan said. "But I'll grant you something special. I'll keep your souls intact. You'll get to watch as I burn the world."
And then the floor cracked, and the Shadow Beasts lunged.
Jiang Chen and Lady Wu fought back-to-back, blades flashing in arcs of golden light. The Beasts were relentless—immune to pain, snapping and tearing with rabid hunger. Blood sprayed. Bones cracked. Wu stabbed one through the eye only to have another pounce onto her back.
Xiao Feng unleashed a torrent of cursed flames, his laughter manic as the fortress howled in pain. "Do you hear it?" he yelled. "The palace is screaming!"
The battle turned chaotic. Jiang Chen's blade finally sliced through the throat of the largest beast—but not before it raked his side. Wu staggered, bleeding from her leg, clutching a cracked talisman.
Liu Yan watched from the stairs, amused.
"I expected more," he said coldly.
Jiang Chen raised his sword, panting. "I'm just getting started."
But the fortress was awakening now. The walls convulsed. From them, more creatures began to emerge—limbs of the absorbed dead, their mouths sewn shut, their eyes wide and empty.
"We have to fall back!" Wu shouted. "We can't take them all!"
"No," Jiang Chen growled. "We're here. We end it."
And then, in the midst of the chaos, Xiao Feng threw something into the air—a glowing sphere pulsing with dark energy.
"FORGET ME NOT," he whispered—and then it exploded in a pulse of shadowlight that threw everything into silence.
The chamber went black.
The team vanished.
And Liu Yan, standing in the shattered heart of his own fortress, stared into the void where they had once stood… and smiled.
"Run, then," he said. "The deeper you crawl… the more I'll enjoy dragging you back."