The Shi Clan's ancestral hall thrummed with panicked whispers. Elder Shi Shen gripped the jade railing overlooking the training complex, his knuckles whitening as he witnessed the impossible—spiritual energy visible as emerald ribbons spiraling toward Zhao Rui's sealed chamber.
"Ancestors preserve us..." The words slipped unbidden as a junior disciple collapsed mid-meditation, his qi-gathering talismans crumbling to ash.
"Elder! The western quadrant's Spirit-Gathering Arrays just overloaded!" A breathless attendant skidded to a halt, robes singed from exploding formation stones.
Shi Shen's mind raced. He'd felt such ravenous hunger for qi only once before—decades ago when Hua Yang Zhenjun had visited, his mere presence draining entire mountain ranges. But this...
"Seal the eastern vaults," he barked. "Divert all clan defenses to contain the backlash."
As disciples scrambled, Shi Shen approached Zhao Rui's chamber. The steel door glowed cherry-red, its surface etching fractal patterns where the Eight Desolations Immortal-Slaying Art's energy bled through. Through a cracked viewport, he glimpsed Zhao Rui floating cross-legged within a tornado of azure and gold—the God-Sealing Tome's pages orbiting like dwarf stars.
Memories surfaced unbidden: Zhao Rui reducing Wanshou Peak to glass. The casual ease with which he'd broken Three Lives Temple. A shiver traced Shi Shen's spine—not of fear, but awe.
This is what true power looks like, he realized. Not Hua Yang's calculated cruelty, but a force of nature barely contained.
Yun Fang found him hours later, staring at the smoldering chamber.
"You should rest," she murmured, her Chanel No. 5 cutting through ozone's bite.
Shi Shen didn't turn. "Our ancestors spent three centuries perfecting these cultivation arrays. He's rendering them obsolete in days."
Her laughter held steel. "You wanted a guardian deity for the clan. Now you quake before his shadow?"
"Guardian?" Shi Shen finally faced her. The chamber's residual heat had curled his beard ends. "That's no guardian in there. That's a godling's chrysalis."
Their eyes met—generational rivals turned conspirators. Slowly, Yun Fang's manicured finger tapped the observation console. Thermal feeds showed Zhao Rui's core temperature holding steady at 5,000 Kelvin.
"Then we'll build him a temple," she said softly. "And pray he chooses to stay."
Dawn's fourth cycle found Zhao Rui emerging into artificial twilight. The compound's power grid had failed hours ago, emergency LEDs casting everything in sickly green.
Dun Che's ursine form materialized from shadow. "Brother! Your human nestmates have been—"
"Wait." Zhao Rui raised a hand still crackling with residual energy. Golden motes swirled around his fingertips. "How long?"
"Four days. Your shiny new cult leader," the fox demon jerked a thumb at Shi Shen bowing in the distance, "ordered blackout curtains over half the city."
Zhao Rui's sigh stirred ash piles. The second spirit within him pulsed in agreement—its once-silver form now speckled with stardust.
"About the Dragon Palace..."
Dun Che's ears perked.
"One day," Zhao Rui conceded. "If only to stop your yammering."
The fox demon's whoop shattered remaining windows.
Beneath East China Sea's moonlit swells, pressure equalization talismans hissed against Zhao Rui's skin. Fifty fathoms down, bioluminescent jellyfish pulsed in time with Dun Che's excited chatter.
"—and the scrolls described pearl gates guarded by armored seahorses! Imagine the—"
"Quiet." Zhao Rui's second spirit flared, its new golden specks reacting to... something. A vibration through the Marianas Trench's bones.
They found the first corpse at 3,000 meters—a Sword Sect elder preserved in death's scream, his jian still glowing with interrupted combat spells. Further on, a shattered jade palanquin bore the True Monarch's crest.
"Brother..." Dun Che's claws unsheathed. "These aren't treasure hunters."
The water thickened. From abyssal darkness emerged a sound no mortal ear should comprehend—the Dragon Palace's gates grinding open.
Zhao Rui's golden motes blazed. The God-Sealing Tome pages vibrated in his spatial pouch, their song harmonizing with the deep's primordial call.
Fifth page, he realized with dread and longing. It's here. And it's awake.