Chapter 140: The Vessel for The Ancient

Chapter 141: The Vessel For The Ancient

Qing Lian walked alone through the deepest subterranean tunnel until the passage abruptly terminated.

Standing before her was a colossal, circular dome of ancient stone, seamlessly sealed from within. Even through the impenetrable masonry, an oppressive, suffocating pressure bled through the cracks, setting her meridians on edge.

"You must be in there," she whispered, her lips curving upward.

She raised her ornate silver fan. Dense, caustic Emerald Qi swirled around the metal ribs, causing the very air to hiss and boil from the toxic heat. With a graceful flick of her wrist, dozens of emerald serpents materialized in mid-air, hissing viciously before shooting forward like venomous javelins.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The serpents detonated against the dome’s sealed perimeter, chipping away at the ancient ward.

——————————

Inside the Sealed Chamber...

The enormous crimson eyes hovering in the abyssal cavity stared down at Jules for a long, calculating second. Then, as if satisfied with its inspection, the gaze flickered.

A hollow, rumbling voice vibrated through the stones:

"CONTAMINATED. PERFECT."

Before anyone could react, a thread of liquid crimson energy shot from the void toward Jules at blinding, inescapable speed!

Asher’s expression changed instantly. "Jules!"

CLANG!

Myriad Forge streaked across the air, golden Metal Qi blazing as the blade intercepted the crimson thread. The resulting concussive shockwave detonated across the chamber.

BOOOOOOM!

The kinetic backlash hurled Jules backward into a massive basalt pillar.

"ARGH!"

He slumped to the ground, spitting blood, before dragging himself back upright. Pitch-black lightning erupted erratically from his pores, his bloodshot eyes burning with frantic, terrified fury.

"What the hell is happening to me?!" he screamed, clawing at his chest.

The deflected crimson thread had not dispersed. It recoiled like a striking viper and sank directly into Jules’s sternum.

A brand-new mark etched itself into his flesh: a miniature, blood-red eye.

The eye blinked.

Then, it opened.

Jules froze. Cold, absolute dread seized his heart as he looked back up toward the cavity where the colossal eyes had hovered moments before.

The void was empty.

The entity was no longer in the air.

"What... where did it go...?" Jules stammered, his voice trembling.

Asher landed beside him, Myriad Forge vibrating violently in his grip, refusing to settle.

Seana’s voice cut through the dust, cold and devoid of pity: "That thing didn’t run away. It chose you."

Jules whipped his head toward her, his breath catching. "What?!"

Seana leveled the tip of the Blood Moon Sword. "It wants your body."

"No... No! GET AWAY FROM ME!"

The crimson eye on Jules’s chest blinked a second time.

Immediately, Jules’s body violently seized. Black, necrotic lightning detonated from every meridian point simultaneously, charring his robes and blistering his skin. His spine arched at an impossible angle as he let out a bloodcurdling shriek:

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD! GET OUT!"

From the deepest, darkest recess of his soul, a voice answered—ancient, patient, and merciless:

"A PERFECT VESSEL."

Jules’s vocal cords seized.

The agony was so immense he could no longer scream; his limbs thrashed in spastic, electrified rhythms as his consciousness was systematically hollowed out, crushed, and submerged beneath an ancient ocean of will.

Then—it stopped.

Silence rushed back into the room.

Jules slumped forward, his head hanging low, his disheveled hair casting dark shadows over his face.

Asher raised Myriad Forge, every instinct in his Core Formation body screaming that something monstrous had just replaced the man he once knew. Golden Qi coiled tightly around his steel.

Arvessa raised her sword, wind and fire spiraling along the blade. Ambiel tightened her grip on her whip, the leather humming with compressed Wind Qi. Annelle stepped between her sisters, erecting an array of hovering wind shields and daggers.

Seana remained motionless, her dark blade coated in a quiet, deadly sheath of Crimson Qi. Her eyes watched the unmoving figure with cold, analytical caution. Whether Jules deserved this fate or not was irrelevant now; what stood before them was an apex threat.

Slowly, the figure raised his head.

Jules’s once-ordinary eyes were gone. In their place burned two pools of radiant, abyssal crimson. Intricate, dark-red marks curled across his cheeks like the petals of an unholy blooming flower.

A lazy, sadistic smirk spread across his lips.

The frantic, insecure youth was gone. Standing in his place was an entity radiating primordial, suffocating authority. The sheer elegance of his posture, the effortless lethality of his presence, screamed of an ancient nobility etched into the very marrow of his soul.

"Ah..."

His voice was barely a whisper, yet the acoustic resonance created visible ripples in the air.

"How exquisite it is... to breathe again."

The crimson pupils shifted, lazily surveying Asher, Seana, and the Argon sisters.

"What a lively little welcoming party," the entity chuckled softly.

BOOM!

The chamber shuddered violently.

BOOM!

The northern wall groaned, cracks spreading across the masonry until—

CRASH!

A massive section of basalt crumbled into powder, and a figure stepped through the swirling dust.

Qing Lian entered the chamber, her emerald silk robes sweeping gracefully across the rubble. She halted immediately, taking in the tense standoff.

Her m eyes widened a fraction when her gaze landed on Seana’s exposed, striking face. Recognition flashed in her mind—they had clashed at the outer forest boundary prior to entering the palace. Seana’s pupils contracted slightly in return, her guard locking onto the newcomer.

Qing Lian scanned the young cultivators before her eyes finally settled on Jules—or rather, the ancient soul inhabiting his flesh.

Before she could speak, Jules turned his crimson gaze toward her and smiled.

"Thank you."

Qing Lian froze, her fan hovering mid-air. "What?"

The entity’s voice was ancient, smooth as aged wine, yet heavy enough to rattle the stones. "You woke me."

He tilted his head back, inhaling the stale air.

"I was waiting for this wretched palace’s wards to fail," the entity murmured, each syllable making the bedrock tremble.

He took a slow, languid step forward.

"It sealed me."

Another step.

"It buried me."

Another step.

"It dared to believe it could forget me."

The crimson eye on his chest flared with burning light. "Yet your little disturbance broke the lock. You woke me."

Qing Lian remained dead silent, her knuckles white against her silver fan.

The entity inhaled deeply, his gaze locking onto her emerald robes and the toxic Qi circulating through her meridians. His expression shifted into subtle amusement.

"Recognition..." he mused softly. "You carry his distinct scent."

He chuckled, a sound like grinding jade. "It seems Ang Lie went to tremendous lengths just to pry my tomb open."

Qing Lian’s pupils dilated to absolute pinpricks.

Ang Lie.

No one—absolutely no one—dared to utter the Sovereign’s true name so casually. Not even her immediate master, the terrifying Lady Jade Serpent, spoke that name without bowing her head in reverence.

Yet this being spoke the Sovereign’s name as if referring to an old, troublesome acquaintance.

Forcing her trembling hands to steady, Qing Lian offered a stiff, formal salute. "If you have awakened, then it is time for us to depart. Do not keep the Sovereign waiting."

"Depart?" Jules’s mouth curved into a wicked, patronizing smirk. His eyes slid toward Seana, Asher, and the Argon sisters, lingering like a predator eyeing cattle.

"Why the sudden rush, little serpent? I cannot let all this ripe, succulent energy go to waste."

His aura flared, and the temperature in the chamber plummeted to freezing.

"Besides... I still have to retrieve my heart from the chamber where those cowards locked it away."

The atmosphere turned suffocating. Jules looked through the ceiling, his crimson eyes reflecting forgotten millennia of blood and slaughter.

"I will take back everything that belongs to me."

——————————

Sector Four — The Core...

Lothe’s eyes snapped open.

His [Spatial Perception] violently expanded through the palace’s architectural conduits, registering a sudden, catastrophic soul-displacement in the sector above.

He had sensed it clearly: a secondary, foreign soul had brutally overtaken Jules’s body.

Lothe slowly rose, his gaze fixing on the colossal, silver-black heart suspended at the center of the chamber. The massive organ was beating with frantic, irregular pulses.

Thump... Thump... Thump...

"So that’s what woke up," Lothe murmured, his voice frighteningly calm.

Professor Sy turned to him, alarm etched across his weathered face. "What did you detect? What happened up there?"

Lothe kept his eyes locked on the ceiling conduits. "The palace didn’t just harvest cultivators. It prepared a vessel."

Lucan gripped his circular blades, his expression hardening. "A vessel for what?"

Lothe lowered the tip of his Void Spear, his eyes turning into pools of absolute zero.

"For something that was never supposed to crawl out of its grave."

THUMP!

A concussive shockwave detonated from the suspended silver-black heart, rippling through the translucent floor.

Lothe raised his left hand, pointing a single, steady finger directly at the beating Core.

"And now..." Lothe whispered into the dark, "...it is coming to reclaim its heart."​