Chapter 110: Bloodline tresure?

She reached for the second fan with her other hand, and the same thing happened. The two weapons lifted from the pedestal on their own, circled her once, and settled into her palms. The gold fan opened with a soft, bright snap, the red one a moment after.

They didn’t blaze. But I could feel their power coiled inside them, waiting.

"They’re dormant," Qing Yan said, a little breathless, a little awed. "They’ll grow with me. I can feel it." Her eyes were little wet. "Barry, my sect’s legacy... I thought it was all gone."

"It’s not," I said. "You’re carrying it."

From the doorway came a small, bitter sound, and I knew without looking that Lu Chen had watched the whole thing. He didn’t say anything. He just turned and walked back down the corridor, his footsteps hard against the stone.

The center archway was the last, and it was the worst. The corridor was bare. No carvings, no lights, no crystals, just rough black walls that seemed to drink what little glow we carried.

Jiang Wei was the first to stop. "I can’t go any farther," he said, and his voice was strained. "Something’s pressing on me. It feels like... like standing at the edge of a cliff."

One of the wounded teammates dropped to his knees, gasping. The other leaned against the wall, pale as ash. Even Qing Yan faltered, her fans trembling in her hands.

"It’s not hostile," she said slowly. "It’s more like... it doesn’t recognize us. It’s pushing us away."

"Then stay here," I said. "I’ll go on."

"Barry," she said.

"I’m fine." I said , The pressure didn’t touch me. If anything, it felt like a hand on my back, urging me forward. "I won’t be long."

I walked alone down the dark corridor, and the pull behind my ribs grew stronger with every step. When the passage opened into a small circular chamber, I wasn’t surprised to see what lay at its center.

It was an orb, about the size of a fist, resting on a low stone platform. It was dark, and its surface was covered in tiny interlocking scales that shimmered faintly, like the skin of a serpent. As I stepped closer, it pulsed once, like a sleeping heart.

Behind me, I heard Qing Yan’s voice, faint and anxious. "Barry? Is it safe?"

"Probably not," I called back. Then i reached out and touched it.

Pain come first. It started at my fingertips and raced up my arm like fire through dry grass. I looked down and saw black diamond scales unfurling across my skin, crawling over my wrist, my forearm, climbing toward my shoulder. My nails lengthened into curved fangs.

My heartbeat slowed. Everything in me wanted to let go, to let the change roll through me and take me where it wanted. And then I heard a voice

’Blood.’

My head turned before I decided to turn it. In the corridor, just beyond the edge of the pressure, Jiang Wei and the survivors stood watching with horror on their faces. I saw the pulse in their throats.

And then I saw Qing Yan. She stood a little ahead of the others, her fans clutched to her chest, her eyes wide with fear for me. Her hair had slipped over one shoulder and left her neck bare, pale and slender, a thin vein beating just beneath the skin. The hunger pulled hard. My jaw ached. My teeth felt too sharp.

’no’ I thought.

I didn’t know where the thought came from. It wasn’t clever or heroic. It was just a immovable refusal, the kind you give when something reaches for your wallet. ’No. Not her. Not any of them.’

I closed my eyes and dug my fingers into the platform until the stone cracked. I reached down inside myself, past the hunger and the scales and the screaming instinct, and found the part of me that was simply Barry.

I held on to that. The scales hissed. The fangs shrank. Slowly, grudgingly, the wave of black armor receded from my shoulder and my arm, leaving my skin human again. The hunger slid back into whatever dark place it had come from, and the chamber went still.

I was on one knee, gasping. My hand still rested on the orb, and it was warm now, I felt something settle into me, a new weight beneath my sternum. It was power, folded into my bloodline .

I looked at my forearm. A faint pattern of dark scales remained along the inside of my wrist, barely visible.

"That’s new," I muttered.

Footsteps rushed down the corridor. I got to my feet just as Qing Yan came flying into the chamber, the pressure no longer holding her back.

"You idiot," she said, her voice cracking. "You absolute idiot. I thought—your skin, your eyes, they were—"

"Hey," I said, folding my arms around her. "I’m fine. Look. Still me."

She pulled back and looked up at me. Her eyes searched mine, and her brow furrowed.

"Your eyes," she said slowly. "For a moment, they were gold. Not like your usual aura. They looked... like a snake’s."

I forced a laugh. "Must have been the light."

"Barry." She said seriously.

"Fire Empress, I just touched a mystery orb in a cave full of ancient traps. If my eyes had stayed the same, I’d have been disappointed." I tapped her nose with one finger. "It’s a bloodline treasure. My blood reacted. That’s all."

She didn’t look convinced, but she let it go. She took my forearm instead, turned it over, and traced the faint scale pattern with her thumb.

"This is new," she said quietly.

Behind her, Jiang Wei, and Lu Chen had crowded into the chamber entrance, all staring. Jiang Wei’s face had gone through shock, then something close to wariness.

"A serpent-blooded treasure," he said carefully. "Senior Barry, that kind of power is rare. The old sects called it a dragon-born inheritance."

"Is that what it is?" I asked lightly.

"I don’t know," he admitted. "But whatever it is, it chose you."

Lu Chen was the only one who didn’t say anything. He was looking at the faint scales on my arm.

"Monster," he whispered, so low I almost missed it. Qing Yan heard it too. She turned and fixed him with a look so cold that he took half a step back.

"Say that again," she said, "and I will burn your tongue out."

"I didn’t—I only meant—"

"I know what you meant." She said

I put a hand on her shoulder before she could do something. "Leave it, Fire Empress. He’s had a bad night."

Lu Chen turned and walked out without another word. Nobody stopped him.

I thought of the hunger just once more, there in the chamber, with Qing Yan’s heartbeat so close to mine. The memory of that thin pulse in her neck came back for a second, and I pushed it away. It was instinct, I told myself. A bloodline quirk. I had been through worse. I wasn’t going to start worrying about it now.

.....

We had barely started back through the corridor when the whole mountain shook.A distant boom rolled through the stone, followed by a sound like thousands of steps striking the earth together.

"The army," Jiang Wei said, grabbing his compendium. "They’ve found the patrol. They’re coming."

"How long?" I asked.

"An hour. Maybe less."

I looked at Qing Yan, who already had her fans in her hands and her chin raised, and at the survivors, who looked ready to run. Then I looked down the corridor toward the sunlit mouth of the cave.

"Then we leave now," I said. "Everyone stays close. Jiang Wei, is there a back way out?"

He nodded. "The hall of phoenixes has a hidden passage. It leads north, toward the sanctuary valley."

"Then that’s where we’re going," I said.

Qing Yan slipped her hand into mine. "And if the army catches us?"

I squeezed her fingers and grinned at her, the same way I always did.

"Then we show them what a Meridian master and a Fire Empress can do."

"Do not call me that." She said.