The Heavenly Sword Palace stood silent beneath dawn's first light.
The wind carried the scent of steel and dew, whispering against the countless sword monuments that pierced the sky. From afar, the peaks seemed like slumbering blades waiting for their next battle.
In the courtyard before the Sky Gate, Lin Feng stood motionless. His Azure Sword hung across his back, faintly humming with an unending resonance. The robe of an Inner Court disciple fluttered around him, though the man within seemed already detached from the world behind those gates.
A group of disciples gathered nearby, murmuring among themselves.
"He's leaving again?"
"Outside the sect walls, alone? That's suicide…"
"Ever since he came back from the Starfall Abyss, he's changed. That aura of his… even the elders can't look him in the eye."
Their words washed over Lin Feng like waves over stone. He neither turned nor answered. His eyes were fixed on the horizon — where mountains bled into clouds, and beyond them, the unknown wilderness called.
Behind him, Elder Mo Xu approached, his white robes dragging through the morning mist. His expression was unreadable, but his voice was low, carrying the weight of countless years.
"So it's true. You really intend to step beyond the Palace Gates."
Lin Feng inclined his head slightly. "I've reached the Celestial Realm, but my heart hasn't caught up with my strength. My sword feels… restless. It seeks something it cannot yet name."
Elder Mo Xu sighed softly. "Power hungers for tempering, and tempering demands risk. But the Primordial Wilderness is no training ground, Lin Feng. Even Celestial Kings have fallen there."
The Azure Sword hummed faintly, responding to its master's pulse. Lin Feng smiled faintly — not in arrogance, but with a quiet defiance that had carried him through every tribulation.
"The world beyond the sect is cruel. But so is stagnation, Elder. If I fear death, how could I ever face the heavens?"
The elder's eyes softened for a fleeting moment. "Your path is madness... yet it may be the only kind of madness that can defy fate."
He drew out a small jade talisman — shimmering faintly with sealing runes. "This will let the Palace locate you once, should your life be in danger. Use it wisely."
Lin Feng accepted it with a bow. "If I return, it will be as someone stronger."
"Or not at all," Mo Xu murmured. "May the heavens show mercy — though I doubt they will."
---
The Sky Gate opened with a sound like the roar of an awakening dragon.
Light poured forth — golden, blinding, divine. Lin Feng stepped through without hesitation.
Beyond the gate lay the Primordial Wilderness — a realm where the laws of heaven twisted like serpents. The air itself pulsed with hostility. The skies were crimson, streaked with lightning that never ceased. Ancient trees towered like mountains, and rivers glowed faintly with spiritual light.
Here, even the wind could kill.
For seven days and nights, Lin Feng walked through storms, hunted by beasts whose roars split valleys apart. He moved like a shadow, striking with deadly precision, each battle a forge for his body and will.
He fought a pack of flame-scaled wolves that moved like fire incarnate. He cleaved through their alpha with a single stroke — the Azure Sword leaving a radiant arc that burned the heavens.
He faced a stone-scaled qilin that could call thunder from the clouds. It shattered mountains with a stomp; Lin Feng shattered its horn with one cut.
He battled a serpent that spanned a canyon — its eyes twin suns of venomous light. When it coiled around him, his body bled, but his blood glowed golden — faint scales flickering across his skin. The serpent's bones were left to bleach under lightning.
Each victory drew him deeper into himself.
Each wound awakened something older, fiercer.
At night, under torn skies, he sat cross-legged in meditation.
His bloodline — the Nine-Headed Dragon — pulsed faintly, nine shadows coiling within his spiritual sea.
"Nine heads, yet only eight truly awake," he murmured. "The last… slumbers still."
As if answering, the Azure Sword glimmered beside him, whispering with faint azure light. Its voice — neither male nor female — brushed against his thoughts.
"Beyond this land lies something that calls to your blood. A pulse older than time. Follow it."
The next morning, he did.
---
Days later, Lin Feng came upon a canyon unlike any other.
Bones the size of towers lay scattered like fallen mountains, half-buried in ancient soil. The air trembled with suppressed power — as if the heavens themselves dared not breathe here.
At the canyon's heart, a single rib bone stood upright, radiant with divine light. It glowed faintly gold and silver, and from within, a pulse — slow, steady, eternal — like the heartbeat of the world itself.
Lin Feng stopped at its edge, the breath leaving his lungs.
"A dragon bone," he whispered. "No… a True Dragon Bone."
The moment he spoke, his body reacted violently. His bloodline surged — nine heads roaring in unison inside his veins. His meridians blazed with draconic fire, his pupils slit like a dragon's, and golden scales crept along his arms.
The Azure Sword's hum turned low, resonant — a dragon's growl hidden beneath steel.
"This is no mere relic," Lin Feng muttered. "It calls… to me."
He stepped forward. The air grew heavy. Symbols of light and darkness floated up from the ground — runes forming an invisible barrier. The space twisted around the bone, warping reality itself.
Lin Feng reached out his hand, but the moment his fingers brushed the barrier, the entire canyon erupted.
Lightning and divine pressure crashed down, forcing him to his knees. Every bone in his body screamed, his skin splitting under the weight of ancient might.
And yet — his dragon blood did not yield.
It surged upward like molten gold, forming nine phantom dragon heads that roared against the heavens, their combined cry shaking the barrier.
"I… will not bow!"
The runes cracked — one by one — beneath the resonance of his bloodline.
And then, from the mist of divine energy, came a sound.
A roar — deep, ancient, furious.
The ground shook.
From within the canyon mist, something enormous stirred — scales black as night, nine burning eyes gleaming like stars. A Celestial Nine-Eyed Drake, a guardian of ancient dragon heritage.
Its voice thundered across the sky.
"Only those of true dragon blood may claim the bone of heaven.
Show your worth… or die."
The creature's aura alone split the clouds. Mountains crumbled, rivers dried, and the air twisted with divine fire.
Lin Feng stood tall, his robe whipping in the storm, sword drawn.
The Azure Sword ignited with azure flame, and his dragon aura flared until the entire canyon seemed filled with dragons.
"If the heavens demand proof," Lin Feng said, eyes burning gold,
"then I'll carve it into the stars myself."
And with that, he leapt into the air — sword and dragon roar as one — the battle of blood and destiny beginning beneath a broken sky.