The blood hadn't even dried on the battlefield when they left.
No time to mourn. No time to heal.
Xin Ren's body screamed with every step, but he forced himself forward, teeth gritted, blood crusted under his nails.
The wind had changed.
It no longer smelled of rot.
It smelled of something worse.
Memory.
Forgotten things clawing up from the earth.
Baixue led the way now, her robes whipping behind her like torn banners.
Zhenlong marched at Xin's left, silent as stone, flames still guttering low beneath his skin.
Langya flanked the rear, his wild grin long gone, his amber eyes narrowed at the horizon.
They traveled north, following the ancient fault lines where gods once bled into the soil.
And the further they walked… the thicker the whispers became.
At first, Xin thought it was the wind.
Then he realized the whispers were speaking to him.
"Come home."
"You are one of us."
"Break the chains."
Xin stumbled, clutching his head.
Baixue was instantly beside him, her cold hand gripping his wrist.
"Focus," she snapped. "Don't listen."
Zhenlong's voice rumbled like distant thunder. "They're trying to unmake you."
Langya just laughed under his breath. "Good. Means we're close."
Xin straightened, blinking sweat from his eyes.
"What are they?"
Baixue's expression didn't change.
"The fallen guardians. The ones who couldn't bear the weight."
Xin's gut twisted.
"And we're walking right into their nest?"
"Yes," Zhenlong said simply.
"Because the next guardian waits inside."
Before them, the mountains cracked open into a vast crater.
At its center rose a ruin.
A broken temple, swallowed by vines and ash, black stone crumbling like diseased bone.
The whispers grew louder, urgent, hungry.
Xin's second tail flared instinctively..but this time, he forced it down, breathing through gritted teeth.
Baixue paused at the edge of the crater.
She turned to him, her face a mask of ice.
"Inside this ruin," she said quietly, "you will either find the next guardian."
"Or you will find your death."
Xin looked down at the shattered temple.
And without hesitation…
He stepped forward.
The moment Xin Ren stepped past the crumbling archway, the world changed.
The air grew colder…not with the chill of winter, but with the suffocating breath of something dead and waiting.
The temple swallowed the light.
Snow vanished under his feet, replaced by cracked marble slick with something dark and sticky. The stone walls loomed, covered in old carvings of gods now disfigured, their faces scratched out, their bodies twisted.
The whispers roared.
Kill. Rise. Join us.
Xin turned to glance back…
The entrance was gone.
Only endless corridors stretched behind him now, shadow devouring every path.
"Baixue?" he called out.
No answer.
"Zhenlong? Langya?"
Nothing.
He was alone.
And the temple wanted him to stay that way.
He moved forward slowly, the second tail flickering low behind him, casting a dim golden light.
The corridors bent wrong, spiraling too far, folding in ways that hurt to look at. Statues of long-forgotten guardians lined the halls…cracked, bleeding from the eyes, their hands reaching out as if begging.
Xin kept his gaze forward.
Kept breathing.
Kept moving.
Until he heard it.
Footsteps.
Soft. Familiar.
He spun.
And froze.
Standing at the far end of the hall was Liang Wu.
His old master.
Alive.
Smiling.
"Ren," Liang Wu said, voice warm, arms opening in welcome. "You made it. Come. You're safe now."
Xin's heart twisted painfully.
It was impossible.
He knew it.
Liang Wu had stayed behind to cover their escape. He was dead.
Dead.
But still, Xin took a step forward.
The illusion's smile widened.
A flash of silver.
Xin ducked instinctively as a spear whistled through the air, embedding into the stone behind him.
The image of Liang Wu flickered..and dissolved into a snarling Drainer, jaws snapping.
Xin roared, lunging forward, slamming his fist through its throat before it could scream.
The corpse hit the ground, twitching.
Xin wiped blood from his eyes.
"Not real," he growled to himself. "None of this is real."
The temple answered.
The walls shuddered, cracking open.
More illusions poured out.
Faces he knew.
Faces he loved.
Huo Mei, her smile brittle.
Old friends from the sanctuary.
Children he had protected during his first awakening.
All of them reaching for him.
All of them whispering:
You failed us. You killed us. Monster.
Xin stumbled back, heart pounding.
He clenched his fists, forcing the second tail to lash out…
A shockwave of golden energy exploded from him, shattering the illusions into mist.
But the temple was far from finished.
The ground cracked beneath his feet.
A chasm yawned wide.
Xin fell, tumbling through blackness…
…And landed hard in a vast chamber lit only by the dim, pulsing glow of ancient runes.
He gasped, struggling to rise.
Before him stood figures.
Twelve of them.
Twisted mockeries of the Zodiac Guardians…warped by rot, rage, and madness.
Their bodies were draped in tattered celestial armor. Their faces were hidden by broken masks. Their weapons were rusted, but still sharp enough to taste blood.
They circled him silently.
Waiting.
Judging.
Condemning.
A voice echoed through the chamber, deep and terrible:
You are not worthy.
You are weak.
You will die here, and your tails will be ours.
Xin clenched his fists.
The tiger inside him growled low, furious.
He spat blood onto the cracked marble.
"Then come take them."
The fallen guardians attacked as one.
A storm of blades, claws, and corrupted celestial power.
Xin moved.
Faster than he ever had.
The second tail flared to full size, golden-black fire wreathing his fists.
He ducked the first spear, shattered a second blade with his elbow, spun low under a crushing hammerstrike.
He fought like a cornered beast.
Wild.
Savage.
Unbreakable.
But the guardians didn't fall easily.
One caught him across the ribs…sending him sprawling with a cry.
Another drove a sword through his thigh.
Xin roared in agony, ripping the blade free and stabbing it through the attacker's mask.
The figure dissolved into ash.
One down.
Eleven more.
He didn't stop.
Couldn't stop.
Every second was a knife against his soul.
The illusions whispered at the edges of his mind…offering surrender, offering peace.
He ignored them.
He was tiger. He was storm. He was fury.
Five fallen guardians lay in ruin before he staggered, barely able to lift his arms.
The sixth drove a spear toward his heart.
Xin caught it between his hands…barely…and screamed as it sliced through flesh and bone.
The seventh came from behind.
Too fast.
Too close.
Xin closed his eyes.
A howl ripped through the darkness.
A blur of silver and blue crashed into the guardian from the side, tearing it apart.
Xin gasped.
Standing before him…barefoot, half-feral, striped with silver tattoos…was a young man.
Fangs bared.
Eyes burning.
The next Zodiac Guardian.
Alive.
Barely.
Broken.
But alive.
The whispers shrieked in rage.
The fallen guardians recoiled.
Xin forced himself to stand beside the newcomer, blood dripping from every wound.
The boy growled low in his throat..a sound too wild, too broken to be fully human.
Xin placed a hand on his shoulder, steady.
"Together," he said.
The boy snarled once…and nodded.
Together, they turned to face the horde.
Two beasts born of ruin.
Two fires that refused to die.
The temple roared around them.
And the true battle began.
The chamber shook with the force of battle.
Xin Ren and the half-feral Guardian stood back to back, breath misting in the cold, blood-smeared air.
The fallen guardians closed in, their broken armor groaning, their rusted weapons screeching across the floor.
There was no time to speak.
No time to think.
Only time to kill.
The feral boy moved like a beast, silver tattoos pulsing wildly across his body, fangs bared, slashing through enemies with savage fury.
His strikes were untrained…clumsy even…but brutal enough to tear limbs from bodies.
Xin Ren fought beside him, battered but unbroken, blood dripping from countless wounds.
The second tail burned at his back, wrapping him in golden-black fire. Every strike he threw cracked bones, every roar ripped through the corrupted air.
They fought to survive.
They fought to deny death its feast.
But it wasn't enough.
Not against this many.
Xin took a blade across his ribs, the pain nearly dropping him to his knees.
The feral boy howled as a spear grazed his thigh.
The enemy pressed in…an endless tide of corrupted guardians that neither bled nor tired.
Step by step, Xin and the boy were driven back toward the ruined altar at the center of the chamber.
And then..
The ground split.
Black mist poured upward in thick, choking waves.
And from the depths of the ruined earth… something rose.
The monster was a nightmare stitched from gods.
Twice the size of any guardian.
Its body was a patchwork of corrupted Zodiac power…twelve broken tails flickering like severed nerves behind it.
Its face was a jagged ruin of bone and gold.
Its aura crushed the room like a mountain of rot.
The monster's voice gurgled through a dozen shredded throats:
You are ours.
You were always ours.
It was the true guardian.
No.
The executioner.
Xin barely rolled aside as a massive claw slammed into the stone where he had stood a heartbeat before, shattering the floor.
The feral boy lunged at the monster, slashing deep into its side.
It didn't flinch.
It backhanded the boy across the chamber like a rag doll.
Xin screamed and charged…but it was like striking a mountain.
His fists glanced off its hide uselessly.
The monster grabbed him by the throat, lifting him into the poisoned air.
Xin clawed at its arm, vision dimming, the second tail thrashing uselessly.
Submit, the whispers demanded.
Kneel. Break. Die.
Somewhere distant in memory, Baixue's voice echoed:
You must choose. God or monster.
Xin's heart hammered painfully against his ribs.
He saw it then…beyond the monster's hulking body:
The broken altar.
And atop it…
A fragment of pure light.
The third tail.
The power waiting for him.
But to reach it, he would have to survive.
He would have to win.
The feral boy howled from the rubble.
Rising, broken but breathing.
He launched himself at the monster again, biting savagely into its shoulder.
The monster roared in rage and flung him away.
Xin hit the floor, coughing blood.
His body screamed to give up.
The voices urged him to surrender.
He staggered to his feet anyway.
He ran.
Straight at the monster.
Straight at death.
At the last second, he dropped low, sliding across the blood-slick marble.
The monster's claws whistled inches above his skull.
The altar loomed.
Closer.
Closer.
The whispers shrieked:
Kneel! Break!
Xin bared bloody teeth in a snarl.
"Not today."
His hand slammed onto the fragment.
Pain unlike anything he had ever known exploded through him.
His soul felt like it was tearing apart.
Visions of every failure, every death, every sin burned across his mind.
The third tail ripped free from his spine in a detonation of silver-white fire, burning the darkness back.
The monster staggered, howling as the fire scorched its flesh.
The fallen guardians recoiled, shields raised.
Xin rose slowly from the altar, silver-white flames and golden-black fire burning around him like twin suns.
His third tail lashed the air, bright as vengeance.
The feral boy stumbled to his side, grinning despite the blood dripping from his mouth.
Together, they turned to face the monster.
The battle shifted.
Xin moved faster than mortal eyes could track.
The monster's claws missed by meters as Xin weaved through its blows.
The boy struck low, hamstringing it viciously.
Xin struck high, fists wrapped in divine fire, cracking bone with every hit.
The monster roared in pain as silver fire tore into its chest.
It stumbled.
It fell.
Xin leapt, propelled by raw fury and power.
Both fists came down on the monster's ruined mask..
…and shattered it into dust.
Silence.
The corrupted guardians crumbled into ash.
The black mist recoiled and died.
The whispers fell silent.
Xin dropped to one knee, gasping, his heart slamming against his ribs.
The feral boy collapsed beside him, trembling but alive.
They had won.
They had survived.
For now.
But deep beneath the broken temple...
Far below the shattered stones and dead gods...
Something else stirred.
Older.
Colder.
Hungrier.
The real war had only just begun.