Sovereign Ascendent: Bloodline Unleashed

At Crimson Sky Academy,

Three days passed since Su Mengtian's initiation into the Shadow Circle.

He returned to Crimson Sky Academy not with fanfare, but like a whisper through a storm—subtle, but sharp enough to draw blood. Something in him had changed. No one could say exactly what, but the difference was palpable. His stride had gained a sharper edge, his eyes shimmered with quiet, golden-black intensity, and his very presence felt heavier—denser, like gravity hung differently around him.

Even the instructors noted it. A few muttered about "dangerous awakenings" under their breath. Some whispered of a breakthrough in the inheritance realms. But most simply watched and avoided.

Zhao Wei, the class's number-two, barely held back his urge to confront Mengtian again—but something in his instincts screamed at him to stand down.

And he did.

Because the person now walking through the academy halls wasn't a student.

He was a predator wearing the academy's uniform.

But Mengtian didn't care.

He wasn't here for rank or fame.

He was here to climb. And kill. And conquer.

And the first step was to do something no one else dared: absorb a live beast core.

Most students worked with sterilized, processed beast crystals—filtered by alchemists, neutralized through sigils, refined to be docile. Safer, yes. But diluted.

Real power was wild. And dangerous.

A live core—a beast's essence torn directly from its dying body—contained raw energy, unprocessed instinct, and the spiritual fragments of the beast's will. For anyone unprepared, it was suicide.

Even core soldiers with top-tier bloodlines avoided them without proper rituals.

But Su Mengtian wasn't like anyone else.

He was a reincarnated commander with memories of hundreds of battles and beast encounters. He had tasted the blood of chaos and war in two lifetimes.

And he was ready to gamble his soul.

Buried deep in the academy's disused lower levels was Beast Cage 7-R, marked for incineration.

Inside: the decaying body of a Level-2 Shadow Basilisk—a vicious dimensional serpent that had torn six cadets limb from limb before being put down by an elite team.

The extraction team left its core untouched.

Too unstable.

Too deadly.

Su Mengtian didn't flinch. He broke into the abandoned chamber under a stolen keycard, sealed the door with shadow sigils he'd mimicked during the trial, and stepped toward the body.

The basilisk's scales were still warm.

Its fangs twitched faintly in death.

Its chest glowed with the eerie flicker of a dormant core.

"Sorry, old one," Mengtian muttered, kneeling beside it. "But your journey's not over."

He placed his hand on the beast's cracked sternum.

Gold-black aura pulsed through his veins as he dug deep.

And touched the core.

Everything exploded.

A raw surge of hatred slammed into his consciousness.

Mengtian screamed.

A tidal wave of shadows and poison crashed into his soul, sweeping him from the physical world into a warped spiritual realm.

He landed on a mountain of bones.

The sky above was black smoke, burning embers, and a thousand reptilian eyes staring down.

The basilisk's soul rose like a titan—coiled, ancient, endlessly scaled. It filled the world with darkness.

It asked "YOU DARE CLAIM ME, MORTAL FLESH?"

"I AM NIGHT. I AM FANG. I AM HUNGER."

Mengtian stood, unshaken.

From his back, a black-and-gold spectral glaive emerged—a weapon from his past life. Forged in fire. Tempered in blood.

The Ghost Fang had returned.

"You're loud," he said calmly. "But I've fought worse."

The basilisk struck.

A thousand black flames erupted from its body, vaporizing mountains of bone in seconds.

Su Mengtian dashed forward through the blaze, slicing through psychic pressure that could crush normal minds. His spirit bled. His soul cracked. His bones screamed.

But he moved anyway.

Each swing of his glaive wasn't just skill.

It was instinct.

A past life's worth of slaughter.

He leapt onto the serpent's snout and rammed his weapon into one of its eyes.

It shrieked in agony, thrashing, slamming its coils around him.

Then—

The world changed again.

He was no longer in the spirit world.

He stood in a burning orphanage.

Children screamed in the background.

Flames devoured wooden walls.

And in the center stood a bloodied figure: Yueying, reaching toward him, tears in her eyes.

"Why didn't you save me, Mengtian? Why did you let me die?" it said.

He froze.

His heart buckled.

The pain wasn't spiritual—it was personal.

The basilisk's voice echoed all around, filled with cruel delight.

It said "FEED ME YOUR REGRET."

Su Mengtian's grip loosened.

His knees buckled.

He remembered her final moments—how her body collapsed as the artillery shell struck. How he couldn't reach her in time.

But then—

His eyes narrowed.

He looked at Yueying again.

And smiled bitterly.

"You're not her," he whispered.

Then, with a snarl, he ripped the illusion apart, his soul-glaive cutting the vision in half.

The orphanage burned away.

The basilisk screamed in outrage.

And Su Mengtian rose above it all and said

"You wanted to see my fear?" he roared. "Let me show you what I do with it!"

He plunged his glaive directly into the beast's core.

Black lightning exploded across the spiritual plane.

The basilisk convulsed.

Its roar turned to a wail.

And then, slowly… painfully… the beast was drawn into him.

Shadow wrapped around golden fire.

The two struggled—violently, chaotically.

But Su Mengtian's will was iron.

The commander's instincts took over.

And he devoured the basilisk's soul, binding it into a core behind his heart.

In the physical world, the Shadow Basilisk's corpse crumbled into ash.

Su Mengtian collapsed, breathing heavily, soaked in sweat.

His right arm pulsed with black-green veins that shimmered faintly with gold—proof of a successful dual-harmony fusion.

A glyph formed on his forearm—a curved fang wrapped in serpentine runes.

Skill Acquired: Shadow Pulse Fang.

He activated it instinctively.

A black energy wave erupted from his palm, warping the metal wall nearby.

Raw. Brutal. Uncontrolled.

But powerful.

He clenched his fist, drawing the aura back into his body with effort.

"Still needs work," he murmured.

"But it's a start."

Far above, in the Surveillance Nexus, a screen flashed red.

A white-robed woman with phoenix eyes watched silently as a pulse signature spiked to Class S+.

She paused the footage.

Zoomed in.

Her sharp features tensed.

"Su Mengtian?" whispered Dean Yue Liansheng.

She tapped her desk, issuing a silent order.

"Pull his records. Immediately. Keep it quiet."

She stared at the image of the boy.

And for the first time in years…

She felt a shiver of unease.