Chapter 26: The Infernal Sanguine Heart (Part 1)

The training hall reeked of iron and old violence. Flickering red lanterns cast jagged shadows across the walls, their light pooling like spilled blood on the stone floor.

Zhang Yan knelt among the Blood Banner disciples, their collective breath a ragged chorus beneath the low hum of simmering aggression. This was no sanctum; it was a butcher's den, where disciples honed themselves into weapons, their veins singing with the promise of slaughter.

A veteran master, his face a map of scar-tissue and contempt, paced before them.

"The Infernal Sanguine Heart Skill," he growled, "is not a technique. It is a reckoning." His gaze lingered briefly on each of them, like a beast which climbed out from mountains of flesh and blood, his voice grating. "It does not reward talent. It rewards hunger."

The disciples shifted, sweat gleaming on brows still bruised from their latest skirmish. Zhang Yan closed his eyes, the master's voice fading as he sank into the rhythm of his own pulse. Each heartbeat thudded like a war drum, echoing memories of battles past: the spray of arterial blood, the gurgle of a slit throat, the metallic tang of qi stolen mid-kill.

"Focus on your heart," the master intoned, "and let the memory of every drop of blood you've spilled guide you. Visualize that blood as raw, burning qi. Ingest it, let it refine your being."

The master's command slithered into his mind. Zhang Yan obeyed, but not as the others did. Where they sought to "open their inner sanctum," he invaded it. The Devouring Nine Shadows stirred, its dark tendrils intertwining with the sanguine technique, twisting it into something sharper, hungrier...

The first breath of the Infernal Sanguine Heart was fire.

Zhang Yan's veins ignited, burning with the phantom heat of every enemy's spilled blood. His muscles tightened, not with pain, but with the raw, predatory thrill of a wolf scenting weakness. The shadow at his feet writhed, drinking in the surge of power, as the master's voice boomed like distant thunder:

"Let their blood become your forge! Let their fear temper your resolve!"