Chapter 89: The Darkness Behind the Mask

Hidden beneath mountains shrouded in perpetual mist, veiled by ancient illusions and wards long forgotten even by history, the Chamber of Whispers existed outside the fabric of common knowledge. 

Wu Ming walked the descending spiral staircase with deliberate calm, each footfall echoing into a silence that refused to be broken. Torches embedded in skull sconces flickered with cold blue flame, fuelled by Qi.

When he reached the chamber's heart, he stopped.

The floor was a great circular dais inlaid with thousands of ancient runes, archaic, untranslatable, thrumming with power. Above him loomed a black altar, jagged and angular, more like a wound in the world than a structure built by mortal hands.

Wu Ming knelt immediately, bowing his head.

Slowly, his hand moved toward his chest. Beneath his obsidian robes, he drew out a small, black talisman—its surface etched with a blood-red sigil that pulsed like a heartbeat. As he activated it, space twisted around him. The light bent unnaturally. A thin portal shimmered into existence before him, an elliptical oval of darkness ringed in crimson flame.

A moment passed. Then, from within the portal, something moved.

Smoke coiled outward. Then a suffocating presence pressed against reality like a tidal wave against a dam. Wu Ming's shoulders stiffened, and he bowed low from his kneeling position.

"My Liege," he said.

The portal deepened, and a voice answered, not with words at first, but with emotion. Malice. Longing. And the slow, crawling joy of anticipation.

When the voice finally emerged, it was a whisper carried on the edge of madness. "Wu Ming, it is good to taste freedom once again. Though brief… it was good while it lasted."

"I'm sorry," Wu Ming replied, tone oddly soft. "The ritual did not succeed. Those cultivators ruined it."

The voice laughed quietly at first, then louder, rising like a scream muffled behind layers of time and space. "Did you truly expect it to work?"

Wu Ming looked up. "My Liege… did not?"

A shape took form within the portal. It was not physical, not truly. A silhouette made of tendrils and eyes, teeth and smoke. The image of a nightmare reflected in blood. And at the heart of it, something regal and cruel.

"I am the Blood Demon," the entity said, as if the title alone were enough explanation. "Your master is no petty soul desperate for escape. I do not gamble on one attempt."

There was amusement in its voice. Ancient and cold.

"That vessel, Shen Zhenhai, was a suitable candidate… but it was not meant to be permanent. This was merely a single stone in the mosaic of my design."

The air around Wu Ming darkened, as if the shadows of the room obeyed the Blood Demon's voice.

"That spark was enough to start the next steps. And you… you have served well."

Wu Ming's expression remained still. But in his eyes flickered something strange. Admiration. Fear. Resentment?

"I do not question your will, my liege" he said. "Only… we face harder resistance than we expected. Kai Feng has proven more resilient than anticipated."

At the mention of that name, the portal's flames pulsed violently. "Kai Feng."

The Blood Demon repeated it like a curse.

"The boy who touched the Celestial Eclipse. He is an anomaly. But not unforeseen. Even anomalies can be broken."

Wu Ming hesitated.

"I nearly had him."

The Blood Demon laughed again.

"You nearly had many things. But you are not here to lament, just do as I command."

The portal widened further. And Wu Ming flinched—despite himself—as images appeared within the swirling dark.

Visions.

Sects crumbling.

Guardians slain.

An ocean of blood swallowing a city.

The elemental rings—five—now only four—falling, one by one, into demonic hands.

"You see," the Blood Demon whispered. "This is not failure. This is sequence. One plan feeds the next. One failure fertilizes the next bloom."

He leaned forward, face pressing closer to the rift.

"When the gates open… all shall kneel before the Blood Demon once again!"

The pressure of his words sent cracks through the floor beneath Wu Ming, though he did not move.

"I shall return. Whole. Eternal. And this time… none shall defy me."

The portal began to shrink, its edges pulsing with malevolent energy.

"Continue to sow discord. Move to the next phase."

The temperature dropped—sharp and sudden—though the air remained still. Wu Ming's gaze fell to the ground, his jaw tight with tension.

"And Kai Feng?"

A pause, long and heavy.

Then, in a voice like smoldering embers:

"He must die. I will deal with him myself… when I rise."

The Blood Demon's presence began to ebb, but the stench of despair lingered—cloying and inescapable, like rot in silk.

Just before vanishing completely, he spoke again, voice a whisper edged with warning, "Do not fail me, Wu Ming. You are not the first to serve. But if you wish to be the last… be ready to burn."

And then silence. He was gone.

The portal closed with a sound like a closing eye.

Wu Ming remained kneeling long after the silence returned, sweat dripping from his brow, the talisman scorched black in his hand.

He looked up.

His voice was barely a whisper.

"I will not fail."

His hand tightened around the ruined talisman.