The Snake Within

As Instructor Ling's hands pressed against Jiu Mei's back, she braced herself for the excruciating pain that had felled so many before her. Instead, the moment Qi began flowing through her meridians, an overwhelming wave of pure bliss crashed over her like a warm tide.

'What... what is this?' Her eyes widened in shock as ecstasy flooded every fiber of her being. The energy coursed through her pathways like liquid starlight, each pulse sending shivers of pleasure racing up her spine. It felt as though she was floating in the warmest, most comfortable embrace imaginable.

Behind her, Instructor Ling's eyes snapped open in disbelief and then something far darker. "Impossible..." she breathed, her voice barely a whisper. "These meridians... they're already so full and vast! It's as if they've been nourished by decades of cultivation!"

The other instructors turned their attention toward them, sensing something extraordinary was occurring. Even Instructor Ci's perpetual scowl deepened with interest.

"Continue the process," he commanded curtly, though his sharp gaze never left Jiu Mei's form.

When the meridian opening concluded, Jiu Mei felt as though she'd awakened from the most refreshing sleep of her life. While others had collapsed or screamed, she stood steady, her cheeks flushed with an almost divine glow.

'That was... incredible', she thought, still dizzy from the lingering euphoria. 'Why did everyone else suffer so much? That felt amazing!'

"Approach the statue," Instructor Ci ordered, his tone unreadable.

Jiu Mei walked forward on trembling legs—not from pain, but from the residual pleasure still coursing through her system. She placed her palm against the cold stone arm, and immediately the statue's three demonic faces blazed with brilliant light.

Above her head, something began to materialize. As the light coalesced, Jiu Mei looked up expectantly, her heart pounding with excitement.

But what she saw made her blood turn to ice.

Floating above her was a simple golden egg, roughly the size of her fist, covered in intricate dark red and black runes that pulsed faintly in the ceremonial light.

'An... an egg?' Her face went completely pale. 'My martial spirit is just an egg?!'

Tears of shame and embarrassment welled up in her eyes, though she desperately fought to hold them back. Around her, she could hear confused murmurs from the remaining children and instructors alike.

She had been so excited and prepared for this moment, just for it to turn into a disastrous failure. Its as if the world as she knew it had come crashing down on top of her.

Instructor Ci stepped forward, his expression shifting from interest to what appeared to be surprise, then something else—a meaningful look that Jiu Mei couldn't decipher. He extended his spiritual sense toward the floating egg, probing for its soul power rating.

His eyes widened fractionally. "No soul power whatsoever," he announced coldly, though his voice carried an odd undertone. "A trash spirit of the lowest caliber."

'No... no no no!' Jiu Mei's mind raced in panic. 'I'm going to be dragged through that door! I'm going to end up like those other children!'

"If it weren't for Hall Master Yinghua's prior claim," Instructor Ci continued with a harsh frown, "you would be joining the other failures behind that door. Consider yourself fortunate that someone saw fit to waste their resources on you."

Just as despair began to consume her completely, the awakening statue suddenly blazed with unprecedented brilliance. The golden purple-ish light grew so intense that everyone in the hall had to shield their eyes. The radiance seemed to pour directly into the golden egg, causing the dark runes covering its surface to ignite like miniature suns.

Then, without warning, the runes exploded in a cascade of power that shook the very foundations of the ceremonial hall.

CRACK!

The egg split down the middle, hairline fractures spreading across its golden surface like a spider's web. With a sound like breaking crystal, the shell fell away completely.

What emerged made every person in the hall fall silent.

A small, serpentine creature no larger than Jiu Mei's forearm stepped gracefully from the remnants of its shell. From the shattered egg emerged a serpent not born of Heaven or Earth, but of the Primordial Chaos itself.

But this was no ordinary serpent—nine magnificent heads rose from a single, scaled body, each one unique yet perfectly harmonized with the others. Its scales shimmered with an otherworldly luster that seemed to contain the depth of ancient starlight, and its eyes—all eighteen of them—blazed with a primordial-like intelligence.

The aura radiating from the tiny creature was nothing short of supreme. It carried the aura of a supreme existence that descended into the mortal realm.

Instructor Ci's composed facade shattered completely. His mouth fell open, and his hands began to tremble. "This... this is impossible!" he shouted, his voice cracking with disbelief. "Even though the statue shows no grade, I can feel it in my very bones—this martial soul surpasses Heaven Grade! It transcends every classification we know!"

He stumbled backward, his mind reeling. "In the entire history of the Heavenly Demon Pavilion, only the Patriarch himself, his direct disciples, and carefully selected individuals who awakened before joining our sect have possessed spirits of this caliber!"

Instructor Ling, who had been watching in stunned silence, suddenly shrieked with recognition. "A mutated martial spirit! And this girl—she's clearly of the royal serpent-kin clan! I have known of this her entire life! We must report this immediately to—"

Her words were cut short as Instructor Ci's hand shot forward, dark purple Qi condensing into a massive eight-foot palm seal. The Demonic Void Palm!

The attack struck Instructor Ling with devastating force, sending her crashing through three marble pillars before she slammed into the far wall. Blood erupted from her mouth as she slumped to the ground, her cultivation base severely damaged.

"The ceremony is discontinued until further notice!" Instructor Ci roared, his voice echoing through the grand hall. "I offer my sincerest apologies to those who have not yet awakened. You will be rescheduled at a later date."

Before anyone could react, a figure materialized from thin air beside Jiu Mei—a man wearing a black clown mask and dark brown hooded robes that seemed to absorb light itself.

"Follow me," he commanded in a voice devoid of emotion. "Now."

Jiu Mei's newly awakened martial spirit vanished back into her body, but she could still feel its presence thrumming with power in her dantian. The masked man's aura was terrifying—far beyond anything she had encountered. Any resistance whatsoever would just be suicide.

Without a word, she followed him toward the ominous door she had watched so many others disappear through.

The door opened to reveal a descending stone corridor that reeked of ancient decay. Skulls and bones lined the walls like macabre decorations, and the air grew colder with each step downward.

'Maybe I can make a run for it', Jiu Mei thought desperately, her serpentine tail coiling beneath her robes.

"Escape is futile," the masked man said without turning around, as if reading her thoughts. "Attempt it, and I will personally sever your legs and drag you the rest of the way."

Jiu Mei shuddered. "I... I wasn't planning on it," she lied, her voice small.

They descended through winding corridors for what felt like hours, the oppressive atmosphere growing heavier with each step. Finally, they arrived at a massive chamber carved from black stone.

The moment Jiu Mei saw what lay within, she doubled over and vomited violently onto the floor.

The spacious room was a charnel house beyond imagination. Blood stained every surface, filling the air with a metallic stench so thick it was almost tangible. Skulls and bones were scattered everywhere, some still bearing rotting flesh. The chamber reeked of decay and death, the air thick with the stench of rotting flesh and alchemical rot—so foul it clung to the throat like oily smoke. Skulls grinned from the walls, some still bearing scraps of flesh, while hooks dangled overhead, dripping blood into jade cauldrons that hissed with foul-smelling steam.

But the worst sight of all was what had become of her former classmates.

Their small bodies hung from the ceiling in rusted chains, blood flowing from cuts on their wrists and necks into cauldrons positioned beneath each corpse. Vials had been inserted into their noses, eyes, and ears, pumping some sort of sickly green liquid into their bodies. Each face was frozen in an expression of absolute terror and agony.

Rather than horror and extreme fright, however, a burning rage began to build in Jiu Mei's chest. She clenched her fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white and her palms began to bleed out.

"Why?" she demanded, her voice shaking with fury. "Why did you kill them?"

The masked man chuckled with obvious amusement. "They were just trash waiting to be harvested for the good and prosperity of our demonic sect," he said in an annoyingly casual tone. "Their blood makes excellent cultivation resources, and their organs have many uses in alchemy."

He began to laugh at his own explanation, clearly finding her distress entertaining.

Her palpable anger was slowly replaced by a cold and deadly glint in her eyes. Her serpent pupils now matching the intensity of a ferocious predator.

Without warning, Jiu Mei's fist rocketed toward his masked face. The man casually sidestepped and drove his knee into her stomach, causing spit and saliva to gush out from her mouth.

"Did you really believe that such a strike would work, you little—" He stopped mid-sentence, his laughter dying abruptly.

His mask had begun to crack. A small piece chipped off, then another, until the entire thing shattered and fell to the ground in fragments.

The face beneath was a nightmare. A deep gash ran horizontally where his mouth should be, creating a permanent, twisted smile of exposed flesh and bone. Another massive cut stretched across his forehead, only partially healed and still seeping.

"You seek death girl!" he snarled, his ruined features contorting with rage.

He drew a wicked curved knife from behind his back, coating it with dark red Qi that made the air itself hiss. With lightning speed, he slashed at Jiu Mei's arm.

She twisted desperately, the blade barely missing her vital arteries but still opening a shallow cut along her forearm. Blood began to flow freely.

'She's fast', the man noted mentally.

"Why are you doing this?" Jiu Mei gasped, clutching her wounded arm. "I have a highly talented martial spirit! Surely that has value to the sect!"

The man's twisted smile widened. "Because you're not human," he said simply. "A demi-human filth like you has no place in our sacred sect. I've been waiting months to slice you up ever since Ling Shi informed me of your disgusting heritage. And by blending into one of the executioner proctors of the awakening ceremony, this gave me the perfect opportunity!"

Jiu Mei's eyes widened, but then, surprisingly, she grinned through her pain. "Since you already know," she said, gasping as she covered her wound, "then it shouldn't be a problem."

"What are you babbling about?" the man demanded, instantly closing the distance between them with predatory intent.

In response, Jiu Mei reached down and pulled off the bottom of her outer robes entirely.

Her magnificent serpentine tail unfurled—four feet of thick, rainbow-scaled perfection ending in a forked tip of black and gold. Each scale caught the dim light like a precious gem, and the powerful muscles beneath rippled with barely contained strength.

She dropped into a defensive stance, her tail coiling and uncoiling with fluid grace.

The man lunged with his Qi-coated knife, but Jiu Mei was already moving. She twisted and spun with inhuman flexibility, her serpentine lower body allowing her to dodge attacks that would have been impossible for a fully human opponent.

'These are weak attacks', she realized with growing confidence. 'He should only be at one of the earliest stages of Qi Condensation realm!'

Frustrated by her evasions, the man roared in anger. His knife suddenly elongated into a proper dagger, and the dark red energy surrounding it thickened considerably.

"This is the end for you!" he laughed maniacally.

A special weapon, Jiu Mei noted with alarm.

Without warning, he hurled the energy-coated dagger at her with tremendous speed. The blade whistled through the air like a screaming banshee, but Jiu Mei managed to dodge just in time. The weapon embedded itself deep in the stone wall behind her.

She immediately moved to press her advantage, closing the distance between them—

"That was on purpose," the man said with a cruel smile.

He stretched out his hand, and dark red energy enveloped his palm. The dagger ripped itself free from the wall and shot toward Jiu Mei's back like a guided missile.

Without thinking, she whipped her tail around and struck the flying weapon aside. The impact sent vibrations up her spine, but her scales held firm.

The man's eyes widened in shock. "A Yellow Grade weapon... and she deflected it so easily?" He stared at her tail more closely, noticing the metallic sheen that had appeared where her scales had contacted the blade. "Those scales would fetch me a fortune on the underground market..."

Greed gleaming in his eyes, he called the dagger back to his hand while simultaneously lunging forward with a Qi-enhanced fist, vicious and dark red energy swirled around his hand.

Jiu Mei met his attack head-on, her own fist colliding with his in a tremendous clash that sent small gusts of wind throughout the chamber. They began exchanging blows at lightning speed—her fists, kicks, and tail strikes meeting his energy-coated dagger and martial techniques blow for blow.

Her scales acted like natural armor, deflecting his strikes while her superior flexibility allowed her to attack from impossible angles.

'How is this possible?' the man thought in growing panic. 'She's only five years old, but she's matching me in strength and martial arts! I'm at the third level of Qi Condensation!'

Desperation crept into his movements. "I won't be bested so easily!" he shouted, calling his dagger back to his hand. "I didn't think I would need to use a technique on such a little girl, but you've surprised me."

He began drawing complex arcs in the air with his weapon, dark red energy flowing from the blade to create two additional daggers made of pure Qi. "This is the end for you!"

'An energy technique!' Jiu Mei's confidence faltered. 'My scales aren't strong enough to protect me from that, and he can target my vital spots!'

Gritting her teeth, she leaped onto a nearby table, using it as a springboard to launch herself through the air.

The two combatants locked eyes as tension filled the chamber like a physical force.

Jiu Mei rocketed from the wooden table with explosive power while her opponent jumped to meet her, his three energy daggers leaving small cracks in the stone floor where he had been standing.

In that moment of suspended conflict, with both fighters committed to their final attacks, the air itself seemed to hold its breath...