The Fall of the Mask and the Screams of the Wounded

The first explosion shook the upper city of Yulong like a furious earthquake. From a distance, Jin Lian and her small group saw a lethal orange blaze devouring part of Liang Jiuyong's temporary palace. Screams, mingled with bitter groans, echoed—men dying, horses panicking. The scent of gunpowder and smoke consumed the night's cold air.

"They've begun!" whispered Kai, his eyes reflecting the fire's glow—a mixture of awe and a desire to join the battle.

But Jin Lian saw beyond the flames. She saw the trap.

"Liang Jiuyong won't be caught off guard," she said, her voice taut like a drawn bowstring. "This is what he wants. For them to come out of the shadows… so he can unleash his hounds."

She pointed to the "Pureblood" guards and "Red Flower" squads swarming toward the explosion site, their torches lighting the luxurious streets like rivers of fire.

"We need another way… or they'll all be slaughtered."

• • •

Inside the burning palace courtyard, hell was being reenacted. Mo Tianyin and his suicide squad—"The Mute Blade", "The Viper", and a band of the desperate—had turned the area into a bloodbath. "The Mute Blade" raged like a hammer of fury, crushing guards with his bare hands, bones cracking hideously under his iron grip. "The Viper" slithered like a shadow between columns, her small blade flashing and vanishing, leaving behind guards clutching their slashed throats. But the enemy's numbers were overwhelming. Liang Jiuyong's men were well-armed, disciplined, and merciless.

Mo Tianyin fought with the cold precision of a machine. His dagger was an extension of his hand, each move calculated to kill or maim. But his signature ash-gray eyes scanned the battlefield, seeking one target only: Liang Jiuyong. He knew this was a losing game unless he could strike the snake in its den.

Suddenly, the palace's main gates flung open. Liang Jiuyong didn't emerge. Instead, heavily-armored soldiers stepped out, wielding strange weapons—long metal tubes ending in nozzles. Imperial shock rifles—rare secret weapons that discharged deadly electric currents.

WHOOOSH… CRACK!

A blue bolt ripped through the air, hitting "The Viper" mid-movement. Her body convulsed like a severed puppet string, then collapsed limp, the stench of burnt flesh rising. A soundless cry from "The Mute Blade"—his first ever sound—cut the air like a wounded beast's howl before a second bolt hit him square in the chest. He crashed down like a felled tree, smoke rising from his massive frame.

Terror seized the rest of the group. The desperate began to retreat, panic in their eyes. Mo Tianyin did not retreat. He used the chaos, sliding like a shadow toward the open door. His goal unchanged: Kill the snake—or die trying.

• • •

Outside the tightened siege, Jin Lian was executing her desperate plan. She didn't enter through the front gates of hell. She relied on Duke's knowledge of the old service tunnels beneath the palaces. They entered through a forgotten vent behind a servant's annex, heading straight toward Liang Jiuyong's private wing.

"The wing is fortified like a fortress," whispered Duke as they crawled through a narrow dark tunnel. "But every fortress… has a blind spot."

He pointed to a diagram on the wall: the laundry store attached to the wing. A place only "tainted" servants entered, with a back door leading to a side corridor near Liang's chamber.

The place was eerily quiet, cut off from the chaos outside. The scent of fine soap and fabric perfumes lingered. Jin Lian gently pushed the back door open. The corridor was empty… except for a tall shadow at its end, back turned, watching the distant fire through a high window. Liang Jiuyong himself.

Kai gripped his knife, eyes blazing. Jin Lian stopped him with a look. Not now. She gestured in silence. Their goal wasn't to kill him here—nearly impossible with hidden guards everywhere—but something else: Find Mo Tianyin… and save whoever could still be saved.

They split up. Duke, Kai, Ming, and Lin scattered to search the nearby rooms. Jin Lian, driven by a killer's instinct, headed toward a heavy iron door at the end of another corridor. It bore the sign: RESTRICTED. The lock was intricate, but she noticed a fresh scratch on the handle—signs of recent tampering.

With practiced hands (a skill she had learned from Mo Tianyin in the cabin), she opened it. Inside was a dark room, the scent a mix of strong medicine… and blood. A faint lamp on a table revealed the scene:

Mo Tianyin was chained to an iron chair. His face was swollen with bruises, one eye shut, but the other… was open, gray, and cold as ice, fixed on a man seated in a luxurious chair: Liang Jiuyong. Between them lay surgical tools, bottles of drugs, and a complex metallic device hooked to electrodes.

"Ah… an unexpected guest," Liang said without turning, his voice smooth as poisoned silk. He wiped blood from his hands with a white cloth.

"Come to witness a hero's transformation… into a tool?"

Mo Tianyin raised his head with effort. His one eye met Jin Lian's. It didn't plead. It didn't even rage. It gave a silent warning: Run.

"Transform him?" Jin Lian said, back to the door, knife ready. "You'll break his will? Like the others?"

Liang chuckled that cold, echoing laugh.

"Break? No, dear puppet. He's too valuable for that."

He touched the metal device with his slender fingers.

"This… is the 'Forced Resonance Device.' It doesn't break the will… it reshapes it. Plants commands deep in the subconscious, beneath awareness, like seeds that grow over time."

He looked at Mo Tianyin like a scientist admiring a rare specimen.

"Imagine… your brilliant leader, with all his hate and cunning, turned into a loyal instrument in my hands. Serving the very system he despised… perhaps, one day, sent to hunt you down."

Jin Lian felt sick. This was worse than death. This was soul desecration.

"That will never happen!" she lunged at the device, knife aimed at Liang or the wires.

Liang didn't flinch. He simply said, "Chen."

From behind a marble pillar, Mr. Chen emerged like a ghost. His sword whispered through the air. Jin Lian barely reacted in time, her knife clashing violently with his blade. Sparks flew. Chen didn't speak. He attacked like a storm—swift, lethal, forcing her back out of the room.

Outside, Jin Lian heard Kai and Ming shouting—fighting off other guards. Time was running out.

From inside the torture chamber came a mechanical hum… then the sound of a shock, and a muffled groan that could only be Mo Tianyin's.

The device was active.

• • •

In the outer courtyard, the massacre was nearly over. Mo Tianyin's men were either dead or captured. "The Mute Blade" still twitched on the ground, his smoking body spasming with dying shudders. The air hung thick with death and brutal triumph.

Suddenly, the palace gates swung wide. Liang Jiuyong appeared, his black clothes pristine, as if on a leisurely walk. Beside him, bound in heavy chains but walking upright, was Mo Tianyin. His face was pale, and his eyes… strange. Not vacant like the others. They were cold as ever—but clouded, like looking through thick glass. On his forehead, beneath a faint blue mark, was a small metal badge: a golden flower inside a red circle—Liang's symbol.

Silence overtook the square. Even Liang's own guards paused, transfixed by the surreal scene.

Liang raised his hand, his voice slicing through the quiet like a blade: "Behold! This is the fate of all who defy the system! Your leader! Your mastermind! He is now… a loyal servant of the order!"

Then he turned to Mo Tianyin and issued a simple command—a test:

"Servant… where does your loyalty lie?"

Mo Tianyin lifted his head slowly. His glassy eyes met the crowd. He spoke, voice hoarse, distorted—but the words were clear and chilling:

"My loyalty… is to the Emperor. To the system. To Master Liang Jiuyong."

And then, the next words froze Jin Lian in place as she and her group backed toward the servant exits: "My first duty… is to eliminate the Tainted Blood Cell. And to capture… Jin Lian."

His gaze turned toward the dark alley where Jin Lian had vanished. It was not the look of a hunter. It was the gaze of a machine locked on target. A look more dangerous than any past fury.

• • •

In the fleeing sewers, Jin Lian was running—but a heavier ghost than ever before chased her. Not Liang's. Not Chen's. Mo Tianyin's. As she last saw him. His cold eyes turned to lenses—aimed at her soul.

His words: "My loyalty is to the Emperor" echoed in her mind like a funeral bell.

Kai ran beside her, face twisted in rage and grief.

"They broke him! That monster Liang… broke him!"

Jin Lian suddenly stopped at a dark sewer junction. She breathed deeply, trying to purge the image of those glassy eyes from her mind.

"No." she whispered, voice hoarse but carrying a new spark. "He's not broken. He's sealed."

She turned to the weary group: Kai, Ming, Lin, Tao, Bao, and Duke. All wounded, inside and out.

"There… was still something in his eyes. Something beneath the glass. Like… a scream no one can hear."

Duke shook his head, face hard in the lantern's faint glow.

"Even if a part of him remains… Liang has made him a weapon against us. He knows all our hideouts. All our plans. Every weakness."

It was a catastrophe. The man who built the cell, who knew every secret, was now its greatest threat.

Jin Lian closed her eyes for a moment. She remembered Mo Tianyin in the cracked cabin, saying: "Mercy is a dream invented by the weak." She remembered his cold logic, his ruthless calculations, his belief that ends justified any means.

And now… his greatest weapon—his mind—had been turned into a blade pointed at all he once fought for.

She opened her eyes. The gray no longer held just anger. They held the weight of leadership… and vengeance.

"Liang Jiuyong thinks he's won," she said, her voice trembling with pent-up fury. "He thinks that by turning Mo Tianyin… he's killed the revolution."

She stepped toward the wider tunnel, back to her group.

"But the revolution… was never in one man. It was in the idea. In the Tainted Blood that dares say: 'Enough.'"

She turned to them. In her eyes, they saw the reflection of distant torches—like small flames flickering in the sewer's darkness.

"Mo Tianyin taught us how to fight. Taught us the system is a merciless beast."

She paused, then spoke the words that would forever change the cell's path:

"But he forgot… the deadliest beast is desperate hope. And we… we're not desperate yet. We still have hope… to burn his den to the ground."

They walked into the dark, leaving behind Liang's burning palace and the image of Mo Tianyin bound in chains—of flesh and mind. Jin Lian now led—not as a puppet, but as a chameleon commander who learns from the blood of her failures.

And the new enemy… was the ghost of the man who taught her to hold a blade.

And the ghost of herself, who might have to use it—against him.