Night. The wind off the cliff cut like knives.
“No! Sister Shu, why? Why are you doing this to me?”
Seraphina Ashford lay in a pool of blood, her whole body shaking from the pain. Her face was white as paper, lips trembling, breath broken and ragged.
Vivienne Ashford crouched before her, blade buried in her dantian, twisting hard, digging and stirring with cruel patience. Then she yanked.
“Got it at last.” Her eyes blazed as she stared at the thing torn from Seraphina’s body. “An inborn Divine Vein. Look at that light. Look at it. This kind of treasure belongs to me.”
“What Divine Vein?” Seraphina’s voice cracked. Tears poured down her face. “Sister, it’s me. I’m Little Ninth. I was born with a crippled vein. Look at me. I’m Little Ninth!”
She cried until her chest felt torn open, but Vivienne only kicked her over.
Vivienne lifted the freshly ripped spirit vein and waved it in front of her face, smiling like a snake.
“Of course I know you’re Little Ninth. But what’s inside you was never some crippled vein.” She laughed low, smug and cold. “I should thank my mother for that. The moment you were born, she saw what you really were—someone born with a Divine Vein. So she sealed your spirit vein away herself.”
“We planned this long ago. Wait for you to grow up, then dig it out and give it to me.”
Her voice sharpened, jealousy spilling out plain and ugly.
“But then you just had to grow prettier than me.” She narrowed her eyes, face twisting. “And that old fool favored you in everything. He even betrothed you to Edmond Bates. The Bates family. A house more noble than even my mother’s side.”
“So of course I had to ruin you.”
She laughed and stepped on Seraphina’s swollen belly.
The stomp was vicious.
“You must still be wondering why you ended up in Beast Mountain, torn apart by a pack of beasts, hm?”
Vivienne threw her head back and laughed harder.
“Hahaha! That was me. I slipped you Huan Yi Dan myself. And I even scattered medicine all around to lure spirit beasts over.”
Seraphina nearly stopped breathing from the pain. Her eyes locked on the girl before her, wide and bloodshot, full of shock and terror. She shook her head with all the strength she had left.
“No... no, you wouldn’t... you’re lying... impossible...”
“Idiot.”
Vivienne ground her foot down harder.
“Ah—!”
Seraphina let out a shrill, broken scream. But at that very moment, a fierce surge of spiritual power burst from her belly, rushing upward, then slamming downward with brutal force.
Waa—
A baby’s cry rang out, bright and sharp, echoing through the valley.
Vivienne froze. Then her eyes flared.
“This is...” She bent down fast and snatched up the infant from the ground. The child was wrapped in dazzling spiritual radiance, the light so pure it almost hurt to look at. “Another inborn Divine Vein?”
Greed flooded her face. She stared at the baby as if she were staring at a treasure dropped from the heavens, then burst into wild laughter.
“Good. Good! This child is heaven’s gift. If I have two Divine Veins, then in the future...” She laughed so hard her shoulders shook. “Hahahaha!”
Seraphina’s eyes nearly split.
“My child... give me back my child! Vivienne Ashford—”
Seraphina Ashford dragged herself forward bit by bit, using the last scrap of strength in her body to crawl toward her.
But Vivienne Ashford did not even blink.
She lifted her foot and kicked her straight off the cliff.
Only a long, twisting trail of blood was left on the ground.
Ghostcry Cliff. Eagle-Sorrow Ravine.
Thunder ran wild across the sky. Wails rose like ghosts and wolves crying together. Wind and cloud churned into a black mess. Heaven and earth changed color.
The sudden omen shook the whole ancient seal.
Every bird and beast inside it seemed to feel a crushing force press down on them. One by one, they dropped to the ground and lay flat. In a blink, the entire sealed land fell dead silent.
Then the endless bolts of thunder roared together and slammed toward the mysterious man at the center of the seal.
Yet right then, the thunderclouds twisted.
They changed course on the spot.
Instead of striking the man, they shot toward the dying woman hidden deep in the forest.
Inside the thunder pool, the man slightly raised his eyes.
A trace of doubt flashed across that face, fine as a painting.
The heavenly lightning meant for a breakthrough... had been drawn away?
That meant...
A True Thunder Body had appeared nearby?
Three years later.
Seraphina Ashford was lying in the sun, bored out of her mind.
Then came a crack.
Above her head, the ancient seal slowly opened.
After being trapped in this damned barrier for three whole years, she could finally get out.
Once outside, she had to find medicine for her little one fast.
If the child’s body was left untreated any longer, real trouble would come.
She stood, brushed the fallen petals from her skirt, and called toward the distance, “Rosalie Ashford—”
Her voice carried inner force, rolling several miles out and startling countless spirit birds from the woods.
Not long after, a tiny milk-faced girl with a little sprout-like topknot on her head came running in on short little legs.
“Mommy—”
She rushed into the yard, her voice soft and sweet.