99. New Horizons (V) (Patreon)

“You’ll see,” grinned Tan. “First, let me tell you a little story. My family name is Heilong. It means black dragon. It is my family’s signature Bloodline.”

He pressed a finger to the indent, and Dorian heard a click. It was not a sound. It was a stark feeling, a wrench of the gut, a clink in his soul—a gear snapping open in a realm beyond the physical. And the door’s pipes filled with an eerie moss-green glow.

The door swung slowly open with a crackling of steel and a hissing of steam.

“Every year,” continued Tan, “My father ventures out into the wilderness to hunt and slay a Dusk Dragon from high in the Yultec Plateau.”

The door hadn’t cracked open a foot and already Dorian was struck by a howling hurricane of qi, yanking at him, rushing through him. He was nearly knocked off his feet; he had to step back, bracing himself to keep from being chucked into the wall.

“The Dusk Dragon’s scales are then distributed to each of our family’s youngsters!” said Tan, still smiling obliviously. “Only we, the Heilong family, carry this noble blood.”

As the door swiveled farther, he turned his glinting eyes to Dorian. “This Bloodline is top-grade in the Oasis, my friend. It ranks us among the elite in combat prowess. But that isn’t why my ancestors chose it.”

The door yawned wide enough to allow Dorian a slim view of the inside. The room was dark, swathed in shadow. The floors were polished mirrors of jade, like the flattened surface of a swirling green sea. His breaths quickened.

“My ancestors chose the Dusk Dragon…because it’s a descendent of a legendary beast!” Tan’s chest puffed out. “Would you care to guess which it is? Come now—try!”

Dorian licked his cracked, dry lips. This ‘legendary beast… is this my Bloodline? He was still on unstable footing, like man clinging to a slippery rock in the midst of a raging river, but he was slowly. Tan’s gloating face was an irritating smudge in the black.

“Well?” said Tan. It seemed the question wasn’t rhetorical. Tan was tapping his foot.

“I confess I haven’t the slightest clue, sir,” said Dorian with a wry smile. “Some kind of Phoenix? One of the great thousand-legged Wyrms?”

“Nothing so pedestrian!” cried Tan, giggling. “Guess again. Again!”

“A sphinx?”

“No!”

“A water-serpent?”

“Ooh!” Tan brightened. “Closer! But still nope.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” said Dorian dryly, his heart throbbing in his chest. A thrilling itch sizzled up his spine.

“Fine.” Tan cleared his throat. “It is called the Evernight Basilisk,” he said. He spoke the words in a furtive whisper, like they were sharing some closely-guarded family secret.

Evernight Basilisk? It didn’t register in Dorian’s memory—but then again, these Lower Planes always had differing nomenclature. At the least he could tell this was no mean Bloodline. It had to have come from a higher realm.

“It is said that millennia ago, during the War of the Gods, the Basilisk was the most feared deity of them all!” squealed Tan. “It is said to have descended from the Primordial Chaos. One bite left a god paralyzed for all eternity. Its coils could reduce mountain ranges to motes of dust! When it was slain, its fragments were scattered across the Realm. They are the realm’s most powerful artifacts.”

“Saints,” breathed Dorian. He felt a smidge light-headed. His mind jittered from thought to thought.

“There are fourteen Prime Bones of the Evernight Basilisk in the Oasis,” said Tan primly. “The governor’s palace owns three: two are used to power the aqueducts; they are what move those great hulking bulks of stone! They keep one, too, for the Endcannon—it is said one blast can bring even a Sky-Realm warrior to his knees. The alchemist’s guild owns one; it is what keeps their mountain green and luscious year-round. The Artificer’s guild owns one; it powers the forges of their highest-Tiered Artificers. The rest are scattered among the Noble Families.”

He thrust out his chin. “But only one family can claim to be the true heirs of the Evernight Basilisk!” he cried. “It is only fitting that we, the Heilong Family, owns four! And they are all behind this very door.”

He smirked. “So? What do you think?”

Dorian only vaguely heard the man. A sudden rush of dizziness took hold of him. He could hardly believe his ears. Wait. What?

Finding that first Bloodline fragment was a stroke of stupid luck. If he was hearing right—he was now within striking distance of four others?!

The first time he snagged a chunk of he nearly got stomped by two Profound-Realm Beasts to secure it. Now, he was being led by a narcissistic fool straight into his family’s inner sanctums. Where the bones would be practically served up on a godsdamned platter?

His tongue felt like cotton in his mouth. Surely not.

“It almost seems too good to be true,” croaked Dorian, which was the first honest thing he’d said all day.

But Tan simply laughed and beckoned him along. “Come, friend!” he said, stepping through the doorway. “I shall prove it to you.”

Dorian followed, feeling a numb tingling at the base of his skull. As he crossed that barrier, felt like he was traipsing into some impossible dream-world.

There were twelve Prime Bones of his Bloodline hidden in this Oasis?!

This changed everything. Dorian’s plans reshuffled and unspooled in real-time. He could hardly fathom the scope of it. His breaths came in pants as he grappled with it all.

At the Vigor Realm, Dorian’s body could only sustain one measly Prime Bone’s worth of Bloodline. This was because there was no-where to store this Bloodline beside his flesh and his core.

But this changed at the Profound Realm. As the old saying went, “the core is an island in the Sea.” The sea was the true storage-space of a cultivator. If Dorian managed to open a Supreme-grade Spirit Sea, the density of Bloodline his body could sustain would more than triple. He’d only need more Bloodline relics to increase it.

Initially Dorian had barely given thought to the matter. First he’d need a Prime Bone to serve as his Spirit Weapon—only then could he consider other, more decadent uses for them. It wasn’t like he could conjure up such rare relics out of nowhere! He’d count himself lucky if he could snag even one of his Bloodline’s Prime Bones.

Except for this latest absurd stroke of fortune.

Dorian hardly knew what to think. This had the potential to shave years off his run.

“Behold!” said Tan, sweeping his arm across the room.

Thick pillars framed five stone doors that must’ve been meant for giants. They were arrayed in a semicircle around Dorian and Tan, each flanked by torches, each carved with thick golden glyphs, each bearing a massive steel insignia. The glyphs seethed light, and Dorian could feel the torrents of qi they held back. If the wrong person touched any of these doors, they’d be obliterated in an instant. The rest of the room was enmeshed in mottled, sleek jade-green. Torchlight played across its surface so that the whole room seemed to slither and slink back-and-forth, as though alive.

But it was the plinth at the center of the room which caught Dorian’s attention. This plinth was the epicenter of that torrent blast of Bloodline. On it, behind a thick quartz casing, lay a Spirit Weapon.

At first glance it looked like the shed skin of a mottled emerald snake—a long coil of scaly rope. At one end was a scale bigger and brighter than the others: a Prime Bone, like Dorian had taken. It exuded an aura of cold, heavy majesty, like the unseen pressure in a king’s court. On the other end was a fang.

A thick, pure-white bone, big as a forearm and polished to a shine, curving cruelly to a tip sharper than any dagger. A tar-black, mistlike qi seeped out from it, shrouding it in a devilish halo.

Dorian sucked in a harsh breath. Heavens!

This one Prime Bone must’ve held enough blood to fill five scales. Even just standing in its presence had Dorian feeling like his veins ran with magma, not blood. A sheen of sweat started to build up on his forehead, trickling down his nose. He hardly felt it. His heartbeat rattled around in his ears like the strikes of a gong. This thing was godsdamned magnificent. 

“This was the Spirit Weapon of my Reverend Ancestor, the great Guo Heilong!” Tan said happily. “It is the rope-javelin Taiyang. With it, he slew the beast hordes of the North, drove out the Serpent King, and helped found the Azcan Oasis. It is the number one weapon in the Oasis--perhaps in all the desert! A beauty, is it not?”

“Indeed…” said Dorian absently. His thoughts were elsewhere. Far elsewhere, and scattered besides. It felt like a miniature hurricane had been unleashed inside his skull. He took a step forward. Dimly, he felt himself drooling.

“You may look all you like, but you musn’t touch it!” yelped Tan, flapping his arms in alarm. “You’ll be burned to ash if you try! It’s a pity, but this Spirit Weapon can only be wielded by a man who possesses the bloodline of the Evernight Basilisk.”

It’s…

It’s too easy.

Dorian felt like his eyes were about to fall out of his skull. 

“Alas, it is exceedingly rare that a man can successfully imbibe the Bloodline—the failure rate is as high as the Heavens!” said Tan, still eyeing him, chewing his lower lip. “And each failure is a waste of a precious scale. It is forbidden to attempt such a thing in the Oasis.”

He treated Dorian to a stern glance. “So no-one in the Oasis—why, I’d wager no-one in all the Realm can touch it! It is purely for show. A treasure of the Heilong family, as it were.”

“Rest assured, my friend, I wouldn’t dream of touching it,” said Dorian. Then he realized why Tan was looking at him so skeptically. Dorian was panting, his eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks were roasted red. It was hardly a cool, innocent look. Oops. Swallowing, he schooled his features and cracked a smile. “How embarrassing. I was so overcome by the beauty of this lovely artifact that it appears I’ve lost my composure.”

Inside, he was going mental.

The breakthrough to Profound was the perfect time to together a Spirit Weapon to his Spirit Sea. And this—this thing was right there. For the taking!

The only trouble was…

He was within the secret chambers of the military powerhouse of the Oasis. Forget that quartz covering, which he had no-doubt was nigh impregnable for even Earth-Realm experts. Forget all the qi-threads crisscrossing it like a cage, which he had no doubt triggered all manner of nasty alarms. Say he somehow broke in, snatched the thing under Tan Heilong’s nose, and tried scurrying off with it. This thing had such a dense aura that he’d be a walking beacon—not even an Interspatial Ring could stop it from leaking out. Dorian had no doubt that if the Heilong Family found their priceless heirloom missing on the day he visited, he’d be the prime suspect. How in the Nine Hells was he supposed to snatch this thing without being instantly hunted to death?!