"Cough, cough... this coffin must not touch the ground... otherwise the consequences will be endless..."
"Xiaoya... place those two stone beads into the eyes of the Vermilion Bird carved on the coffin... once the coffin opens... you will receive what you seek... cough, cough..."
Murong Fu broke into another violent fit of coughing, his entire aged frame looking as though it might collapse at any moment.
Channeling True Qi while bearing such grave injuries and severe poisoning seemed to take extraordinary effort, as though he might give out at any instant.
Hearing this, Murong Xiaoya glanced at her Second Uncle, then immediately leaped upward and shot toward the red coffin that hung suspended in his True Qi.
Drawing close to the coffin, which stood nearly thirty feet tall, Murong Xiaoya could now see clearly that a relief carving of a Vermilion Bird, its wings stretching from the head of the coffin all the way to its foot, rose above the countless layers of feather-scale carvings beneath it.
Its left wing was raised high with its neck arched toward the sky, its right wing drooped low over the foot of the coffin, and the fine feathers layered across its scales flickered like tongues of flame. Yet its two eyes were sunken and hollow, empty of anything.
What should have been a lifelike carving was utterly lifeless.
Seeing this, Murong Xiaoya did not hesitate. She flicked the stone beads in her hand straight into the hollow eyes of the bird, then immediately circulated her martial True Qi and twisted her body back to retreat.
At the same moment, the Vermilion Bird's left wing swept upward and threw the coffin lid aside, and from the tip of that wing a rain of sulfurous fire poured down and ignited the entire vaulted ceiling of the cavern. As the right wing swept low, it melted every broken length of iron chain below into writhing scarlet serpents.
The next instant, a cry rang out from the bird, high and piercing, and from within the coffin surged an irresistible force that seized Murong Xiaoya by the throat and dragged her inside in a single breath.
Then the entire red coffin erupted in roaring flames, burning like a great torch and sending a towering wave of heat rolling outward.
The shockwave of that heat instantly blasted Murong Fu, who had been channeling his True Qi below to keep the coffin aloft, and sent him hurtling away.
And at that moment, inside the coffin, a deep crimson Vermilion Bird bone drove itself into Murong Xiaoya's heart without warning. The pain that followed was beyond all reckoning, her bones dissolving, her blood boiling in an instant.
Streams of red-gold fire broke from every pore across Murong Xiaoya's body. Her skeleton rang with sounds like molten rock flowing through channels, and her entire being felt as though it had been laid over open flame and roasted alive, wrenching from her an agonized, unbroken cry.
Murong Fu, blasted back and thrown to the ground, lay slumped against a corner of the cavern wall. He listened to the wretched screaming that filled the air around him, his hollow eyes staring sightlessly toward the coffin at the center.
After a long while, Murong Xiaoya's screaming finally ceased.
In that moment the entire cavern fell utterly silent, save for the waves of scorching heat rolling through the air like magma.
Murong Fu struggled to push himself upright, his empty eye sockets turning slowly around the cavern before he called out in a faint, weakened voice, "Xiaoya..."
Only his own echo answered him. No one replied.
He called out again, with urgency, then again, but still received no response.
The next instant, Murong Fu collapsed back to the ground in despair, murmuring with a hollow, broken voice, "So it has failed after all..."
But at that very moment, Murong Xiaoya's voice sounded suddenly from right beside him, "Second Uncle. I am here."
Murong Xiaoya stood there without a single thread of clothing, her entire body wreathed in flowing streams of red-gold True Flame.
Her pupils had become swirling vortexes of molten gold, seeming to reflect a great river of magma surging through the veins of the earth itself. Her bare feet touched the ground, and the patch of floor beneath her had melted into burning earth.
Yet at the center of her chest, over her heart, there was a gaping, crimson wound, raw and fierce, with firelight moving within it, endlessly searing her flesh from the inside, refusing to heal.
Hearing Murong Xiaoya's answer, Murong Fu froze for a moment, then broke into an expression of overwhelming joy.
From somewhere in his frail, aged body he found the strength to suddenly surge to his feet and burst into laughter, saying, "Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful... this Vermilion Bird Bone is a supreme divine object. Any mortal who merges with it becomes the equal of a half-god..."
But Murong Xiaoya's molten gold pupils were already turning, and she cut him off abruptly, saying, "Second Uncle, answer me one question. Was the destruction of the Murong family connected to you?"
The moment those words fell, Murong Fu's expression went rigid. He shook his head at once and said, "Xiaoya... how could you ask such a thing..."
"You need only answer yes or no."
The True Flame around Murong Xiaoya surged, and the temperature of the air climbed almost instantly.
Seeming to sense the killing intent radiating from Murong Xiaoya, Murong Fu answered at once, saying, "This matter has nothing to do with me. It was all Han Cuiyuan's doing..."
But before he could finish, Murong Xiaoya raised her hand and reached directly for the heart of the ruined old man before her.
Her fingertips, wreathed in molten golden flame, pierced his body as easily as a blade through soft curd, and the air filled at once with the acrid smell of flame burning through flesh.
Murong Fu stood frozen in place. He slowly looked down, and feeling Murong Xiaoya's hand already inside his heart, his face fell into an expression of utter disbelief. Trembling, he managed to say, "You... why... would you do this..."
Hearing this, Murong Xiaoya's face held no expression at all. She said flatly, "Because just now, when I asked you that question, you lied."
"Second Uncle, you may not know this, but from childhood I have had the ability to tell truth from falsehood in what people say. Only my father and mother ever knew of it. Not even my brothers were told."
At those words, Murong Fu's ravaged face went still. After a moment, a strange smile crossed it, and he said with sudden understanding, "So that is how it is... worthy indeed of the 'Vermilion Bird Blood-Bearing Fate'... to possess such an ability as well... that is something I had not foreseen..."
But Murong Xiaoya clearly had no intention of listening to anything more from him. The hand holding his heart began to slowly close.
Feeling the searing, wrenching agony radiating from his heart, Murong Fu let out a heavy sigh and said suddenly, "One wrong move in the end... Xiaoya... you have won..."
"But... I still have one last gift left for you..."
As he spoke, Murong Fu pointed toward a corner of the cavern, where, lit by the flames surrounding Murong Xiaoya, a tightly sealed stone door could be seen.
But Murong Xiaoya gave him no further opportunity to speak. Her hand closed with a single sharp crush, and Murong Fu's heart shattered directly into a mist of blood.
That blood mist was consumed by the surrounding flame, and what remained condensed into a thread of refined blood that followed the path of the unhealing wound and merged directly into Murong Xiaoya's heart.
Having killed Murong Fu, she cast his aged body aside without a second glance. Murong Xiaoya's delicate face was utterly without expression.
She swept a slow gaze around the entire cavern, and at last her eyes came to rest on the Vermilion Bird coffin at its center.
After Murong Xiaoya had merged with the Vermilion Bird Bone, the coffin seemed to have been drained of every trace of power it had contained. The deep red color that had covered the Vermilion Bird relief on its surface had faded entirely to ashen grey.
Seeing this, Murong Xiaoya raised her hand with a casual sweep. A wind of fire roared through the space, and the Vermilion Bird coffin not far away was blown apart into a scatter of drifting ash.
Only then did Murong Xiaoya turn her gaze toward the stone door.