Chapter 12: Trials of the Seven Stars

silver in the air that hung like frozen lightning. The shadow creature recoiled, hissing as the blade-light touched its form. Where the sword cut, the darkness frayed, revealing glimpses of something beneath—not flesh, but a writhing mass of captured souls, each one a face twisted in eternal agony.

“The Sword God’s legacy,” the creature hissed, its thousand voices layering into something almost like awe. “I had heard rumors, but I did not believe. How does a mortal brat carry such a weight without being crushed?”

Lin Feng didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The Sword God’s memories were flooding through him with an intensity he had never experienced before—not the gentle guidance of past battles, but something rawer. The shadow creature before him was an enemy the Sword God had faced before. Three times. Each encounter had ended in mutual destruction.

*This thing is not a mere manifestation,* the Sword God’s voice echoed in his mind, strained with ancient fury. *It is a Soul Shade—a fragment of a Shadow Palace Lord that has been feeding on this region for centuries. Banishing it will not be enough. It must be severed completely.*

“Severed?” Lin Feng muttered under his breath, dodging a tendril of darkness that lashed toward his throat. “What does that mean?”

*Its anchor is not the summoner. The summoner was merely bait to draw us out. The true anchor lies deeper—in the earth beneath this monastery, in the blood of those who died here. You must cut the root before you can kill the branch.*

Xiao Lan’s hands moved in intricate patterns, threads of golden light weaving through the air around her. The shadow creature snarled and turned toward her, but Lin Feng pressed his attack, forcing it to divide its attention. Each strike he made weakened it slightly, but the creature regenerated almost instantly, pulling darkness from the shadows of the ruined monastery walls.

“I can’t hold it here forever!” Xiao Lan called out, her voice tight with strain. “The binding circle is holding, but the creature is drawing power from something beneath us. There’s a nexus point—old blood magic, very dark. If I can redirect—“

“No.” Lin Feng’s voice came out harder than he intended. “If you touch that magic, it will corrupt you. I’ve seen what happens to light cultivators who try to purify Shadow Palace roots.”

Xiao Lan’s eyes widened slightly, but she nodded, returning her focus to maintaining the golden threads that formed a cage around the creature’s main body. The shadow beast that had served the summoner now huddled at the far edge of the courtyard, watching with intelligent, terrified eyes.

*The beast knows,* the Sword God said. *It was bound to the summoner, not to this creature. It can sense the difference. Use that.*

Lin Feng’s gaze darted to the beast. It was a Shadow Hound—a creature of darkness that served Shadow Palace summoners, but this one had been bound to its master by chains of loyalty, not force. He had seen such bonds before in the Sword God’s memories. They were rare, almost sacred among the darker sects.

“The root beneath us,” Lin Feng said, not to the creature, but to the beast. “You know what it is. You can feel it, can’t you?”

The Shadow Hound’s ears flattened. It whined, a sound that seemed impossibly vulnerable for such a creature. But it didn’t deny it.

“It’s the remains of your pack, isn’t it?” Lin Feng pressed, the Sword God’s instincts guiding his words. “The Shadow Palace killed them and used their essence to anchor their power here. That’s why you stayed with the summoner. You wanted to protect what was left of them.”

The beast’s eyes glowed with an ancient grief that transcended language. Slowly, painfully, it nodded.

“Then help me free them.”

The shadow creature roared, sensing the shift in the battle’s tide. It lunged toward Lin Feng with renewed fury, but Xiao Lan’s golden threads tightened, forcing it back. The creature’s form flickered, and Lin Feng caught a glimpse of something beneath—a massive structure of darkness that pulsed like a diseased heart.

*The heart of the nexus,* the Sword God said. *It’s protected by the souls of the fallen. To sever it, you must first release them. And to release them, you must convince the Shadow Hound to let go of its vigil.*

Lin Feng looked at the beast. It had been waiting here for decades, perhaps centuries, guarding the memory of its pack. The summoner had used that loyalty, twisted it, and turned the beast into a tool of the very power that had slaughtered its family.

“You’ve done enough,” Lin Feng said softly. “You’ve honored them with your loyalty. But now, the only way to truly free them is to let go.”

The Shadow Hound trembled. A low, mournful howl escaped its throat—a sound that seemed to resonate with something deep in Lin Feng’s chest. The Sword God’s memories stirred, and for a moment, Lin Feng felt the echo of a similar grief. A master who had died protecting his disciples. A sword that had drunk the blood of its own wielder’s enemies until it could drink no more.

“I know what it is to lose those you love,” Lin Feng said. “I know what it is to carry their memory like a weight. But that weight can become a chain, binding you to a past you cannot change. Free them. Let them go. And then, together, we will make this monster pay.”

The Shadow Hound’s eyes met his. Something passed between them—an acknowledgment, a pact. Then the beast turned and charged toward the shadow creature, its form dissolving into pure darkness as it leaped.

“NO!” The creature’s scream was a thousand voices shattering at once. It tried to flee, but the Shadow Hound’s sacrifice had opened a breach in its defenses. The beast’s essence poured into the nexus point beneath the monastery, and the ground began to tremble violently.

*NOW!* the Sword God roared.

Lin Feng moved. His sword became a blur of silver light, carving a path through the creature’s collapsing form. But he wasn’t aiming for the manifestation anymore. He was aiming for the ground beneath it, where the nexus point pulsed with the stolen essence of the Shadow Hound’s pack.

His blade struck the earth, and the world exploded into white.

---

When Lin Feng opened his eyes, he was lying on his back, staring at a ceiling of cracked stone. The monastery’s main hall had partially collapsed, but the section where he lay was intact—barely. Dust hung in the air like the afterimage of a storm.

Xiao Lan knelt beside him, her face pale but her eyes sharp. “You’re alive,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“Last I checked.” Lin Feng pushed himself up, wincing at the ache that spread through his ribs. His sword lay a few feet away, its blade dulled and covered in a fine layer of ash. “The creature?”

“Gone. Severed, as you said.” Xiao Lan’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I felt the nexus break. Whatever was anchored beneath this monastery has been fully severed. The souls are free.”

Lin Feng nodded slowly, but something nagged at the edge of his consciousness. The Sword God was silent—not the comfortable silence of rest, but the wary silence of a predator waiting in ambush.

*What is it?* Lin Feng asked silently.

*The Shadow Hound,* the Sword God replied, his voice heavy. *It did not merely free the souls. It bound itself to you.*

Lin Feng’s blood turned cold. He looked down at his hand, and there—faint but unmistakable—was a dark mark on his palm. A swirling pattern that seemed to shift and move, like living shadow.

“What is that?” Xiao Lan asked, her voice sharpening. She reached for his hand, but Lin Feng pulled it back.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just a battle scar.”

Her eyes narrowed, but before she could press further, a sound echoed from the ruins beyond the hall—the crunch of footsteps on broken stone. Multiple sets. Approaching rapidly.

Lin Feng grabbed his sword and rose to his feet, pushing past the pain. Xiao Lan moved beside him, her hands already tracing defensive patterns.

Through the dust and rubble, figures emerged. They wore the grey robes of Seven Stars Sect outer disciples, but their movements were wrong—too stiff, too synchronized. And at their head walked a man Lin Feng recognized with a cold chill of dread.

Elder Xu.

The man who had been responsible for the trials that had nearly killed Lin Feng months ago. The man who had always seemed to know more than he should.

“Lin Feng,” Elder Xu said, his voice smooth as poison. “I’ve been looking for you. It seems you’ve been busy.”

Lin Feng’s grip tightened on his sword. The mark on his palm throbbed, a dull, insistent pulse that seemed to answer something in the elder’s presence.

“What do you want?” Lin Feng asked.

Elder Xu smiled—a smile that didn’t reach his cold, calculating eyes. “Why, to congratulate you, of course. You’ve uncovered a Shadow Palace nexus point and destroyed it. Such a feat should not go unrecognized.” He paused, and his smile widened. “But I’m afraid there’s been a complication. You see, the moment you severed that nexus, you triggered a beacon. The Shadow Palace now knows exactly who you are, where you are, and what you carry.”

Xiao Lan stepped forward, her voice icy. “How do you know that?”

Elder Xu’s eyes flickered to her, and for just a moment, something dark passed through them. “Because I was the one who placed the beacon,” he said. “And I was the one who told the Shadow Palace where to find you.”

The world seemed to freeze. Lin Feng’s mind raced, connecting pieces that had never quite fit before—the suspicious trials, the targeted attacks, the way Elder Xu had always appeared at the worst possible moments.

“You’re working with them,” Lin Feng said. It wasn’t a question.

Elder Xu laughed—a cold, brittle sound. “Working with them? Oh, my dear boy. I AM them.”

His form began to shift, shadows crawling across his skin like living tattoos. The grey robes darkened to black, and his eyes sunk into pools of pure darkness.

“You see,” Elder Xu said, his voice now layered with a dozen echoing tones, “the Shadow Palace doesn’t just place agents in other sects. Sometimes, we grow them from seed. And you, Lin Feng, were a seed I planted a very long time ago.”

The mark on Lin Feng’s palm flared with searing pain as Elder Xu—or whatever he truly was—spread his arms wide.

“Did you ever wonder why you survived that fall from the cliff? Why the jade pendant chose you? Why the Sword God’s memories awakened in a body that should have been far too weak to contain them?”

Elder Xu’s smile was a slash of darkness in his corrupted face.

“I engineered every step of your journey. Every trial. Every failure. Every moment of despair that made you desperate enough to accept a god’s legacy into your fragile mortal shell. You were never meant to be a hero, Lin Feng. You were meant to be a vessel.”

The mark on Lin Feng’s palm pulsed again, stronger now, and he felt something stir in the depths of his consciousness. Something that had been sleeping. Something that was now, at last, beginning to wake.

*Child,* the Sword God said, his voice tight with a fear Lin Feng had never heard in it before. *Do not listen to him. Whatever he says, whatever he claims, you are not his creation. You are—*

“I am your father,” Elder Xu said, and the world shattered.

---

Lin Feng stared at the man before him, at the darkness that