Bai Lu faced her deepest fear—dying. With the last shred of strength left in her trembling body, she forced herself to look at the horrific scene before her, a scene she was now painfully part of. A large , metal-like spear had pierced straight through her stomach, pinning her in place. The iron-rust scent of blood filled her senses, mixing sickeningly with the damp, earthy smell of the forest floor. Pain surged through her—raw, overwhelming, and merciless. It was a kind of agony she had never imagined her body capable of enduring. Each breath tore through her chest, shallow and uneven, as warmth spilled from her wound and soaked into the ground beneath her. All of this… because she had been too curious. She had only wanted to sight see. To wander. To see more than what the path allowed. Now, curiosity had led her here—broken, bleeding, and staring directly into the face of death.

A struggle of consciousness raged within her as blood dripped from the wound, seeping down the rusted, jagged metal of the old spear. Each crimson drop fell into the nearly forgotten cage below, where a skeleton lay forgotten by time. With every touch of her blood, the bones began to quiver, to knit themselves together. Flesh crawled across the empty frame, sinews weaving into muscle, skin stretching over the newly formed body. It wasn’t long before the transformation was complete. A figure, whole and pulsing with life, stirred. Eyes snapped open, glowing with a hunger that had been buried for centuries. The body had awakened, and with it, something ancient, something relentless.

The air shimmered around him as he extended his hands, a subtle hum of power vibrating in the space between them. Her body lifted from the jagged metal of the spear, suspended as if the world itself had forgotten gravity.

He stared at her lips, pale and trembling, the life in her dimming like a candle in the wind. A dark urgency gripped him, and without hesitation, he bit his own hand, letting the metallic warmth of his blood bead on his fingers. Carefully, he pressed it to her lips. The moment it touched her, a faint warmth spread across her face. Her shallow breaths steadied, and a soft color began to return. His eyes never left her, drinking in the fragile curve of her mouth, the quiet rise and fall of her chest. Then, his gaze dropped to the gaping wound on her stomach. The blood still oozed, dark and stubborn, but he could feel it—the magic within him, ancient and relentless, stirring. Slowly, the gash began to knit itself closed, muscle and skin fusing under the gentle pull of his power. He watched, almost in awe, as the once-terrifying wound sealed, leaving only a faint line, a memory of the danger she had been in. When it was done, he exhaled, the tension in his body easing just a fraction. She was alive. And as he held her closer, cradling her like a secret the world could never touch, the unspoken truth settled between them: in this moment, his blood was more than life—it was the bridge between them, binding their fates together in a way neither could ignore.