The Phoenix of the Slums

Smoke curled from the ruins like dying serpents. The sky above Denghai’s Forbidden Quarters had turned an unnatural shade of gray, and the red glow that once pulsed from the Core Chamber had vanished, leaving only silence and the distant wail of sirens. Tianming stood among the wreckage with Xiaoqing beside him, both bloodied and breathing hard.
She looked at him. “So… what now?”
Tianming stared into the crater where Yurei had fallen. Her body had already been retrieved—no doubt by agents of the Lotus Clan who moved faster than shadows. Her final words still rang in his mind. The Root… it’s not here. This was just a door.
He clenched his fists. “We go deeper.”
Xiaoqing nodded, but her eyes lingered on his face. “You’re changing, you know. Not just your strength—your eyes. You’ve killed before, but this is different.”
“She wasn’t just an enemy,” Tianming replied. “She was the keeper of the door. The last piece of my past that still held answers… and Renshu took that from me.”
“Then let’s take it back.”
They left the crater as emergency drones swarmed the sky, bypassing law enforcement zones with forged credentials provided by Xiaoqing’s hacking module. As they crossed into the industrial district east of Denghai, Tianming activated his personal comm line.
“Lu Qingshan,” he said.
A second later, the Orchid Society leader’s voice came through. “You survived. That chamber was supposed to bury anyone who entered it.”
“Yurei is dead,” Tianming replied coldly. “And the real Protocol lies under the Lotus Sanctuary. I need access.”
Qingshan was quiet for a moment. “That… is not a place you can just walk into. It's buried beneath the Five Dragon Foundations, guarded by a hundred layers of syndicate politics, bio-tech weaponry, and surveillance systems even we can't penetrate.”
“I don’t care.”
Another pause. “You’ll need help. Not just strength—resources, allies.”
Tianming's voice turned cold. “Then give me both. I’ve done everything the Orchid Society asked. It’s time you gave something back.”
“…Alright. I’ll assemble a team. But Tianming, once you enter that place, there’s no going back. You’ll be stepping into the heart of the entire Black Circle syndicate.”
“I’m counting on it.”
He cut the line.
Xiaoqing raised an eyebrow. “You’re serious about going into the Sanctuary?”
“I have to. Renshu didn’t just kill her to silence her. He’s protecting something. And I won’t let him bury the truth with another corpse.”
That night, they returned to their safehouse on the outskirts of the collapsed zone. The walls were thick, lined with signal jammers and dampening foam, but even so, Tianming could feel eyes watching them from beyond the shadows.
While Xiaoqing cleaned her wounds, Tianming opened the sealed case he had retrieved earlier from the Core Chamber's antechamber. Inside lay a book—no title, bound in crimson dragonhide, its pages old and brittle. But on the inside cover, a symbol: the same spiral that Yurei had summoned during the battle. Eightfold.
He flipped through the pages, and found something shocking.
Diagrams. Of human anatomy—modified. A fusion of bloodlines, nerve grafting, and something called Core Reversal Protocols. On one page, in red ink, were the words:
Project Disruptor: Candidate Alpha — Tianming.
His hands trembled. “This… this was my file.”
Xiaoqing leaned over, eyes narrowing. “They didn’t just test you. They built you. Your resistance to Protocol control… it was designed.”
He slammed the book shut. “No. They didn’t build me. They failed to break me.”
The next day, Lu Qingshan arrived in person.
He wore no suit this time. Just a simple coat, eyes grim.
“I brought someone,” he said, motioning behind him.
A figure stepped forward—tall, bald, with a long scar down one side of his jaw and eyes like sharpened steel. He wore the robes of a retired monk, but his presence screamed assassin.
“This is Fang Yao,” Qingshan explained. “Ex-member of the Crimson Hand. He knows the Lotus Sanctuary’s outer defenses. And more importantly… he wants Renshu dead even more than you do.”
Fang Yao bowed slightly. “He burned my temple. Used us as experiments. You want in? I’ll guide you.”
Tianming didn’t hesitate. “When do we leave?”
Qingshan held up a datachip. “The only access route not covered by surveillance leads through the sewer lines beneath the Yuhuan District. You’ll enter the zone disguised as scavengers, then infiltrate via the Old Aqueduct System. But once you're in, you'll be on your own. No signals, no backup.”
“Just how I like it.”
Later that night, they made final preparations. Xiaoqing reprogrammed three scavenger drones to carry the team past checkpoints, while Fang Yao assembled his modified breathing gear and toxin filters. Tianming packed the Eightfold Manual and the last two fragment spheres—one red, one black.
Before leaving, Qingshan pulled Tianming aside.
“There’s one more thing you should know,” he said, voice low. “Renshu isn’t working alone.”
Tianming froze. “What do you mean?”
“There’s been chatter across our encrypted lines. A new name. One that even the Black Falcon Circle fears.”
“Who?”
“The Architect.”
Tianming narrowed his eyes. “Another title?”
“No. A ghost. No known photo, no DNA, no voiceprint. Just rumors. But every Protocol operation in the past decade traces back to him. Including the creation of Project Disruptor.”
Tianming’s voice dropped. “So he’s the one behind all of it.”
“If he’s real… then yes. He’s your real enemy.”
They entered the sewers two hours later.
Dark. Rank. Infested with heat and decay. Fang Yao led them through passage after passage, bypassing motion detectors with uncanny ease. Xiaoqing watched their path via a wrist display, but even she looked uneasy.
“This place… it’s not just old tech,” she said. “I’m getting signatures down here. Bio-thermal. Huge. Like something’s sleeping.”
“Then we stay quiet,” Fang Yao whispered.
They moved deeper, and at last, they reached it.
A door of black metal. No hinges, no handles. Only a single iris-shaped scanner and an inscription above in old characters: Only the broken shall pass.
Tianming stepped forward.
The scanner lit up.
Identity confirmed: Subject Tianming. Disruptor Protocol: Active. Gate Opening.
The door peeled open like the petals of a metallic flower.
And what lay beyond was not a room.
It was a city beneath the earth.
Twisted skyscrapers of steel and bone. Rivers of glowing blue energy. Machines that walked on spider legs and drones that patrolled the skies in silence. And at the center—high above—floated a throne without a king.
Fang Yao exhaled. “The Sanctuary.”
Xiaoqing stared in awe. “It’s not a lab… it’s a civilization.”
Tianming looked up.
The war was no longer about revenge.
It was about taking back a world already claimed by ghosts.