CHAPTER 167: CH-167: A BEAST

The night after the tribulation carried a silence so sharp it seemed to slice the air.

Tian Shen sat cross-legged in the depths of the Feilun Sect’s secluded cultivation chamber. His robes clung to his body, still scorched at the hems from lightning’s kiss, while the room’s stone walls trembled faintly beneath the oppressive pressure that leaked from his core.

The Utopian Core pulsed like a second heart, too vast and too feral to be contained by flesh. Every breath threatened to rip him apart from the inside.

"—Hhh."

Tian Shen exhaled sharply, sweat streaming down his jaw, glistening in the dim lamplight. His dantian was no longer the quiet, rotating pool of spiritual essence he had known. It had become a storm—chaotic streams of refined qi surging in violent spirals, tearing at his meridians like rivers breaking their banks.

His hands trembled against his knees. Even the bones beneath his skin creaked with strain.

Inside, voices clawed. The whispers of tribulation lightning had not left him—they echoed in strange cadences, as if thunder had seeded fragments of itself in his soul.

Devour. Break. Ascend. Destroy.

He grit his teeth until his jaw ached.

This was the price of the Utopian Core. Not just power, but hunger. A hunger that did not distinguish friend from foe, that urged him to consume anything, anyone, to stabilize itself.

A sharp knock cut through the chamber’s suffocating silence.

"Tian Shen."

Feng Yin’s voice, low and steady.

He almost told her to leave. Almost. But the tremor in his spirit faltered at the sound, the storm inside momentarily checked. He exhaled, "Enter."

The door slid open, and Feng Yin stepped in. Her robes of pale green swayed with each step, carrying a scent like mountain rain. Her eyes, however, were not soft tonight. They were sharp, watching him as though weighing whether she stood before Tian Shen—or before something else.

"You look like a man wrestling with ghosts," she murmured, seating herself across from him.

"Not ghosts," he rasped. "A beast. One that lives in me now."

Her gaze flicked downward, as if she could see the invisible pulse of his Utopian Core beneath his chest.

She did not speak immediately. Instead, she drew out a talisman, pressed it to her palm, and the air shimmered with stabilizing runes. "Then cage the beast before it devours you."

Tian Shen let out a harsh laugh that scraped his throat raw.

"Easier said than done."

The Utopian Core throbbed, sending a violent shudder through his body. He doubled forward, coughing blood into his palm. The crimson liquid sizzled as threads of silver qi swirled inside it.

Feng Yin reached for him instinctively, but stopped short—her fingers hovering in the air, inches from his shoulder. Even she could feel it. The aura spilling from him was no longer simply his. It was predatory, volatile, the kind that could burn anyone reckless enough to draw near.

He caught her hesitation. His lips twisted. "You see it too. I’m not the same anymore."

"You’re stronger," she corrected sharply. "But strength doesn’t erase who you are—unless you let it."

The words pierced, but the beast within him roared back. The Utopian Core sent another surge of qi into his meridians, bursting like a flood through fragile channels. Pain flared white-hot. His vision dimmed at the edges.

More. Feed me more.

The whisper wasn’t hers. It came from within.

Tian Shen slammed his fists into the stone floor, cracks webbing outward. "Enough!"

The echo rattled the chamber, and even the stabilizing runes Feng Yin had summoned flickered against the surge.

Feng Yin’s voice remained calm, though he could see her knuckles whiten around the talisman. "Fight it, Tian Shen. You’ve defied tribulation lightning itself. You can master this Core."

Her steadiness—her absolute refusal to flinch—became his lifeline.

He closed his eyes, forcing his consciousness deeper. Down past bone, down past meridians, into the core-space where his Utopian Core blazed like a miniature sun.

It did not look like the gentle golden spheres described in sect manuals. No—this was jagged, crystalline, its light fractured, endless veins of lightning racing across its surface. It pulsed in violent rhythm, as though daring him to approach.

And when he did, he saw shapes coiling around it—phantoms born from lightning’s wrath, beasts of storm snarling, clawing, pressing against the boundary of his soul.

You are ours, they hissed. Surrender. Devour. Burn the world, and we will ascend together.

He answered them with a growl of his own.

"Not yours. Not ever."

His will struck like a blade, clashing against the storm. The phantoms howled, their forms surging to overwhelm him.

Pain screamed through every fiber of his being. He knew if he faltered here, even for a moment, the Utopian Core would consume not only his body—but his very self.

From outside, Feng Yin’s voice cut through the chaos. Steady. Grounding.

"Remember who you are, Tian Shen."

Her words echoed within him, a tether anchoring him against the maelstrom.

"I am..." His breath came ragged, his spirit straining under the onslaught. "...Tian Shen."

He poured everything into that declaration—his battles, his scars, his stubborn refusal to bend. His will became a blade of clarity, slicing into the phantoms, cleaving storm from self.

The Core screamed. The chamber trembled. Dust fell from the ceiling as qi warped the air.

Then—silence.

The phantoms dissolved, retreating into cracks within the crystalline Core. The sun of his dantian still pulsed violently, but it no longer threatened to consume. It was...contained.

Barely.

Tian Shen’s eyes opened slowly. His body sagged, sweat-soaked and trembling, but alive. His breathing steadied in shallow pulls.

Feng Yin watched him, her expression unreadable, though relief flickered in her gaze. "You fought it back."

"For now." His voice was hoarse, every word dragged through fire. "But it’s not tamed."

"Then we’ll tame it together."

That made him blink, startled. He had expected distance, fear—anything but that calm certainty. But Feng Yin’s eyes held no fear, only a resolve as unyielding as his own.

Something in his chest unclenched. The Utopian Core throbbed again, but softer, as though acknowledging her presence.

He allowed himself a breath. Just one.

But deep down, he knew this was only the beginning. The Utopian Core was no gift freely given—it was a beast that would demand war every day he drew breath.

And Tian Shen, teeth bared, would give it war.

...

The lamplight guttered in the chamber, shadows flickering across the broken stone where Tian Shen’s fists had struck. The silence that followed was not peace but exhaustion—tense, raw, as though the walls themselves feared to breathe too loudly.

Tian Shen leaned back against the wall, chest heaving. His body was whole, but only in the way a battlefield remains after war: scarred, trembling, and dangerous. The Utopian Core pulsed like molten iron within him, every throb a reminder that his victory was temporary.

"Together, then," he repeated softly, tasting the words Feng Yin had given him.

Her presence across from him steadied his gaze. She had not flinched, not even when the storm inside him threatened to lash out indiscriminately. That alone told him something more terrifying than the Core itself—she trusted him, still.

"Your eyes," Feng Yin murmured, studying him carefully. "They’ve changed."

Tian Shen blinked, raising a shaking hand to his face. His reflection, caught faintly in the polished talisman between them, showed a glimmer threaded through his pupils—silver streaks that pulsed with each heartbeat. Not human, not entirely. The mark of lightning’s inheritance.

He almost turned away, ashamed. But instead, he forced himself to meet her gaze directly. "If this power marks me as beast, then I will be the beast that breaks chains, not one that preys on those beside me."

A faint smile ghosted across her lips. "Then you have already chosen what the Core cannot."

The words cut deeper than any sword. Choice—yes, that was his. The Core could howl, demand, even burn—but it could not decide. That right was his alone.

Slowly, deliberately, Tian Shen crossed his arms over his chest, pressing his trembling palms against his sternum. He felt the violent pulse beneath, each surge demanding release. "You will not command me," he whispered to the Core. "I will command you."

The chamber thrummed. The Utopian Core rebelled, flaring with heat so intense his teeth ground together from the strain. For a heartbeat he thought it might burst him apart, scatter him into ash.

But he held.

The pulse weakened—not subdued, not obedient, but grudging, as though the Core acknowledged his defiance.

Feng Yin inclined her head, the talisman dimming as the stabilizing runes faded. "That is enough for tonight. Any more, and you’ll bleed your body hollow."

Tian Shen gave a faint, bitter chuckle. "This is what victory feels like? Half-broken, covered in sweat and blood?"

"It feels like survival," Feng Yin countered, standing gracefully. "And survival, Tian Shen, is how legends begin."

She turned toward the door, then paused. "Rest. Tomorrow, the sect will feel your breakthrough. Eyes will turn toward you, some with reverence, some with fear. You’ll need your strength for both."

The door slid shut behind her, leaving Tian Shen in the dim chamber once more.

Alone, he let his head fall back, breathing slow and ragged. The Utopian Core still stirred restlessly, promising endless battles to come.

He bared his teeth in the darkness, not in despair but in grim resolve.

"Let them come," he muttered. "Tribulation, Core, sect, or heavens themselves—I’ll fight them all."

The silence answered him, sharp and endless.

But this time, he was not afraid.