Eternal Tribulation: The Dao-Born

I. The Eighth Hour The pickaxe struck stone in a rhythm older than cultivation itself. Mu Zhaoming wiped grit from her eyes, her calloused palms scraping against the leather-wrapped handle. The air smelled of damp iron and the faint sweetness of corrupted spirit veins—a cloying scent that clung to the back of her throat like congealed honey. Somewhere in the labyrinthine tunnels, water dripped in irregular intervals, each drop echoing like the tolling of a funeral bell. "Faster, worms!" A whip cracked against the cavern wall, sending shards of glowmoss tumbling from their crevices. The overseer's silhouette loomed at the tunnel mouth, his scaled tail twitching—half-man, half-sand lizard, a common foot soldier of the Ten-Thousand Venoms Sect. Zhaoming kept her head lowered, but not before counting his serrated teeth. /Seventeen on the upper jaw. Venom sacs distended. Third-stage metamorphosis./ The knowledge came unbidden, another shard of her shattered inheritance. Her left hand spasmed as she swung the pickaxe again. Crystalline veins pulsed beneath her skin where the "gift" had begun its work—the Dao-Born Physique devouring ambient Yin energy, heedless of her fragile meridians. She'd hidden the corruption beneath stolen rags, but the cold seeped deeper each night. /Three more days until the monthly purge./ A glint caught her eye. Nestled in the freshly split stone glimmered a thumb-sized *Xuanjing*—raw spirit ore, its edges bleeding wisps of gray smoke. Poisoned. The Ten-Thousand Venoms Sect cared nothing for purity; their refinement process thrived on toxins. Zhaoming palmed the crystal, letting its jagged edges bite into her flesh. Through the pain, she traced the characters etched into its surface—not natural fractures, but deliberate markings. /'Beware the singing stones.'/ Her breath hitched. This was the seventh such crystal she'd found in as many days. II. The Bronze Heart Midnight brought the illusion of freedom. Crouched in her assigned alcove—a hollow barely large enough to contain her malnourished frame—Zhaoming uncurled stiff fingers. The stolen *Xuanjing* fragments glowed faintly in her palm, their toxic emissions curdling the air. "Still playing with poison, little moth?" The voice slithered from the adjacent alcove. Old Wen, his face a topography of scars, watched through milky eyes. Of all the prisoners, only he dared speak of the past. They said he'd once been a Golden Core elder before the Ten-Thousand Venoms Sect broke his dao heart. Zhaoming closed her fist. "Better poison than oblivion." A wheezing laugh. "You carve rebellion into spirit stones. Whisper warnings to deaf ears. Tell me, Mu girl—when will you admit this is a tomb?" The name struck like a blade. She lunged, crystal shards pressed to his throat. "Who told you?" Old Wen didn't flinch. "Your mother's eyes look back at me every dawn. The way you measure shadows when the overseers pass—that's your father's strategic mind." His clawed hand closed over hers, flesh meeting corruption. "The Mu Clan's blood runs thin, but it sings." Zhaoming recoiled. The crystals fell, their clattering drowned by the ever-present drip of water. When she looked up, Old Wen held out the bronze lamp. "Y-you..." "Stole it from your trembling grasp during the last purge." He rotated the relic, revealing the Mu Clan's phoenix sigil beneath centuries of patina. "A fine prison for a dying flame." Zhaoming's pulse roared in her ears. She'd thought it lost during her capture. "Take it," Old Wen rasped. "But know this—when you light the wick tonight, you'll awaken more than ancestral ghosts." III. The Thirteenth Attempt Blood dripped onto cold bronze. Zhaoming knelt where the glowmoss grew thickest, her back pressed against stone still warm from daylight drilling. The lamp sat before her, its surface etched with constellations no mortal should recognize. /One hundred twenty-six failures./ /One hundred twenty-six vessels shattered./ Her left hand hovered above the wick. Crystalline filaments branched from her fingertips now, responding to the lunar phase. She'd calculated the risk—tonight's moon hung heavy with Yin essence, the best chance to counteract her raging Yang meridians. "By blood and breath," she recited the half-remembered rite, "I call upon—" A scream echoed through the tunnels. Zhaoming froze. The sound came not from the prisoner quarters, but deeper—where the "special" miners worked night rotations. Human, but warped, as though forced through a bone sieve. The lamp trembled. She almost extinguished the flame. Almost. "By blood and breath," she pressed on, voice steadying, "I call upon the Guardian of Nine Flames." Her corrupted hand plunged into the lamp's maw. Agony. Not the clean burn of fire, but the sensation of roots burrowing through marrow. Zhaoming bit through her lip to stifle a scream as the bronze grew teeth—metaphysical fangs sinking into her dao core. /Wrong./ /This was all wrong./ Through blurred vision, she saw the lamp's interior. Not empty, but containing a microcosm of swirling galaxies. At their center floated a woman in ancient robes, her eyes sealed with jade sutures. /Ancestor...?/ The specter's lips moved. /"You're not the one."/ The vision shattered. Zhaoming collapsed, her left arm encased in hoarfrost. Yet where skin met lamp, a single wisp of green flame clung stubbornly. IV. The Singing Stones Dawn found her hauling ore baskets past Sector Seven. The "singing stones" hummed today—a low-frequency vibration that made molars ache. Other prisoners scratched at bleeding ears, but Zhaoming focused on the patterns. The soundwaves etched transient runes in the air, visible only through her crystal-veined hand. /Warning./ /Trap./ /Turn back./ She paused beside a fissure, pretending to adjust her shoulder straps. Deep within the crevasse, something glimmered—not ore, but polished bone. A human ribcage fused with jade piping, its hollowed sternum cradling a pulsing crimson core. Venom Sect alchemy. Zhaoming's stomach churned. They weren't just mining here; they were *growing* something. The stolen *Xuanjing* in her pocket seemed to burn. "Daydreaming, Mu girl?" The overseer's barbed tail snaked around her ankle. Zhaoming forced her muscles to relax, playing the docile prisoner. "Forgive this one, honored keeper. The stones... they whisper odd things today." Yellow eyes narrowed. "You hear the song?" "Only echoes, master." She bowed deeper. "Like children's nursery rhymes." A lie wrapped in truth. The real melody thrummed in her corrupted veins—a dirge in ancient Mu dialect, warning of buried guardians. The overseer released her with a sneer. "Work harder. The Grand Alchemist wants the north tunnels cleared by—" An explosion rocked the cavern. Dust billowed from Sector Seven's mouth. Through the chaos, Zhaoming saw—or imagined she saw—bone-white figures moving in the debris. Their limbs elongated, joints bending backwards, mouths unhinging to release the same warped scream from last night. Old Wen's words returned to her. /'When you light the wick tonight, you'll awaken more than ancestral ghosts.'/ The bronze lamp grew heavy in her hidden sling. V. The First Flame They dragged seventeen corpses from the collapse. Zhaoming counted each mutilated form during the mandatory mourning period—a farce where prisoners knelt around pyres of contaminated ore. The Venom Sect's shamans chanted purification rites, but true energy came from the jade-and-bone constructs now circling the compound. Her left hand itched beneath its wrappings. At midnight, she tried again. Blood met bronze. Pain flared. But this time, when the spectral woman appeared, Zhaoming spat a mouthful of corrupted blood onto the flame. "I am Mu Zhaoming of the Seven-Phoenix Lineage! You will /obey/!" The ancestral ghost smiled. Jade sutures fell away, revealing eyes like dying stars. /"Prove it."/ Memories not her own flooded Zhaoming's mind—a sword dance beneath cherry blossoms, a lover's hands braiding starlight into hair, the taste of peach wine at her father's investiture ceremony. The last pristine moments before fire consumed everything. When she opened her eyes, the flame burned steady. Old Wen's laughter echoed through nearby tunnels. "So it begins." Far below, the singing stones answered with a new refrain—a harmony to the lamp's flickering song. Zhaoming pressed her crystalline palm against the cavern wall. The stones whispered secrets now, not warnings. /They're coming./ /The buried ones./ /Your siblings in chains./