Eternal Tribulation: The Dao-Born

Blood Rose Oath

Ⅰ.Reversing Rain

Muzhaoming's boots sank into the mud,each step raising a splash of crimson blood-mud.The sky after the mine collapse was a sickly shade of purplish-blue,with raindrops flowing upward and freezing into ice crystals the moment they touched the skin.Her left arm had completely petrified,and what flowed through her meridians was no longer blood,but liquid starlight.

"This is'Chrono-Erosion',"Old Wen said,using a bone flute to brush aside a cluster of floating debris.The sound of gears meshing came from within his chest."The awakening of Mu Yue Ling has disrupted the causal lines;this place has become a wound in the world."

A shrill wail came from ahead.Three prisoners knelt amidst the ruins,their hands gradually becoming transparent—fingers crumbling into the reversing rain like sand.One of them suddenly lunged,his half-ethereal arm piercing through a companion's chest and tearing out a heart.But the heart collapsed into a black hole upon contact with the air,swallowing everything within a two-zhang radius.

"Don't make eye contact!"Old Wen pulled Muzhaoming into the ruins.The prisoners'eyes,marked by the azure flames of Mu Yue Ling,were the anchors of her influence."Once marked,you become her anchor."

Muzhaoming touched the bronze lamp on her chest,a chill seeping into her bones.Within the lamp's flame,the shadow of Mu Yue Ling appeared,devouring a fragment of herself from another timeline.With each gulp,her form solidified a bit more.

Ⅱ.Council of the Maimed

They found temporary refuge in an abandoned smelting furnace.Thirteen survivors huddled in the corner,half of them already mutated:a woman's spine had grown quartz spines,and a young boy's pupils had split into honeycomb-like compound eyes.The central fire burned an eerie emerald green,fueled by crystallized internal organs.

"The girl from the Mu family?"The one-eyed,hunchbacked old crone tapped the furnace wall with an iron hook.Her lower body was fused with the earth's veins."Three hundred years ago,your great-aunt Mu Qingge was turned into a'human candle'here,burning for forty-nine days."

Muzhaoming's crystalline arm suddenly flared with patterns,thrusting uncontrollably into the ground.A chorus of voices from the underworld resonated from below,and countless crystal clusters burst from the soil,pinning the old crone in mid-air.Fragments of memory flooded her mind—she saw her great-aunt nailed to an altar,with sorcerers from the Wanshou Demon Cult injecting liquid black crystal into her orifices.

"Focus your mind!"Old Wen's bone flute pressed against the back of her neck,emitting a piercing whistle.Muzhaoming vomited a mouthful of black blood,sparkling with starlight,and the crystal clusters shattered.

The hunchbacked crone laughed,black mist seeping from her broken teeth:"You truly bear the blood of sinners...Your Mu family,born to be the best sacrifices."

Ⅲ.The Birth of the Demon Fetus

An explosion came from the northeast,accompanied by a wail like a baby's cry.Climbing to a high point amidst the ruins,they witnessed an unforgettable sight:the pitch-black tower of the Wanshou Demon Cult bloomed like a lotus,with a hundred-zhang-tall tumor suspended in the center,its surface covered in pulsating veins.With a tearing sound,the tumor extended seven bony wings,each membrane embedded with human faces.

"The Thousand-Infant Demon Fetus,"Old Wen's gear heart emitted a warning buzz."They've been nurturing this monster with a hundred thousand souls,planning to let it gestate for another century..."

The demon fetus's wail caused spatial ripples,and wherever it passed,buildings melted like wax figures.A fleeing cult disciple was swept by the bony wings,instantly aging into a mummy,then rejuvenating in the next second,repeating this cycle ten times before exploding into a mist of blood.

Muzhaoming's crystalline arm lifted on its own,its tip condensing into a mini-star vortex.She leaped uncontrollably toward the demon fetus,with the bronze lamp flame trailing behind her like a comet tail.Some instinct higher than will drove her—her Daoist Fetus constitution had sensed a kindred force.

"Come back!It's a trap!"Old Wen's shout was torn apart by the temporal chaos.

Ⅳ.The Star-Devourer

The center of the demon fetus split open,revealing a vertical pupil with the face of Mu Yue Ling floating deep within.In a thousandth of a second,Muzhaoming made her judgment:this was not the demon fetus,but a temporal mirror created by Mu Yue Ling.The real danger came from—

A piercing chill struck from behind.Mu Yue Ling's true form emerged from the raindrops,her fingers entwined with threads of causality.Muzhaoming spun and swung her arm,the crystalline arm colliding with the threads and sparking quantum flashes.The aftereffects of their clash turned a ten-zhang radius into a probability cloud,where debris existed in a superposition of collapsed and uncollapsed states.

"Do you think you can match me with the core you borrowed from Mu Tianqing?" Mu Yue Ling's voice split into countless parallel selves. "He was defeated by this very move..."

Thousands of threads wove into a cage, each thread showing a different timeline of Muzhaoming's death: crystallized, eroded by chrono-erosion, devoured by the demon fetus... Muzhaoming felt her consciousness splitting, but the bronze lamp flame suddenly surged, burning cracks into the cage. Seizing the fleeting opportunity, she thrust her crystalline arm through Mu Yue Ling's shadow, only to touch something cold and metallic.

It was a bronze key, identical in shape to the family heirloom key in her possession, but covered in verdigris.

"The Mu family's underground palace..." Mu Yue Ling's smile was meaningful as she dissipated. "Go see the 'god' you've worshipped for a thousand years..."

Ⅴ.The Remnant Alliance

After devouring the seventh cult elder, the demon fetus fell into dormancy, and the temporal chaos temporarily subsided. The surviving prisoners gathered around Muzhaoming, their mutations accelerating from proximity to her Daoist Fetus, yet also gaining unconventional powers: quartz spines could absorb attacks, and compound eyes could observe the flow of spiritual energy.

The hunchbacked crone used her iron hook to carve a blood array on the ground: "Sign the Blood Rose Oath, and we will recognize you as the 'Lord of Time Reversal'." Crystal tendrils extended from the array, piercing everyone's wrists. Muzhaoming's consciousness was drawn into the oath space—here, floating were the memory spheres of past oath-makers. She saw the failure of the miners' uprising three hundred years ago and the initial Old Wen being implanted with a gear heart.

"The power of the oath can temporarily resist chrono-erosion," Old Wen inserted his mechanical heart into the array's eye. "But each use will push your Daoist Fetus a bit closer to inhumanity."

Muzhaoming bit her tongue and dripped blood into the array's core. Countless crystal tendrils pierced her spine. In the agony, she sensed the presence of all the oath-makers: seven hundred and sixty-three people, like points in a star map. When she opened her eyes again, the mutated parts of the prisoners had grown blood-red crystal clusters—formed from her Daoist Fetus blood.

In the distance, the earth trembled, and Mu Yue Ling's laughter echoed through time and space: "Very well... Now you are finally qualified to be my vessel..."