The Phoenix of the Slums

The desert wind howled as dawn broke across the scorched ruins of Guzhan. Smoke still curled from the collapsed entry shaft behind them, where the Ash Walker had fallen and the underground Arsenal chamber had sealed itself forever. Tianming stood in the sunrise's first light, holding Huoxue in one hand, the obsidian blade now faintly shimmering red as if digesting the memory of what it had just destroyed.

“Every life it takes is remembered…” he murmured.

Fang Yao checked the perimeter. “No drones. No tail. If the Lotus Clan was tracking us, we bought ourselves a head start.”

Xiaoqing was seated on a rusted outcrop, her tablet projecting blueprints. “Bad news,” she said without looking up. “That Ash Walker wasn’t just some leftover. It was remotely reactivated. Meaning someone knew we were there.”

Tianming walked over. “You trace the signal?”

“I got part of it. It came from under the ocean.”

Fang Yao raised a brow. “The ocean?”

She nodded, enlarging the coordinates. “Deep-sea base. There’s only one thing it could be.”

“The Black Spiral Outpost,” Tianming said.

The words tasted bitter in his mouth.

The Black Spiral wasn’t just a legend—it was the most classified facility ever established under the old Orchid Society. It had been abandoned after a submarine war a decade ago—or so the world believed. Rumors claimed it housed prototypes that never saw light, forbidden research involving energy fields, and a vault of scroll fragments too volatile to store on land.

Tianming knew this because his father had once drawn a diagram of it on the back of a napkin. And then burned it before the conversation ended.

“Looks like they’ve rebuilt it,” Fang Yao said. “Or never shut it down to begin with.”

Xiaoqing’s tone was dry. “Either way, they know we’re coming.”

Tianming nodded. “Then let’s not disappoint them.”

[Author’s Note: If you’re enjoying this story, I’d appreciate it if you leave a comment or rating on the platform—it helps a lot and lets me know you’re reading. Thanks for your support!]

They reached the nearest coastal port by nightfall. The harbor town was small, most of it run-down and barely patrolled, but the docks were operational. Through an old Orchid contact—an elderly fisherman named Lao Ge—they secured a submersible: an outdated transport pod once used for deep-sea maintenance, now retrofitted with crude armor plating and black market sonar jammers.

As they boarded, Lao Ge gave Tianming a wrinkled photograph.

In it was a woman with a phoenix pendant.

“My daughter,” he said. “She went down there years ago. Part of the cleanup crew after the ‘accident.’ Never came back. You see her… do what you have to.”

Tianming accepted the photo in silence. He didn’t offer hope.

The ocean was vast, merciless, and slow to forget.

The descent began at midnight. The pod creaked as they submerged, pressure slowly increasing. Outside, darkness thickened. Faint traces of light flickered in the abyss like dying stars—bioluminescent fish, or perhaps something worse.

Hours passed.

Then the sonar pinged.

A shadow emerged from the black—a sprawling underwater structure half-buried in the ocean floor, shaped like a spiral shell. Dozens of mechanical arms extended from its sides, collecting samples or perhaps fending off creatures.

Fang Yao activated the magnetic clamps. “We’ll breach from below—sector five looks like a utility chamber.”

“Internal pressure?” Tianming asked.

Xiaoqing replied, “Still stable. They’ve kept this place alive.”

Tianming looked at Huoxue, sheathed and dormant.

Time to wake her up.

They entered through a decompression hatch, quickly taking out two automated sentries with silent darts. The air inside was stale, damp. Lights flickered red—emergency mode. And yet, deeper in the corridors, muffled footsteps echoed.

This place wasn’t dead.

The group moved through the curved halls, past water tanks and containment pods. They reached a chamber labeled: Vault N-4: Scroll Shard Holding.

Inside were containers—each holding fragments of ancient scrolls. Some still glowed faintly, others cracked or unstable. Symbols danced across the surfaces like living calligraphy.

Fang Yao muttered, “These aren’t just fragments. Some are evolving.”

Tianming approached one pod. Inside, the glyphs swirled to form a face—his own. Then it shattered.

Alarms screamed.

The vault door sealed. Gases hissed from the vents.

“Trap!” Xiaoqing yelled, hacking into the console. “They knew we’d come for the shards!”

A new voice rang out through the chamber speakers. Calm, measured, female.

“Tianming. Son of Lu Qingshan. We’ve been expecting you.”

He froze. “Who are you?”

The voice replied smoothly. “The one who holds your legacy in her palm. I am Madame Yurei.”

Fang Yao drew his weapon. “She’s behind the Black Falcon Circle. Behind the gene deal. Behind Lotus.”

The voice continued. “You are standing in your father’s sins, boy. Do you even know what he built down here?”

The gas thickened.

Tianming’s eyes burned. But his resolve didn’t.

“I’ll find you,” he said. “And I’ll end this.”

She laughed softly. “Then come to the center. Spiral Core. If you survive that long.”

They escaped the vault seconds before it collapsed inward. Emergency lights guided them downward, through increasingly unstable passages. Water began to drip from fractured pipes. The facility was beginning to break.

As they neared the Spiral Core, a new enemy emerged—half-machine, half-human. The Lotus Clan had started human integration trials.

Bio-mechs with fused glyphs in their spines.

One charged.

Tianming met it head-on.

Huoxue flared, its crystal igniting mid-swing. The blade cut not just through flesh and metal, but through the energy lines powering the creature’s nervous system.

It spasmed violently, then crumbled.

But five more came.

Fang Yao launched smoke bombs. Xiaoqing rigged an electrical trap, shocking two into stasis. Tianming danced between the others like fire itself—his blade feeding on memory, burning through bone and steel.

When the last fell, silence returned.

They reached the Spiral Core—an immense room with a transparent ceiling revealing the ocean above. At the center stood a throne of black coral and circuit cables.

And upon it, not Madame Yurei, but a figure dressed in his father’s robes.

Wearing a dead man’s face.