Chapter 35: The Warden Nexus
A young man who looked to be in his late twenties strode into Apex Tower. He was tall and composed, with dark hair falling in loose, untamed strands that framed a sharp, self-assured face.
He wore black layered robes secured with leather straps, exuding a calm, dangerous poise.
He entered the hall and dropped to his knees immediately, touching the ground with one hand as he lowered his head.
"Dear Father, this filial son bows before your presence."
The Patriarch sat on the dais connected to the massive forge platform, a white towel draped around his neck.
"Save me all that, boy. Why were you monitoring your brother?"
Ryuu’s gaze remained lowered. He lingered but revealed no emotion.
"I apologize, Father. I did it out of pure curiosity."
The Patriarch studied him for a moment, saying nothing. Then he clicked his teeth in mild annoyance and glanced to his side.
A bowl of nuts rested next to him. He casually took one, cracked the shell, then tossed the nut into his mouth. After chewing for a while, his powerful voice rang out.
"So... how are they?"
Ryuu pressed his hand harder against the ground but quickly restrained himself before cracking the floor.
"They are dead."
The Patriarch chewed another nut.
"Correct. Do you know why?"
Ryuu kept his head lowered.
"No, Father."
The man shook his head.
"Pathetic."
He cracked another nut, then locked eyes with Ryuu just before throwing it into his mouth.
"They died saving him."
Ryuu snapped his head up, confusion darkening his expression.
"A Firekeeper is planning to free a prisoner. See to it that you capture the Firekeeper alive and ensure no prisoner is freed."
Ryuu bowed his head immediately.
"Yes, Father."
He stood and bowed again before stepping back.
"Oh..."
Ryuu froze the instant he heard the Patriarch’s voice.
"Take him with you—since you’re so curious about him. You wouldn’t mind spending time with him, right?"
He bowed without turning to face his Patriarch.
"Yes, Father."
Then he walked outside.
The moment he stepped out, he exhaled heavily and unclenched his fist.
"Bring the Seventeenth to me."
Someone materialized beside him and bowed.
"Yes, my lord."
Then vanished.
***
The Black Tower sat nestled amid towering cliffs just behind the Forge of Knowledge. It wasn’t the place’s heavy security that made it dangerous.
In fact, the place wasn’t heavily guarded as a highly classified prison should be.
What made it treacherous was its prison mechanism.
The reason Shen Fengxi had endured years as a Firekeeper, grinding away, was to study this mechanism and find a way to break it.
And honestly, even now as he infiltrated the prison, he wasn’t confident he could fully dismantle it. He was only confident in parts.
The prison mechanism was called The Warden Nexus—a living formation constructed by the former Patriarch’s brother, who was brilliant at crafting formations. Their family line, even now, excelled at formation construction.
During his years at the Forge of Knowledge, Shen Fengxi had identified that this formation was an ecosystem of laws working in concert.
The formation’s core had three structures he’d studied. The Anchor Core—created by forging the heart of a Hollow-rank Impure into a pseudo-sentient ego of the formation itself. It bound the reality laws projected by the formation and maintained the mechanism’s stability.
The second structure was the Eight Seal Rings—rotating layers of inscription that locked different aspects of the prisoner.
The last was the Convergence Array—the external formation network linking the prison to its environment, feeding it Qi essence to function and repairing itself autonomously when damaged.
Shen Fengxi had identified all eight seal layers in five years and searched for ways to break them.
The Flesh Lock sealed physical movement through complex weight multipliers and pressure fields. Breaking it required immense brute force—nearly impossible. Perhaps the power of a rank-six Purist would suffice.
The Soul Cage bound soul threads to the array; attempting to sever them would annihilate whoever tried. Then there was the Will Suppressor, which dampened intent and emotion, making rebellion nearly impossible.
This lock—Shen Fengxi hadn’t even discovered where it was situated, let alone how to break it.
There was the Temporal Loop, which warped time inside the prison; one second outside equaled a year within. Shen Fengxi had found no way to break that either.
Then the Concept Lattice, which sealed specific abilities—like fire and teleportation—from manifesting. The Spatial Knot twisted space so there was no "direction" to break toward. The Origin Seal hooked into the prisoner’s origin or destiny, rewriting its expression. And the Law Veil—a self-evolving defense that adapted to whatever method was used against it.
Of all these layers, Shen Fengxi had only discovered how to destroy the Flesh Lock—and even then, he wasn’t a rank-six Purist and certainly didn’t possess one’s power.
As if that weren’t enough, because of the Hollow-rank Impure used to craft the formation’s core, the Warden Nexus learned from failed breaches and reshaped its seals.
So if he failed now, it would become even harder next time.
’Failure is not something I can afford! But if this all goes sideways, I can just pin it on the Seventeenth Young Lord... the Convergence Array is my best shot. I will break the formation’s connection to Qi essence...’
Shen Fengxi raced forward with blazing speed, leaping from one cliff to another. As he descended into the mountain depths where the prison lay, he released hundreds of yellow talismans that scattered in all directions.
The wind howled along the cliffs as Shen Fengxi crouched at the mountain’s edge. Below him, the Black Tower was nowhere to be seen—only an endless sea of clouds churning and rippling like the surface of a dreaming ocean.
It was there, somewhere inside that illusion, that Hwi-Geon had been buried alive by the laws of the Warden Nexus.
Han’s fingers brushed the cold stone beneath him. He inhaled once—steady and deep.
’Five years of watching. Five years of learning. I get one chance. Just one.’
His body blurred as he leapt from the final cliff, wind shrieking past his ears. He plunged through the clouds and vanished into the world beneath them—a world folded and hidden by the Convergence Array.
The air grew still. Qi currents shifted around him, flowing in loops and spirals, feeding an invisible heart buried deep below.
"Let’s begin..."
Shen Fengxi flicked his wrist and released a sliver of jade. It dissolved midair, unraveling into strands of golden script that crawled into the unseen formation beneath his feet. A heartbeat later, the Qi flow around him stuttered—a momentary hiccup so slight it might have gone unnoticed by anyone else.
The Warden Nexus pulsed once, sensing nothing amiss. The illusion of stability returned.
Shen Fengxi exhaled through his nose. Step one complete—the Qi Diversion Loop was active. Most of the flow now bent toward a hidden decoy node buried high in the cliffs, just as he’d designed years ago. The Warden Nexus still believed it was being fed.
"Now for the hammer."
Three stones the size of walnuts slipped from his sleeve and sank into the cloud floor. Each bore runes carved so fine they resembled threads of silk.
Shen whispered.
"Stonefall."
The mountain answered.
A deep groan rolled through the rock as the catalysts detonated. Invisible shockwaves punched through the formation’s weight-multipliers, bending the Flesh Lock inward against itself. Pressure that had been perfectly distributed now collapsed unevenly.
For the briefest instant, the seal reset itself—and in that breath, a hairline fracture opened. Shen surged through it like a ghost.
The air changed. It thickened, almost viscous, as if every step forward dragged a mountain behind it. Shen stopped breathing and flattened his will to nothing.
No intent. No rebellion. Just a breeze moving through trees.
The Will Suppressor swept over him, searching, probing. It found nothing. It passed.
Shen Fengxi’s jaw clenched.
"Two down."
A soft hum rose beneath his feet. The air rippled—seconds lengthened into hours, then collapsed back into moments.
He knelt and slid a slim black shard into the ground. It pulsed once, twice, thrice—then began beating to the rhythm of the world above, a steady heartbeat from beyond the loop.
The time-distortion faltered. Not broken, but unsettled. Shen Fengxi felt the pulse spread around him, creating stutters—fleeting instants where inside and outside aligned. He moved during one. Then another. And another.
The world folded sideways.
Up ceased to exist. Down spiraled into itself. Shen closed his eyes as the Spatial Knot twisted reality into a directionless labyrinth.
He didn’t fight it. He shifted his presence sideways—infinitesimal steps through existence itself rather tShen space. One blink he was nowhere. The next, he was deeper in. The Knot strained to correct itself, but by the time it adjusted, he had already slipped again.
Every step through the eight layers was easier tShen it should have been because Shen Fengxi had severed the essence flow and the Warden Nexus hadn’t yet discovered it.
Still, he couldn’t afford one simple mistake. A single slip could cost him all his years of hard work. It was already frustrating that he’d had to accelerate a plan meant to span twenty years and execute it now.
A low growl—like the exhalation of a buried beast—rolled through the prison as the Warden Nexus began noticing the breach.
In that instant, the Law Veil started to shift—adapting, rewriting its defenses.
Shen Fengxi’s expression darkened in the tunnel’s shadows.
"Not yet."
He hurled a talisman into the swirling Qi ahead. It exploded into a cloud of chaotic signatures—fire, void, decay, lightning—colliding and devouring each other. The formation reeled, trying to evolve against too many threats at once, its adaptation grinding slower.
That was all Shen Fengxi needed.
He shot forward and crossed the tunnel’s edge into a vast interconnected labyrinth—like enormous spores. Each hole was carefully constructed with black, unbreakable metal.
Shen Fengxi scanned the area. A small frown creased his brow as subtle frustration crept in.
*Why am I not feeling it yet?*
In that moment, a pulse thrummed against his ribs—a deep, ancient heartbeat that was definitely not his own.
A wide grin spread across his lips.
’The Origin Seal.’
Shen drew talismans wrapped around a piece of clothing from his inner robe. They pulsed faintly, carrying the resonance of the man imprisoned within.
Shen Fengxi whispered into the silence.
"Hwi-Geon, I need you to reach out to me."
The final step was tricky. Subverting the Origin Seal was impossible—the only way was for Hwi-Geon to consent.
Under normal circumstances, Hwi-Geon could only consent after fighting through the other seven layers—which was impossible. There would be no consent.
The only way Shen Fengxi could confirm he’d subverted all other layers not just for himself but also for Hwi-Geon was if Hwi-Geon consented.
At first, there was nothing. Then the cloth wrapped with talismans began floating upward, following a path and entering one of the labyrinthine holes.
Shen Fengxi followed, and everything was immediately drenched in cold darkness.
He opened his eyes to a chamber of obsidian light, and within it, a man whose legs and arms were chained to the darkness floated cross-legged in the air. He was motionless, eyes closed, his aura so vast the air bent around it.
This was Hwi-Geon.
Shen Fengxi’s chest rose and fell as his heartbeat roared in his ears. He was trembling—whether from exhaustion or exhilaration, he didn’t know.
He spoke quietly.
"Wake up, Hwi-Geon."
Hwi-Geon’s eyes opened.
At that moment, a slight tremor rippled across the prison’s metal structure. Shen Fengxi’s eyes widened—he knew instantly.
The Warden Nexus had discovered him.
There was no way for the Anchor Core to generate essence to restructure itself and the seals. So an automatic lockdown would be triggered.
Just as he thought this, the structure began shaking violently.