Nine Veins of the Azure Dragon

At the Ye family’s centennial ceremony, Ye Wuchen dripped his blood onto the bloodline stone. It remained completely dark. “Not one of our own. Cast him out of the ancestral hall.” His adoptive father looked at him coldly, and the clan members jeered. He took the jade pendant from his waist and threw it to the ground, then turned and walked out of the Ye family gates. He had taken only three steps when the birthmark on his wrist suddenly burned like a brand. A memory that had slumbered for sixteen years split open deep within his bloodline. Nine blood moons hung in the sky. An armored man stood atop a mountain of corpses, spear in hand. When he looked back, his eyes were identical to Ye Wuchen’s. “Descendant of mine, the day you awaken will be the day I return.” Who was he, really? Beneath the ancestral shrine, in the family tomb, the remains of the clan’s founding ancestor had written eight words in blood: The Ye bloodline was replaced long ago. He was not only no good-for-nothing, he was no bastard either. The three thousand members of the Ye family were the livestock being raised. The Nine Deaths Defying Fate Art flooded into his mind. Each brush with death would transform another dragon rune. Each breakthrough would burn away a portion of his lifespan. The stronger he became, the sooner he would die. And the mastermind who had kept the entire Ye clan penned up for three hundred years was slowly opening his eyes beneath the Sealing Demon Abyss. “The blood offering they’re raising is you. The sacrifice they’re waiting for is you, too.” “Now, do you still want to go back?”