EVIL RISING AGAIN!-Chapter 18: Threads of Dominion

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Chapter 18: Threads of Dominion

The rain traced delicate rivers down the glass windows of the towering office atop Zhou Intercontinental Holdings. Elena Zhou stood barefoot in her private chamber, wrapped in a loose silk robe, staring down at the city below.

Her long silver-blue hair was coiled in a braid, still damp from her cultivation bath. Despite the aura of elegance she projected to the world, the weight of loneliness clung to her shoulders like frost. The Ice Lotus Constitution was a blessing, they once told her—a rare Earth-grade physique made for cold refinement and supreme endurance.

But the cold was no longer just spiritual. It had become personal.

"Madam Zhou," her assistant's voice came softly through the intercom, "the Northern Consortium wishes to reschedule next week's summit."

"Push it back two weeks. And bring me the status report on Project Phoenix."

"At once."

Elena's gaze drifted. Across the skyline, hidden to mortal eyes, she could sense subtle shifts in energy—something... changing. Fate never whispered to her, but lately, it screamed.

Something was watching.

Someone.

She turned from the window, unaware of the shadow that now curled beneath her very feet—a thread of chaotic intent that had brushed against her destiny, waiting patiently for Tian Mo's call.

—

The gala was buzzing.

Crystal chandeliers bathed the ballroom in gold. Champagne flowed like rivers of luxury, and the air reeked of curated perfume and generational arrogance.

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Anna moved like a storm in silk.

Her dress—scarlet, backless, shimmering with enchantments—hugged her curves with divine precision. The runes beneath her skin pulsed faintly, feeding off the attention she drew. Men stared. Women glanced, and then stared harder. But Anna wasn't interested in men tonight.

She was hunting power.

"Miss...?" came a voice, hesitant but intrigued. A woman, mid-thirties, tall and graceful in a dark emerald gown. Her face was sculpted, but her smile had cracks. A senator's wife. Recent widow.

"Call me Anna," she purred. "You must be Lillian Greene."

The woman blinked. "How did you—?"

"I saw your charity work last year. Breast cancer awareness through martial arts therapy. Very avant-garde. My mother was a practitioner, you know."

A lie.

But lies told with sincerity were sharper than truths.

Within minutes, Anna had her laughing. Within ten, they were clinking glasses. By the end of the hour, Lillian had invited her to a private retreat for "power women" in the upcoming month.

She didn't know it yet, but she had already become a tether.

One of many.

—

In a mountain cavern veiled in illusions, Tian Mo crouched before an ancient stone gate buried beneath layers of dust and time. The shard had shown him this place—masked as a mere university research site, long since abandoned.

Now he saw it for what it was: a gate etched with celestial inscriptions—half-erased, half-cursed.

He pressed his palm against the stone. Threads of golden light slithered outward, reacting to his Qi.

The seal cracked open with a sound like screaming metal.

Inside, a skeletal corpse leaned against the wall, robes long rotted, but a single relic still pulsing weakly in its bony grip—a talisman shaped like a black sun. Cursed energy wrapped it like a cocoon.

"A fragment of the Solar Eclipse Core," he murmured. "Hidden beneath this pit for centuries. Only visible through fate."

He took it gently, letting his physique absorb the curses like a feast. As the relic melted into his palm, knowledge flooded his mind—a technique. Forbidden. Forgotten. Capable of swallowing light itself.

He grinned.

Then the smile faded.

He sensed it—a ripple in the tapestry of fate. One of the black threads had begun to move.

Someone was poking around Vault 9B.

He sealed the cavern behind him and vanished into shadow, already formulating his next move.

—

Elena's dreams that night were strange.

She stood in a frozen garden of lotus blossoms, surrounded by mirrors. Each reflection of herself was... wrong. One smiled with bloodied teeth. Another wept black tears. One simply watched.

And in the center of them all stood a man draped in shadows, his eyes like whirlpools of stars and sin.

She tried to speak, but the garden cracked. The mirrors shattered.

She woke in a cold sweat, pulse racing, lips dry.

"Who..." she whispered to the silence.

The mirror on her wall flickered. For just a moment, her reflection... smirked.

—

Back in his hidden chamber, Tian Mo closed his eyes and relived the image the shard had shown him again: Elena, alone at the top of the world, buried in power and grief. Her loyalty was not for sale.

But her despair was.

And despair, when wrapped in gentle attention and intoxicating madness, could become the most fertile soil for corruption.

"Just a little longer," he murmured, brushing the vault's surface. "You'll be mine soon enough."

He turned, stepping into the shadows, already crafting the next thread in his ever-growing web.

The world had not yet realized it was caught.

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