Chapter 23 — Beyond the Milky Way: The Miner Who Became a God of War

Kha Bạch Vân walked down the arena, each step slowly, full of false majesty that had been honed over decades of playing the role of a god. The arena lights shone on a youthful face that did not match his real age — a youthfulness that was exchanged for someone else's blood.

"You want to know why?" He said, stopping a few steps away from Lam Vũ, his cold eyes swept over him, over Tinh Nhược, over Bốc Vấn Sơn. "Okay. You deserve to know, before you die."

The whole arena held its breath. Millions of people across the galaxy are glued to their screens.

"I was not born with the Power of the God of War," Kha Bạch Vân said, his voice not shaking at all, as if confessing a truth he had long accepted. "I am just like everyone else, just an average Spirit Bone, nothing more, nothing less. But I understand something that no one else dares to admit: power does not come from actual strength, but from controlling what others believe is strength."

"So you built Thiên Khải Quang Nguyên," Lam Vũ said, his voice cold. "A false prophecy, to legitimize a system that only serves you."

"Exactly," Kha Bạch Vân replied, without any shame. "And it has worked for sixty years. But a system of lies needs a living symbol to maintain trust. I need real power, even if only borrowed, so that no one doubts my legitimacy."

He held up the crimson glowing box. "The War God Blood Seal. I found it from ancient records, knowing that it could draw power from the remaining true War God blood. Tà Huy Village is where I discovered that blood still existed. I need that artifact. I cannot let a small village hold a secret that can overthrow the entire order I have established."

“So you killed them all,” Bốc Vấn Sơn roared, his voice shaking with twenty years of accumulated anger. "Men, women, children. All for an artifact."

"A necessary sacrifice," Kha Bạch Vân replied, chillingly cold. "To maintain peace for billions of others in the galaxy. You call it a massacre. I call it the price of order."

"That's not order," Tinh Nhược said, stepping up to join Lam Vũ. "It's a lie built on blood, maintained on fear. You protect no one but yourself."

Kha Bạch Vân was silent for a moment, then showed a cold smile. "Perhaps it is. But lies or not, it has kept this galaxy from falling into chaos for sixty years. You think you are liberating the people. I think you are opening the door to chaos."

"We'll let people decide that for themselves," Lam Vũ said. "Not you."

Kha Bạch Vân clasped the Blood Seal in his hand. Crimson light flared up violently. "In that case, let me show you the exact price of the blood you carry in your body."

He activated the artifact. A stream of crimson energy surrounded his body, not his real power, but borrowed power - drawn straight from the War God's blood flowing through Lam Vũ's veins, because he was the closest and strongest source of the true God of War that the Blood Seal could find.

Lam Vũ felt a tearing pain in his chest, as if something was being pulled out of his body. He fell to one knee, but did not fall.

"You must resist!" Bốc Vấn Sơn shouted. "Don't let him drain you dry!"

Lam Vũ gritted his teeth, concentrated all his will, building a mental wall against that invisible attraction - just like what he had learned through weeks of training to control his power, not only summoning it, but also maintaining it against all outside influences.

Kha Bạch Vân, realizing the unexpected resistance, raised his voice. "Impossible. No one has ever resisted the Blood Seal."

"Because no one has ever been trained like me," Tinh Nhược said, standing in front of Lam Vũ, facing Kha Bạch Vân directly even though he was unarmed. "You are used to taking over the weak, the scared, the unprepared. Lam Vũ is no longer one of them."

Kha Bạch Vân roared, pouring all his borrowed strength into a direct attack aimed at Lam Vũ, determined to end everything immediately before the situation got out of his control.

Lam Vũ recalls every line in the scholar's diary that Bốc Vấn Sơn decoded. The Blood Seal does not confer power — it is merely a channel, an invisible thread connecting the user to the source of the blood being drained. And any string, no matter how invisible, has two ends.

"If you want to withdraw my strength," Lam Vũ said, standing firm against the incoming attack, "I will push it back."

Instead of dodging, he rushed straight into the crimson energy stream, receiving the attack with his own body, one hand tightly grasping Kha Bạch Vân's wrist holding the Blood Seal. The two people's skin touched each other through the red light. The tearing pain was even more intense than before, but this time, Lam Vũ did not resist the flow — he reversed it.

All the will, all the memories of Thôn Tà Huy, of his mother, of Tinh Nhược, of Bốc Vấn Sơn, were poured into a stream of energy in the opposite direction, flowing back from him into the very connecting wire, straight to the Blood Seal in Kha Bạch Vân's hand.

The artifact vibrated violently. The crimson light turned to a blinding, unstable white. Kha Bạch Vân screamed in pain, for the first time in sixty years he felt real pain that was not caused by age or illness, but by the very weapon he had always trusted absolutely.

"No way," he hissed, trying to pull his hand away but couldn't. "No one can reverse the flow of the Blood Seal!"

"I've never met anyone trained to do that," Tinh Nhược said, standing next to him, ready to assist if needed. "He's just used to victims who don't know they're being drained until it's too late."

The Blood Seal made a small explosion, bright cracks spreading across the surface of the artifact. Kha Bạch Vân, truly panicked for the first time, let go, letting the artifact fall to the ring and roll away.

No longer having the source of borrowed strength, he stood there, left only with the real body of an old man who had lived on lies for sixty years, with no more protection from the fake Power of the God of War.

"It's over," Lam Vũ said, standing up straight, panting but steady. "There is no more Blood Seal, no more lies can hide the truth."

Kha Bạch Vân knelt on the ring, looking down at his own trembling old hands - no more youthful mask, no more borrowed strength. Only an old man has lived too long on the blood of others, now facing his true self for the first time in sixty years.

"You don't understand," he whispered, his voice weak and completely different from the majesty from before. "If I collapse, the entire system that billions of people rely on will collapse as well. You are plunging the entire galaxy into chaos."

"No," Bốc Vấn Sơn said, stepping closer, his eyes no longer filled with hatred but only cold pity for someone who had lost himself a long time ago. "We are giving them the opportunity to build something real, instead of continuing to live under a lie that you created and nourished with the blood of so many innocent people. That is a difference you have never, and probably never will, understand."

In the stood, the remaining elders of the Quang Nguyên Elder Council, who had been watching the entire proceedings on the screen, stood up in silence. The evidence was too clear, too public to be denied or covered up any further. Some of them, those who were not yet fully involved in Kha Bạch Vân's crimes, began to order the forces under their command to lay down their weapons and separate from the collapsing Grand Patriarch's faction.

The sporadic applause from the crowd had now become a tsunami of sound that echoed throughout the stands, not cheers for a simple sports match, but choked cheers for an oppressive order that had weighed heavily on their shoulders for generations, finally starting to disintegrate right before their eyes.

But Lam Vũ did not have time to enjoy that moment of victory. Just as he turned to give the order to escort Kha Bạch Vân, the communication device in Bốc Vấn Sơn's hand vibrated violently, and a final urgent message from Vệ Thục Trinh appeared on the small screen, just a few short words but enough to make his heart stop beating in the middle of what should have been the most glorious moment of his life.