Moments before—
Deep within the Luo Clan's estate, a hall of dark sandalwood stood silent.
Candles burned without a flicker faintly along the walls.
And at the center—
A man sat cross-legged upon a stone platform, breath steady, qi circulating in perfect spirals.
Luo Yuanji.
Great Elder of the Luo Clan.
Fifth layer of Foundation Establishment.
A cultivator whose control was said to be so precise he could split a hair with a single breath.
His eyes were closed.
His qi flowed with the stillness of a moonlit pond—
Until the surface shuddered.
A faint tremor passed through his senses—small at first, like the ripple from a distant pebble.
Luo Yuanji's brow tightened slightly.
"…A disturbance?"
His eyes remained shut, divine sense unfurling outward like an invisible tide.
At first the sensation was faint—barely a flicker of violent qi.
But then—
Another shock.
Stronger.
Sharper.
The elder's eyes snapped open.
"That direction… the Shen Clan."
He did not move.
He simply listened with his senses.
A surge of spiritual force—violent, unstable, laced unmistakably with killing intent—erupted in the distance.
A battle.
One powerful enough to shake the barriers between clans.
Luo Yuanji exhaled slowly.
"The clans are forbidden to encroach on each other's territory.
No clan may interfere in another's internal matters."
He closed his eyes again, attempting to return to meditation—
Then froze.
The disturbance—
Stopped.
Instantly.
Completely.
A silence so sudden it felt wrong.
"…No. Something is off."
His divine sense expanded further—pushing well beyond his usual restraint.
Through walls.
Through streets.
Across courtyards and rooftops.
Until it reached the edge of the Shen Clan's formation barrier—
—and halted.
Yuanji frowned.
He should still sense cultivators within.
The Shen Clan possessed five Foundation Establishment Elders… and Lianhai, the fifth-layer expert.
Yet—
Nothing.
Not even the faintest spark of qi.
Luo Yuanji rose abruptly.
"Impossible. How can so many Foundation Establishment presences vanish at once?"
His heartbeat quickened—not with fear, but careful calculation.
"It isn't internal conflict. A clan could not hide such slaughter this completely—not from my senses. And the Shen Clan would never destroy their own pillars."
Which left only one conclusion.
"An intruder… an enemy," he murmured.
"One strong enough to enter the city… and kill cultivators silently."
His expression hardened.
Leaving the Luo Clan Estate
Luo Yuanji stepped off the meditation platform.
The air folded around him in ripples of controlled qi—
and in the next breath,
he vanished.
He reappeared atop the Luo Clan's roof tiles, robes settling with the whisper of night wind.
Without hesitation, he moved—
feet barely brushing the rooftops as he streaked across the city, a silent arc of qi threading over courtyards and streets.
Moments later, he stood before the Shen Clan's gates.
The formation barrier shimmered—
active, whole, untouched from the outside.
His gaze narrowed.
"They sealed themselves? No… the barrier was already active when the disturbance began, And something this wack won't be able to stop one of the foundation establishment realm."
A pause.
"That means whatever entered—entered before the barrier closed… or slipped through unnoticed."
He raised a hand.
His divine sense pressed into the barrier again—this time sharper, more forceful.
Faint traces seeped through.
Blood.
Crushed stone.
More blood.
And beneath it all—
A lingering presence of qi.
Wild.
Razor-sharp.
Alien.
"Demonic beast qi," Luo Yuanji whispered.
His expression deepened into solemnity.
"So a demon beast truly breached the city… and infiltrated the Shen Clan."
He extended his hand.
"If that is true, it must be investigated."
Destruction of the Formation
Qi gathered at his fingertips, twisting into a blade of pure spiritual force.
He thrust lightly—
as if brushing dust from his sleeve.
KRRRRAAA—CHHHHHH!!
The Shen Clan's barrier split from top to bottom.
One heartbeat later—
It shattered.
Fragments of light rained down like falling glass.
Luo Yuanji stepped through the dissipating glow, eyes narrowing as he took in the courtyard.
The faint trace of alien qi still clung to the air.
"Shen Clan… just what have you provoked?"
With a final step—
his figure flickered—
and vanished into the ruins.
—
He had moved deeper into the broken Shen compound, stepping through debris and silent pathways that had once been filled with life.
And there—standing at the entrance of a shattered pavilion—
he found him.
Shen Moyu.
Head of the Shen Clan.
Alive.
Untouched physically—
yet his face looked hollow, as if someone had scraped away the light behind his eyes.
Luo Yuanji's heart tightened.
He rushed forward, lifting the man gently and stabilizing his qi with a controlled stream of spiritual force.
Moyu's eyelids fluttered, his gaze unfocused and trembling.
"Elder… Luo…?"
"Don't speak too fast," Yuanji said, steady and firm. "Tell me only what you must. What happened here?"
The clan head swallowed, jaw shaking as if the memory itself burned.
"We were… attacked."
"By whom?"
"Not humans. Not cultivators."
The way he said it—
low, shaking, like cold fingers trailing down the spine—
made Yuanji's breath still.
"Two demonic beasts," Moyu whispered.
The words echoed sharply through the ruined hall, just as they had etched themselves into Yuanji's memory.
"One was a demon fox. It used illusions to confuse and manipulate the guards… and for a beast, it was—"
His voice cracked.
"—too intelligent. Far too intelligent."
Yuanji could almost see the fox's phantom grin through the man's fear.
"And the other?" he asked quietly.
Moyu's body stiffened.
This time, terror dominated his expression.
"The other… I've never seen anything like it," he said, voice barely above a breath. "Small. White. Scaled… like a reptile. But not a snake. Not anything normal."
He shivered uncontrollably.
"When it looked at me—just its gaze alone—
I felt like I was dangling over death itself."
His breath hitched.
Sweat dampened his temples despite the cold night air.
"They worked together," Moyu continued, trembling. "The fox distracted us. Clouded our senses. Lured us away from one another."
His hands twitched.
"And the white creature… it killed. Silently. Instantly. I never saw it move."
Luo Yuanji remembered feeling his own breath tighten then—
a rare, sharp sensation of dread.
"They slaughtered our Foundation Establishment elders," Moyu whispered. "And after that… the treasury…"
Yuanji could still see it with perfect clarity:
Shen Moyu's laugh—broken, hollow, devoid of hope.
"They cleaned it out," he said. "Completely. Pills, spirit stones, manuals… even the formation cores. Nothing remains."
A coordinated attack.
Two beasts.
Both intelligent.
Both exact.
Yuanji rose slowly, expression hardening.
His aura gathered around him—
cold, sharp, controlled like tempered steel.
"For both beasts to infiltrate this deeply," he said quietly,
"to kill with such efficiency… and to steal with such precision…"
He turned toward the broken exit of the pavilion, gaze sinking into the darkness.
"…someone guided them."
This was no random rampage.
No wild beast wandering into a city.
This was premeditated.
And Shen Moyu's final words only confirmed the worst.
The clan head's voice trembled, barely audible:
"Elder Luo… we were not the true target."