As Elder Lianhua moved, the world flowed beneath her feet without resistance.
Mountains passed like still water. Wind parted before her. Distance itself lost meaning.
Her mind, however, remained sharp—quietly turning over the encounter at the Li clan gates.
*Missing Cloud River disciples… torn robes… no remains.*
Her gaze stayed forward, yet her thoughts had already moved far ahead.
"The method is the same," she reflected calmly. "Clean. Efficient. No bones left behind."
This was not the feeding pattern of ordinary demon beasts.
Nor the chaos of an unrestrained rampage.
"It is hunting," she concluded. "And it is selective."
The timing was too precise. White Hollow City. Jinshi City. The forest near the city where the Cloud River disciples vanished.
Different locations.
Different targets.
Yet all struck within a narrow span of time.
"Too similar," Lianhua thought. "Too deliberate."
In the cultivation world, there was no coincidence.
Only causality not yet understood.
"It must be the same creature," she decided. "Or creatures acting under a single will."
Her thoughts shifted briefly to the Cloud River disciples.
She had not expected to be recognized so quickly.
"Disciples of another sect," she mused. "And yet they did not hesitate."
That, too, carried meaning.
"My name travels farther than I thought," she reflected. "Or the Azure Serpent Sect's shadow has grown long."
Neither possibility displeased her.
If anything, it simplified matters.
"Fear spreads faster than blood," she thought. "And fear keeps the weak from interfering."
Her expression remained unchanged as the land below blurred into insignificance.
"If the White Scale Demon is moving now," Lianhua thought, "then it is no longer testing mortals."
It was probing the **rules** themselves.
"And that," she concluded, "is why I must move personally."
Her figure vanished into the distance, leaving behind only a faint disturbance in the heavens—
As if something ancient had shifted its gaze.
---
Miles from White Hollow City, the wind stilled.
Elder **Lianhua** halted in midair, her robes unmoving—as though the world itself had paused to accommodate her presence.
Below her lay a scar upon the land—vast, raw, unmistakable.
This was **the battlefield**.
Craters pockmarked the earth like wounds that refused to heal. Entire stretches of forest had been flattened, trees ripped from the soil and reduced to splintered husks. The ground itself was fractured, veins of scorched earth and crystallized stone radiating outward from a single, violent center.
The qi here was… wrong.
Not chaotic.
But **drained**.
Lianhua's gaze settled on the deepest crater, where residual pressure lingered faintly—an echo that refused to fade.
"So this is where the true battle took place," she thought calmly.
The city bore wounds, yes—but restrained ones. Defensive formations had been activated. Buildings had collapsed in patterns that spoke of resistance and control.
But **here**—
Here, the land itself had been rewritten.
"This is where the Li clan's Great Elder fell," she concluded. "And where the unknown beast no longer bothered with restraint."
She descended slightly, hovering above the crater's center. The air here still felt… wrong.
Not chaotic.
Not violent.
**Hollow.**
"Within the city, there were signs of battle," she reflected, "but the traces had long since dissipated."
There was **no lingering qi**.
No demonic aura.
No elemental imprint.
No killing intent fossilized into the land.
Everything that should have remained… had been **scraped away**.
"Clean," she judged. "Too clean."
Ordinary demon beasts left devastation behind. Even powerful cultivators scarred the world—fractured qi flows, distorted patterns, echoes of will.
But this battlefield had been **emptied**.
"As if the creature erased itself after the battle," she mused. "Or as if the victor ensured nothing could be traced."
Her eyes opened fully.
"So it avoided leaving tracks here."
Within the city, she had found nothing—no signature strong enough to follow, no residue she could lock onto.
That alone confirmed her suspicion.
"This creature was not merely strong," she thought. "It was **careful**."
Careful enough to erase even the aftermath of killing a fifth-layer Foundation Establishment cultivator.
She had come here for this reason.
Floating above the shattered earth, Lianhua surveyed the terrain—not with sight, but with **understanding**.
"But if anything remains," she thought, "it will be here."
Her **divine sense** unfolded.
Not explosively.
Not forcefully.
It spread like an ancient tide—silent, vast—seeping into every fracture, every grain of dust, every lingering thread of qi trapped within the wounded earth.
Time seemed to stretch.
The air grew heavy—not with pressure, but with **attention**.
Her divine sense pressed deeper, following impressions so faint they bordered on nonexistence—anomalous traces that did not belong to this land, nor to this era.
Her gaze shifted toward the horizon—toward **Jinshi City**.
"If I cannot trace it here," she decided, "then it has already moved on."
Her expression remained calm, but the air around her subtly deepened.
"Jinshi City fell after White Hollow City," she said softly. "Which means it did not vanish—it advanced."
She turned fully, robes whispering as the heavens parted before her.
"If it left anything behind," she thought, "it will be where it grew bold."
"And if even that yields nothing…"
"…then Jinshi City will."
But for now—
She searched.
Her divine sense continued to sink, layer by layer, through fractured earth and hollowed qi, combing through remnants so faint they defied reason.
Then—
**Something resisted.**
Not violently.
Not forcefully.
It simply… **did not belong**.
Lianhua's eyes sharpened.
Her divine sense narrowed, condensing from a vast tide into a single, precise thread. The world around her seemed to dim as her attention locked onto a point at the battlefield's edge.
The air folded.
She was no longer above the central crater.
She hovered a few feet above the ground at the far edge of the devastation, where broken stone and uprooted trees lay piled together as if flung aside without care.
Here, the qi felt different.
Still thin.
Still scraped clean.
But **not empty**.
A faint presence clung to the wreckage—so weak it would have escaped even high-level Foundation Establishment cultivators.
It was neither alive nor hostile.
It was… **left behind**.
Lianhua raised her hand.
The debris trembled.
From beneath shattered stone and splintered roots, three small objects stirred—then lifted free.
They rose soundlessly into the air.
**Three white scales.**
Each no larger than a fingernail, slightly curved, their surfaces smooth and cold. They rotated slowly above her open palm.
Lianhua studied them in silence.
"So you *did* leave something behind," she murmured.
Her qi brushed against the scales.
There was no resistance.
No reaction.
Yet the moment contact was made, the surrounding air shuddered subtly—as if reality itself acknowledged the interaction. The scales seemed to blur, still visible yet no longer fully present, as though slipping partially out of existence.
"These are not ordinary demon beast scales," she judged calmly.
They carried no aura.
No demonic corruption.
No elemental signature.
And yet—
They felt **heavy**.
Not in mass.
But in **existence**.
"As expected," Lianhua thought. "The fox was not the true anomaly."
Her gaze cooled.
"This belongs to the other one."
The scales drifted closer, settling above her palm—as if recognizing her authority.
Or perhaps… her danger.
"A White Scale Demon," she said softly.