The fox's pupils shrank.
Below—
A figure descended toward the inn window.
Toward the room.
Toward the barrier.
Its jaws tightened.
Behind it—
The wind blade shrieked through the air.
The fox twisted mid-leap—
Its body bending at an impossible angle—
The crescent of compressed wind grazed past its fur by a hair's breadth.
A single strand drifted loose in the night.
The blade continued—
Straight toward the inn.
The fox did not hesitate.
Its divine sense flared.
The jade spear shot forward.
The glaive followed.
Both streaked alongside the wind blade like twin meteors—
Three converging strikes aimed at the same point.
BOOM—!
The night ruptured.
Tiles shattered.
Wood splintered.
Dust and debris swallowed the rooftop in a violent cloud.
For a single breath—
Silence.
Then the dust parted.
She hovered there.
Unharmed.
Robes fluttering gently in the fading turbulence.
Green eyes glowing faintly in the dark.
Lianhua.
A translucent barrier shimmered around her—thin, immaculate.
Not a crack.
Not a ripple.
The fox landed lightly on a nearby rooftop.
Its qi carried the lizard—still unconscious, still wrapped in layered talismans—suspended safely at its side.
The jade spear and glaive trembled once—
Then returned to orbit beside it.
A calm voice drifted across the fractured air.
"If you do not know," Lianhua said softly, "you are not meant to lay your paws on what does not belong to you."
The fox's tail swayed once.
Slow.
Measured.
Its eyes were ice.
"And if you don't know," it replied evenly, "you're not meant to put your hands where they don't belong."
The lizard hovered beside it, sealed within overlapping defensive talismans and the faint remnants of formation energy.
The fox's gaze never left her.
"You breached my barrier."
Lianhua tilted her head slightly.
"Breached?" she echoed.
"I merely knocked."
A low chuckle escaped the fox.
"You call draining two earth-grade talismans and probing a refined defensive formation 'knocking'?"
The wind shifted between them.
The earlier pursuer descended now—
Landing several rooftops away.
The sixth-layer presence fully revealed.
The fox's ears flicked but it did not look.
Its attention remained on her.
Lianhua's turquoise gaze shifted briefly to the lizard suspended at the fox's side.
Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
"So," she murmured.
"That is what you were hiding."
The fox's qi tightened subtly around the lizard.
"Careful," it said.
"You're starting to sound curious."
Below them—
Broken tiles smoldered faintly.
Dust drifted through silver moonlight.
The air between them grew heavy.
Not explosive.
Not chaotic.
But deliberate.
Measured.
Lianhua folded her hands loosely within her sleeves.
"You've grown bold," she said.
The fox smiled faintly.
"And you've grown nosy."
The wind stirred again.
But this time—
No one moved.
Because something unspoken had settled between them:
This was no longer about the auction.
No longer about spirit stones.
No longer about tools.
This—
Was about the lizard.
And both of them knew it.
—
The fox stood atop the shattered tiles.
Outwardly calm.
Tail swaying lazily.
Weapons hovering in flawless control.
But inside—
Cold realization spread like frost through its veins.
She wasn't scratched.
Not even a tear marked her sleeve.
That explosion had been enough to heavily wound a sixth-layer cultivator.
And yet—
Nothing.
Its divine sense pressed forward carefully—
And found nothing.
No discernible aura.
No readable fluctuation.
No measurable boundary.
And yet instinct—
Instinct screamed.
Higher.
Not Foundation Establishment.
Not peak.
Higher.
Its fur rose along its spine.
Golden Core.
The words tolled in its mind like a funeral bell.
Golden Core.
The difference between heaven and earth.
Between river and ocean.
Between mortal flame and true sun.
The fox's breathing remained steady.
Its thoughts sharpened instead.
Why is a Golden Core cultivator here?
River M was a small town.
A hunting ground.
A market for scraps and hidden knives.
Golden Core cultivators did not descend to places like this without purpose.
They ruled sects.
Guarded territories.
Commanded disciples.
They did not chase foxes across rooftops.
How did we offend someone like this?
Its gaze flicked toward her again.
She had not moved.
Had not released killing intent.
But the pressure—
It was there.
Subtle.
Like standing beneath a mountain suspended by will alone.
The fox's mind raced.
I knew someone would eventually come.
With the number of cultivators and clans that had fallen.
With the chaos they had stirred.
Retaliation had been inevitable.
A powerful Foundation Establishment expert.
Perhaps even one at peak.
But Golden Core?
That was not retaliation.
That was eradication.
Its claws tightened imperceptibly.
And the lizard—
Still unconscious.
Still refining.
If she attacked now—
Even if the lizard awakened—
It would not matter.
Twenty peak Foundation Establishment cultivators together would fall before a true Golden Core expert.
That was not speculation.
That was fact.
This was bad.
Very bad.
The fox forced its thoughts into sharper alignment.
How did she find us?
She had not wandered.
She had gone straight to the inn.
Straight to the room.
Straight to the barrier.
Not coincidence.
Not chance.
Her arrival had purpose.
Its gaze dipped briefly—
Toward the faint residue lingering within its qi.
Toward the trace it had dismissed earlier.
Its pupils narrowed.
The talisman.
The blood-tracking talisman.
It had believed it cleared everything.
Erased imprints.
Destroyed evidence.
Collected bodies.
But blood—
Blood remembered.
And a skilled cultivator could follow that memory.
Especially one beyond Foundation Establishment.
So that was how.
Not guesswork.
Not luck.
Not divine whim.
Tracking.
Precise.
Deliberate.
The fox's mind steadied.
Fear was useless.
Analysis was survival.
If she had tracked them—
Then she knew.
Or at least suspected.
Her eyes had gone to the lizard.
Not the weapons.
Not the stones.
The lizard.
Which meant—
This was not about trade.
Not about auction goods.
Not about revenge for fallen cultivators.
It was about what they possessed.
Or what they were.
The fox's tail stilled completely.
Have we reached beyond our grasp?
Possibly.
But retreat—
Against a Golden Core cultivator—
Was nearly impossible.
Unless…
Its thoughts continued to calculate.
No panic.
No rash movement.
Golden Core or not—
She had not attacked.
Not yet.
Which meant—