The fox cut through the night like a falling star.
Wind roared past its ears, lightning threads snapping along the edges of its newly forged wings. The spiritual tool responded beautifully—balanced, stable, swift.
But speed was not safety.
Its mind remained cold.
She'll come.
Golden Core cultivators did not hesitate.
They did not argue.
They pursued.
---
After several miles—
The fox did not slow.
Instead, it shifted sharply.
A sudden lateral deviation.
No deceleration.
No visible arc.
Just a clean, violent redirection that carved a spiral through the clouds.
Then again.
And again.
Short bursts.
Hard turns.
Unpredictable vectors.
Each time suppressing its aura between shifts—vanishing in the instant before reappearing elsewhere.
Behind it—
Lianhua had already moved.
She did not spare the night market cultivators another glance.
Her figure blurred, Golden Core speed tearing silently across the sky.
Her divine sense expanded outward like a vast, invisible ocean.
Searching.
Sweeping.
Calculating trajectory.
Nothing.
Her eyes narrowed.
Then—
She withdrew another blood-tracking talisman.
Activated it.
The talisman ignited crimson—
Then abruptly veered sideways.
Her gaze sharpened.
So.
It had changed direction the moment it assumed it had escaped her perception.
Smart.
Very smart.
Without hesitation, she followed the talisman's pull.
But midway—
The talisman jerked again.
Pointing elsewhere.
Then elsewhere again.
Multiple shifts.
No consistent escape vector.
She slowed.
Hovering.
Expression cool, attentive.
"…You're deliberately fracturing the trail."
She continued following its erratic guidance until—
The talisman suddenly stopped.
Completely still.
Suspended midair.
Below her—
A mountainous forest stretched wide and dark.
Ancient trees.
Layered ridgelines.
Shadows pooled thickly between peaks.
The talisman floated motionless.
Its direction gone.
Its pull dispersed.
Lianhua descended slightly.
Her divine sense expanded once more—
Sweeping across valleys.
Across stone faces.
Across treetops.
Nothing.
No fox.
No Foundation-stage fluctuation.
No concealed formation strong enough to block her outright.
Her eyes narrowed.
Impossible.
Then—
Something in the air shimmered faintly.
Tiny motes.
Barely visible.
Drifting.
Glowing faintly beneath the moonlight.
She extended her hand.
The particles settled upon her palm.
She examined them closely.
Recognition dawned.
"…Spirit-Suppression Dust."
Her gaze hardened.
Ground suppression stone powder.
Yin-aligned herbs.
When dispersed—
It formed an invisible spiritual film.
Not a barrier.
Not a wall.
But interference.
Muddying perception.
Destabilizing fine control.
Reducing detection range.
Making soul-locking techniques unreliable.
It did not block power—
It blurred it.
She slowly closed her fingers, letting the dust crumble.
"So that's your plan."
Not to outrun her.
To contaminate the battlefield.
To distort perception.
To make every direction uncertain.
She looked around again.
The entire airspace was lightly saturated.
Which meant—
It had been scattered in advance.
Not randomly.
Prepared.
Layered along likely pursuit routes.
The fox had anticipated Golden Core tracking.
And prepared countermeasures.
Her lips curved faintly.
Not anger.
Not frustration.
Interest.
"You planned for someone above your realm."
Her divine sense contracted.
Condensed.
Sharpened.
Instead of broad scanning—
She shifted to narrow, piercing threads.
Testing.
Probing.
The talisman in her hand flickered weakly.
Its connection muddied.
Trail broken.
Below—
The forest remained silent.
But somewhere within it—
A Foundation-stage fox was holding its breath.
And Lianhua understood now.
This was no desperate escape.
It was a prepared one.
And that—
Made the hunt far more interesting.
---
The forest held its breath.
High above the canopy, Lianhua hovered—still, composed, robes drifting lightly in the wind stirred by her own aura.
The air shimmered faintly with Spirit-Suppression Dust.
And beneath that veil—
The fox moved.
Invisible.
Silent.
Every fluctuation suppressed.
It knew the gap between them was heaven and earth.
But heaven could still bleed—
If struck precisely.
Wind compressed along its glaive.
Lightning coiled along the jade spear.
One decisive burst—
It attacked.
The strike erupted from concealment like a blade from shadow.
But—
It never reached her.
There was no dramatic collision.
No explosion.
The instant the attack entered the perimeter of her protective qi—
It dissolved.
As though it had struck an unmoving ocean.
The currents surrounding her body did not even ripple.
Her eyes shifted slightly.
She had known.
Golden Core perception did not rely solely on wide-range scanning.
She had condensed her awareness.
Focused.
Waiting.
Before the fox could withdraw—
She moved.
Not forward.
Not dramatically.
Just a slight extension of her hand.
And the world answered.
A single strike.
No elaborate technique.
No named art.
Only condensed spiritual force released with absolute control.
It crossed the distance instantly.
The fox did not even see it fully form.
Impact.
Every defensive talisman ignited at once.
Mid-tier earth-grade barriers flared.
The advanced formation tool attempted to activate—
Its barrier surging outward.
All shattered in the same breath.
Like glass meeting a falling mountain.
The strike hit the fox head-on.
It was not heat.
Not lightning.
Not wind.
It was pressure.
Pure, overwhelming force—as though the sky itself had descended.
The fox was ripped from invisibility.
Its concealment shredded.
Its body hurled backward—
Through trees.
Wood splintered.
Trunks exploded.
Stone fractured.
It slammed into the mountainside with a thunderous crash—
A crater blooming around its broken silhouette.
Silence followed.
Dust settled slowly.
The fox lay embedded in shattered rock.
Coughing.
Blood spilling from its mouth.
Its vision swam.
Its body screamed.
Something inside it felt crushed and twisted.
Not pierced—
Compressed.
As if its organs had been violently shaken loose.
All from one strike.
Its eyes widened faintly.
This…
This is Golden Core…
It tried to move—
Pain lanced through every limb.
It felt as though its very foundation had been struck.
Above the crater—
Wind shifted.
Lianhua descended slowly.
Not hurried.
Not wary.
Certain.
She hovered before the broken fox.
Her expression calm.
Unruffled.
As though this outcome had never been in question.
Her gaze passed over the shattered talisman fragments scattered across the stone.
Over the cracked remains of the defensive formation tool.
Over the blood staining the crater floor.
Then—
Her eyes settled on the fox.