Above the Ren Clan's sacred trial ground, the sky didn't split—it folded.
It was silent. Subtle. A ripple in the clouds like someone peeling back a silk veil.
From the breach, a figure stepped through.
No fanfare. No divine light. Just a girl in a blue dress, descending calmly through the fabric of the sky like it was never meant to hold her weight in the first place.
Her hair was pale—not silver, but snow. Combed perfectly, bound with a thin crystal ring behind her neck. Her skin had a healthy glow to it, untouched by wind or dirt. Her foxy eyes gleamed with a sharpness that didn't belong to her youthful face, and her features—exquisite, delicate—were framed by a faint blue diamond mark centered on her forehead, almost like a third eye that had chosen not to open.
She had the bearing of someone used to being followed, obeyed, praised, envied—and pitied no one.
An arrogant kind of purity clung to her. She looked untouched, unbothered, and yet—dangerous. Not in the way of blades or beasts, but like a perfectly drawn sword that no one dared unsheathe.
Below her, past the cloudy veil and protective formations, the Ren Clan elders stood waiting outside the trial ground's boundary.
She ignored them.
They never noticed her. Not even the Second Elder, whose soul sense was sharper than most Core Formation cultivators. Not even the formation spirit embedded in the trial gate.
She was far above that threshold.
The girl looked down at the field below, her gaze narrowing. Her tone, soft and almost lazy, barely stirred the wind.
"…Inheritance fluctuation," she said.
She hadn't come for it. She had just been passing through, traveling across the outer provinces to meet her clan elders. But even as she moved through space at high speed, her body instinctively responded to something older—a pulsing ripple of spiritual will buried beneath the earth.
Something was calling.
And now, here she was. Floating directly above the trial ground.
"A mirage-type illusion seal, tied to a corpse," she murmured.
She lowered herself gently, crossing the defensive barrier of the trial ground like it wasn't even there. For anyone else, even stepping foot inside would trigger violent repulsion unless their cultivation was sealed or they were a child. But her? She didn't feel like a cultivator at all.
Because she didn't register.
That was the trick. She wasn't suppressing her cultivation.
She was erasing its presence entirely.
She landed within the outer perimeter, on the grass above the central mountain pit, her boots leaving not a trace of dirt behind. She walked without hurry, tracing the faint strands of energy down toward the inheritance source.
Below the earth.
She reached the cracked stone above the hidden cavern.
"Someone's already inside," she said quietly.
She lifted her hand and tapped two fingers together. The air quivered.
Her pupils shifted—just barely. A faint silver light gleamed in the depths of her eyes as a subtle eye technique activated.
And she saw it.
A cave.
A corpse.
And… a boy.
Young. Bleeding. Dirty. And not unconscious. Awake. Eyes clear. Looking directly into the mirage space.
Her brows rose, ever so slightly.
"Hmm."
She stepped toward the edge of the formation and tried to enter.
Nothing happened.
No resistance. No backlash.
But she couldn't go in.
"…One-person inheritance," she said. "How rare."
She sat down on a nearby rock, folding her arms.
For a moment, she was thoughtful.
Then her lips curled into a wry smile.
"Lucky brat," she said, not unkindly.
She stayed there for some time—watching. But after an hour passed and the boy still didn't emerge, she stood, dusted off her sleeves, and gave the formation one last look.
"Not worth delaying for some dead man's leftover techniques. Let fate run its course."
She turned, vanished back into space, and was gone—leaving behind only a faint trace of the cold perfume that lingered where she had stood.
⸻
Meanwhile, deep below, Ren Bai sat cross-legged in front of the corpse, the air growing heavier around him. The mirage shimmered, stabilizing. He didn't yet know what the girl had seen. He didn't know who she was, or why she'd come.
But he had seen her.
And something in him—some part that was not cruel or arrogant, but curious—had awakened.
Then, the voice of the dead rang out again.
"…You're still watching the sky," it said. "That's good. You'll need to learn how to look past it, too."
Ren Bai turned, his eyes sharp again.
"Let's talk," he said. "Start from the beginning."