The Spirit Stone seam was thin but deep. Lin Mo worked like a machine, fingers bleeding, the ring humming as it siphoned raw energy from each exposed fragment.
[ENERGY +5… +5… +3…]
He hit 87 Units when the ground trembled. Not an earthquake. Rhythmic. Impact.
THOOM… THOOM… THOOM…
He scrambled higher, finding a fissure overlooking the gorge floor.
Below, flanked by a dozen Chen Clan enforcers in tactical gear, stood Chen Bailong. He wasn't walking. He was stomping. Each step sank boot-deep into solid rock, sending pulse-waves of ki rippling outward. Seismic Sense. Hunting vibrations.
"Find the rat's hole!" Chen Bailong's voice boomed, cracking smaller stalactites. "I want his bones scattered across Jiang City!"
Lin Mo pressed flat. [ENERGY: 87 UNITS] [OPTION: SHADOW VEIL (20 UNITS - DURATION: 17 MINUTES)]
Too costly. Too short. He needed a weapon. His eyes locked onto unstable rock formations above the Chen force.
[ANALYZE STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS]
Blue gridlines overlaid the cavern roof. Pressure points glowed crimson. There. A massive, precariously balanced limestone pillar.
Chen Bailong paused directly beneath it. "Spread out! Check every crevice!"
Lin Mo gathered fist-sized rocks. Not to throw. To charge. He poured 1 Unit of ki into each, making them unstable batteries. Then he hurled them, not at the men, but at the pillar's glowing weak points.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The explosions were small, sharp. But perfectly placed.
The pillar groaned. Dust rained. Chen Bailong looked up, eyes widening.
"MASTER! MOVE!" an enforcer screamed.
Too late. With a sound like mountains dying, the pillar sheared off.
Chaos. Enforcers scrambled. Chen Bailong roared, throwing his arms up. A dome of shimmering golden ki erupted around him.
BOOOOOOOM!
The pillar shattered against the dome in an avalanche of rock. The dome held. Barely. But the shockwave wasn't ki. It was physics.
Enforcers vanished under tons of rubble. Screams cut short. Dust choked the gorge.
Lin Mo didn't wait. He slid down, silent as a spider, toward the buried Spirit Stone seam. Chen Bailong was pinned, buying minutes.
He found a chunk the size of his head, torn loose by the collapse. Pure, radiant Spirit Stone. The ring shivered with greed.
As his hand touched it, a voice rasped behind him: "Thief."
A man leaned against a boulder, untouched by dust. Gaunt. Hair like white wire. His eyes were milky blind, yet Lin Mo felt seen. A rusted sword hung at his hip.
"That stone," the blind man said, "is mine."
[ANALYSIS FAILED. ENERGY SIGNATURE: NULL. THREAT LEVEL: UNKNOWN]