Night bled over the Azure Blossom Sect like spilled ink. The mountains crouched beneath shrouds of cloud; lanterns guttered one by one as if the darkness itself inhaled their light.
Li Xian stood on the balcony of the inner pavilion, still as a blade in its sheath. Beside him, Su Yao's silver aura shimmered faintly, cool and sharp. The air between them vibrated with quiet power. Beneath that calm surface, both could feel it—the wrong pulse, the foreign breath sliding through the sect's veins.
"The infiltrator moves," Su Yao whispered. Her gaze cut across the courtyards where disciples slept, oblivious. "He hides within our qi field. Clever."
Li Xian closed his eyes. Crimson sense rippled outward—each disciple's spiritual signature a note in a vast symphony. And there, beneath the harmony, a discordant tremor… a heartbeat out of rhythm.
He smiled. "Clever. But not enough."
They vanished in twin flashes—crimson and silver streaking through corridors, across tiled roofs, through gardens trembling under their passage. The world slowed; every leaf, every breath of wind bent around them.
In the eastern dormitory, the infiltrator—a young inner disciple with a false name—knelt beside a carved pillar. His fingers traced a hidden sigil, whispering a prayer to his unseen master. A spark flared. The sigil began to feed on the sect's protective barrier, siphoning energy drop by drop.
A sudden chill made him look up.
Su Yao stood at the doorway, lantern-light bending around her. "You've touched what you shouldn't," she said softly.
The man's eyes widened. He leapt, throwing a talisman that split into black fire. Li Xian stepped through it, unharmed. His aura pressed down like the sky collapsing.
The spy gasped, bones creaking under invisible weight. "You… you can't stop what's coming. The Lord of the Black Heaven already—"
"Already knows he's losing," Li Xian said. With a twist of his wrist, the flames froze mid-air, collapsing into a single sphere of red glass. "Tell me who else he's placed."
The infiltrator spat blood and defiance. "You think pain will break me?"
Li Xian's answer was quiet. "Not pain. Clarity." He released a thread of qi that shimmered crimson-gold; it wrapped the spy's spirit like a mirror, forcing him to see his own memories. The man screamed as truth tore through him—images flooding the room: secret meetings, coded messages, a map leading beyond the sect toward the northern valley.
Su Yao placed her hand on Li Xian's arm. "Enough. We have what we need."
He released the technique. The spy collapsed, barely breathing. "Seal him," she ordered the arriving guards. "Keep him alive. His master may try to reclaim what's left of his mind."
When the hall was empty again, silence settled like dust.
Su Yao looked at Li Xian, eyes bright in the half-light. "You felt it too—the link in the north?"
"Yes," he said. "Mo Tian's reach has grown bold. But he underestimates us."
Their qi brushed, crimson and silver coiling together. The air thrummed with restrained intensity, their shared power resonating through the marble floor. Around them, the sect's barrier flickered, then steadied, brighter than before.
"Tomorrow we move," Li Xian murmured. "No more waiting."
Su Yao nodded, lips curved in a faint smile. "Then the hunt leaves the nest."
Above them, thunder rolled—not from storm clouds but from distant drums, echoing across the valley. In the north, something vast was stirring.