The sun reached its zenith as Arin began his descent. The Triallands were now behind him, a dark, silent sentinel of divine peril. He did not look back. Every direction but one led to certain doom the kingdoms, the zealots, or the wilderness. His only viable route lay in the eye of the storm: the sprawling, arrogant structure of the Duskwind Sect itself.
His reasoning was cold, sharp, and brutally effective: Kaelen Dravos was smart, but predictable. The Core Disciple heir was now operating under the assumption that the "cursed labourer" was driven by fear, having either fled into the lethal Triallands or continued his escape further into the wild mountains. No one would expect a low-tier fugitive, fresh from humiliating an Inner Disciple, to deliberately walk back into the heart of the sect.
Arin moved through the thick forest skirting the sect's outer cultivation fields. He was heading for the cluster of ancillary buildings storage facilities, workshops, and abandoned annexes that abutted the Inner Court structures. It was a calculated risk of profound defiance.
He reached the poorly-maintained boundary fence near the wood-storage yard. This was the first true test of the Blood-Engraved Stage. The sect employed simple Sensory Wards here low-level formations that detect rapid, high-Qi movement. But Arin possessed neither rapid nor high-Qi movement.
He moved with painstaking deliberation, relying on the subtle, constant enhancements of his second mark. His weight was distributed with perfect efficiency; his footsteps were unnaturally soft. The Blood-Engraved resilience didn't just give him strength it made his body an instrument of silence, anticipating the brittle crack of dry twigs or the slip of loose dirt.
As he slipped through a gap in the fence, he could feel the cold, electrical thrum of the wards brushing over him. The formations were keyed to detect Qi flares the hallmark of a panicked or powerful cultivator. Arin had almost no internal Qi; his reserves were devoured by the Mark. He passed through the barrier like a ghost, too mundane for their spiritual sensors to register.
He spent the next few hours navigating the chaotic sprawl of the service areas, keeping to shadows and the blind spots between the towering structures. He was looking for a place of absolute indifference.
He found it behind the massive kitchens and the outer disciplinary courtyard: an unused, dilapidated cold storage cellar. It had clearly been decommissioned years ago, sealed by a heavy, iron-bound trapdoor that was rusted shut and covered in dusty barrels. The key to his safety lay in its sheer unpleasantness and its lack of obvious value.
Using a borrowed pry bar and the quiet, persistent strength of his Blood-Engraved body, Arin forced the trapdoor open just enough to slip through. He descended into the total darkness of the cellar. The air was stale, cold, and deathly still. There was no Qi signature here, no value, no luxury only dust, decay, and the furtive scuttling of rats.
It was perfect. He sealed the door from within, using a heavy, rusted lock he found hanging loose. He was back in the belly of the beast, hidden in plain sight.
Once the immediate threat of capture was mitigated, Arin began to think about his next step. He was stabilised by the stolen spiritual berries, but that fuel would only last a week at most. He couldn't rely on random siphoning or food raids forever.
The Mark demanded defiance, but defiance was futile without a stable mortal foundation. Even with the Mark draining his Qi, he needed to start exercising his mortal cultivation methods. He needed a technique a system of circulating Qi that would strengthen his dantian and blood pathways, preparing them for the next, more violent infusion of divine energy.
He listened carefully to the muffled sounds above the clatter of the kitchen, the distant shouts of Core Disciples practising forms in the courtyards. The sect was overflowing with knowledge. Cultivation manuals, techniques, alchemical recipes all locked away in a central location.
He remembered the labourers gossiping about the Sect Scriptorium: a library housed in a squat, stone building near the Inner Court dormitories. It held all the basic, common cultivation techniques of the Outer Court, along with records of the Inner Sect's movements and rules.
That library was his next sacrifice. Theft of food was minor; the theft of knowledge was heresy. It was not just the act, but the defiance of the sect's hierarchy that would truly satisfy Mark's demand for action.
I need a technique. Something basic and easily learned, focusing on strengthening the foundational base. I need to make my body a strong cage for the captive goddess.
Arin, huddled in the darkness, ran a plan through his mind, identifying the easiest entry point to the Scriptorium—likely through the abandoned records room or a rarely cleaned ventilation shaft. He was no longer a frantic runner; he was a cold, calculating infiltrator.
He settled in to rest, allowing his enhanced senses to map the routines and sounds of the sprawling complex above him. Tomorrow, the hunter would become the thief. He was going to steal the first piece of his destiny.