Mo Xuan moved. The ground shattered beneath his first step, his sword becoming a streak of black-and-white brilliance as he closed the distance toward the leader.
The leader raised his blade instinctively and blocked the first strike, but he managed to draw blood from Mo Xuan's shoulder with a second slash. Mo Xuan moved without slowing down in the slightest and charged again, his movement now impossibly, unnaturally fast — too fast for the man to track properly, let alone defend against.
The sword passed through steel.
Then flesh.
The man's eyes widened in disbelief, his scream dying before it could escape. Blood erupted across the ancient stone as his body collapsed, dead before he'd even fully understood what had happened to him.
The remaining two stepped back involuntarily, real fear flooding their eyes for the first time. "Retreat!" one of them shouted, turning to flee.
Mo Xuan's body followed instantly, killing intent erupting off him in waves. His sword rose, then fell, a downward arc splitting the air itself. The escaping cultivator disappeared beneath the strike, the earth cracking open where he'd stood. When the light faded, nothing remained standing in his place.
The final cultivator desperately formed a series of hand seals, and a translucent emerald barrier flared into existence around him, his serpent soul coiling frantically in front of his chest.
"Stop!" His voice shook badly. "I'll—"
The words ended beneath another swing. The barrier shattered instantly, the serpent soul breaking apart like struck glass, and the blade continued through without slowing.
Silence. Three breaths passed. Then the last body hit the ground.
The valley became still. The poison dispersed, thinning into nothing on the breeze. Mo Xuan stood motionless among three lifeless bodies, his sword lowered, blood dripping slowly from its edge. His breathing came in uneven bursts, the aftershock of what had just happened finally catching up to him.
The runic brilliance surrounding him gradually faded. His black-and-white hair settled back into place. The violent rhythm inside his chest slowly returned toward something normal. His eyes finally cleared.
He looked down. Blood covered his hands. Blood that wasn't his.
Human blood.
His breath caught.
His fingers trembled. The sword slipped from his grasp.
Clang.
The sound echoed across the silent valley. He stared at the fallen weapon, his voice barely emerging. "I..."
His throat tightened. "I killed..."
He swallowed hard. "...them."
The words felt unreal even as he said them. Spirit Beasts had always been different — those fights had belonged to simple survival against creatures that would have killed him without a second thought. This had been different. These had been people. People whose lives had ended beneath his blade, by his own hand, deliberately.
His knees weakened beneath him. The world seemed strangely distant, muffled at the edges.
Around him, Lianxue's frost finally dispersed entirely as the poison gradually stopped spreading through her system. Lianyan struggled to draw breath. Jin Bao remained collapsed where he'd fallen, his talismans dark and spent.
Before Mo Xuan could force himself to move toward them, a low vibration rolled through the valley. The mist stopped moving. Even the air itself grew heavy, ancient, oppressive, pressing down on the valley like a physical weight.
The mist parted. A towering phantom emerged from the shadows beyond the valley, its figure enormous, impossible to judge against any ordinary scale, carrying an oppressive dignity that made the ruined palace behind it feel small by comparison.
It raised a single finger. The gesture was simple, unhurried, yet the pressure behind it made the surrounding Spiritual Energy freeze in place, as though even the air itself didn't dare move.
The finger slowly pointed toward Mo Xuan. The intent behind it was unmistakable.
Obliteration.
Mo Xuan couldn't move. His body refused to respond, every muscle locked in place by the overwhelming pressure bearing down on him. The ancient phantom's finger descended, closer, closer still.
Then something against his chest turned scorching hot.
Han Long's talisman — the one his master had given him before he'd ever left the sect, now soaked through with blood.
It awakened.
A searing golden light burst from his chest, the brilliance so intense that even the descending phantom's oppressive pressure faltered for a single instant. The talisman rose into the air on its own, countless golden runes pouring from its surface like flowing sunlight, circling Mo Xuan before expanding outward to envelop the others as well.
Each person became wrapped in a cocoon of golden script. The ancient symbols rotated faster and faster.
Hum—
An intricate teleportation array erupted across the stone floor beneath them, and the four of them were drawn toward its centre as the golden light intensified further still. Mo Xuan barely managed one final glance upward, the phantom's enormous finger only moments away from crushing them where they stood.
Yet it never reached them.
The talisman blazed one final time. A flash of white swallowed everything, and the world disappeared.
Silence returned to the ruined palace. The teleportation array vanished as though it had never existed at all. Only three corpses remained upon the ancient stones.
The enormous phantom stopped mid-strike, its descending finger frozen in place. The overwhelming pressure dispersed as the colossal figure unravelled into drifting strands of light.
When the radiance faded, only a single elderly man remained standing where the phantom had been.
His robes were ancient, his expression unreadable. He slowly lowered his hand, his eyes sweeping across the space where the four had disappeared. For the first time, something resembling surprise crossed his face.
"...Interesting."
His gaze lifted to the endless golden sky of the secret realm — not to where they had stood, but to an impossibly distant point, as if searching beyond the realm's very limits. After a long silence, the old man sighed. "We tried to steal the chicken, only to lose the rice used to bait it. Seems we can't always be lucky. Now that this place is exposed, we can't stay here again."
One quiet breath, heavy enough to carry the weight of countless years, passed between one thought and the next. Then he turned, and the mist gradually swallowed his figure. The valley fell silent once more before disappearing entirely.
The first thing Yu Lianyan noticed was the smell. Medicinal herbs. Her eyelashes trembled, and slowly, she opened her eyes.
For several breaths, her vision remained blurred, the wooden ceiling above gradually coming into focus. Faint warding runes glowed softly along the beams overhead, their pale light washing gently over the quiet room around her.
A recovery chamber.
Her heartbeat quickened, and she sat upright immediately. "Xuan!"
The bed beside her shifted. Yu Lianxue's eyes opened as well, confusion lingering for only a heartbeat before she became fully alert, pushing herself upright at nearly the same moment as her sister.
Across the room, Jin Bao lay sprawled across another bed, his hair an indescribable mess. He blinked several times before bolting upright. "We're still alive." He looked around wildly. "How are we alive? Where are we?"
The relief was brief. The twins looked at each other, sharing the same sudden realisation. Their eyes turned sharply to the empty bed.
Lianyan's voice sharpened. "Mo Xuan?"
No answer.
Lianxue called out right after. "Mo Xuan!"
Silence.
The room suddenly felt much colder than it had a moment ago. Lianyan threw aside her blanket, the poison's lingering weakness still dragging at her limbs, though she ignored it completely. Jin Bao stumbled out of bed as well, his own recovery clearly not yet complete. "Where is he?"
The empty room offered no answer.
Then the door slid open, and an Inner Court attendant stepped inside carrying a tray of medicine. She froze briefly at the sight of all three of them standing already. "You're awake." She recovered quickly and bowed. "Good. The poison has already been neutralised."
Lianyan closed the distance in two steps. "Where are we?"
The attendant blinked, caught slightly off guard by the intensity in her voice. "In the Azure Cloud Sword Sect."
The room fell silent.
Lianxue frowned. "The sect?"
The attendant nodded. "You've been unconscious..."
The attendant hesitated. "For a week."
Jin Bao's expression grew increasingly confused. "A week?"
The attendant nodded again, patient despite the barrage of questions.
Lianyan grabbed the attendant's sleeve. "Where's Mo Xuan?"
This time, the attendant's expression turned noticeably more careful, her earlier composure cracking just slightly. "He hasn't awakened."
The three of them froze.
"He returned with you," the attendant continued, glancing toward another corridor. "But..." She hesitated. "He hasn't opened his eyes since you arrived."
The words landed heavily inside the room, and whatever relief had come with surviving disappeared completely in an instant. Without waiting for permission, the three of them rushed through the doorway, the attendant barely managing to step aside before Lianyan was already halfway down the corridor.
"Wait—" Her words were swallowed by the sound of hurried footsteps already fading ahead of her.
The Inner Court's recovery hall was unusually quiet. Sunlight filtered through carved wooden windows, illuminating long corridors lined with softly glowing warding runes. The faint scent of medicinal herbs lingered everywhere, mixing with sandalwood incense burning steadily inside bronze censers along the walls.
Ordinarily, the atmosphere here would have felt calming. Today, it only made the silence heavier, every quiet corner amplifying the dread building in all three of them.
Lianxue took the lead, knowing the attendant would follow close behind regardless, so there was no need to stop and demand every answer at once. Instead, she asked, "Which room?"
Her voice remained steady despite everything.
"End of the eastern corridor," the attendant answered, hurrying to keep pace. "Elder Han Long personally oversees his treatment."
None of them slowed.
Their hurried footsteps echoed through the eastern corridor.