Chương 40: Too Late to Turn Back (2/3)

[Entity Recognized: Cloud-Mirror Sect Disciples (x6)] [Cultivation Resonance: Ash-Marrow Realm / Obsidian-Frame (Tier-1 Peak)] [Threat to Current Vessel: MINIMAL (Tactical Nuisance)] [Estimated Yield: +300 Dao Embers (per entity)] So as I expected. A pack of pampered, peak Tier-1 elites.

Shi Yan's eyes remained half-lidded and dead, dark pupils reflecting nothing of the pale silvery light that filtered through the fog toward his concealment. The cold stone beneath his chest leached warmth from his sternum. The rough bark pressed against his shoulder blade bit through the damp leather of his coat, but he didn't shift even a hairsbreadth. His scarred eyelids didn't so much as twitch.

Three hundred Dao Embers per kill was absolute trash to him now. With his attributes hovering at a flat 55, requiring 300 Embers for a single point of upgrade, these disciples were mathematically obsolete as a primary food source.

Shi Yan's cold gaze bypassed the laughing young disciples entirely—their pristine white silk robes, their relaxed postures in expensive lacquered saddles, their decorative jian swords that probably hadn't tasted real blood in months—and snapped straight to the rear of the column.

That was where the true threat—and the true payload—were located.

Riding a massive, black-furred, panther-like beast was the only old man among the group.

The creature itself was a monster—easily twice the size of the spirit-horses bearing the disciples, its shoulders rippling with corded muscle beneath midnight fur that seemed to drink in the fog itself. Its paws made almost no sound against the wet bedrock, each pad the size of a grown man's chest. Twin fangs jutted from its upper jaw, gleaming dully in the bioluminescent glow of the surrounding fungus. Predator eyes—vertical slits of molten amber—scanned the treeline with lazy, territorial menace.

The man was gaunt, his face sharp, hawkish, and deeply aristocratic, with long silver hair tied neatly behind an intricate white-jade crown.

The crown itself was a work of profound craftsmanship—carved in layered lotus petals that curved around his temples, each petal inlaid with thread-thin veins of silver script that pulsed faintly with stored Qi. It sat atop his skull like the headpiece of an ancient sovereign, the jade so pure it seemed to glow from within, casting faint reflections across the Elder's hollow cheekbones and the thin, bloodless line of his mouth.

Unlike the young disciples, who had to rely on external talismans to block the rain—the paper wards woven into their belts glowing faintly as water droplets hissed and evaporated inches from their skin—this man possessed an aura generated entirely from his own body. The freezing downpour simply evaporated into hissing white steam a full ten feet before it came anywhere near him.

The steam rose in continuous, ghostly curtains around the Elder's form, writhing upward like living silk before dissipating into the fog above. It created a shimmering halo of heat distortion, warping the rain into fleeting halos of refracted light. The sound was constant—a low, sibilant hiss that undercut the rhythm of the falling rain, the auditory signature of overwhelming Qi density made manifest.

The System immediately updated, the blue text flashing with a subtle crimson warning indicator that bled into the peripheral edges of Shi Yan's vision like a pulse of arterial blood.

[Entity Recognized: Cloud-Mirror Inner Sect Elder] [Cultivation Resonance: Furnace-Core Realm / White-Hot (Tier-2 Late Stage)] [Threat to Current Vessel: LETHAL (Extreme Combat Triage Recommended)] [Estimated Yield: 25, 000+ Dao Embers] A White-Hot cultivator. So basically, late Tier-2. A genuine boss. And wow, 25k Dao Embers? Damn!

This time, excitement ran through his veins—a sharp, electric thrill that traced down his spine and coiled low in his gut like a serpent tasting prey. The black subcutaneous veins on the backs of his hands pulsed once, visibly darkening beneath the caked mud. I mean, how could he not? How was a late Tier-2, in the same realm as the Physician, worth that much more?

But joy came with gloom. His frown deepened in the shadows, the weathered lines around his brows carving deeper into his mud-streaked face. His eyes narrowed to slits as he burned the exact anatomical dimensions of the Elder into his memory.

He mapped the man's neck—the angle of the cervical vertebrae visible through paper-thin skin, the hollow of the throat where the trachea sat exposed above the high collar of his silver-embroidered robe. He traced the joints—shoulder rotator cuffs, elbow hinges, the way the Elder's wrist rested lightly on the pommel of a dao saber whose hilt was wrapped in white shark leather. He measured the precise diameter of the localized steam-ward surrounding him—ten feet, a perfect sphere of lethality and warning.

The difference in actual combat threat was astronomical.

Physician Li had possessed an artificial, forcefully injected cultivation base. He was bloated with impure demonic Qi, relying entirely on the brute force of a grafted beast arm and the volatile explosion of a localized blood array.

He was a wild, rampaging animal with a predictable physical attack pattern.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Compared to that...

This old man... was an optimized, fully functional killing machine. A pure, solid, late Tier-2 Orthodox cultivator.

He was incredibly likely to be packed to the brim with refined offensive sword arts—techniques honed over decades, burned into muscle memory until each strike flowed like water—and high-tier defensive talismans or cultivation techniques layered beneath that deceptively simple outer robe.

Furthermore, that passive Qi steam barrier acting as a kinetic ward around him meant that if Shi Yan launched an ambush from the front, the barrier could potentially deflect the initial strike—superheated vapor pressure meeting steel in a fraction of a heartbeat—instantly ruining Shi Yan's momentum and leaving him stranded in a one-versus-seven engagement with his back exposed and his cooldown timer still counting down.

Who knew if he was also secretly cross-training in a body refinement art?

Shi Yan's expression darkened, his jaw tightening until the mud caking his jawline cracked in thin, spiderweb fractures.

Assume the worst. Assume his bones are as hard as mine. Assume his reflexes can match a bullet.

While Shi Yan was silently breaking down the geometry of the impending slaughter—calculating angles of approach, blast radius of the Elder's likely Qi techniques, optimal strike trajectories that kept the massive panther-beast between him and the disciples—the voices of the lively young disciples carried easily over the ambient noise of the swamp.

They were completely unconcerned with stealth. Their voices rang clear and bright, echoing off the skeletal cypress trunks and the still surface of the marsh water. Laughter punctuated their words. One of them hummed a drinking song under his breath. In the Outer Wards, they were the absolute top of the food chain.

"Do you really think that madman finished the array, Senior Brother?" one of the younger disciples asked, resting a casual, leather-gloved hand on the pommel of his jian. The glove was dyed deep azure, stitched with silver cloudbursts along the knuckles—decorative, expensive, utterly impractical for real combat.

"I mean, it took that Physician three whole months just to properly sacrifice the first dozen rogue cultivators and village trash to set the foundation."

The leader of the disciples, a handsome youth with a deeply arrogant sneer and a face like polished jade, laughed openly. His teeth were perfectly white, his smile sharp and cruel as a blade.

"Who cares? If that coward hasn't successfully condensed the blood-Qi yet, the Elder will just peel the preserved skin off his dead wife's face to motivate him again."

He chuckled, the sound rich with genuine amusement, as though he were recounting a particularly clever jest at a banquet rather than describing torture.

"It's truly pathetic. Did you see his eyes?"

The youth's own eyes—bright, clear, utterly devoid of empathy—sparkled with mirth as he glanced sideways at his companions.

"He broke so easily just because we successfully slipped a little untraceable frost-toxin into the woman's tea a year ago."

"Righteousness requires sacrifice," another disciple chimed in, pressing his hands together in a mockery of prayer and adopting the haughty, serene tone of a temple monk delivering scripture. His voice dripped with false piety, each syllable drawn out and sonorous.

"To cleanse the world, we must first make use of its filth to feed our furnaces."

Several of the other disciples snickered at that, nodding along as though profound wisdom had just been dispensed.

"Speaking of filth," the first disciple muttered, grimacing in visible disgust as he glanced down at the thick black mud surrounding their elevated stone path. His nose wrinkled, his lip curling as though the very sight offended his refined sensibilities.

"What about the remaining? If that Physician succeeded, there are still going to be survivors hanging in that village's array."

At the rear of the column, the gaunt Elder slowly opened a single, terrifyingly bright eye.

The iris was molten gold—not metaphorically, but literally incandescent, glowing with the banked heat of a furnace core held barely in check. The sclera around it was threaded with fine crimson veins, pulsing faintly in rhythm with the hissing steam that wreathed his body. The pupil contracted sharply, focusing forward with the mechanical precision of a hawk locking onto prey.

The temperature around him spiked. The rain striking the outer edge of his aura didn't just evaporate—it detonated, bursting into superheated mist with sharp, crackling pops that sent ripples of distortion radiating outward through the fog.

"Burn them," the Elder commanded coldly.

His voice was thin, dry, and utterly devoid of inflection—a blade drawn across stone, emotionless and final. It carried no anger, no hesitation, no humanity whatsoever.

"Leave absolutely nothing for the Silk & Ash Chamber's merchant dogs to sniff out. The Iron-Blood Prefecture is already asking questions about our movement in the Outer Wards today. Do not leave a single mortal tongue attached to a skull."

The disciples' laughter died instantly.

"Understood, Elder!" they chorused, bowing their heads respectfully from their saddles, their spines going rigid with fear. Hands pressed flat against thighs. Shoulders locked. Even their spirit-horses stilled, ears pinning back in instinctive submission to the predator at the rear.

The arrogant senior disciple turned back around after a long, tense beat, the color slowly returning to his face. A deeply greedy smirk played at his lips, his eyes glittering with avarice as he leaned slightly toward his nearest companion and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial murmur.

"Let the Prefecture sniff around the mud all they want. Once we retrieve the Relic-Grade Crimson Pearl from that Physician's corpse and bring it back to the Patriarch, it's over anyway. Let the Chamber complain. They won't be able to touch us."

"Exactly," another disciple agreed in a hushed, trembling whisper, his voice barely audible over the rhythmic clop-clop-clop of hooves on wet stone. His hands twisted nervously in his reins, knuckles white beneath the leather straps.

"A true Relic-Grade item... practically a myth in these outer territories."

He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing visibly above the high collar of his robe.

"With the extreme Yang energy housed inside that Crimson Pearl, it will automatically repel the miasma. The Patriarch can finally lead the expedition force safely through the toxic boundary and break the ancient seals on the Secret Heritage beneath the mountain."

In the suffocating darkness beneath the cypress roots, Shi Yan paused, his breath hitching for a microscopic fraction of a second.

The bark against his shoulder blade suddenly felt sharper. The cold stone beneath his chest pressed harder into his ribs. His pupils dilated fractionally, the only outward sign of the mental pivot occurring behind his scarred eyelids.

Relic-Grade again?

He was still confused, but the other term that completely captured Shi Yan's interest was the target location.

Secret Heritage? Beneath their mountain?

Shi Yan deliberately relaxed his mental block, allowing himself to briefly sink into the dead host's fragmented memories. A sharp, localized headache spiked behind his eyes—white-hot pressure building at his temples, radiating inward like needles driven through bone—as the data forcefully unpacked into his consciousness.

Cloud-Mirror Mountain.

The vision unfolded in disjointed flashes: towering white stone spires wreathed in perpetual mist. Waterfalls cascading down sheer cliffs in roaring silver curtains, their spray catching sunlight and throwing rainbows across marble pavilions. Soaring white cranes—spirit beasts with wingspans broader than houses—circling lazily above tiered gardens where peach blossoms fell like snow. It was a majestic peak that pierced the clouds, surrounded by beauty and serenity. It was the absolute image of a divine, holy sect.

But there was a dark spot in that otherwise pristine memory.

The Forbidden Back Mountain.

The vision shifted, the colors bleeding into sickly purples and blacks. A massive wall of ancient stone—cracked, vine-choked, carved with suppression seals so old the characters had eroded into illegible grooves. Beyond it, the sky didn't look right. It was bruised, swollen, perpetually twilit even at noon. The air was thick, viscous, choked with a lethal Yin miasma that clung to the ground like oil and ate through cloth, skin, bone.

The original host—a lowly outer disciple—had been terrified of the place. The memory carried the acrid taste of fear, the instinctive recoil of prey sensing a predator's den. It was a massive, walled-off geographical scar situated behind the main sect array.

Within those walls, the sky didn't look right. It was always a bruised, sickly purple, and the air was permanently choked with a lethal, suffocating Yin miasma.

The elders had taught the disciples that it was a demonic sinkhole—a wasteland where rule-breakers and traitors were tossed to die. Screams echoed from within on certain nights, carried on winds that stank of rot and iron. No one who entered ever returned. Not even their corpses.

A Secret Heritage, huh.

Shi Yan's mental voice was flat, analytical, already cataloging possibilities and cross-referencing against fragmented knowledge from web novels and xianxia tropes he'd consumed in another life.

Interesting... perhaps like a pocket dimension, just like in those xianxia stories? Like... a secret realm, in xianxia terms?

While Shi Yan was pondering—his mind racing through tactical permutations, resource calculations, risk-versus-reward matrices—the voice sounded again.

"If the Patriarch successfully secures the Celestial Marrow hidden inside that ruined realm," the senior disciple continued, his voice now trembling with sheer fanaticism, each word rising in pitch and fervor. His hands clenched into fists against his saddle horn, his entire body leaning forward as though physically pulled by the weight of his ambition. He was completely unaware of the shadow listening to him, drinking in every syllable with cold, predatory focus.

"He will finally reforge his foundation! Our Cloud-Mirror Sect will no longer be a vassal paying tribute! We will unseat the City Lord and become the true rulers of the Central Zenith! We will walk the true path to Immortality!"

A Fragment of the Celestial Marrow?