Chương 71: The Pass Was Sealed (1/3)

It looked like an empty cube, roughly the size of a large military weapons crate or a deep freezer, suspended in absolute nothingness—a perfect geometric void framed by the mouth of the blackened pouch, dimensionless and impossibly still.

Amazing...

He smiled, but the smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, caught between wonder and a sharp, lancing throb that flared up from the shallow cuts crisscrossing his forearms. The muscles in his jaw tightened reflexively.

He cried out in pain, a short, sharp bark of frustration escaping through clenched teeth as his knuckles whitened around the pouch. This is 5k [Dao Embers], damn it!

But despite that, as a modern person thrust into this hyper-violent purgatory, he had spent most of his time viewing the world's magic as artillery: fireballs that scorched flesh and boiled blood, flying swords that carved through bone like scalpels through butter, and kinetic shields that rippled like hardened air under impact.

But this... this was the manipulation of localized geometry. It was a 3D hard drive without mass, a pocket carved cleanly out of reality itself and tethered to the fabric of his hand.

It's literally a drag-and-drop desktop folder bound to my physical hand.

His pulse quickened, the exhaustion pooling behind his eyes momentarily forgotten as curiosity sharpened his focus.

Let's see if this works!

He immediately shifted into testing mode, the ingrained discipline of a soldier reasserting itself through the haze of fatigue. His shoulders squared slightly, his spine straightening even as the cold air bit at the sweat still clinging to his back. A tool was only as good as a soldier's proficiency with it under fire!

He reached to his left, fingers extending toward the desk where the warped wood still bore faint scorch marks radiating outward from earlier failures. He picked up a single silver tael, the metal cool and solid against his bloodied palm, and without hesitation, he dropped it into the black opening.

There was no sound of metal hitting a floor.

No clink. No echo. Nothing.

The silver piece just floated lazily in the dark void, hanging suspended as though gravity itself had been stripped away at the threshold. Shi Yan leaned forward slightly, the bed creaking faintly beneath his shifted weight, and reached his bare hand inside. The interior of the pouch had no temperature—it wasn't cold or hot. It was just the absolute absence of sensation, a void that didn't press against his skin or resist his intrusion. It simply wasn't.

He didn't even have to physically grope around for the coin.

The moment his bio-locked fingers crossed the threshold of the pouch, a sudden, innate "mapping" sense blossomed in his mind—a three-dimensional awareness that unfurled like a mental blueprint, clean and precise. He just knew exactly where the coin was, could feel its position relative to the folded space as clearly as if it were resting in his open palm.

He closed his fingers with deliberate intent, pulled his hand out in one smooth motion, and the silver tael was resting safely in his palm, solid and real once more.

Fascinating!

Now the displeasure was gone, replaced by awe, disbelief, and a wide smile of happiness that split across his face, crinkling the dried blood still crusted along his jawline. His eyes gleamed in the dim lantern light, bright with the kind of manic energy that came from discovery—from understanding a new weapon system for the first time.

Next, he ramped up the testing parameters.

He twisted at the waist, reaching across the desk with his free hand, and grabbed the long, silver-tasseled jian he had looted from the Senior Disciple. It was three feet long and fully sheathed in a heavy lacquered scabbard that caught the amber glow of the lantern as he lifted it. The weight settled comfortably in his grip—balanced, lethal.

Instead of dropping it in, he gripped the hilt firmly, his thumb pressing down against the pouch's blackened rim to trigger the bio-lock, and shoved the entire three-foot sword into the bag. It vanished cleanly, the long physical profile of the weapon completely nullified by the spatial fold, swallowed whole as though it had never existed.

More importantly, the pouch didn't gain a single ounce of weight. It still felt like a hollow piece of silk, light as air, draped across his bloodied knuckles.

Amazing, amazing, beautiful!

He even clapped once, twice—sharp, deliberate strikes of palm against palm that echoed faintly in the stale, sulfur-tinged air—then stood up from the bed, the frame groaning in relief as his weight lifted. The warped floorboards creaked beneath his boots as he adjusted his stance. He tied the black pouch securely to his thick leather belt with practiced efficiency, fingers working the knot tight, letting it rest discreetly just over his right hip where his hand could snap to it in an instant.

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He fell into a relaxed, balanced combat stance—feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, weight distributed evenly across the balls of his feet. His breathing slowed, measured and controlled despite the lingering burn in his forearms.

Next. Let's check the draw speed under pressure!

With blazing excitement in his gaze, and without looking down, his right hand snapped to his hip in a blur of motion, his thumb brushing the pouch's rim with just enough pressure to register the bio-lock.

Sword, come!

His hand plunged an inch into the void, the absence of sensation enveloping his fingers as his mental intent automatically locked onto the jian's hilt—there, right there—and he ripped his arm outward in a single explosive motion.

Schrriiiing!

The three-foot silver sword was drawn directly from the spatial void into the physical realm in a single, fluid arc, the blade whistling sharply as it cut through the humid air of the inn room, displacing moisture and leaving a faint shimmer in its wake.

"WOW!"

Shi Yan nodded slowly, highly satisfied, his grin widening as he rotated his wrist, testing the balance, feeling the familiar weight settle back into reality. The blade gleamed dully in the lantern light, its edge still pristine despite the blood it had drunk hours earlier.

In a high-lethality CQC environment where fractions of a second meant life or death, not having to manually unsheathe a weapon from his back or hip was a massive tactical advantage—an edge that could mean the difference between a clean kill and a sucking chest wound.

He could literally materialize a heavy weapon mid-swing, bypassing the telegraphed motion of a draw entirely.

Just thinking of it... Damn, that's amazing. Imagine if I can summon and switch weapons every time...

His mind raced ahead, already calculating loadouts, weapon rotations, feints—sword to dagger, dagger to chain, chain to concealed blade. The possibilities unfurled like a tactical manual written in real-time.

He sheathed the sword with a smooth reverse motion and shoved it back into the void, the blackness swallowing it whole once more.

Over the next twenty minutes, he methodically transferred his entire logistics base, moving with the focused efficiency of a man packing a ruck before deployment.

Handfuls of spirit stones, their faint luminescence dimming as they vanished into the fold, neatly stacked in his mind's spatial map. Stacks of silver taels, clinking softly as they left his fingers and fell silent in the void. The spare jade slips, cool and smooth. Extra civilian clothing, bundled tight.

His field-medical kit—bandages, needle, thread, and the small vial of antiseptic salve he'd scavenged—and finally, the jade vial of Grave-Rot toxin, its contents sloshing faintly as he tucked it carefully into a corner of the folded space.

Finally, with both hands, he hoisted the massive, frost-silk-wrapped Tier-1 Peak Demonic Beast Arm from the floor where it had been resting against the foot of the bed. The weight was considerable, the muscle and sinew within still retaining a disturbing density even in death. He muscled the horrific, heavy piece of biology into the tiny opening, grunting softly with the effort. The spatial void swallowed it whole, digesting the forty-pound payload without changing the outward drape of the silk by even a fraction.

Perfect! Perfect!

Shi Yan straightened, rolling his shoulders to ease the tension that had knotted there, and looked back at the desk. The lantern flame flickered, casting uneven shadows across the scarred wood.

There were still seven perfectly functional spatial pouches sitting there—five silver Cloud-Mirror ones, their embroidery gleaming faintly, and the two Vermilion Pavilion bags, their dark red fabric embroidered with the Chamber's ashen crest, heavier than they should be with latent enchantment humming just beneath the surface.

Now... what should I do with these?

For a brief, fleeting second, he considered repeating the hijacking process. Expanding his inventory capacity to multiple crates of space sounded appealing—redundancy was a core principle in any supply chain, after all.

But his logical restraint immediately slammed the brakes on that line of thought, cold and uncompromising.

No. Absolutely not. 5, 000 Embers per hack. If I convert all seven, I'll burn 35, 000 Dao Embers. I'll drain my entire account dry just to carry empty space.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, the breath misting faintly in the cold air as the temperature in the room continued its slow, inexorable drop. The relentless hammering of rain against the roof tiles above filled the silence.

Not to mention, one spatial pouch for him was still more than enough to accommodate all this—the void already held everything he needed to survive the next week, maybe two if he rationed carefully.

Instead, what he needed now were raw attributes to survive the Shattered Realm, not an excessive luggage train.

So, what should he do with the remaining seven pouches?

Hmm… I could sell them.

He crossed his arms over his chest, fingers drumming thoughtfully against his bicep as his gaze swept across the pouches lined up on the desk like silent witnesses.

Spatial pouches are incredibly valuable, even to Tier-2 cultivators. Selling seven blank, high-grade pouches on the black market or back to the Vermilion Pavilion would yield a massive haul of spirit stones—enough to fund his next several attribute purchases, maybe even secure better lodging or information.

But the tactical paranoia deeply ingrained in his psyche rejected the idea instantly, like a hand recoiling from a hot surface.

Selling them meant exposing the asset.

The Cloud-Mirror Sect was currently locking down their mountain, tearing the world apart trying to find out who slaughtered their Inner Elder—interrogating witnesses, burning talismans to scry for traces, likely torturing anyone unlucky enough to have been near Black-Ash Marsh that day.

If just one distinct, Cloud-Mirror-crafted spatial pouch suddenly flooded the Outer Wards' black market, it would create an immediate, glowing forensic trail pointing directly back to Shi Yan—a breadcrumb trail written in silver thread and karmic residue, leading straight to this very room.

So, I can't sell them. And leaving them hidden under a floorboard in a rented inn is a rookie mistake.

His jaw tightened, the dried blood along his cheek cracking faintly as the muscles shifted. Leaving high-value assets in unsecured locations was how soldiers got ambushed. How safe houses got burned. How operators ended up dead in ditches.

But he could sell them to the Pavilion, right? Letting the Silk & Ash Chamber handle it?

Shi Yan uncrossed his arms, pacing two steps toward the desk, then stopping as his boot scuffed against the warped floorboards. His gaze drifted to the flickering oil lantern on the desk, the flame dancing erratically as a draft slipped through the thin wooden walls.

Su Yin was the Deaconess of the Vermilion Pavilion.

She had the funds, the authority, and the connections to liquidate the pouches behind closed doors. She had already proven she could wipe traces from artifacts—cleanly, efficiently, without leaving karmic signatures that could be tracked. It seemed like the perfect, clean solution.

But... there was a problem.

No. I don't think she would buy them.

He exhaled slowly, the realization settling over him like a weight. His eyes narrowed as he pieced together the fragments of information he'd gathered during their brief exchanges.

From the bits of hidden struggle he had pieced together during their exchanges, Shi Yan understood that the Silk & Ash Chamber was far from united—it was a nest of vipers wearing the same robes, smiling the same smiles, while knives hovered behind backs.

Though it appeared as a single power to outsiders, within, it was divided into several contending branches, each one watching the others like wolves circling over flesh, waiting for weakness, for missteps, for any excuse to sink teeth into a rival's throat.

Who could say whether Su Yin had truly been sent to the Outer Wards out of trust and favor?

It was just as likely—perhaps more likely—that she had been pushed into this foul, rain-rotted district by her rivals, cast here under the guise of appointment while being quietly removed from the center of power, exiled to the margins where her influence would wither and die.

If Shi Yan sold those storage pouches to her, a deal of that size could not simply be concealed, not to mention these were considered medium Ash-grade artifacts—valuable enough to warrant scrutiny, to raise eyebrows, to invite questions.

Let's just say if someone from another branch of the Chamber happened to inspect the accounts, they would quickly notice that Su Yin had suddenly come into possession of a large number of spatial pouches stripped clean of their original marks—pouches that by all appearances had been freshly "liberated" from their previous owners.

Who knows? They might perhaps tie it all to her, and all of it on the very same day that a Cloud-Mirror Inner Elder and several of his disciples had died in Black-Ash Marsh.

After that, the rest would not be difficult to infer.

His lips pressed into a thin line, his expression hardening as the logic chain completed itself with cold, brutal clarity.

If they followed the trail, sooner or later they would reach Su Yin.

And from Su Yin, they would eventually reach him.

They'd just used a borrowing knife to eliminate her, perhaps... tsk.