The red light vanished after a single flicker.
Fang Lin did not move toward it immediately. His ribs still carried a dull ache from the Red-Resin Root Hound's strike, and the medicinal warmth from Feng Jiu'er's pill had only begun to spread through his chest. The injury was not heavy, but inside the Rivercloud Demon Sealing Ruins, even a light wound could become a crack if one treated it carelessly.
Feng Jiu'er stood a few steps away, her sword lowered but not sheathed. A few small flames still burned near the roots around them, keeping the nearest darkness from closing in too quickly. Her face remained calm, yet her breathing was deeper than before. The fight had not exhausted her, but controlling fire in a dead valley filled with miasma and dry roots was not the same as fighting in an open arena.
The two of them waited until the scattered hounds were truly gone.
Only then did Fang Lin step toward the place where the red light had appeared.
The ground beneath his feet was cold and uneven. Black roots curled between stone cracks, some burned brittle by Feng Jiu'er's flames, some still damp with old miasma. The mist had thinned slightly after the fire, but the valley did not become clear. It only became watchful in another way.
Feng Jiu'er followed at his side, leaving enough distance for both of them to draw their swords freely.
Neither walked too fast.
A place that had just tried to kill them did not deserve trust.
They passed between two black stone trees, and the red light appeared again.
This time, it did not vanish.
It glowed from inside a cracked stone face at the far side of the valley. At first glance, it looked like a natural wall. After a few more steps, Fang Lin saw the curve of an old arch buried beneath roots and stone. The surface was covered in ancient patterns, most of them broken, some swallowed by the black roots. No robe fragments, no storage pouches, no sect tokens, no modern blade marks lay around it. The ruin carried age, but not the signs of cultivators who had come and gone in earlier openings.
The Rivercloud Demon Sealing Ruins had opened for the first time.
Whatever this arch belonged to, it came from the ruin's own sealed past.
Feng Jiu'er stopped before the arch. The red light pulsed once from the center of the stone face, then faded to a thin line.
She studied the cracked patterns. "There are formation traces here."
Fang Lin looked at the red light buried in the stone. "A transfer formation?"
"Maybe." Her eyes moved across the broken arch. "But not the one that brought us here."
Fang Lin did not answer.
He pressed two fingers lightly against the stone.
Cold.
Too cold.
Not the clean cold of frost, nor the heavy cold of earth. This was the cold left behind by old space, as if something had once opened here, torn through distance, and then closed for a very long time.
The first Shadow Dewdrop in his dantian remained quiet.
He did not touch it.
There was no need to force a newly formed seed for something his eyes and fingers could judge.
Feng Jiu'er lifted her hand, and a small flame appeared above her palm. The red light in the arch dimmed slightly under the fire's glow. The shadows around the old patterns retreated, revealing several deep cuts across the stone.
Not sword cuts.
Formation scars.
Fang Lin's gaze paused on them. "This path is damaged."
Feng Jiu'er nodded. "And one-way."
She said it calmly, but the meaning weighed down the air between them.
One-way.
The transfer formation beneath Broken Banner City had thrown them here, but this place did not offer the same road back. Even if the arch had once connected to another node, the pattern was broken. Trying to force it might not return them to the city. It might tear them apart, send them deeper into the ruins, or feed them to whatever old mechanism still breathed beneath the valley.
Fang Lin withdrew his hand.
Behind them, the mist shifted again, but no hound emerged.
Feng Jiu'er glanced back. "We cannot stay here."
"Agreed."
Feng Jiu'er's gaze returned to the arch. "If this is part of an old transfer formation, another route may be nearby."
Fang Lin looked at the broken lines. "Or it may be bait meant to make people search for one."
Her expression did not change. "Then we treat it as both."
Fang Lin glanced at her.
That answer suited her. She did not ignore danger, and she did not retreat from it either.
They circled the broken arch instead of stepping through it. The red light remained in the center of the stone face, pulsing faintly whenever they came too close, then dimming when they retreated. It was not inviting them. It was reacting to them.
Fang Lin crouched near the base of the arch and brushed aside a layer of ash with the edge of a broken root.
Beneath the ash were shallow grooves.
Fresh ones.
Not ancient.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
Feng Jiu'er saw his movement and stepped closer. "Beast tracks?"
"Not only beasts."
There were claw marks from the Stone-Bark Root Hounds, easy to recognize now. But near them, a faint boot mark pressed into the damp black soil. The edge was still sharp. Whoever left it had passed through recently.
Very recently.
Feng Jiu'er's fingers tightened around her sword hilt.
The spatial formation beneath Broken Banner City had not taken only the two of them.
That was expected. They had seen other cultivators vanish into transfer light. But knowing others had been scattered across the ruins and finding their trace in the same dead valley were two different things.
"One person?" she asked.
"More than one."
Fang Lin pointed toward another mark half-hidden beneath burned root ash. The step was deeper, wider, and dragged slightly at the heel. Someone injured, or someone carrying weight.
Feng Jiu'er looked into the mist ahead.
The red light from the broken arch pulsed again, and for a breath, faint lines appeared on the ground beyond it. Not a complete path. More like fragments left by something that had once guided movement through the valley.
A route.
Broken, but not useless.
Fang Lin stood.
"We follow the traces?" Feng Jiu'er asked.
"Not directly."
He turned his gaze toward the left side of the valley, where the black stone trees grew denser. "If others were thrown here, some will look for the obvious path. Some will hide near it. Some will wait for injured people to pass."
Feng Jiu'er's eyes cooled. "Robbers."
"Cultivators."
The word was quiet, but Feng Jiu'er understood the difference. Inside the Demon Sealing Ruins, the two often became the same thing.
They chose the left side.
The route was worse than the open path, but safer in its own way. The roots there were thicker, and the stone trees grew close enough that Feng Jiu'er could not spread her flames too far without filling the area with smoke. She kept only a small thread of fire near her fingertips, enough to reveal the ground ahead, not enough to call everything in the valley.
Fang Lin walked slightly ahead.
The ache in his ribs followed him with every step. He did not let it affect his pace too obviously, but Feng Jiu'er still noticed. Once, when the ground dipped without warning, she moved half a step closer, then stopped before offering help.
Fang Lin saw it from the corner of his eye.
He did not mention it.
The valley grew narrower.
The black stone trees gave way to broken pillars half-buried in the earth. Some were carved with strange beast shapes, but time had eaten away their faces. A few still carried traces of red lines, like dried blood sealed inside stone. The ruins here were ancient, but silent. No storage rings gleamed among the cracks. No sect banners hung from the pillars. No modern footprints crossed the deeper ash except the fresh ones they were following.
At one point, Feng Jiu'er stopped.
A black root hung from a pillar ahead, swaying slightly though there was no wind.
Fang Lin raised his hand.
Both of them stilled.
The root swayed again.
Then a drop of red resin fell from its tip and struck the ground.
The soil smoked.
Feng Jiu'er's flame rose soundlessly and burned the hanging root before it could move. The root curled, blackened, and withdrew into the pillar with a faint hiss.
Neither of them chased it.
A moment later, something larger moved inside the stone.
Not out in the open.
Inside.
Fang Lin and Feng Jiu'er retreated three steps at the same time.
The pillar cracked from within, but nothing came out. After several breaths, the movement stopped.
Feng Jiu'er's face was calm, but her gaze had grown sharper. "The valley itself is alive."
"Part of it."
"Enough of it."
Fang Lin agreed with that.
They moved around the pillar and continued deeper along the broken side route. The fresh footprints appeared again after a hundred steps, this time clearer. Four people, perhaps five. One had stumbled. One had stopped near the wall long enough to leave a handprint in the ash.
Feng Jiu'er crouched and looked at it.
Blood had mixed with the ash.
Still dark.
Still wet.
"They were injured after arriving," she said.
"Or injured before."
She glanced at him. "Do you think they are Green Bamboo Sect disciples?"
Fang Lin looked at the tracks for a while before answering. "The steps are wrong."
Feng Jiu'er did not ask him how he knew. Green Bamboo Sect disciples, especially those under her Alliance, had their own habits in movement. Light steps, controlled spacing, enough caution to avoid crowding each other. These tracks were rougher. One person walked with heavy heel pressure. Another kept shifting toward the rear, either guarding or watching for a chance to run.
Not Green Bamboo Alliance.
Feng Jiu'er stood. A trace of worry passed through her eyes and disappeared quickly.
The formation activated, the rest of the Alliance had been scattered.
Li Shan. Luo Chen. Murong Yue. Bai Qing. Han Zhi. Zhao Feng. Su Wanqing.
None of them were weak, but the Demon Sealing Ruins did not care whether someone had courage. It tested where people landed, what they met, and how much time they had before danger found them.
Fang Lin noticed her silence.
"They have numbers," he said.
Feng Jiu'er looked ahead. "Numbers can scatter."
"Su Wanqing has formation sense. Luo Chen will hold the front. Murong Yue will notice danger before most people speak. Zhao Feng…"
He paused.
Feng Jiu'er looked at him.
Fang Lin continued calmly, "Zhao Feng is loud enough that anyone nearby will know where not to stand."
For a breath, Feng Jiu'er's lips almost moved.
Almost.
The valley remained too dangerous for laughter, but the tightness in her eyes eased by a trace.
Then both of them heard it.
A sound from ahead.
Not a beast.
A voice.
Too faint to make out the words, but human enough to change the air.
Feng Jiu'er's fire vanished from her fingertips. Darkness closed in at once, but her aura did not weaken. It became sharper, compressed beneath her skin like flame sealed inside jade.
Fang Lin's pressure also drew inward.
The two of them moved without speaking.
Beyond the broken pillars, the valley split into two narrow passages. One passage sloped downward, where the air was colder and wetter. The other rose toward a gap between stone cliffs, where a dim red glow reflected faintly against the rocks.
The voices came from the upper path.
Fang Lin crouched near the edge of a broken pillar and looked at the ground. The boot marks went that way.
Fresh.
Several cultivators had passed not long ago.
One mark had slid across the ash in a sudden line, as if someone had been dragged.
Feng Jiu'er saw it too.
Her expression turned cold.
"Alive?" she asked.
Fang Lin listened.
A muffled sound came from above, followed by a low laugh.
Not the laugh of someone relieved to find allies.
Fang Lin's eyes lowered slightly.
"Someone is alive," he said.
He did not add the rest.
Feng Jiu'er understood.
The two of them moved toward the upper passage, keeping to the shadow of the stone wall. The red glow ahead grew stronger, but it was not the same steady light as the broken arch. This one flickered, broken by movement.
Firelight.
Someone had made camp.
Inside a dead valley.
Either they were confident, foolish, injured, or all three.
Fang Lin's hand rested lightly on Night Burial Sword. His ribs still ached. Feng Jiu'er's fire had dimmed, but the heat around her had not vanished. Neither of them was in perfect condition.
That mattered.
So did the voices.
As they approached the bend, Fang Lin saw the first sign clearly.
A torn strip of dark-blue cloth lay caught on a black root. Fresh blood marked one end.
Not Green Bamboo Sect.
Not enough to identify the sect.
Enough to know that someone ahead had already suffered.
Feng Jiu'er's gaze met his in the red gloom.
No words passed between them.
They continued forward.
At the turn of the passage, a man's voice drifted down, low and impatient.
"Search him again. If the formation threw him here, he must have something worth taking."
Fang Lin stopped.
Feng Jiu'er's eyes became cold.
The dead valley had not only shown them a path.
It had shown them people.
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