The cold mist lay thick over the grand pavilions of the Thousand Leaf Immortal Sect, wrapping the jagged mountain peaks in a sea of silent, swirling white. High within the Cloud-Gathering Tower, a structure built from ancient spirit-wood that stood as a symbol of the sect's historical reach, three figures sat around a dark wooden table. A communication jade slip rested in the center, glowing with a faint, pulsing green light that illuminated the quiet room.
For a long time, no one spoke. The silence was heavy, filled only with the faint sound of the wind brushing against the open lattices of the tower.
Gu Man was the first to break the silence, leaning back in his high-backed chair and rubbing his temples. His eyes were wide, staring blankly at the ceiling as if his mind were struggling to assemble an impossible puzzle. "You have got to be kidding me," he muttered, his voice echoing softly in the chamber. "The Silent Mountain Sword... the monstrous rogue Shen Mo who turned the ruins upside down... is actually Fang Lin? That quiet, unassuming kid from the Rising Phoenix Mountain of the Green Bamboo Sect? The one their reports claimed was just a lucky outer disciple who survived a collapsed tunnel?"
He looked at Ye Qinglan and Mo Qingchuan, then slowly shook his head before bursting into a loud, booming laugh that rattled the teacups on the table. "A Late Spirit Foundation junior! He went into that canyon, trapped under the Temple's gilded net, and faced seven Core Formation elites and Heng Wuchen. And he slaughtered them all! He broke the Mount Sumeru strike and left their legacy disciple dead in the mud! This is absolute madness! The top legacy disciple of the Demon Suppression Temple, slapped to death by a junior from your subsidiary sect!"
"Quiet, Gu Man," Ye Qinglan said, her voice carrying a sharp, freezing edge that cut his laughter short. Her slender fingers tapped a slow, rhythmic beat against the wooden table, her expression grave and focused. "This is not a matter for laughter. A Late Spirit Foundation cultivator who can cross realms to slaughter elite Core Formation experts and a legacy disciple is a once-in-a-millennium anomaly. His potential is terrifying. If he survives his injuries and consolidates his path, he will rewrite the entire power balance of this continent."
She looked at the intelligence report again, her brow furrowing. "The records from the Green Bamboo Sect list him as a mere ordinary disciple who only recently broke through to the Spirit Foundation stage. He managed to hide his true cultivation from his own sect for months. Gu Man, when you interacted with him in the plaza, did you detect any sign that he was hiding his true lineage?"
Gu Man stopped laughing, his face turning serious. "None at all. When he sat and talked with us in the plaza, he acted like a typical rogue cultivator who was only interested in treasures and survival. He was calm, almost shameless, and carried himself with a quiet confidence that made us think he was from some hidden dark faction. He never once mentioned the Green Bamboo Sect, nor did he use any of their signature techniques. The kid played everyone. He was hiding his true face and his true strength under our very noses. I even remember the elders whispering about the legend of the ancient legacy that was once hidden inside the ruins, a legacy that the major sects had searched for for ten thousand years. Do you think he found that exact legacy? That would explain his insane, logic-breaking power."
Ye Qinglan turned her gaze toward Mo Qingchuan, who had remained silent since the message arrived. He sat quietly, staring at the teacup in his hand, his eyes pensive.
"Mo Qingchuan, you traded with him in the plaza," Ye Qinglan said. "Did you sense anything?"
Mo Qingchuan slowly ran his fingers over the edge of his cup. The memory of their interaction in the Myriad Halls Plaza returned to him in vivid detail. He had handed over the jade slip containing the Moon-Eating Shadow Blade without demanding a Dao oath, believing he was simply trading with a highly talented but ordinary wandering cultivator who had found a rare manual.
"I gave him the Moon-Eating Shadow Blade," Mo Qingchuan spoke quietly, his voice filled with a mixture of disbelief and deep respect. "He was only showing the Late Spirit Foundation stage when he accepted it. To integrate a legacy blade technique of that grade, to master its flow and execute its Greater Mastery in a matter of weeks without his soul collapsing... it means his soul foundation is already at the Peak-Solid stage, if not higher. The technique's jade slip itself warned that it takes years of secluded meditation just to integrate the soul force with the physical swing without tearing one's meridians. But he did it while fighting in the ruins. And the reports from the Green Bamboo Sect say he even participated in their inner challenge under his true face—though their records claim he was just a weak, ordinary junior at the time, he must have been suppressing his Qi to avoid drawing attention. He was playing them all for fools. We were not dealing with a lucky junior. We were dealing with a monster who has mastered darkness, frost, and soul methods simultaneously."
"And now the Temple knows his face," Ye Qinglan said, her eyes flashing with a cold light. "They will move heaven and earth to get to him. If the Temple captures him, they will dissect his secrets, search his soul, and take whatever inheritance he obtained. We must locate him first. We must secure him before the Temple's hunters can trace his teleportation path."
-
Deep within the southern mountains, the grand hall of the Demon Suppression Temple was filled with a scorching, golden pressure. The air was so heavy that the massive stone pillars, carved with the images of ancient suppression deities, seemed to groan under the weight. Golden Qi flared continuously from the elevated platforms where the grand elders sat, their faces dark and menacing.
On the floor in the center of the hall lay the shattered pieces of Heng Wuchen's bronze staff, cold, broken, and devoid of its former light.
"Humiliation," one of the grand elders spoke, his voice like grinding stones, shaking the dust from the high rafters. "A legacy disciple, carrying the bloodline and the legacy staff of our Temple, accompanied by seven Core Formation elites. All of them slaughtered in a desolate canyon by a Late Spirit Foundation junior from a minor subsidiary sect of the eastern region. If this news spreads to the neighboring continents, our Temple's name will be stained for generations."
Another elder stood up, his face twisted in grief and rage. "Heng Wuchen was a rare genius born with a special bone structure. We have groomed him since he was three years old, consuming millions of spiritual stones worth of resources, pills, and legacy teachings. He was expected to become a future pillar of the Temple, a cultivator who would easily step into the Domain Forging Realm in less than thousand years. Now, all that investment is gone, shattered in the mud by a rogue junior!"
"We must mobilize the temple guards!" a hot-tempered elder roared, his golden Qi flaring violently, cracking the stone floor beneath his seat. "March into the eastern region, level the Green Bamboo Sect, and drag the boy out! We will crush anyone who stands in our way and show the continent the price of defying the Temple!"
"No," the chief elder said, raising a hand to silence the hall. His expression was cold, calculating, and devoid of the raw anger that consumed the others. "An open invasion will only confirm our shame to the world. If we declare a holy war over a junior who defeated our legacy disciple in a fair clash, the other major powers will mock us. They will say the Temple is so weak that it must deploy its entire army to handle a single wounded kid. We must handle this in absolute secrecy. And we are not even sure if he is still at the Green Bamboo sect."
The chief elder leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the elders. "Furthermore, think logically. How could a Late Spirit Foundation junior possess the power to shatter the Mount Sumeru Descending Strike and slaughter seven Core Formation elites? Even with a rare physique, such battle prowess violates the fundamental laws of cultivation. There must be a hidden master or a powerful ancient powerhouse backing him from behind. Perhaps an old monster is using him as a pawn or a disciple."
"Then what is your command, Great Elder?"
"Keep the bounty quiet," the chief elder ordered. "Do not issue a public decree that will alert the Thousand Leaf Sect to our movement. Instead, deploy a secret, covert squad of Spirit Manifestation Realm cultivators. They will bypass the Thousand Leaf Sect's borders and enter the eastern region in disguise. Their command is to locate Fang Lin first. They are not to kill him immediately. They must capture him alive, check if there is a hidden master behind him, and discover the source of his strength. Once we know who backs him, we will decide how to erase them."
-
In the grand council hall of the Thousand Leaf Immortal Sect, the atmosphere was equally tense, though filled with a different kind of calculation. The floating jade tables were arranged in a grand circle, and the high-level elders of the sect were locked in a fierce debate.
"The Demon Suppression Temple will not take this loss lying down," a senior elder warned, his voice grave. "They have lost their top legacy disciple and seven elites. They will surely deploy their secret forces to hunt Fang Lin, regardless of our warnings. If we shield him, we risk a direct conflict with the Temple. Our trade routes and mineral resources near the southern borders will be disrupted."
"Let them try," another elder countered, his aura flaring with pride. "A Late Spirit Foundation junior of our subsidiary sect has slain Heng Wuchen. The Temple has always looked down on our region, claiming our disciples are inferior. Now, one of our juniors has slapped their faces in front of the entire continent. If we hand him over, we will lose the respect of all our subsidiary alliances! A genius of this caliber is worth any price we must pay. He could lead our sect to dominate the next continental assembly!"
The Sect Master of the Thousand Leaf Sect sat on the central throne, his expression calm and unreadable. He listened to the arguments for several minutes before speaking, his voice quiet but instantly silencing the hall.
"The Temple will not risk an open war," the Sect Master said. "They care too much about their face. They will send their covert squads of Spirit Manifestation cultivators to locate him in secret. We must ensure we find him first."
"Should we deploy our Domain Forging experts to lead the search?" another elder suggested.
The Sect Master shook his head. "Domain Forging experts are the pillars of our sect, rare and few in number. They cannot be deployed casually to search counties. They must remain at our borders and within the sect, serving as a silent, high-level political deterrent to keep the Temple's highest powerhouses from crossing over. If a Domain Forging expert moves, the Temple will notice instantly, and it could trigger an uncontrollable escalation. We will keep them in reserve."
He stood up, his yellow robes flowing. "Instead, we will deploy our own search patrols. Mobilize our Core Formation elders and Spirit Manifestation cultivators. Let them sweep the eastern borders and search the regions. Locate Fang Lin and bring him safely to the sect. If they encounter the Temple's covert squads within our borders, they have the authority to execute them on the spot."
As the night fell over the continent, the dark storm clouds gathered once more, blotting out the stars and bringing a cold, lashing rain.
From the peaks of the Thousand Leaf Immortal Sect, several grand flying vessels rose into the sky, their golden leaf formations glowing softly against the dark clouds as they headed toward the borders. The search teams were moving, their Qi scanning the forests and valleys of the eastern region, searching every cave and county.
In the south, several dark streaks of light slipped past the border mountains, moving in silence. The secret squads of the Demon Suppression Temple had entered the eastern region, their faces hidden, their Qi suppressed to the absolute limit as they headed toward Lotus Lake County.
The political tension across the Demon Immortal Continent was stretched to its absolute limit, a silent war brewing beneath the surface between the two major powers.
And as the search fleets of both sects sailed into the dark, rain-swept night, the fate of the wounded youth recovering in the distant county remained completely unaddressed, leaving the world to wait for the storm that would decide his survival.
-
End of Volume 3