Duan Mei stood with her junior, Mo, his face a mask of shame and pain. "I... I'm sorry. I couldn't be of any help."
She sighed, the sound heavy with exhaustion and regret. "It's my fault. I should have offered the deal the moment I realized my attacks did nothing to him. I am more to blame here than you, Mo."
Mo looked past her at Lin Shu's distant, armored figure, biting his lip hard. Duan Mei placed a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Mo. Our friends' deaths will not be in vain. I promise we will avenge them and repay him for what he did. But for now... we can only accept our defeat."
Mo gave a slow, miserable nod. Duan Mei placed her token on the ground, then grabbed Mo's good arm. Together, they ran, vanishing into the dense foliage as fast as their injuries would allow.
Lin Shu watched their retreating backs for a moment, then moved swiftly to the discarded token. He absorbed its points. "Well, she didn't lie." He immediately went to the other fallen disciples, collecting their tokens—420, 310, and 240 points. "That brings me to 8,360 points. Now I'm sure I'm in a good position."
He retraced his steps to where Aoyan was hidden. "Aoyan," he called out softly.
The air shimmered, and she stepped out of the concealing illusion, her face pale. "Tell your fox to find Kai's scent. Let's see how he's doing."
Before they could move, Kai's voice rang through the trees. "Li! I'm back!" He jogged towards them, sporting a few superficial wounds that were already closing. He looked mostly intact, if a little worse for wear.
"So, how did it go?" Lin Shu asked.
Kai scratched his head, looking sheepish. "They got away."
Lin Shu raised an eyebrow. "How?"
"Well, I couldn't really pin them down. One of them kept pelting me with throwing knives. Every time I tried to close in, he'd blast me back with some palm technique, or his friend would intercept me with a sword. They just... stalled me. I then messed up and let one of them cut my leg, and they used that opening to run, unfortunately I couldn't catch up to them with my wound. I'm really sorry."
Lin Shu simply shrugged. "Whatever. Let's just keep moving."
Kai was visibly relieved that Lin Shu wasn't angry. The trio regrouped and melted back into the forest shadows.
---
Back in the Arena Pavilion:
Yanqi wore a wide, triumphant grin, his eyes glued to the Vision Cube. "That's the crucible technique! But how is he using it this way? Last I saw, he only used it for that ranged attack. Now he's weaponizing the waste energy directly... and he's cultivating mid-fight! He's using the crucible as fuel to create peak-tier techniques in real time. What kind of supporting technique does he have? It must require a profound understanding of his own path. I'll have to test that later."
He then glanced at Lanyue, whose face was a thundercloud. He flashed her an even wider smirk.
"If you don't wipe that smirk off your face, I'll wipe it for you," she hissed.
Yanqi ignored her, basking in the moment.
Kuang Baotu's booming laugh filled the pavilion. "Hahaha! Not bad! Not bad at all! I didn't expect such a one-sided domination!"
His laughter highlighted the stark silence from Elder Liwei. The Stormbreak elder wore a deep frown, his jaw clenched. The slaughter and humiliation of his disciples was not a spectacle he enjoyed. "Damnit. I took a significant risk securing spots for my students here. The other elders who were sent will ridicule me for this. My team was slaughtered by a single fighter. I can only hope our other teams perform better. If we fail to establish our sect's superiority here... the Patriarch will not be merciful."
General Tianhun stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I see now why your disciple didn't lose to Xie Lang. That combination of strength and defense is remarkable. But I do wonder, how is a high-stage cultivator wielding such powerful techniques so frequently?"
Yanqi's smile turned diplomatic. "I'll have to disappoint you, General. Even I do not know the full extent of his methods."
Tianhun looked mildly disappointed but nodded. "Well, I shall have to ask him myself later. I am deeply interested in how he bridges such a gap in cultivation."
Yanqi nodded agreeably, but inwardly he thought, "Good luck with that, old man. That greedy brat won't tell you anything unless you're paying him a fortune."
Lu Zhenhai spoke up, his tone analytical. "His armor is truly remarkable. It withstood multiple peak-tier techniques with only superficial damage. His physical strength is also extraordinary, I must say."
Yanqi accepted the praises with a gracious nod, enjoying the moment while the atmosphere around Elder Liwei remained frosty and Lanyue fumed in silence.
---
Earlier, in a Private Arena Lounge:
A woman sat alone, sipping from a cup of fragrant tea as she watched the fights on a private scrying mirror. She wore a gentle, perpetual smile.
That smile vanished the moment Lin Shu's fight with the Stormbreak disciples played out. Her eyes snapped open, sharp and focused. "Is that the Crucible?!"
She watched intently as white flames erupted with his blows, as heat radiated from his body in visible waves. Her analytical gaze missed nothing. The smile slowly returned, but now it was one of keen interest. "Did Yanqi give it to him? His application is... quite novel. I should have a chat with that boy when the opportunity arises." She took another sip of tea, her eyes never leaving the image of Lin Shu disappearing into the forest.
---
The Abyssal Forest swallowed daylight whole. Lin Shu had pushed through the deepening gloom, tracking faint disturbances, the scent of foreign qi, anything. The hunt was a mechanical process, a series of calculations that rewarded the most scheming of all. As true night fell, a new variable asserted itself: Aoyan's exhaustion. Her steps had grown sluggish. Kai hadn't complained, but the weariness rolled off him in waves.
Lin Shu halted, the decision a tactical concession. "We'll stop here for now. I'll give you two some hours to sleep and rest for now while I watch over."
They cleared a patch of spongy moss. Kai was asleep almost before he lay down, his breathing deep and untroubled. Lin Shu watched him, a flicker of cold analysis cutting through his vigilance. "Strange how this guy is able to trust someone else and sleep like this around them. I have always set multiple forms of traps that can alarm me of anyone coming into my room or place, and I don't ever sleep in an open space like this. So it's truly peculiar how laid-back Kai is."
Aoyan had succumbed just as quickly, curling into a small, vulnerable shape beside him. "I wonder how much the other elders of their clan and wives of the chi clanpatriarch are willing to pay for someone to kill her. I know no one tried, or no one lived after trying, since Yanqi is her master. But Yanqi did say that her siblings will most likely recruit some participants to hunt her for them. So I should not let anyone live, since they might give off our location to anyone looking for us."
The silence of the deep forest was a palpable thing. Hours bled together. Lin Shu's senses remained a deployed net, his eyes periodically shifting to molten gold as he swept the vicinity with the Owl's Gaze. It was a costly technique, each use a measurable drain from his core qi reserves. "I should wake these two up soon and continue moving." He triggered the Gaze once more, the world sharpening into stark outlines. His qi pool dipped again. A high-stage cultivator's reserves were not bottomless.
A shift. Not in the qi spectrum, but in the physical world—a faint rustle in a dense thicket twenty paces east. Lin Shu was upright before the sound finished, his left arm extending. A sharp crack split the air as an Ivory Spike shot from his palm, piercing the darkness and the bush. A wet, choked sound followed, and the coppery scent of blood bloomed.
"Is that a beast or a cultivator?"
He didn't wait to find out. His foot connected with Kai's ribs, not gently. "Up!" he barked, simultaneously reaching to shake Aoyan. She stirred, confusion in her eyes as she began to stand. "Wha—?"
Then the sky rained death.
Small, black spheres, silent and devoid of qi signature, fell from the canopy above. One landed with a soft plop in Aoyan's lap. Her eyes went wide. "What?...."
Lin Shu's world compressed to a single, explosive equation. He lunged. His foot caught Kai in the shoulder, shoving the groggy youth sideways. In the same motion, he threw himself over Aoyan, snatching the sphere from her lap and hurling it away. He wrapped himself around her, and his ivory dominion responded. Plates of ivory and steel erupted from his skin, not just covering him, but flowing outward, fueled by his qi to curve into a domed shield over them both.
The world dissolved in sound and fury.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM-BOOM.
Concussive blasts tore the night apart, shredding moss, splintering ancient trees, and churning the earth. The force hammered into his qi-constructed shield. He felt the intricate construct crack, webs of stress fracturing the ivory. He held, his core straining to maintain the form. When the deafening roar subsided and the dirt rained down, he dissolved the battered shield. His personal armor was unscathed, but the defensive effort had cost him a significant portion of his qi. Aoyan trembled against him, unharmed.
"I can't see them. That means they have a concealment technique that is stopping my Gaze. Though they aren't here, since all the trees are now destroyed around me. That means they're hiding somewhere else now."
Kai pushed himself up, spitting dirt. "What the hell happened?" He stumbled to his feet.
Lin Shu's enhanced hearing caught the almost imperceptible shink of a blade leaving a sheath. His head snapped up. "GET DOWN!"
Kai obeyed on instinct, dropping into a crouch. A blade of condensed shadow passed through the space where his neck had been. Lin Shu, still keeping Aoyan behind him, extended his right arm. Lightning, lanced from his fingertips. "Surge!"
The blue-white beam connected with a shimmering outline in the darkness, throwing a lean figure back. It crashed into a shattered stump with a sickening crunch.
Another sphere materialized, not falling, but hovering an arm's length from Lin Shu's face. He kicked the ground, pushing Aoyan back and twisting so his refined body and armor took the blast. The explosion on his backplate staggered him. A second shadow-blade was already there, thrusting not at him, but at the Aoyan he'd just shielded.
His hands were occupied. He had no time.
His helmet dissolved around his jaw, and from his mouth, a horrific maw of layered ivory teeth and steel clamps shot forward—a product of pure body refinement—and bit down on the shadowy blade. It held, screeching. A third attacker manifested on his blind side, a hand wreathed in darkness forming into a sharp, slicing edge aimed at Aoyan's side.
He dropped Aoyan to free his movement and surged forward, into the two attackers. His raw, refined strength, the product of his refined body, overpowered them. He got a hand on each. Then, he tapped the special reserve, the unique power sealed within his marrow.
White flame, cold and furious, erupted from every joint, every seam of his armor. It raced down his arms and into the two attackers. This was not qi. This was Infernal Force.
"Ivory Detonation."
The night turned to day for a blinding instant. The sound was a deep, consuming WHUMP. When the light faded, Lin Shu stood amidst swirling ash and two grotesquely mangled corpses. He didn't look. He was already moving back to Aoyan, who was on her feet, hands wreathed in her own protective red flames.
A shadow detached from a far tree, leaping high to flee. Lin Shu's left arm rose. His last remaining half of the lightning stored within him. It clipped the leaper's leg, spinning him mid-air before he vanished. "I'll have to cultivate and restore my infernal force again. The Detonation used over a quarter it."
He reached Aoyan. Her eyes searched his armored face. "Are you okay, Li?"
Aoyan voice went out "Whoa!" As lin shu didn't answer. Instead, he scooped her up, cradling her against his chest. The maneuver was swift. A blush heated her cheeks. "I... I am not injured. You don't have to carry me."
"Keep quiet," he said, his voice a gravelly rasp through the helmet. His gaze swept the obliterated clearing. "Kai! Burn the surrounding trees!" He recalled a small, defensible rocky outcrop ahead, but the path was through dense, shadow-cloaked woodland. "I don't want to risk Aoyan dying. I am sure there are more attackers in the trees hiding."
As if to confirm, another black sphere arced out of the darkness. He pivoted, taking the brunt of the blast on his shoulder as he ran.
Kai, now fully awake and grim-faced, obeyed. He flung his hands out, and torrents of black, acrid gas mixed with searing orange flame vomited forth, swallowing trees whole.
From within the cradle of his arms, Aoyan's voice was small. "Wait, Li. Where's my fox?"
Lin Shu's gaze flicked to a pulped mess of white fur and crimson near the initial blast site. "Probably dead. And you'll also be if you don't keep quiet and focus on staying alive."
Aoyan fell silent, but her small hands tightened around the plates of his neck armor. "It's just a beast. You can tell Elder Yanqi to give you another later. So forget about—"
---
High in the untouched canopy fifty yards away, six figures perched on thick branches, observing the inferno below.
"The hell is this?" a burly youth whispered, his voice tight. "The information on him did not even tell us about those white flame explosions. What are those chi-bastards trying to pull on us here?did we track them all the way here just for nothing?"
A young woman beside him nodded, her eyes tracking Lin Shu's armored form. "And how is he a high-stage cultivator? His physical strength is no less than a peak-stage and his defense is tougher then any peak tier rank 1 technique I've ever saw. Hell, with his armor he can contend for being a quasi-rank 2 level cultivator. How was that not mentioned?"
All heads turned toward a slender youth perched calmly at the center. He adjusted his glasses, which gleamed with the reflected firelight below. "What do we do, Yin?"
Yin watched as Kai's flames chewed through the forest, revealing new shapes moving in the darkness. Not his people. "We've used multiple Blister Bombs on him, and they did nothing to his armor. We also cannot get a clear chance to attack our target; he's protecting her, killing anyone who comes near them. To add to that, he has ranged attacks, and he is able to perceive our movements, which I assume is something to do with those golden eyes. His reflexes are also on par with ours."
"So what do we do?" the young woman pressed.
Yin didn't answer immediately. Below, the newly revealed shadows—a separate group drawn by the noise—charged. Two engaged Kai in a whirlwind of clashing blades and explosive gas. Four more converged on Lin Shu, who held Aoyan with his arms and dodged their attacks.
A faint smile touched Yin's lips. "I guess the commotion we made has brought us some guests. I say we wait and see how they do with these ones. His qi and that special flame have to run out sooner or later. We can go after our target then." He settled back against the trunk, a spectator to the bloody theater below.
Lin Shu's golden eyes tracked the new figures spilling from the burning treeline. Their movements were crude, aggressive, lacking the predatory silence of the shadow-blade users. He sidestepped a wild axe swing, the blade gouging the earth where he'd stood a moment before. "These guys don't use the same technique as the other ones. They must be here because they heard the commotion."
A burly youth, muscles knotting beneath his furs, charged with a earth-shaking roar. He drove a fist into the ground, sending a shockwave of splintered stone toward Lin Shu. Still carrying Aoyan, Lin Shu pivoted on his heel, the shockwave passing harmlessly behind them. In the same motion, he lashed out with a kick that whistled through the air.
The burly youth caught Lin Shu's boot in a massive hand. He skidded back a foot, dirt piling at his heels, but his grip held. A grin split his grimy face. "Hey, I thought I'd have some problem fighting you since you're Yanqi's disciple. But I guess all those rumors were nothing to worry about I'll make sure to buru you though as thanks for what I am about to get aft..."
Before he could even finish, A cold fury settled in Lin Shu's gut. White flame began to seep from the seams of the armored leg the youth held. The youth's grin faltered as he felt the heat searing through his grip. Lin Shu pressed down, his refined strength unyielding. The Ivory Detonation that followed wasn't a vast conflagration, but a concentrated, surgical burst.
CRUNCH-WHUMP.
The sound was that of a stomped barrel. The youth's arm vanished in the white flash, and the force drove him into the cratered earth, his chest collapsing. Lin Shu stepped down, his armored foot settling on the ruined torso with finality. "Damned pest." A second, smaller detonation from his sole extinguished the last twitch of life, leaving only a charred and cracked ruin. "Like I'll take those words from you."
A ripple in the air—a whisper of focused intent. Lin Shu didn't look. He simply threw Aoyan upward. "Whoa!" she cried, her world spinning as she flew into the air.
A spear, its tip glowing with condensed wood-attuned qi, tore through the space where she had been and struck Lin Shu square between the shoulder blades. The impact jarred him forward a step, the spearhead screeching as it grated against his steel-coated ivory armor but failed to pierce. Using the forward momentum, Lin Shu spun, his leg a scythe of reinforced bone and metal. A second attacker, a wiry girl lunging for where Aoyan had been, met the blow with her face. The force didn't just knock her back; it ripped her jaw clean from its hinges with a sickening tear.
Aoyan reached the apex of her arc and began to fall. Lin Shu, mid-spin, reached out and caught the spear shaft still quivering in his back armor. He yanked it free as the spearman stared in disbelief. With Aoyan landing neatly over his other shoulder, Lin Shu's free hand shot out, clamping around the spearman's neck. A single, brutal twist and pull silenced him forever, dropping him like a sack of stones.
The last of the impromptu band, a lanky boy, saw his three companions dismantled in less than ten heartbeats. His courage shattered. He turned and fled, desperation in his stride.
"What idiot sent mid-stage cultivators to attack me?" Lin Shu muttered, his voice flat. His eyes flashed gold once more, Owl's Gaze pinpointing the fleeing figure's shimmering core. He raised a hand, index finger extended. A thin, incandescent line of pure white fire, hotter and sharper than the detonation flame, lanced from his fingertip. It crossed the distance in an instant—a Scorch Piercer. It struck the runner between the shoulder blades, punching through with a sizzling hole before erupting from his chest and then another hit to the head. He fell forward, dead before he hit the ground.
Lin Shu shifted Aoyan to a more secure hold, her arms instinctively wrapping around his neck as he moved to where Kai stood panting. Two scorched and smoking corpses lay at the young boy's feet, the air reeking of burnt hair and ozone.
---
High in the distant canopy, Yin watched through a narrow-eyed gaze. He slowly lowered his viewing lens.
"We won't be able to kill Chi Aoyan without separating her from him," he stated, his voice devoid of emotion. "And trying to separate them is as dangerous as trying to kill her directly. He treats her not as a person, but as a protected object. An extension of his own territory."
The young woman beside him bit her lip. "What do we do? If we don't hurry, some other groups might join in and take our target out first. We'll lose our deal. The higher-ups won't be glad we lost a chance to get close to a possible future heir of the Chi Clan. We'll be sidelined."
Yin took off his glasses, polishing them slowly on his sleeve. The action was deliberate, a contrast to the violence below. "Actually," he said, a cold plan crystallizing in his words, "that's exactly what I want us to do. We won't just wait for others to stumble upon them. We will spread the word. We will amplify the bounty on Aoyan's head by lies if needed and broadcast Li's location. We will lead every ambitious and powerful cultivator in this sector toward them."
His group exchanged uneasy glances.
Yin replacing his glasses. The lenses flashed, obscuring his eyes. "Even if the hunters have no interest in the Chi girl, they will see Li as a treasure trove of points. He is strong, which makes him a prize. And when they go after him, He will be occupied and will quickly lose strength against numerous foes. And in the chaos, when his focus is fragmented across a dozen threats..." He let the implication hang in the smoky air. "I will keep watch on them and make sure we don't lose, as for you all i want you to lead others here especially if by chance you happen to meet with anyone from the chi clan."
---
Lin Shu, with Aoyan secured against him, scanned the hellscape of fire and shattered wood. The conflagration started by Kai had done its job, clearing a brutal circle of visibility. Aoyan held on, her face pressed against the cold steel of his shoulder plate.
"Kai," Lin Shu said, his voice cutting through the crackle of flames. "Do me a favor. Get me the tokens of everyone I killed while I watch for movement."
Kai swallowed, pulling another qi-replenishing pill from a pouch and dry-swallowing it. He nodded, his youthful face smudged with soot and grim determination. "Alright. But I don't think we should stay here, Li. It's too exposed now."
Lin Shu gave a single, sharp nod of agreement. "Be quick."
Kai moved with nervous speed, darting between the carnage. He returned moments later, a small, bloody bundle of jade tokens in his hand. "Here. These are all of them."
Lin Shu took them, his own token already glowing in his other palm. He pressed them together, watching as the numbers on his surface shimmered and climbed, absorbing the harvested points. It was a quick transaction, the only useful thing left of the dead.