The second night of rest did not feel like rest.
The camp had settled into an uneasy rhythm...lanterns burning low, guards rotating in measured intervals, exhausted participants collapsed into sleep or quiet conversation. The stream beyond the tents moved steadily, its sound masking softer disturbances.
Jin Yue did not sleep.
He rarely did when the air felt wrong.
He sat cross-legged outside his assigned tent, back against a wooden support post, book open but unread. Around him, breathing patterns from within the shared tent rose and fell. Nine other cultivators. Trusting the camp's perimeter. Trusting the tournament's authority.
Trusting incorrectly.
Jin Yue closed the book.
There.
Not sound.
Absence.
The night insects had stopped.
The wind shifted, just slightly...not from natural current, but displacement.
He rose without haste.
A lesser cultivator might have looked around. Might have called for patrol. Might have drawn a blade.
