The Blackcloud Mountains loomed like the spine of some ancient, slumbering beast. Jagged peaks clawed at the low-hanging clouds, and the air grew thinner, heavier with the scent of lightning-struck stone and hidden gu nests. Lin Xuan moved through the lower foothills with the patience of a predator that has already tasted blood.
He had not returned to Azure City—not yet. The map taken from Wei Zhong marked three promising locations within a day's travel: a rank-two Thunder Vine lair, a cluster of rank-one elemental gu spawning grounds, and—most intriguing—a rumored abandoned cave dwelling once used by a rogue gu master five hundred years ago. The coordinates aligned suspiciously well with fragmented memories from his previous life.
Coincidence? He did not believe in coincidences.
He chose the cave first.
The entrance was half-collapsed, overgrown with black moss that glowed faintly under moonlight. Lin Xuan paused at the threshold, extending his spiritual sense. No active formations. No living guardians. Only the stale echo of long-dead qi and the faint hum of dormant gu.
He stepped inside.
The tunnel sloped downward, widening into a modest chamber. Dust motes danced in the thin beam of moonlight that pierced a crack in the ceiling. At the center lay a cracked stone platform. Upon it rested a small, unadorned wooden box, its surface etched with faded time-path runes.
Lin Xuan approached without haste.
He circled the platform once, twice. No traps triggered. No hidden arrays activated. Either the previous owner had died before setting proper defenses… or this was bait.
He opened the box.
Inside lay a single, palm-sized gu egg. Its shell was translucent gold, veined with faint silver threads that pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat slowed by centuries. Even sealed, it leaked a trace of aura that made the Time Cicada on his shoulder tremble in resonance.
Golden Cicada Gu egg—infant stage.
Not the legendary one guarded in the Lin Clan vault. A lesser variant, perhaps a failed refinement attempt or a wild mutation. Still… infinitely valuable.
Lin Xuan's expression remained unchanged, but inside, something ancient stirred.
"In my third life," he murmured to the empty chamber, "I spent thirty years hunting a mature Golden Cicada just to feed my Spring Autumn Cicada. I slaughtered three sects for its core ingredients. And here one waits, unclaimed, like a gift from a mocking heaven."
He lifted the egg carefully. It was warm. Alive.
He placed it against his aperture opening and began the slow, delicate process of blood-refining. Drop by drop, he fed it his own essence—tainted by five hundred years of schemes, betrayals, and unyielding will.
The egg quivered. Accepted.
[Golden Cicada Gu (infant) recognized owner. Current rank potential: unknown. Requires nurturing with time-path resources and sacrificial essence to mature.]
Lin Xuan exhaled once, the sound almost a sigh.
"Another piece," he said softly. "Another step toward breaking the wheel entirely."
He stored the egg safely within his aperture, wrapped in layers of Black Skin Gu essence to shield it from external probing.
As he turned to leave, the cave trembled.
Not an earthquake.
A voice—dry, cracked, ancient—echoed from the shadows behind the platform.
"Thief… you take what is mine…"
Lin Xuan froze.
From the far wall, a skeletal figure detached itself. Once human, now mostly desiccated gu puppet. Tattered robes hung from bone and sinew. In its eye sockets burned twin pinpricks of pale green flame—Soul Fire Gu, rank three remnant.
The rogue gu master had not died. He had become something worse.
"You dare touch my final legacy?" the skeleton rasped. "I waited five centuries for a suitable vessel. You… are barely qualified to be fodder."
Lin Xuan regarded the undead calmly.
"Five centuries," he echoed. "Impressive. Yet here you stand, reduced to haunting your own grave. Tell me, senior—did immortality taste as bitter as regret?"
The skeleton laughed—a sound like breaking twigs.
"I will tear your soul out and wear your flesh. Then I will finish what I began."
It raised a bony hand. Rank-three Soul Shackle Gu activated; invisible chains of ghostly qi lashed toward Lin Xuan's sea of consciousness.
He did not dodge.
Instead, he activated Time Cicada.
Three breaths rewound.
The chains halted mid-air, retracted as if never cast.
The skeleton faltered, confused.
Lin Xuan was already moving.
He closed the distance in four steps. His palm—now reinforced with every defensive gu he possessed—slammed into the skeleton's chest.
Black Skin cracked bone.
Venom Thorn pierced the Soul Fire Gu in the left socket; green poison flooded the remnant soul.
The skeleton shrieked.
Lin Xuan did not relent.
He seized the creature's remaining arm, twisted, tore it free. Then drove the jagged bone shard through its ribcage, pinning it to the wall.
The green flames flickered wildly.
"Mercy…" the voice wheezed. "I can teach you… forbidden arts… time-path secrets…"
Lin Xuan leaned close.
"I have already forgotten more forbidden arts than you ever learned."
He pressed his forehead to the skeleton's.
Golden Cicada Gu—still infant—stirred in his aperture.
A thin golden thread emerged from his brow, delicate as spider silk, and sank into the remnant soul.
The skeleton convulsed.
"No—!"
The golden thread drank. Greedily. Voraciously.
Soul essence, memories, residual cultivation base—all funneled into the infant gu.
The flames extinguished.
The body crumbled to ash and brittle bone.
Lin Xuan stepped back, breathing evenly.
The Golden Cicada egg in his aperture pulsed once—brighter now, veins thicker, aura subtly stronger.
He looked at the pile of dust.
"You waited five centuries," he said quietly. "I waited five hundred years. And I am still only beginning."
He turned and walked out of the cave.
Outside, the first rain of the season began to fall—cold, relentless.
Lin Xuan raised his face to it.
"Let them come," he whispered to the storm. "Let every clan, every sect, every heavenly tribulation hunt me."
A faint, ruthless smile finally touched his lips.
"I will turn their pursuit into my foundation."
Thunder rolled across the Blackcloud Mountains.
Somewhere in Azure City, an elder frowned at a broken life tablet.
But Lin Xuan was already gone—swallowed by mist and ambition.
To be continued...