The air deepened into silence.
Not the quiet of stillness—but the kind that settles before a scream.
Chen Yun wiped blood from his palm and turned his gaze toward the passage ahead. Behind him, Jie Lun's breath was ragged, but his feet moved with silent resolve.
"There's more," Chen Yun said. "This was just a node."
"A node?" Jie Lun echoed.
Chen Yun nodded. "A convergence point in a larger web. The altar above wasn't the source—it was only a relay."
The tunnel ahead darkened unnaturally. The green lanterns that once lined the walls flickered out, as if unwilling to follow them deeper.
A cold, spiritual chill spread across the floor like creeping frost.
They descended.
The staircase spiraled like a vertebrae—winding into the very marrow of the mountain. With every step, the air grew heavier, not with malice—but with mourning. Spiritual pressure pressed down like a memory long buried.
At the bottom, a vast underground chamber revealed itself.
Wider than any temple hall. The walls were veined with withered spirit stone and wrapped in the roots of a long-dead tree. Dozens of iron-barred cells lined the perimeter.
Inside: men, women, children.
All breathing.
All hollow.
Eyes wide and spiritless. Souls shackled with faintly glowing blue chains—soul anchors.
Chen Yun's jaw tightened.
"They're not just using the dead," he said grimly. "They're harvesting the living."
Jie Lun rushed to a cell, knelt, and gripped the rusted bars. "Some of these people… that's the butcher's daughter. That's Liang from incense alley..."
Chen Yun's focus was already drawn to the altar at the chamber's center.
Larger. More intricate. Unlike the cracked relic above, this one beat with rhythm—like a heart pumping dark intent. Behind it stood three elders, their gazes hollow, as if borrowed from something else.
And atop a throne of fused jade and bone, wrapped in ink-black robes, sat the Sect Leader of the Stone Heart Sect—Gu Shun.
He rose slowly.
His expression was ancient—calm, even kind. But beneath that calm… rot.
"You've come far, wanderer," Gu Shun said. "But this is not your cause."
Chen Yun's gaze didn't flinch."You use the innocent as conduits. That makes it exactly my cause."
Gu Shun lifted his hand.
The three elders stepped forward—one wielded a curved saber cloaked in violet flame, another raised ice-encrusted palms, and the third bent the shadows into spectral threads.
Chen Yun cracked his neck.
Then vanished.
He struck like wind—appearing before the flame-wielder and slamming a Qi-imbued palm into his chest. The elder flew into a stone pillar, ribs caving.
The ice-user formed a crystalline dome, but Chen Yun spun midair and crashed through it with a devastating elbow, shattering her defenses like brittle glass.
Spectral threads shot forth, coiling toward his limbs.
But Chen Yun bent—body rippling like silk—and spun, whipping a pulse of Qi that snapped the bindings in the air.
In moments, all three elders fell.
Jie Lun stared, wordless.
Gu Shun clapped once."Impressive. Very few can dismantle three sect elders in five breaths."
He stepped down from the altar, each footfall accompanied by a rise in pressure—not just Qi. Something older. Something… wrong.
A presence that reeked of borrowed spirits.
Chen Yun's brow lowered."You're a peak master… but only through pills and tributes."
Gu Shun smiled thinly."Many tributes, yes. Do you know how loud the heavens sing when a soul breaks clean?"
Chen Yun didn't answer.
His stance shifted.
The Duel Begins
Gu Shun wrapped his form in spiritual Qi, embedding it into a long obsidian spear. His body flickered like shadow and floodwater—merging into layered techniques. A strike within a seal, a seal hidden in illusion, an illusion warped in void.
Spacial flux distorted the air.
Chen Yun blocked with spiral palms, redirecting—not resisting—the flow. His movements created quiet ripples of stillness inside chaos.
Yet the world twisted around him.
The spear didn't strike—it avoided. It phased around defenses, slipped through guards.
Gu Shun's eyes narrowed."This… this can't be."
What he saw defied logic.
Chen Yun bore the aura of a mere first-rate martial artist—yet he moved like a grandmaster cloaked in a formless domain.
He weaved between strikes with breath-hair margins—never wasted, never late.
Unshakable. Unreadable.
Gu Shun roared—his true aura exploded.
The next strike wasn't martial—it was spiritual warfare.
A forbidden art: Soul Suppression Needle, infused with blood Qi. It drilled into Chen Yun's mind like rusted iron.
Pain lanced.
Chen Yun gritted his teeth, Qi turning inward.
One breath.
One heartbeat.
Void Meridian Purge.
Golden light burst from his back—cutting through the pressure like dawn cutting night. The oppressive Qi shattered.
Chen Yun surged forward—meeting Gu Shun blow-for-blow.
Fist clashed with palm.
Qi met soul.
The altar cracked. The chamber shook. Iron bars bent like wax.
Gu Shun smiled wider through bleeding lips."You're frayed. The fight above cost you. You're holding yourself together by will."
Chen Yun's voice was ice.
"You talk too much."
He flicked his wrist—
Void Pulse Needle.
A condensed sliver of Qi rocketed toward Gu Shun's shoulder—striking true but failing to pierce. His defensive veil held—barely.
But by then, Chen Yun had already moved.
—Void Compression—
A palm technique that didn't explode—but collapsed.
Not power. Silence.
Chen Yun struck low into Gu Shun's abdomen.
Qi ruptured.
The spear clattered.
For one instant, Gu Shun's cultivated power crumbled.
He staggered to one knee, gasping.
The soul anchors around the room blinked—then shattered.
Cells opened. Chains broke. The cries that followed weren't screams—but gasps of freedom.
Jie Lun rushed to them, pulling survivors to their feet.
Gu Shun, half-conscious and grinning through blood, whispered,
"This… is just a sliver. You haven't even glimpsed what sleeps deeper."
Chen Yun turned, gaze steel.
He looked past the broken altar—deeper into the veins of the mountain.
A deeper chamber.
Older. Quieter. Hungrier.
And whatever dwelled within… made Gu Shun feel like nothing more than a doorman.