I landed back on the arena, leaving the wooden sword nailed into the crack in the ground. Golden light still coursed through the bricks like a spiderweb, tearing apart the remaining red patterns. The air reeked of scorching heat and rotten blood, while the tremors underground had yet to subside. Dark currents still writhed within the fissures.
Ye Qingwan stood half a step to my side, her medicine pestle braced against the ground, the warmth in her palm not yet dispersed. Her breathing was slightly heavy, and her brows were faintly furrowed—the sign of backlash from forcibly activating her Blood Phoenix Body. I raised my hand and lightly touched the inside of her wrist, sending a wisp of Heaven-Slaying Origin into her.
She neither dodged nor spoke. Her fingers only tightened slightly around the medicine pestle.
That power circulated through her meridians once. Her shoulders trembled faintly, then she exhaled a breath of stale air, and golden radiance gathered once more in her eyes. She lowered her head to look at the ground—several severed threads of blood were crawling out from beneath the broken bricks, winding like dying venomous snakes as they tried to coil around the tips of her shoes.
She lifted her foot and crushed one of them. Just as another was about to spring up, it was caught by a streak of crimson flame and instantly reduced to ash.
"How many are left?" she asked. Her voice was low, but it carried the chill of a blade's edge.
"Seven of the eight Formation Eyes have been destroyed." I stared at the fissure to the west. "The final main vein is hidden beneath the entrance to the secret passage. It hasn't been severed yet."
Before my words had faded, a black shadow sprang up from the edge of the arena and slammed into the collapsed stone wall to the west. It was Ji Hantian. The sleeve on his left arm had burst apart, exposing a Blood Crystal that glimmered with an eerie dark-red luster. He staggered into the fissure, swiped his right hand across the rock wall, and a stone slab slid aside in response, revealing a deep, shadowy passage.
He wanted to escape.
I did not pursue him.
Instead, I turned to Ye Qingwan. "Can you hold him for three breaths?"
She raised her eyes to meet mine. Without hesitation, she merely nodded lightly.
The next instant, she tapped her medicine pestle against the ground and formed seals with both hands. The Phoenix Mark between her brows flared brightly, and scorching heat erupted from within her. Crimson flames rushed across the ground like a waterfall, instantly covering the entire western section of the arena. The fire clung to the surface, swallowing every bloodstain that had yet to fade, then burrowed through the fissures and into the entrance of the secret passage.
Tongues of flame rolled and condensed into an arcing barrier at the passage entrance, like a curtain hanging before a door.
"Three breaths," she said.
I moved.
I stepped forward, pushed off with my toes, and shot into the air. The Pseudo-Primordial Body ran at full force, Heaven-Slaying Origin surging through my meridians like a tidal flood. I twisted in midair, joined my fingers into a sword, and thrust straight at a hidden rune eye above the stone beam—the load-bearing node marked in last night's Jade Slip.
The instant my fingertips touched the engraving, golden light exploded.
Boom!
The entire stone beam shook violently, and rubble rained down in a shower. The rock layer above split apart by several feet, and massive chunks of stone crashed down, sealing the upper exit of the secret passage. As dust billowed up, the fiery barrier happened to extinguish as well.
Ji Hantian stopped deep inside the passage, his back to us and his shoulders heaving. He had failed to escape completely and could only continue deeper inside.
"You can't get away now," I said.
Ye Qingwan walked to my side and looked at the fissure half-buried beneath the rubble. She reached up to brush a strand of hair away from her face. The tips had already faded back to ink-black, with only a trace of crimson warmth lingering at her fingertips.
"You're not chasing him?" she asked.
"Chasing him now would be the same as sending him somewhere safer." I shook my head. "The secret passage leads to the underground altar. It is filled with traps. If we enter recklessly, we'll only put ourselves at a disadvantage."
She fell silent for a moment, then suddenly crouched and ran her fingers over a toppled fragment of the formation hub. A pool of dark-brown blood stained its surface, thick and sticky, unlike ordinary blood.
"This isn't his blood," she said quietly.
I stepped closer to inspect it. A faint purple glow shimmered around the edge of the bloodstain. It was icy to the touch, and distorted patterns within it showed faint signs of reforming on their own. It had not been left by a living person, nor was it something an ordinary cultivator could bleed.
"Demonic Cultivator Essence," I said. "And... it's of a very high grade."
She said nothing more and followed the bloodstains as she searched through the rubble. Half a torn strip of cloth was pinned beneath the shattered tiles, belonging to the standard robes of the Blood Demon Sect. Beneath that lay a metal token thrown loose by the impact, wedged within a crack in the stone and covered in grime.
She scraped away the dirt with her nail, revealing a twisted blood pattern beneath it.
The black token had chain totems carved into its four corners. At its center was a scarlet imprint, shaped like a dried heart.
The Blood Demon Sect Leader Token.
She held the token in her palm, and a tiny flame ignited there, slowly sweeping over its surface. Several wisps of black qi seeped out and were devoured by the fire. The token regained some of its luster, though corrosion marks already marred its edges.
"This shouldn't be here." She looked up at me. "Even an outer collaborator like Ji Hantian should not possess it."
I stared at the token, my gaze turning colder.
This was not a simple ambush. Nor was it merely a power-grabbing conspiracy.
Someone had handed the Sect Leader Token to Ji Hantian—either as a test, or as part of a plan to discard a pawn.
"You recognize this mark?" she asked.
I nodded. "Three years ago, on the night my Dao bones were shattered, someone burned the same Talisman Paper outside my door."
Her pupils contracted slightly.
I had never told anyone the details of that night. She knew I had been plotted against, but she did not know that those behind it had already used a sect leader-level token.
"They wanted you dead more than once," she said.
"But they never expected me to live until now." I looked deep into the secret passage. "And they certainly never expected someone to break the formation with me today."
She did not respond. She simply put the token away in her Treasure Pouch, moving cautiously, as though afraid it might seep out something again. Then she rose and surveyed the ruins around us.
The arena had completely collapsed. All eight Formation Eyes had been destroyed, the red light had dispersed, and the sky had returned to a grayish white. Wind swept dust across the ruins, lifting one corner of her Black Cloak.
Footsteps sounded in the distance. The Lineage guards had clearly noticed the disturbance and were approaching. Yet neither of us moved.
"What do we do next?" she asked.
"Wait," I said. "Wait for him to come out himself, or... wait for someone else to come collect him."
She frowned. "Aren't you worried he'll send word?"
"He can barely save himself right now." I raised my left hand, and an exceedingly thin thread of golden light flashed across my palm before vanishing. "A trace of the origin I sent into you just now followed the blood threads back into the core of the formation hub. As long as he remains within this Earth Meridian, I can sense his location."
She froze for a moment. "You can track him?"
"Not tracking," I corrected. "Tethering. He used my Remnant Dao as the formation's foundation, which means he tied himself to my lifeline. The farther he runs, the stronger the backlash."
She suddenly understood. "That's why you didn't chase him—you deliberately let him go."
The corner of my mouth lifted slightly. "He set the killing formation, but the rules... were mine to make."
She looked at me, her expression complicated for an instant before clearing. She gripped her medicine pestle and spoke calmly. "Then I'll wait with you."
We stood side by side atop the ruins, with the collapsed arena behind us and the deep secret passage before us. Wind blew from the fissure, carrying the mingled smell of underground dampness and rust.
Time passed bit by bit.
Suddenly, her brow twitched, and her right hand swiftly pressed against her chest. I immediately sensed it—her Blood Phoenix Body had stirred again, as if it had felt something.
"What is it?"
"Something... is calling to it," she said softly. "It isn't hostile, but it is very ancient, like an echo coming from the depths underground."
My expression tightened.
Qingming had once said that an ancient seal was buried beneath the Earth Meridian of the Northern Wastes. He had warned me through a wager: unless absolutely necessary, do not descend below the third underground level.
And now, this secret passage was the only entrance leading to the third level.
She stared into the darkness, golden light flickering in and out of sight in her eyes. "I can sense its direction."
"Don't go." I reached out to stop her. "Going in now means stepping into someone else's trap."
She did not insist. She merely closed her eyes slowly and suppressed the unrest within her. When she opened them again, she had regained her composure.
Just then, a muffled sound came from deep within the secret passage.
It sounded like some kind of mechanism being activated.
Immediately after, a faint red light rose from the bottom of the fissure, flashing once before vanishing.
Ye Qingwan and I looked at each other at the same time.
She spoke softly. "There... shouldn't have been any light down there."
I gripped the wooden sword embedded in the ground and pulled hard.
The blade left the fissure, and the last trace of golden light was extinguished with it.
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