At the instant the lightning burst, Chen Wuya's palm twitched. A wisp of residual lightning force quietly slipped out along the muddy ground, winding several yards through the rainwater before suddenly exploding. Mud splattered everywhere, like someone staggering and falling in the distance. The guard frowned, gripped his sword, turned around, and hurried toward the sound.
The moment he took a step, Chen Wuya's right leg exploded with force, launching his whole body from the bushes like an arrow loosed from a bow. He did not choose to go around. Instead, he charged straight for the edge of the woods, crushing wet branches underfoot and sending muddy water flying. Hearing the commotion, the guard turned back, only to see a black shadow bursting through the rain, moving far too fast for a wounded man.
"Over here—!"
Before the shout had even ended, Chen Wuya had leaped over a broken ditch. His body staggered, and his left shoulder slammed hard into a slanting tree trunk. Agony shot up his arm into his forehead, but he did not stop. Bracing himself with one hand, he borrowed the impact and surged forward again. Rain blurred his vision, while the wound in his right arm tore open from the motion, blood streaming down with the rain. Yet at that moment, the Misaligned Force inside him began to change.
Deep in his dantian, the dormant electric snake suddenly began to tremble, faintly resonating with the fragment pressed against his body. The system's voice surfaced in his mind: [Detected the complete operating trajectory of the Canglang Art. Misaligned Force fusion increased to 37%. Recommended reverse invocation of residual lightning tribulation power to optimize movement efficiency.]
He had no time to think it through. He only knew that if he slowed down another step, he would be caught. The terrain ahead suddenly dropped, and a stretch of flooded lowland lay across his path, dead leaves and broken branches floating on its surface, its depth impossible to judge. In ordinary circumstances, he would have carefully tested the way forward. But now, he gritted his teeth and charged straight in.
His feet sank into the muck, and his entire body pitched forward. Yet just as he was about to sink into the mud, he deliberately drove his left foot down hard, slamming his full weight into the mire. The Misaligned Force erupted with it, unexpectedly lifting him like a wave bearing up a boat and thrusting him forward. His body rose half a foot into the air, and when he landed, his right foot merely brushed the ground before he was off again, as if skimming across the water's surface. Another stretch of frantic running began.
The footwork had no pattern at all—crooked, lurching, and yet unbelievably fast. Every step looked as if he had been thrown forward, only to be dragged ahead by some invisible force. His breathing was harsh, his lungs stuffed with grit, but his legs grew lighter and lighter, as though he was not running at all. Rather, the Misaligned Force was pushing him forward in a sliding rush.
The pursuing footsteps behind him gradually faded into the distance.
He did not look back. He only fixed his eyes on the path ahead. In his memories, Old Wu Tou's wrinkled face appeared. Outside the refugee camp, on the earthen slope around its perimeter, an oil lamp was always hung there, never extinguished at night. As long as he could still see that light, it meant there was somewhere left to catch his breath.
But his consciousness began to drift. Pain surged through his right arm in waves, as if iron hooks were churning inside it. He remembered the academy teacher throwing an exam paper in his face: "You even copied the characters wrong, and you still dream of solving the problem?" Back then, he had lowered his head to look at the paper covered in red circles, yet he had thought: If calculating forward gives the wrong answer, then I'll work backward.
It was the same now.
He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, his gaze had changed. It was neither despair nor stubborn endurance, but a persistence bordering on cold calm. He treated his body as a wrong problem, his injuries as conditions, and the impossible as the answer.
The Misaligned Force circulated again. This time, he no longer suppressed the remaining lightning-fire power. Instead, he actively guided it into his damaged meridians. Ordinary people would never dare do such a thing—reversing the flow of true qi was dangerous enough, let alone force carrying electricity. But he knew that the rules of Misaligned Practice Connects to Spirit had never been "safe." They were "reasonable."
Even if, in other people's eyes, that kind of reason was something only a madman would follow.
A scorching force rushed down from the Jianjing Acupoint, pierced through his arm, and shot straight to his fingertips. He grunted, his knees buckling as he nearly fell to them. But in the next instant, that force actually flowed back along the meridians in his legs and poured into both legs. His speed suddenly surged again!
He was like a wild beast racing through a storm, his body rising and leaping over the mud with every stride sending broad splashes into the air. Water in the hollows flew in all directions beneath his feet, while he cleared stretches littered with fallen timber in bizarre, twisted motions. Several times, he seemed about to fall. Instead, he simply followed the momentum and threw himself forward. At the instant he touched the ground, the Misaligned Force rebounded, turning his fall into a leap and widening the distance behind him.
System prompts continued flashing:
[Misaligned Force fusion increased to 41%] [Unconventional force-exertion mode recorded] [Recommended: maintain output and form an inertial path]
He ignored them, focusing only on the rhythm beneath his feet. Left step, right spring, forward rush, slight lean—movements that had originally been independent were now strung together by the Misaligned Force into a unique charging style. It was as though he had pieced every mistake together, only to assemble an entirely new road.
The sky remained gloomy, and the rain showed no sign of easing. The distant ridgeline was faintly visible, and at last, the woodland's edge came into view. He charged up the final slope to higher ground, his footsteps finally slowing.
Ahead lay an open stretch of land. Low tents were scattered sparsely across it, while a few strands of cooking smoke struggled to rise through the rain before being blown apart by the wind. Sharpened stakes surrounded the camp, some already crooked or broken. Farther away, that familiar oil lamp was indeed still lit, swaying unsteadily in the gray curtain of rain.
Perhaps ten li away. Maybe less.
He leaned against a stone stele half-buried in the ground, gasping for breath. His right hand braced against the earth, his knuckles trembling faintly from overexertion. His clothes were soaked through and clung to his body, cold biting into his bones. The bandages around his right arm were saturated with blood and darkened, every heartbeat bringing a dull throb of pain.
But his eyes were bright.
Not because he had seen the camp, but because he could clearly sense that the Misaligned Force inside him was undergoing some kind of transformation. It was no longer merely an emergency crooked trick, nor a means of barely keeping himself moving. It had truly become the strength supporting him as he advanced.
He raised his left hand and watched rainwater slide from his fingertips. Then he slowly clenched his fist. The Misaligned Force gathered in his palm, faint yet steady.
"So that's how it is..." he murmured. "Even an injury can become a source of strength."
His voice had barely fallen when he drew a deep breath and prepared to rise and continue forward. Suddenly, he sensed something strange.
A barely perceptible tremor came from the ground, like someone running in the distance, but the rhythm was wrong. It was not the hurried pounding of pursuers. It was a slow, regular movement accompanied by the scrape of metal, like gears meshing as a mechanism started up.
He frowned and looked toward the camp's perimeter. Within his line of sight, a wooden stake that had originally been lying flat was slowly rising upright, the copper bell tied to its top swaying faintly. Then the earth at the bottom of a collapsed section of trench nearby shifted, exposing half a length of iron cable.
These marks had not been formed naturally.
He remembered Old Wu Tou saying that after the refugee camp had been attacked in its early years, several defensive mechanisms had been installed. Later, years of disrepair had ruined most of them. But now, it appeared someone had tampered with them.
And not repaired them. Repositioned them.
He stared at the iron cable and suddenly realized something. All along the way, he had been focused solely on escaping and had overlooked the most crucial question—why had the Qingfeng disciples sent only one person to stay behind and track him? The other had clearly said he would "send word back," but if they truly intended to surround and eliminate him, why had no reinforcements appeared yet?
Unless...
They had never wanted to capture him at all.
They wanted to lure him somewhere.
He abruptly raised his head and looked toward the depths of the camp. The oil lamp was still lit, but at the edge of its halo, there seemed to be an extra shadow that should not have been there—not the shadow of a person, but the strange outline of a device mounted between two tents, resembling a crossbow mechanism or some kind of trigger-operated trap.
The rain continued to fall.
He stood on the earthen slope, cold and soaked all over, blood seeping from his right arm, his breathing still unsettled. Yet at that moment, he neither continued forward nor retreated.
Instead, he slowly crouched down and pressed his palm against the muddy ground.
The Misaligned Force sank into the earth and spread along the direction in which the rainwater seeped, probing the area. Three zhang, five zhang, eight zhang... until it touched the first hidden mechanism node.
The thing was buried deep, its structure complicated. It was clearly not part of the refugee camp's original design.
He withdrew his hand, wiped the rain from his face, and watched his gaze gradually turn cold.
"You want me to walk in?" he murmured. "Then let's see who's waiting for whom."
He braced himself against the ground and rose. He did not head for the camp's main entrance. Instead, he followed a narrow path concealed beneath wild grass along the slope, silently closing in.
Before you continue