The token sat in his trouser pocket, cool to the touch.
Yaha left headquarters, skipping the main gate and vaulting over the wall. As his feet touched down outside, the moonlight cast his shadow behind him. Without so much as a glance at it, he headed toward Yoshiwara.
Three li away, the smell of burning still lingered. The entire Hidden Corps had withdrawn tonight, and the battle report had been sealed. By procedure, the ruins of the Entertainment District were now considered dealt with.
Yaha stepped over the rubble into the outskirts of the ruins, his pace unhurried. Moonlight coated the bricks and stones, cut into geometric blocks, in a layer of white. Their clean-cut surfaces reflected the night sky. He walked through them and stopped before an open stretch of packed earth.
His gaze settled on a spot three paces ahead of his feet.
There was nothing there. Scattered stones, hard, dry earth-no different from the rest of the ruins.
Yaha stared at the spot for two seconds, then one corner of his mouth lifted.
Three meters underground lay a fist-sized ball of flesh, dark red, its surface covered in fine veins. Hidden in a gap between the packed earth and rubble, it pulsed every few seconds, sending faint sensory signals into the distance through a concealed blood link.
The Hidden Corps had swept the entire site, leaving not even the Demon Blood in the cracks between walls unchecked. They simply hadn't probed three meters beneath the ground.
Well hidden.
Yaha shifted his right foot out from beside his pocket and lightly tapped the ground with the toe of his shoe.
A thin crack opened in the hardened surface soil. Fragments broke away to either side, exposing the soft earth beneath. His toe pushed down through the gap, steady