The hollow space beneath the collapsed stone arch was colder than it appeared.
Outside, the dead valley still carried the dull red glow of distant stone, but that light could not fully enter the narrow opening. It stopped near the entrance as if pressed back by the darkness within. The seventh day inside the Rivercloud Demon Sealing Ruins had already passed, and though only a short while had gone by since midnight, the air had begun to carry the quiet weight of the eighth day.
Feng Jiu'er sat near the entrance with her sword across her knees. Her posture was relaxed only on the surface. One hand rested near the hilt, and her gaze moved between the passage, the roots above, and the broken stones outside. She rarely looked back, but whenever the wind shifted, her flame Qi stirred faintly beneath her sleeves.
Fang Lin sat deeper inside the hollow space. Before closing his eyes, he checked the ground twice with restrained divine sense. He did not sweep far. He only let his perception brush across the nearby stone, the roots, the cracks in the wall, and the thin layer of ash that covered the floor. This was not a place to use divine sense carelessly. The old formations buried in the dead valley were too strange. A single careless fluctuation might return with something worse following it.
He placed Night Burial Sword beside him. The black blade rested silently on the stone, its faint dark-red veins hidden beneath the surrounding gloom. It did not shine, and it did not hum, but the darkness near it seemed steadier than elsewhere.
Feng Jiu'er noticed that, but she did not ask.
Fang Lin glanced toward her back. "If something enters, warn me only if you cannot stop it quietly."
Feng Jiu'er did not turn around. "You speak as if I agreed to guard a sleeping merchant."
"A sleeping merchant would be less troublesome."
"Then cultivate quickly before I regret choosing the more troublesome task."
The corner of Fang Lin's mouth moved slightly, but he did not answer. The exchange ended there, not because there was nothing more to say, but because both understood where they were. This was the Rivercloud Demon Sealing Ruins. Beyond the hollow space were poison dust, corpse roots, robbers, hidden formations, and disciples who would kill for a rumor. Words had to know when to stop.
Fang Lin lowered his breathing and began to circulate Dew of Ten Thousand Shadows.
The first Shadow Dewdrop near his Spirit Foundation remained quiet. It was not a spirit eye, not a hidden sense, and not some miraculous weapon that could be thrown out at will. It was only a refined bead of shadow-darkness energy, carrying his Qi rhythm and a faint trace of soul imprint. If he did not deliberately circulate the method, it would stay still.
That was exactly why Fang Lin valued it.
Methods that gave power too easily often took something back when the cultivator was weakest. Dew of Ten Thousand Shadows was slow, but its slowness made its foundation stable. Every Shadow Dewdrop had to be condensed by cultivation. Every drop had to be stored, nourished, and controlled. To ordinary cultivators, that was its greatest flaw. To Fang Lin, it meant that if he could solve the restriction, the method would become something terrifying in the future.
The darkness inside the hollow space gathered slowly around him. It did not rush into his body like water through a broken dam. Instead, it sank into his breathing strand by strand, cold and fine, like mist entering cloth. The Yin-darkness here was heavier than the darkness in Broken Banner City. It carried the stillness of sealed stone, dead roots, old blood, and buried formations.
It suited this method.
Fang Lin guided the darkness toward the Shadow Lotus Mark near his Spirit Foundation. The mark was faint, far from becoming a Dark Bud, but when the Yin-darkness touched it, the first Shadow Dewdrop trembled once and became clearer.
He continued cultivating.
After a while, the gathered darkness began to scatter.
Fang Lin's brows moved slightly.
The method was resisting.
The records inside Dew of Ten Thousand Shadows were not wrong. During ordinary cultivation, midnight was the natural boundary where darkness became deepest and the day's Yang energy had fully withdrawn. That moment allowed the cultivator to condense one Shadow Dewdrop with the least disturbance. Fang Lin had already crossed that moment earlier, when the first drop had formed.
Forcing the second one now was like trying to draw water from a closed well.
He did not rush. He let the scattered darkness return to the hollow space, then began again with a slower rhythm. The Soul Metamorphosis Technique held his mind steady, the Nine Abyss Shadow Scripture guided the darkness without letting it become wild, and the Nine Nether Phantom Body endured the coldness that seeped through his flesh.
His injured ribs ached under the cloth Feng Jiu'er had tied for him. He ignored the pain.
Outside the hollow space, Feng Jiu'er suddenly lifted her eyes.
A faint sound came from the lower passage.
It was not the movement of roots. It was not the scrape of stone. It was footsteps, deliberately softened but not soft enough to escape her hearing.
Her fingers tightened around her sword hilt.
Two cultivators passed along the outer path. Their robes carried the smell of smoke and scorched sand. They did not walk close to the hollow space at first, but one of them paused when he reached the broken arch.
"There is cold air here," one voice muttered.
"Everything in this cursed valley is cold," another replied. "Do not waste time. Senior Brother wants us at the ravine before morning."
"The Grey Sand Hall fool who ran through the lower passage said Deng Kuang lost his head."
"He also said the one with the black sword might be nearby. You believe every frightened mouth?"
"I believe frightened mouths when they are still shaking."
A short silence followed.
Feng Jiu'er did not move. A thin layer of flame Qi gathered beneath her sleeve, compressed so tightly that it gave off no light. If either cultivator stepped into the hollow space, she would cut first and burn the poison second.
The first voice lowered. "If that person is really Silent Mountain Sword, why are we still moving toward the ravine?"
"Because Red Smoke Ridge does not chase names. We chase people who are tired, scattered, and carrying marks. If he blocks the road, that is different. If he does not, leave trouble for someone greedier."
"We should kill all the people possible with the Flame mark."
The footsteps moved away after that. Red smoke drifted faintly past the arch, but Feng Jiu'er raised one finger and let a small thread of flame burn it before it could enter. The smoke curled inward, turned black, and vanished without sound.
She did not wake Fang Lin.
Inside the hollow space, Fang Lin had heard enough through restrained perception to know someone had passed, but he did not open his eyes. Feng Jiu'er had not called him. That meant she had judged the danger and controlled it. Trusting that judgment was also part of surviving. They did not want unnecessary trouble at this point. And definitely did not want to disturb Fang Lin.
He continued cultivating.
The second attempt failed as well.
The darkness gathered, compressed, and then loosened at the final moment. A normal cultivator would have stopped there and waited for the next midnight. That would have been safe, correct, and painfully slow.
Fang Lin remained still for a long time.
Then, from the deepest part of his spiritual sea, he drew out a thread of cosmic energy from the Grey seed.
He did not let it spread. He did not use it to expand his divine sense, nor did he allow any obvious fluctuation to leave his body. The thread moved inward, thin and quiet, wrapped beneath the rhythm of his soul technique. If the cold Yin-darkness around him was a deep night, then that strand of cosmic energy was not light. It was a rule that did not belong to the night, touching the night without breaking it.
The scattered darkness stopped loosening.
Fang Lin's breathing slowed further.
The Shadow Lotus Mark absorbed the cosmic energy and Yin-darkness together, and for the first time since midnight had passed, the method's restriction softened. It did not disappear completely. It bent, as if an old lock had accepted a key it had never expected to meet.
A second Shadow Dewdrop condensed near his Spirit Foundation.
The moment it formed, a faint pressure tried to spread from his body. Fang Lin suppressed it at once. His soul tightened around the fluctuation, and the cold darkness of the hollow space covered the rest. Even so, sweat appeared along his forehead. The pain in his ribs sharpened, and his dantian trembled once before settling.
Feng Jiu'er turned her head slightly.
The hollow space behind her had become darker.
It was not ordinary darkness. Her flame Qi did not fear it, but it did not like it either. The small warmth beneath her sleeve became thinner for a breath, as if the surrounding night had pressed a finger against it.
She looked at Fang Lin.
He remained seated with his eyes closed. His face was calm, but his breathing was too controlled, and the cloth around his ribs had tightened from the slight movement of his chest. Whatever method he was cultivating, it was not simple. More importantly, it was not something he wanted seen.
Feng Jiu'er looked away again.
Some questions were not asked at the entrance of a dangerous cave.
Fang Lin waited until the second Shadow Dewdrop stabilized before attempting a third. He had already found the door. Now he needed to know whether it opened once by chance or whether it could open again by his control.
The answer came at a cost.
The third condensation was harder. The first two drops helped steady the Shadow Lotus Mark, but they did not make the process easy. Cosmic energy could bend the timing restriction, yet it could not replace cultivation, darkness Qi, or soul focus. Every breath had to be precise. Every strand of Yin-darkness had to be refined before it entered the mark. If he became greedy, the forming drop would collapse and disturb the two already stored inside him.
No wonder nobody liked or wanted this technique. It was extremely difficult to cultivate. And there are no major benefits until there is any kind of accumulation.
Fang Lin remained motionless for nearly two hours.
Feng Jiu'er guarded the entrance without speaking. Once, roots shifted above the arch. She burned them before they fully lowered. Once, a distant scream echoed through the passage, followed by laughter that sounded human but carried too much hunger. She did not chase it. Once, red dust rolled across the ground from the lower passage. She used the flat of her sword to stir the air, then burned the dust when it gathered in one place.
She did all of it quietly.
Near the end of the third condensation, Fang Lin's body trembled once.
Feng Jiu'er half-rose before stopping herself.
The darkness around him folded inward like a curtain being drawn close. A thin bead of black dew appeared beside the first two near his Spirit Foundation, small and quiet, but stable.
Three Shadow Dewdrops.
Still far from Dark Bud.
Still far from becoming a true combat method.
But Fang Lin understood what this meant.
For others, Dew of Ten Thousand Shadows was chained to one moment each night and that it was not guaranteed as the Dew drop should not dissipate. For him, that chain had cracked. Cosmic energy could not let him cultivate recklessly in battle, nor could it produce endless dewdrops without cost. He needed stillness, focus, secrecy, and an environment that did not fight the method. In a bright Yang place, the cost might become several times worse. In front of powerful cultivators or sensitive formations, the fluctuation could expose him.
But in a cold Yin-dark place like this, with his soul sealed inward and Feng Jiu'er guarding the entrance, the impossible had become possible.
Fang Lin opened his eyes when the darkness outside the arch began to thin.
Morning never truly arrived in the dead valley. There was no sunlight, no birdsong, and no warmth. The red gloom merely weakened, and the black stone slowly became easier to see. Still, that small change was enough to tell them that the eighth day inside the Rivercloud Demon Sealing Ruins had begun moving forward.
Fang Lin exhaled slowly.
Feng Jiu'er looked back. "You finished?"
"For now."
"Your face is pale."
"The method was more stubborn than expected."
"That sounds like something said by a person who forced it anyway."
Fang Lin looked at her for a moment, then gave a faint smile. "It also sounds accurate."
Feng Jiu'er frowned slightly, but there was no anger in her expression. Only concern that had not yet decided whether it was allowed to show itself. "Those Red Smoke Ridge cultivators passed while you were cultivating. They are moving toward the ravine before morning. They heard that Deng Kuang died, but they did not know we were here."
"You did not wake me."
"I did not need to."
Fang Lin nodded. "Then I owe you for that."
Feng Jiu'er turned her gaze toward the passage. "I did not guard you for payment."
The words were calm, but the hollow space became quiet after she said them.
Fang Lin stood slowly. His body was tired, and the soul focus he had spent left a faint weight behind his eyes. This was not a method he could abuse. Two additional Shadow Dewdrops had already taken several hours, a suitable environment, and a thread of cosmic energy. If he tried to do this while wounded, chased, or surrounded by formations, the result might not be progress. It might be self-inflicted harm.
He looked at Feng Jiu'er. "What happened during my cultivation, and do not mention this to anyone."
Her eyes moved to him.
He continued, "Not to the Green Bamboo Sect. Not to your Alliance people. Not even as a guess."
Feng Jiu'er did not answer immediately. She was not a foolish girl who would promise anything simply because the atmosphere had softened. She was a leader of the Alliance side, a Peak Spirit Foundation genius, and someone who carried other lives behind her. Fang Lin understood that, and because he understood it, he did not press her.
After a moment, she said, "If your method endangers my people, I will judge it myself."
"Fair."
"If it is only your path, I will not speak of it."
Fang Lin's gaze settled on her. "That is enough."
Feng Jiu'er looked away first. "You trusted me to guard the entrance. I will not repay that by selling what I saw."
For a breath, Fang Lin almost said something more.
The name he wore stopped him.
Shen Mo could accept her promise. Fang Lin wanted to tell her why it mattered. The difference between those two thoughts was thin, but it was still there, and in the Rivercloud Demon Sealing Ruins, thin lines could decide life and death. For now, he had his own plans and wanted to keep his identity a secret.
So he only said, "Thank you."
Feng Jiu'er gave him a brief glance. "Do not thank me too early. If you collapse because of that method, I will drag you out by the collar."
This time, Fang Lin's smile was clearer. "Then I will try to collapse with dignity."
"That would be difficult."
The faint smile remained on his face for a moment before fading naturally. Outside the hollow space, another thread of red smoke rose from the lower passage, thinner than before but carrying a sharper smell. Somewhere farther away, stone cracked, followed by the muffled roar of a beast or a formation opening.
Fang Lin picked up Night Burial Sword. The black blade rested lightly in his hand, and the three Shadow Dewdrops inside him remained quiet.
Feng Jiu'er stood and adjusted her sleeve. Her flame Qi moved once through her wrist, burning away the last trace of grey sand left by the earlier net. "Red Smoke Ridge is gathering near the ravine."
"Then we do not walk where they expect us to walk," Fang Lin said.
She looked at him. "You have another path?"
"I have a direction."
"That is not the same thing."
"It becomes one after we survive long enough."
Feng Jiu'er stared at him for a breath, then turned toward the passage. "You speak like that far too naturally."
Fang Lin walked beside her, the hollow space falling behind them. "It keeps me from sounding worried."
"You are worried?"
He looked at the red smoke curling beyond the stones. "I would be more worried if Red Smoke Ridge was quiet."
Feng Jiu'er did not argue.
Together, they left the hollow space beneath the collapsed arch and moved toward the thinning gloom of the eighth day. Behind them, the cold darkness slowly settled back into stillness, as if nothing had happened there at all.
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