The main matrix of the Shattered Heaven Sect rested deep within the central pillar of the mountain.
Mò Yán opened her eyes. Her irises, a deep scarlet red, reflected the faint light of the lanterns. The dead jade embedded in the walls of the hall hummed with a continuous, low sound.
She rose with perfect posture. The high-collared, well-fitted silver-gray silk tunic shaped her body without exaggeration — yet it could not completely conceal the generous volume of her breasts and the pronounced curve of her hips. The pale skin of her neck showed a faint rosy tone where the collar pressed against it. Her long, perfectly white hair cascaded down her back like a waterfall of pure snow.
Wearing wooden sandals, she walked quickly and silently through the rock corridors until she reached the upper courtyard.
Mò Tiān stood on the main veranda, gazing at the sea of clouds to the northwest.
Mò Yán stopped two steps behind him and bowed her torso in a straight, formal bow.
— The old matrix has resonated, Sect Master — she said, her voice melodious and formal.
Mò Tiān turned his face toward his daughter. The leader's eyes were wide, mixing ambition with silent dread.
— Where did the signal come from, Yán'er?
— Misty Peak. Someone activated their Astrolabe and forced communication with our mountain.
Mò Tiān remained silent for a second. Then he snorted, almost in disbelief.
— Impossible. Lín Wújiàn and his ancestors treated that disk like a useless paperweight for centuries. Their lineage is stagnant trash. No one in the South has known how to inject Laws into it since the Era of the Transcendents. If the jade turned, an ancient monster has awakened on that border.
— What are your orders?
Mò Tiān looked at her for a long moment.
— Go there. If the mountain has fallen, find out who activated the relic. Take the Grand Elder with you to ensure safety. And take Hán Lěi.
Mò Yán's breath caught for a second. The image of the head disciple — with his lecherous smile and eyes that always seemed to undress her tunic — turned the girl's stomach. She swallowed before answering.
— Sect Master — her voice remained polite, though the clear skin of her neck warmed with a wave of revulsion. — Senior Brother Hán Lěi is undisciplined. His vices and lack of focus could be a fatal hindrance on a mission of this magnitude.
Mò Tiān cut her off with the pragmatism of someone who had expected the objection:
— His family controls three of our eastern ore mines, Yán'er. He needs frontier experience to justify his position. Besides, you're the only one he wouldn't dare disobey. Keep him on a leash.
Clan politics were a stone wall she could not push against. Mò Yán remained silent for two seconds, her delicate shoulders tensing beneath the silk. Then she bowed her head once more.
— Understood, Sect Master.
She turned and marched toward the artifact courtyards, her steps firmer than necessary. The sect's flying board needed to be prepared for the crossing.
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The black metal board cut through the sea of clouds in a swift arc.
On the right side of the artifact, Hán Lěi was not looking at the route. The disciple's gaze openly roamed over the side of Mò Yán's body, enjoying how the wind pressed the silver-gray tunic against her breasts and thighs. He took a step to the left, closing the distance.
— If the wind currents get strong, Senior Sister, you can lean on me — his voice came out drawn out, the lecherous smile obvious beneath the wind.
Mò Yán did not turn her face. Her stomach churned with the usual disgust, but discipline kept her spine straight.
— Maintain your position, Senior Brother — she replied, her voice strictly formal and cold. — Your loose weight interferes with the board. Focus on the border.
Hán Lěi snorted and reluctantly stepped back, but the smug smile did not disappear.
Minutes later, the Grand Elder cut off the flow of Qi. The board descended heavily and struck the limestone ground of a wide plateau, blocking the center of the stone road.
A few meters away, the colossal carriage advanced.
The two beasts stopped. There was no neigh of fear. Only a hot breath that smelled of flesh and burning iron.
The Grand Elder retrieved the board. The old cultivator narrowed his eyes, and the blood drained from his wrinkled face, leaving his skin ashen.
— Yán'er — he muttered, his rustic voice sounding strangely fragile. — Those beasts are extremely powerful… stronger than the Sect Master. This is Transcendent level.
Mò Yán nodded slowly. Her heart quickened, but she had already prepared herself for this since leaving home. Beside her, Hán Lěi merely puffed out his chest, his hand resting on his sword hilt, oblivious to the elder's warning.
Mò Yán took three steps forward. Her posture was unshakable, her fists joined in front of her chest.
— Greetings, honored travelers — her voice echoed melodious and polite. — I am Mò Yán of the Shattered Heaven Sect. We detected the resonance in the foundations of the neighboring mountain. We have come to offer safe passage and the cooperation of our mountain so that your journey may proceed unhindered.
On the carriage's driver's seat, Yù Méi was chewing on a piece of dried meat. The golden silk dress shone under the sun, but her almond eyes evaluated the trio with pure boredom.
The soft click of the armored cabin door broke the silence.
Yù Qíng stepped onto the carriage's veranda. The navy-blue silk brushed against the wood. The dark veil covered the woman's face, but her lazy, lethal posture dominated the atmosphere.
Mò Yán's scarlet irises locked onto her.
Her analytical mind processed the image like a lightning strike.
The navy-blue fabric. The dark veil. The complete absence of Qi fluctuation concealing an overwhelming density.
The memory from four years ago exploded in her mind.
The Qīngshí Auction. Cabin number three. The traveler in the gray tunic and the veiled woman who had paid obscene amounts for a carriage and auctioned off those vials — the same ones that had allowed her father — no, the Sect Master — to sweep through the mortal bottleneck and reach Transcendence.
The realization struck her like a punch.
It was them.
The two who had appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly, leaving behind only legends and a clan that now breathed easier. If they had toppled the Misty Peak, they could wipe the Shattered Heaven Sect off the map without breaking a sweat.
Her instinct was not panic. It was survival.
She was going to bow. She was going to offer her own mountain to facilitate their work and ensure that her father would continue breathing tomorrow. She opened her mouth to yield.
But arrogance overtook reason.
Hán Lěi's heavy boot struck the black rock as he stepped in front of her. The prominent disciple ignored the elder's words, blinded by his own vanity and by the sight of Yù Qíng and Yù Méi.
— What a waste of saliva, Senior Sister Mò — Hán Lěi mocked, spreading his arms and smiling toward the veranda. — Cooperate with thieves? You there, who have the Astrolabe. Hand over the disk right now, and maybe we won't need to dirty our weapons. And as compensation for the inconvenience… the two women come with me to my pavilion. I'll be a very generous host.
The air on the plateau died.
Mò Yán's eyes widened, pure terror crushing the pit of her stomach. The idiot had just killed them all.
On the carriage's veranda, Yù Qíng did not move. The insult did not enrage her — it only bored her. She looked toward the driver's seat and spoke in a soft, polite voice:
— The insect is making too much noise, Méi. Clean our door. We don't have all day.
On the driver's seat, Yù Méi stopped chewing. The youngest swallowed the piece of dried meat, wiped her fingertips on the wooden seat, and opened a wide, hungry smile. She leaped lightly — almost lazily — from the carriage. When her bare feet touched the black rock of the plateau, her golden silk skirt swayed gently.
Hán Lěi, blinded by confidence and his own vanity, smiled as he saw her approach unarmed. He advanced. The attack was a violent horizontal slash, driven by the full physical strength of a frontier prodigy, aimed at severing Yù Méi's legs in one strike.
Yù Méi did not retreat. With palpable boredom, she raised her left hand and placed it directly in the path of the steel.
CLANG.
The sound that echoed across the plateau was not that of flesh being torn. It was the shrill cry of metal colliding against an unstoppable wall. Yù Méi caught the naked blade with her fingers. The sharp steel could not penetrate even a single millimeter of her skin.
Hán Lěi's smile died. Primal panic finally invaded his eyes.
Yù Méi did not say a word. The smile that spread across her lips was wide and carnivorous. With a casual squeeze, she crushed the blade. The sword shattered into dozens of pieces that rained down like broken glass onto the floor. Before he could release the useless hilt, she slipped under his guard and, with the base of her palm, delivered a brutal strike to the disciple's lower back.
CRAAAACK.
The sound of Hán Lěi's spine snapping in half was nauseating. The air was forced from his lungs in a sharp wheeze. The once imposing disciple collapsed onto the black rock like a puppet with its Qi strings cut, falling face-down, completely paralyzed from the waist down.
— M-My legs… what… — he stammered, choking on his own saliva, trying to drag himself using only his arms, his nails scratching uselessly at the stone.
— You were going to take us to your pavilion? — Yù Méi murmured, kneeling gracefully beside the motionless body. — Generous. But I think you need a few adjustments first.
She grabbed his right hand and, without the slightest hurry, bent his index finger backward.
Snap.
— AHHHHHH! — the young man's scream echoed across the plateau, shrill and sharp.
Thirty steps away, the Grand Elder and Mò Yán stepped back, absolute horror freezing the blood in their veins. This was not a fight. It was an abomination mercilessly toying with its prey.
And while Mò Yán watched her own nightmares come to life, the soft click of the carriage door echoed.
Yù Qíng stepped onto the veranda and floated a few millimeters above the black stone. The Priestess descended the invisible steps of air with the majesty of an untouchable deity. In the dark interior of the armored cabin she had left open, the sound of the black jade of the Astrolabe sliding calmly in Zhì Yuǎn's hands reverberated. The gray-tunicked god did not even raise his eyes from his studies, indifferent and perfectly apathetic to the massacre staining his door.
In the courtyard, Yù Méi broke Hán Lěi's middle finger.
Snap.
— ARGH! PLEASE!
Yù Qíng did not turn her face toward the carnage. Her sharp black eyes immediately locked onto Mò Yán's tense figure. Sensing she stood before Death incarnate, Mò Yán instinctively dropped to her knees on the black rock until her forehead nearly touched the ground.
— Little snow flower — Yù Qíng's voice floated across the plateau, soft and velvety, like sweet poison dripping down Mò Yán's spine. — Your patience in dealing with the insects of your own house is commendable, but equally disappointing.
CRACK. Yù Méi crushed the bones of Hán Lěi's wrist with a dry squeeze of her hand.
— GOD! AHHHH! HELP!
Mò Yán did not dare lift her head, cold sweat running down her pale neck. The bizarre contrast tore at the diplomat's sanity: a woman of untouched beauty spoke to her in a poetic, soft tone, while two steps away, a methodical massacre filled the air with the sounds of shattering bones.
— Our offender failed the world and was executed by right of strength, Madam — Mò Yán replied, her voice trembling only slightly, refusing to break sect etiquette even before the abyss incarnate.
Crack. Snap. Crunch. Yù Méi continued smashing Hán Lěi's right hand against the stone floor, breaking the remaining bones as if cracking dry nuts.
— KILL ME! JUST KILL ME! AAAAAAAHHH!
Yù Qíng smiled, the sweetness of the gesture grotesquely contrasting with the horror of the scene. The woman in blue leaned down, and her pale finger lifted Mò Yán's perfectly sculpted chin, forcing the diplomat to meet her eyes.
— The snow of your central pillar doesn't need to melt today, Mò Yán — Yù Qíng whispered, her breath brushing against the pale face of the kneeling woman. — My husband seeks the ancient root beneath your father's mountain. And you control the gates.
In the background, Yù Méi grabbed Hán Lěi's lifeless leg. She placed her boot on the young man's knee and pulled his heel in the opposite direction, forcing the joint to bend the wrong way.
— NOOOOOOOO! MOTHER! AAHHHH!
Yù Qíng straightened up, ignoring the symphony of torture as if it were background music.
— Guide our carriage through your bridges — the priestess continued, her black eyes piercing Mò Yán's foundation. — Throw open the deepest halls for my husband. Show yourself to be the fertile soil I believe you are, and your clan will continue breathing tomorrow.
Mò Yán opened her mouth to swear absolute obedience, willing to hand over the world to save her father. But before she could utter the first syllable…
— Damn it!
Yù Méi's frustrated shout interrupted the negotiation. Yù Qíng stopped speaking and turned to see what had irritated her sister.
Yù Méi stood before the pool of blood. The Untouchable Petal delivered a petulant, strong kick to the young man's ribs, but his body did not react. It rolled like an empty sack of potatoes, eyes open and glassy.
— He died! — she complained, pointing at the carcass with pure indignation. — I hadn't even gotten to the meat of his arms yet, I was only playing with his fingers and his loose knee! That useless bastard's weak heart stopped from the pain! What trash, he couldn't even last five minutes of squeezing!
Mò Yán and the Grand Elder held their breath, bile rising in their throats at the mockery of their Prominent Disciple's death. Inside the carriage, the sound of black jade sliding in Zhì Yuǎn's hand did not pause for even a single millisecond.
Yù Qíng, for her part, simply sighed with the indulgence of someone watching a child who had broken a fragile toy.
— Don't worry, Méi — Yù Qíng murmured, waving her hand dismissively. — The world is big. We'll find you another toy that's a little more durable later. Go wash your hands, you got your new silk dirty.
Yù Méi snorted, rolling her eyes before turning her back on Hán Lěi's unrecognizable corpse and walking back to the carriage in a huff.
Yù Qíng turned once more toward Mò Yán, the immaculate smile returning to her lips as she resumed the negotiation as if death by pain-induced shock had been nothing more than a slight change in the wind.
— As I was saying, Mò Yán — the priestess whispered, savoring the pure terror reflected in the girl's scarlet irises. — Make yourself useful. And your sect will survive. Do we have an agreement?
Trembling from head to toe, the reserved flower of the Shattered Heaven Sect pressed her face against the black rock, knowing she had just sold her soul.
— Yes, Madam — Mò Yán whispered, her voice thin and submissive. — We have an agreement.