Leaving Huo'an was not an escape.
It was a managed withdrawal.
That made it more dangerous.
Yan Mo moved quickly, but without haste. Every decision he made—what route to use, which contact to avoid, which formation to keep active and which to deactivate—seemed calculated not to escape, but to leave no clear story behind.
"We're not going through the west gate," he said. "Too many eyes."
"Then where?" Su Yanlin asked.
Yan Mo pointed to a spot on an old, heavily worn map.
"Here," he replied. "A road that officially no longer exists."
Lin Ye studied the line.
"That's not outside the city," he said. "It's… between layers."
Yan Mo looked at him.
"Exactly."
He Lian rubbed his neck, uneasy.
"That explains why I feel… better," he muttered. "Poorly defined places treat me with more respect."
The preparations were silent. They did not pack much. They left no messages. The refuge was neither destroyed nor sealed; it was left empty, intact enough not to look like a hurried escape.
"If you erase it completely," Yan Mo said, "the world asks why."
"If you leave it like this," Lin Ye added, "it assumes it doesn't matter."
They left at nightfall.
The "road" was not a street. It was a narrow passage between two ancient walls, so close together that the sky could barely be seen as a dark line. The ground was covered with irregular stones, some real, others… not so much.
"Don't look back," Yan Mo said. "And don't try to memorize it."
Lin Ye obeyed—not out of discipline, but because he felt it would be useless. The Threshold reacted strangely there. Not with tension, but with comfort. As if that space understood the idea of not fully belonging.
They advanced for several minutes in silence.
Then the first problem occurred.
It was not an attack.
It was a correction.
The air in front of them became dense, as if someone had decided that this section of the passage should no longer allow transit. Not a visible barrier, but a refusal of space to continue being a road.
Yan Mo stopped immediately.
"Too soon," he murmured. "They're already adjusting."
"Who?" Su Yanlin asked.
"Doesn't matter," he replied. "What matters is they don't want us leaving without leaving a trace."
Lin Ye stepped forward.
The Threshold did not open.
It leaned.
Like a hand against a wall that has not yet decided whether to yield.
"It's not a full blockade," he said. "It's… active surveillance."
He Lian swallowed.
"That's worse," he said. "It means they're following us without touching us."
As if to confirm his words, a presence slid along the edge of Lin Ye's perception.
Not strong.
Not precise.
But trained.
"Three," Lin Ye said softly. "They're not coming together."
Yan Mo nodded.
"Pressure scouts," he said. "They don't attack. They force mistakes."
The first appeared without warning.
He didn't leap from the shadows or unleash a flashy technique. He simply took a step where there should have been no room for one more.
He was a thin man, in dark clothes, with a common face. His cultivation was higher than Xu Han's, lower than Ji Ren's. But his hands were already moving, forming seals with trained precision.
"Dead Current Lasso Technique," he murmured.
The ground became sticky, as if the ambient qi had been convinced not to flow. It was not a lethal technique. It was a restraining one.
Su Yanlin reacted instantly, throwing a blade of compressed energy. The man deflected it with a minimal twist of his forearm, using a defensive technique embedded in his clothing.
"He's not alone," she warned.
The second appeared on the right, executing a Doubly-Delayed Echo Step. His figure did not split into images, but into times: one version of him moved half a second after the other.
"Specialists," Yan Mo said. "They're not trying to kill us."
"They're trying to see what we do," Lin Ye replied.
The third still had not shown himself.
Lin Ye felt the echo in his chest tighten.
It didn't want to leave.
It wanted to participate.
"No," he thought. "Not yet."
He stepped forward and activated a minor technique of his method—non-offensive.
Space tilted.
It did not break.
It did not close.
It simply stopped offering comfortable trajectories.
The second pursuer stumbled in the air, confused by a step that did not lead where it should have.
"What was that?" he growled.
"A reminder," Lin Ye replied, "that this road does not cooperate with those who don't understand transitions."
The first frowned.
"Not our target," he said. "Partial withdrawal."
Too late.
The third finally appeared, descending from above with a controlled falling technique. His aura was different: cleaner, more dangerous.
"That one," Yan Mo said. "That one can kill us."
The man raised his hand.
"Directional Compression Art."
The air closed like a press.
Lin Ye felt the world pushing him toward a single point.
He could not win this head-on.
He knew it immediately.
"He Lian," he said. "Now."
He Lian did not hesitate.
He took a step… and his presence failed.
He did not disappear.
He became incomplete.
The third pursuer frowned for a fraction of a second. Enough.
The Threshold opened just enough.
Not to attack.
To leave.
Yan Mo grabbed Su Yanlin. Lin Ye hurled himself toward the unstable gap, dragging He Lian with him.
The world folded.
The road closed behind them.
They fell.
Not into the void.
Onto a hard, cold ground, covered with ancient, half-erased symbols.
Lin Ye was breathing heavily.
"That…," he panted, "definitely… wasn't clean."
Yan Mo slowly straightened.
"But it worked," he said. "We left the correction zone."
Su Yanlin looked around.
"Where are we?"
Yan Mo examined the symbols carefully.
"In a place the Empire stopped recognizing decades ago," he replied. "A forgotten node."
Lin Ye closed his eyes.
The echo in his chest calmed.
For now.
"So here…," he said. "The world takes time to decide."
Yan Mo nodded.
"And that buys us time."
Far above, one of the pursuers opened his eyes after the withdrawal.
"They escaped," he said. "But not cleanly."
A voice replied from a dark tablet.
"Perfect," it said. "Now we'll know where they belong when they fall."
The silence of the place was unnatural.
Not because it was still, but because it did not react.
Lin Ye was the first to notice. Even before fully rising, before the delayed pain of the Threshold settled into his bones, he felt that uncomfortable absence: the ground did not return weight normally, the air did not fluctuate with breathing, and the ambient qi… simply had no opinion.
"This place doesn't respond," he murmured.
Yan Mo crouched and ran his hand over one of the engraved symbols on the ground. They were ancient, eroded, but not damaged by time. They seemed worn down by forgetting.
"It's not that it doesn't respond," he said. "It stopped participating."
Su Yanlin looked around uneasily. The space was wide and circular, with ruined columns at the edges and remnants of what must once have been a ritual structure. There was no visible sky, only a dark stone dome streaked with fine cracks.
"A sanctuary?" she asked.
"A transition node," Yan Mo replied. "From the ancients."
Lin Ye fully rose—and the world collected its debt.
The pain came late, but it came in full. A brutal pressure ran across his back, as if someone had driven an invisible weight between his shoulder blades. His vision blurred and he had to drop to one knee.
"Lin Ye," Su Yanlin said, approaching.
"No…," he panted. "Let me."
He breathed deeply. Once. Twice.
The qi responded, but slowly. Each cycle was like pushing thick water upstream.
"Forced withdrawal," Yan Mo murmured. "The Threshold was not designed for repeated escapes."
Lin Ye nodded with a bitter smile.
"I know," he said. "It's reminding me enthusiastically."
He Lian, who had remained silent until then, took a step… and froze.
"Something's wrong," he said.
He slowly raised his hand. His outline blurred for an instant, as if the light didn't know where his silhouette ended.
"When I intervened out there…," he continued. "I didn't just misalign my presence."
He swallowed.
"I lost something."
"What?" Su Yanlin asked.
He Lian closed his eyes for a second.
"My oldest memory," he said. "I don't know what it was… I only know it's gone."
Silence fell like a slab of stone.
"That's not minor damage," Yan Mo said gravely. "Old memories are anchors of identity."
"I know," He Lian replied. "But if I hadn't done it… you wouldn't be here."
Lin Ye watched him—not with guilt, but with record.
"This counts," he said. "And I won't forget it."
He Lian smiled weakly.
"Ironic, isn't it?"
Before anyone could reply, the node activated.
Not with noise.
Not with light.
With a change of priority.
The symbols on the floor began to glow faintly, dimly, like old embers remembering they had once been fire. The columns vibrated softly and the air gained a different density—more… formal.
"Nobody move," Yan Mo ordered. "This isn't a trap. It's a protocol."
"What kind?" Su Yanlin asked.
Yan Mo watched as the symbols reorganized, connecting with nearly invisible energy lines.
"Classification," he said. "This node decides what can cross… and what should not have arrived."
Lin Ye felt the echo in his chest awaken—attentive, not aggressive.
"This isn't good," he murmured.
"Nor bad," Yan Mo replied. "It's ancient."
The node chose its first "interlocutor."
He Lian.
The floor beneath his feet lit with a different, incomplete symbol, as if the system did not know where to place him.
He Lian went pale.
"It doesn't like me," he said. "These things never like me."
"It doesn't recognize you," Yan Mo corrected. "And that's worse."
The symbol trembled… and then failed.
It did not extinguish.
It fractured.
A thin crack appeared in the air in front of He Lian, revealing a gray void without depth.
"That shouldn't happen," Su Yanlin said.
"No," Yan Mo replied. "A node can't fail like that—unless—"
The crack suddenly expanded.
The echo in Lin Ye's chest roared soundlessly—not to leave, but to close.
"HE LIAN!"
Lin Ye lunged forward. The Threshold responded with contained violence. The space between them folded in an imperfect, inelegant instant—enough.
The crack snapped shut with a dry sound, like a page torn out.
Lin Ye dropped to his knees again with a muffled groan. Pain tore through him, deeper than physical.
He Lian collapsed beside him, trembling.
"…I'm still here," he whispered. "I think."
"That was a direct intervention on an ancient system," Yan Mo said harshly. "You shouldn't have done it that way."
"I wasn't going to let it erase him," Lin Ye replied, eyes misted.
"The node has registered you now," Yan Mo said. "Not as a visitor."
"Then what?" Su Yanlin asked.
Yan Mo watched the symbols rearrange around Lin Ye.
"Then this place… is no longer neutral."
The node emitted a final pulse.
An inscription slowly emerged on the floor, clear as if it had waited centuries to appear:
"Incomplete field detected."
"Provisional authority assigned."
Lin Ye closed his eyes.
The echo in his chest stabilized.
For now.
"Great," he muttered. "Another place that expects me to decide something."
Far away, a northern tablet updated itself:
Ancient node reactivated.
Variable present.
Probability of confrontation: elevated.