"No, no, please!"
With a wet, sickening sound, a shadow tentacle speared straight through Wei Zhen's chest, punching a clean hole where his heartbeat had been. His eyes went wide, fixed on the girl before him, and the truth finally snapped into place.
She was the reason for the corpses scattered around.
No. This was no girl.
A demon. Yes, a demon.
It had waited until he'd gathered all the loot before striking, using him like a mule. His thoughts wavered, then slipped away into black. The last thing he managed was a bitter curse at the heavens as his body hit the ground.
The killer looked down at the corpse without a flicker of expression. She'd let him do the gathering so she wouldn't have to. If she searched the dead herself, she would've needed to merge, and that would've left her vulnerable for too long.
She remembered that when she'd first taken control of this vessel, it could still touch things. But over time, that faded. Now, unless she merged with it, she couldn't grasp even a pebble.
The girl knew she was wrong. A thing that shouldn't exist. The clearest proof was her power, a name drilled into her consciousness so deeply it felt older than thought.
Umbra.
From the days of her aimless wandering, she'd learned others cultivated something else called Qi that filled the world. She on the other hand, fed on living beings shadows to restore her Umbra and grow stronger.
She'd even slipped into what they praised and called a sect, where the strong gathered, just to see if anyone would notice her existence. She walked into their hall where they discussed ´important matters´, and nobody noticed her at all. After listening to their dull talk about scheduling the sect master's marriage for New Year's, she left without a sound.
Her Umbra was unique in another way too. The moment she manipulated it too openly, other people could suddenly perceive her, as if the world grudgingly decided to acknowledge she existed.
As the shadow slowly receded into the girl's body, she opened her eyes. This time, instead of the hollow gaze she always wore, they looked almost normal, yet there were no emotions behind them.
She crouched and opened Wei Zhen's bag. Inside were all sorts of items. She didn't bother checking them since the most important one was already on her, but a book suddenly caught her eyes. Curious, she slid it out.
[Five Steps to Win a Dao Companion! (Without Getting Kicked Off a Cliff.)]
The girl stared at the title.
Then she tucked it back into the bag and slung it over her shoulder before her face went hollow again. Shadow spilled out from her feet, thin and soundless.
She'd experimented before. If she merged, picked something up, and separated again, she could still carry it as long as it stayed in her hands. The moment it left her grasp, she couldn't touch it anymore.
She wasn't like those 'ghosts' people talked about. A wall still stopped her. Her hand couldn't pass through objects, she just couldn't hold them.
Then she felt something.
A raw, animalistic certainty that made her instincts scream.
* * * *
Outside the secret realm, in a hidden chamber beneath Dawning Vale, a round table sat in a cave-like hall. Damp stone breathed cold into the room. A single lamp burned with a steady, smokeless flame, its light catching on beads of moisture along the ceiling.
Several figures had gathered in here, none wore hoods, yet their faces remained blurred and indistinct.
A thin man with ink-stained fingers drummed once on the table, impatient. Shen Yuanzhi's nails were dark with cinnabar and soot, the smell of formation ink clinging to him.
"Why the sudden call for a meeting, Lu Wenye?"
Across from him, a hoarse-voiced man with the posture of an old soldier leaned back with arms crossed. Duan Kuo didn't fidget. He watched like a guard at a prison gate.
A woman in pale sleeves kept turning a plain ring around her finger, faster and faster, like she was trying to grind it into dust. Qiao Lanyue's breathing stayed controlled, but her knuckles were white.
At the far end sat a smaller figure, too still, hands folded as if she'd been taught to make herself small. Su Meilan's eyes flicked from person to person, trying not to be noticed and failing anyway.
"Did any variables appear?"
"Did the plan get exposed?"
Questions piled up with fear. They didn't know the full reason behind this job, but the pay was heavy enough that the organization had poured so much resources into it. Even sending transmissions daily, asking if they needed more cultivators, more pills, more artifacts, more experts.
Though they promised hefty rewards and never spoke of punishments, nobody at the table believed that meant there wasn't one, the better the rewards, the heavier it will be.
Lu Wenye sat at the head, hands folded. "Enough, everything is going as planned. No hiccups."
Shen Yuanzhi stopped drumming, but his fingers stayed tense. Qiao Lanyue's ring slowed, then turned again. Duan Kuo didn't move at all.
"But there's been a slight change," Lu Wenye continued. "They want us to proceed as soon as possible instead of waiting on the secret realm."
For a breath, nobody spoke. A cold drop fell from the ceiling and struck the tabletop with a soft, sharp tick.
Then it broke.
"Already?" Shen Yuanzhi snapped. "We haven't finished setting up the formations!"
Duan Kuo's voice scraped out. "Wasn't the plan to use the rogue cultivators coming out as an army?"
"We haven't even laid the trap at the base of the mountain yet," Qiao Lanyue cut in, and the word trap sounded like she'd bitten it.
Lu Wenye lifted a finger, slow and unhurried, the way a man might hush a barking dog.
"Discussing it is useless, and they know we're not ready."
Shen Yuanzhi's nostrils flared, but he held his tongue.
"That's why they've already sent reinforcements, they should arrive by tomorrow morning."
The room didn't relax. It shifted into something colder. Reinforcements meant the the higher ups wanted results fast, and they rarely asked twice.
"How many?" Duan Kuo asked, finally leaning forward.
"Around a thousand cultivators, early Qi Foundation to late Body Tempering. Two peak Nascent cultivators. One mid Void cultivator. Five formation experts."
Qiao Lanyue's ring finally stopped. Shen Yuanzhi swallowed once, then pressed his ink-stained thumb against the table as if anchoring himself. Someone exhaled hard through their nose, like they were trying to keep their breath from shaking.
Su Meilan shifted, hesitant. Her voice came out softer than the rest, but it still landed.
"I… don't think that's enough to wipe out the Verdant Pine Sect."
Several heads turned at once. Even blurred, the looks aimed at her felt like they were looking at a fool.
Lu Wenye chuckled, neither kind nor amused. "Destroy? even if the organization emptied its vaults, it still wouldn't be able to wipe them out. Not with their ancestor sleeping."
"We're here to carve, kill a few elders. Massacre their disciples. Leave a scar they can't hide."
Su Meilan frowned. "How are we so sure their ancestor won't wake to help?"
"They won't wake him unless the sect faces utter destruction, even if we wipe out half their people and they try to rouse him, the ancestor won't come out."
Duan Kuo snorted quietly. "Pride."
"Exactly, and pride is cheaper than pills."
He let that sink in, then continued, "Now, the plan will stay the same but with slight changes. I'll explain it from the start so nobody misunderstands and dies from it."
Su Meilan lowered her head, lips pressed thin. Included and threatened in the same breath.
"Verdant Pine offended people with power, people who can't strike openly. So our organization strikes for them."
"Withered Bough. That's the plan-code word. Which has three parts: Kingdom, Sect, Base."
"Everyone's heard of the strange phenomenon that split the mountain in half right?" Without waiting for them to answer he continued. "We've confirmed a battle was the cause. A powerful cultivator was cut into hundreds of pieces by someone, and those remains are buried around the crater Dawning Vale was built on."
Shen Yuanzhi's voice turned thin. "Cut into pieces… and still worth reviving, I wonder how strong they were."
Lu Wenye's tone didn't change. "Kingdom. We use a formation to gather those pieces and revive him, since his soul is already gone, that will makes it easier to control his corpse. We let him tear through Dawning Vale. That chaos draws the sect master and elders down the mountain."
"Dawning Vale is their mouth," Qiao Lanyue murmured.
"And their comfort," Lu Wenye added, almost fond. "Take it away and they scramble."
"Sect," he continued. "Once the reinforcements arrive, we go up. We strike the inner disciples area first. Anything strong gets handled quickly. The army handles the rest."
Duan Kuo tapped the table with one knuckle, a measured sound. "And when the elders realize?"
"Some will stay to support the sect master, while the rest will rush back, and that's when the Base part comes into play."
He let his gaze sweep the table. "Our Nascent and Void cultivators will intercept them for as long as possible while the sect bleeds. We don't need to win. We only need time. Once they can't hold longer, they will release a signal and we retreat."
Su Meilan lifted her hand. "What about the sect's defensive formations?"
"The defensive formations would've been a concern, if anyone could activate them. But It takes an elder to do that, and with the elders pulled down, the formations will stay asleep."
"And if not all the elders go down?" Su Meilan pressed.
"Curiosity and pride do half our work, they haven't seen real action in a long time.¨
"And if the revived cultivator isn't strong enough?"
Lu Wenye's mouth curved. "Then you still don't understand why we have a second formation."
Another voice cut in. "What about their secret realm? Do we just leave it be?"
Lu Wenye shook his head. "No. I prepared a backup plan in case we didn't need it, which I've already set it in motion, consider it already destroyd." The he rose. The scrape of his chair sounding too loud in the small 'room'.
"Return to your work, prepare to receive our guests tomorrow. Once the formations are complete, we begin Withered Bough."
Chairs shifted. Figures stood. One by one, they filed out, their footsteps swallowed by the stone.
Lu Wenye remained a moment longer, staring at the table as if it were a board and the pieces had already been placed. He didn't know exactly who the Verdant Pine Sect had offended to earn this kind of hatred, only that the organization had decided the debt would be paid in blood.
Turning toward the tunnel, Lu Wenye smiled. He could already taste the chaos that was about to spill across this land.