The Discipline Hall of the Outer Sect smelled of sulfur and dried blood.
Deacon Shen sat behind a heavy ironwood desk, his thick fingers rhythmically tapping against the wood. Laid out on a straw mat before him was Ma Chen, unconscious, his face pale and covered in cold sweat. The Pavilion Elder stood nearby, shaking his head.
"His inner thigh nerve cluster is completely pulverized," the Elder said dryly. "He will never walk straight again, let alone cultivate martial arts. He said he tripped after pushing the Dver boy."
Shen stopped tapping his fingers. His jaw tightened, the rusted-iron color of his eyes darkening with absolute malice.
"Tripped," Shen repeated. The word tasted like ash in his mouth.
First, Zhao and Lin vanish without a trace. Then, the rat Dver cowers in the dirt before three thousand disciples, swearing he hid in the latrines all night, making Shen look like a fool for even questioning him. And now, less than four hours later, a top-500 disciple is permanently crippled by an "accident" right next to that exact same boy?
Shen wasn't stupid. Coincidences in the Blood Lotus Sect were just assassinations with good PR.
"That little rat," Shen snarled softly, his Qi flaring and cracking the stone floor beneath his boots. "He played me. He hid his fangs and made me a blind, laughing stock."
Shen stood up and walked over to the sprawling archive of wooden registry slips lining the back wall. He yanked open a drawer marked for the bottom-tier trash and pulled out Dver's file. He unrolled the cheap parchment.
"Dver. Age sixteen. Born to a mortal branch family of iron miners in Ash-Ridge Valley, three days ride from the mountain," Shen read aloud, a cruel, vindictive smile slowly spreading across his face.
In the sect, you didn't just punish the disciple. You punished their roots.
Shen tossed the scroll to a scarred, hulking Enforcer standing by the door. "Take two men. Ride to Ash-Ridge Valley tonight. I don't care if you have to burn their mining camp to the ground. Find this rat's parents, break their legs, and drag them back to the Sect. We will see how well Dver hides his fangs when I skin his mother in the courtyard."
The sun had set, painting the Outer Sect in suffocating shades of grey and black.
Dver sat cross-legged in the center of his rotting wooden shack. The air inside the small room was thick, vibrating with a heavy, suffocating pressure. Veins the color of black ink bulged against his neck as he violently circulated the Asura's Iron-Blood Mantra.
He wasn't using ambient Qi. He was using the thick, stolen lifeforce of the two bullies he had devoured the night before, compressing it directly into his muscle fibers.
Crack. Snap.
The sound of his own bones fracturing and immediately healing denser echoed in the quiet room. It was excruciating, but Dver's face remained a mask of dead, emotionless stone. He had survived the pit; physical pain was just data to him now.
"Your shell grows harder, Vessel," the Void God hummed in his mind, sounding mildly entertained. "But it is still hollow. We are hungry again."
"Soon," Dver whispered, exhaling a breath of dark, freezing air that instantly frosted the wooden floorboards.
Suddenly, Dver's eyes snapped open.
He didn't hear a sound, but the Void inside him was highly sensitive to killing intent. It was like a drop of blood hitting a shark's nose. Someone in the Outer Sect was radiating pure malice directed entirely at the name "Dver."
Dver stood up, his lazy, slouched posture returning as he stepped out of his shack and melted into the shadows of the alleyway. He navigated the rooftops of the slums with the silent, explosive grace of a hunting cat, tracking the source of the intent toward the Discipline Hall.
He perched on the edge of a slanted roof, blending perfectly with a stone gargoyle, and looked down at the courtyard.
Three men wearing the black and crimson robes of Shen's personal Enforcers were saddling armored terror-horses. Dver focused his newly heightened senses, catching the tail-end of their conversation over the howling wind.
"...three days ride to Ash-Ridge," the scarred leader grunted, securing a spiked whip to his saddle. "Deacon Shen wants the family alive, but he didn't say they had to be in one piece. Let's move."
Up on the roof, Dver's empty eyes went completely still.
Ash-Ridge. The family of the dead boy.
Dver didn't care about the original Dver's family. To him, they were just strangers. But if Shen dragged them here, the very first thing they would do upon seeing him is scream, 'That is not our son!' His stolen identity would shatter. The Elders would realize an imposter had infiltrated the sect. They would scan him with high-level artifacts, discover the Void God, and bring the full, crushing weight of the Blood Lotus Sect down on his head before he was strong enough to eat them.
"A loose thread," the Void God whispered, a dark thrill bleeding into its ancient voice. "They seek to pull it."
"Then we cut the thread," Dver replied.
He watched the three Enforcers ride out of the sect's massive iron gates, heading down the mountain path into the dense, treacherous Blackwood Forest.
Dver didn't bother packing a weapon. He simply stepped off the roof, his body dropping thirty feet into the shadows below, making absolutely no sound as he landed.
The game had changed. He wasn't just hunting for food anymore. He was hunting to protect his lie. And out there, in the dark woods away from the eyes of the Elders, he didn't have to pretend to be weak.
Out there, he could let the Void off its leash.