High atop a jagged ridge, the wind swept through empty pavilions and stone courtyards. A single talisman, flickering faintly, hovered above a carved stone table.

  An elder lowered it carefully, eyes narrowing at the projection it cast. The clearing below was visible—Feng, Li Wei, and Zhi Yuan, surrounded by scorched earth and silence.

  “It was deliberate,” said one elder, voice low. “The beast was calibrated to test him. Not to kill.”

  Another nodded. “He was meant to devour the lightning, yes—but not that lightning. Not White Lightning.”

  A murmur rippled through the assembly. “And cooperation?”

  “Impossible,” said the first. “That is heresy.”

  The elders leaned closer to the talisman projection. Sparks of energy still lingered where the rogue beast had fallen.

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  “White Lightning—impure. From a rival sect.”

  “Black Lightning—devouring-type.”

  “Slash Qi—blade compression.”

  “The cancellation failed,” one observed.

  “No,” corrected another, voice tight. “It did not fail. It evolved.”

  Silence hung. Eyes widened.

  “This… is not cultivation as we know it,” muttered a senior voice. “It is heretical. Demonic.”

  Another asked, hesitant, “Do we intervene?”

  The first shook his head. “No. Let the trial continue.”

  A single eyebrow lifted. A subtle frown passed among them. Confidence, yes—but also unease.

  “The trial was never about beasts,” said the senior voice. “It was about appetite. Devour everything. Alone.”

  The rogue creature had been bait, calibrated to tempt, to measure. Instead, Feng had resonated with another sect. Cooperation, synergy—impossible under normal calculations.

  One of the talismans flickered, almost imperceptibly. Not Heaven. Not thunder. Just… a needle shifted. A minor fluctuation in the sect’s elemental array. A single stone scale tilted.

  “Strange,” muttered an elder. “We cannot measure it fully.”

  A hush fell.

  “He has a physique…” another said softly, almost in awe. “The Devouring Apex Physique. Never meant to share.”

  “Let the Peak descend further,” said the first elder. “If he fractures, he was never worthy. If he ...…”

  “…we will have to reconsider the mountain.”

  The talisman faded. The wind rose. And somewhere, far below, the Peak waited.