Zhang Cuizhan stepped into the rift with practiced ease. "After you, Daoist Chen."

  Gensheng didn't hesitate, but as he crossed the threshold, the unstable spatial laws tore at him. The runes of the Myriad Insect Casket flared to protect his body, but the tether connecting him to Li Simin and the Essence-Marrow Toad was snapped by a violent, invisible force.

  He slammed into the scorched earth of Star-Fall Gorge, creating a crater in the shape of a man.

  The sky was leaden. The air tasted of ash. Where is Simin? Where is the coffin? He swept the area with his divine sense, but the connection was dead.

  Suddenly, he picked up two faint pulses of Foundation-level Qi behind a cluster of jagged rocks. Creeping closer, he found a pair of cultivators—a man and a woman—engaged in a lewd dalliance. The man, a rat-faced fellow with the early-stage Foundation realm, was boasting about his "Golden Spear" technique.

  Gensheng stepped out from the shadows. The man's face twisted in rage and envy—he hated anyone with a more handsome face than his own, and this six-armed freak, despite his oddity, possessed a striking, jade-like countenance.

  "A peeping tom? You’re looking for death!" The man flipped a formation plate, summoning four earthen walls to crush Gensheng into pulp.

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  Gensheng didn't even blink. His ink-colored wings unfurled, and he surged into the air like a bolt of lightning.

  "Junior Sister, look! This freak has a flight treasure!" Greed replaced rage. The man leaped up, a golden spear appearing in his hand. "The treasure is mine!"

  Gensheng shifted his weight slightly, letting the spear whistle past his ear. Then, he opened his mouth.

  Hundreds of Ashen-Blue Butterflies fluttered out, silent as falling soot. They circled the man, shedding shimmering phosphorus like deadly glitter.

  "What are these—?" The man’s sentence ended in a blood-curdling shriek. Where the dust touched his skin, the flesh dissolved instantly. In mere breaths, he was nothing but a skeleton that crumbled into the wind.

  Gensheng descended, the butterflies returning to his maw like weary birds. He picked up the golden spear and the man’s meager storage bag.

  "Mercy, Immortal! I saw nothing! I know nothing!" The woman scrambled backward, her clothes in disarray.

  "Have you seen a traitor from the Jade Tripod Sect?" Gensheng’s voice was hollow.

  "Jade Tripod? A traitor?" She stammered, then quickly corrected herself under his cold gaze. "Three days ago! We saw a suspicious cultivator heading East! His aura was strange, definitely not an orthodox practitioner!"

  She frantically dug into her bag, holding a pink-covered manual above her head with both hands. "I am a disciple of the Joyous Union Sect... just a lowly 'cauldron' sent to find herbs! Please, take this Secret Art of Dual Cultivation! Just spare my miserable life!"

  She kept her head pressed to the dirt. In this world, a cauldron without a patron was worth less than an ant. And before her stood a six-armed demon who could erase a Foundation cultivator with a breath.