The interior of the Scarlet Cloud Sword Tomb was not a cave, but a distorted pocket of reality where the sky was a permanent, bruised violet and the ground was composed of crushed obsidian and rusted iron filings. A dense, silver-grey mist clung to the earth, swirling around the jagged remnants of thousands of broken blades that stood like tombstones in a forgotten graveyard. Every few seconds, a sharp whistle would echo through the air—the "Ghost Whistle" of ancient sword intent still seeking a master to strike.

  Hua Sui stood perfectly still as the metallic fog swallowed the massive stone gates behind him. To the other nine disciples, the mist was an obstacle to be feared, a veil that suppressed their spiritual senses and bit at their skin. To Hua Sui, however, the mist felt like a shroud of sanctuary. Within this grey void, the prying eyes of Elder Mei and the Sect Leader were gone. Here, he was no longer a servant, nor was he "Han Ming." He was the predator.

  A faint, rhythmic pulse vibrated through the air—the resonance of the Puppet Soul Seed. Su Qing was far away at the entrance, but through their tether, he could feel her lingering dread. He ignored it, focusing instead on the nine flickers of spiritual light moving through the fog. They had already begun to scatter, each driven by their own greed to find the rarest herbs or the strongest sword spirits.

  One flicker, however, was moving with calculated precision toward his own position. It was sharp, cold, and agitated.

  "I knew you wouldn't get far, Han Ming," a voice rang out, vibrating with a high-frequency spiritual hum.

  Lin Yue emerged from the silver mist, her jade rapier unsheathed. The blade glowed with a pure, emerald light that pushed back the fog in a five-foot radius. She looked at Hua Sui with a mixture of disgust and predatory excitement. To her, "Han Ming" was an anomaly that needed to be erased to secure her own glory.

  "You're remarkably calm for someone who is about to be disqualified," she said, her rapier leveling at his throat. "The way you defeated Zhao Kui... it wasn't martial skill. It was a fluke of some foul, hidden poison. But my Jade-Heart Sword Intent is pure. It doesn't matter how 'rotten' your Qi is; my blade will cut through it before you can even blink."

  Hua Sui didn't reach for a weapon. He didn't even drop into a defensive stance. He merely stood there, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, his eyes as grey and lifeless as the mist around them.

  "You talk about purity," Hua Sui said, his voice a low, raspy rasp that seemed to harmonize with the metallic wind. "But in this graveyard, purity is just a lack of experience. Do you hear that, Lin Yue? The sound of the mist?"

  Lin Yue frowned, her grip tightening on her hilt. "I hear nothing but the wind."

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  "Exactly," Hua Sui whispered. "The cicada sings to announce its presence to the world, unaware that the mantis is already behind it. You are the cicada, Lin Yue. Your sword intent is your song. And I... I am very hungry."

  Infuriated by his arrogance, Lin Yue lunged. Her rapier transformed into a streak of emerald light, executing the Seven-Star Piercing Strike. It was a high-tier technique of the Main Peak, designed to punctuate the opponent's acupuncture points with bursts of needle-like Qi. The air hissed as the blade neared Hua Sui's chest.

  But Hua Sui did not dodge.

  As the emerald tip touched his robes, his body suddenly erupted with a thick, suffocating aura of charcoal-grey mist. It wasn't a shield; it was an opening. He reached out with a lightning-fast motion, his fingers curling into the Life-Plucking Hand. Instead of recoiling from her sharp intent, he gripped the bare blade of the rapier with his naked hand.

  Blood dripped, but it wasn't red. It was a dark, viscous crimson that smoked as it touched the jade steel.

  "What...?" Lin Yue's eyes widened. Her sword intent, which should have shredded his hand to bone, was being sucked into his palm like water into a parched desert. The emerald glow of her rapier began to flicker and dim, the spiritual connection between her and her weapon rapidly dissolving into a void of "decay."

  "This is the purity you spoke of?" Hua Sui asked, his face inches from hers. His eyes were now swirling with a dark, predatory hunger. "It tastes like glass. Fragile. Hollow."

  He yanked the sword forward, pulling a panicked Lin Yue into his grasp. His other hand slammed into her solar plexus, not with a fist, but with an open palm. The Reverse Meridians within his arm roared to life, creating a powerful vacuum that bypassed her external armor and latched directly onto her spiritual sea.

  Lin Yue tried to scream, but her voice died in her throat. She felt a sensation of absolute cold spreading from her chest to her limbs. Her cultivated Qi—the result of a decade of pampered training—was being pulled out of her body in violent, jagged clumps. It wasn't just energy; it felt as if her very life essence, her memories of the sword, and her physical vitality were being fed into a grinding maw.

  Her skin began to lose its luster, turning a sallow, parchment-grey. Her bright eyes dimmed, the pupils dilating into empty orbs of terror. She watched as the "Han Ming" she had mocked transformed into a monster of shadows, his presence expanding until he seemed to fill the entire Sword Tomb.

  "Don't worry," Hua Sui whispered into her ear as she began to limp in his arms. "You won't be the last. You are just the first course of the feast."

  With a final, violent surge, Hua Sui snapped the jade rapier in half and threw the gasping, withered form of Lin Yue into the jagged obsidian rocks. She wasn't dead, but she was worse—her foundation was shattered, her cultivation drained to nothing but a hollow shell. She was a cicada that had lost its wings in the dead of winter.

  Hua Sui stood in the center of the clearing, breathing heavily as the stolen emerald Qi fought against his internal darkness. He could feel his cultivation level trembling at the peak of the fifth level, the barrier to the sixth stage of Qi Refining cracking under the sheer volume of high-quality energy he had just consumed.

  He looked deeper into the silver mist, where eight more flickers of light awaited. The Sword Tomb was no longer a trial. It was a banquet hall, and the music was just beginning.