Mo Jian resisted the urge to rip his hair out.

  This was the third time in two weeks. The third time the Vast Yang Firebird Talisman had nearly activated.

  He hadn’t told Bai Ning, but when he’d refined the talisman for her, he had left behind a sliver of his own spiritual essence in it—an invisible thread tethered between the two of them. It was more than just a protective charm. It was a last resort. If her life ever truly hung in the balance, the talisman would respond on its own, unleashing its power to save her without her even realizing why. That was the entire point. She wasn’t supposed to know.

  He had sent her into the Domain so she could gain experience, so she could grow on her own. If he hovered behind her like an overprotective master, ready to catch her at the first sign of trouble, then what would be the point of this expedition at all? Growth couldn’t happen in the shadow of safety.

  Still, even knowing that, he couldn’t shake the tension each time the talisman stirred.

  It hadn’t activated—yet—but each pulse, each flicker, had sent a wave of alarm through his cultivation. The first incident had been mere hours after she’d entered the Domain, barely long enough for the formation to close behind her. Since then, it had happened twice more. And every single time, he’d had to forcibly talk himself down from tearing across the Thousand Shattered Islands to drag her out of that place with his own hands.

  He had known it would be dangerous. He had prepared her. But this... this was pushing the line.

  With a sigh, he let his extended spiritual awareness recede, shrinking his senses until they no longer stretched over the distant island. There was no point in watching so closely. He needed to wait. Meditate. Endure.

  It was the only thing he could do.

  He settled back into a seated position within the cave he had carved for himself during the first days of waiting. A temporary home, modest in scale, but not uncomfortable. He had expanded it slightly over the last week, added a few wards, laid out some creature comforts—a bedroll, a tea set, a small library of jade slips. Not much, but enough to wait out the month it would take for the Domain to reopen.

  His qi was tightly suppressed. From the outside, he appeared to be a cultivator in the late Foundation Establishment stage, nothing more. It was easier this way. With his Core Formation presence hidden, he didn’t have to deal with nervous juniors bowing and scraping, or worse, opportunists seeking favors.

  He wasn’t the only one waiting. When the Domain opened, several sects had sent their disciples in, and the surrounding area had filled with scattered camps and temporary shelters. Seniors waiting for their juniors. Guardians pretending to be unconcerned. Most were Foundation Establishment cultivators, just strong enough to intervene if something went truly wrong—but not too strong to waste time on such a low-tier trial.

  As far as Mo Jian could tell, he was the only Core Formation cultivator present. That alone said a great deal. The Enigmatic Death Domain wasn’t considered valuable. Dangerous, perhaps. Interesting, certainly. But not worth the attention of anyone truly powerful.

  And Mo Jian wouldn’t have paid it any mind either—if it hadn’t appeared in the book he’d read back on Earth.

  In the story, the Enigmatic Death Domain was the setting of a fateful encounter between the protagonist, Ye Chen, and the heroine, Bai Ning. Their second meeting, to be precise. Both had entered the Domain by coincidence, Ye Chen in the final stage of the Qi Condensation realm, Bai Ning in the ninth stage of the same. They had explored it together, fought side by side, and eventually formed a bond that would anchor their story for hundreds of chapters to come.

  But that wasn’t what had caught Mo Jian’s attention. The real reason he was here now, playing the waiting game, was the Ghost King.

  According to the book, Ye Chen and Bai Ning had stumbled upon the creature deep within the Domain—a monstrous spirit entity born from the fusion of hundreds of wandering ghosts. It possessed the intelligence of a single will and the strength equivalent to an early Core Formation cultivator. They had fought it together, against all odds, and triumphed. It had been one of their earliest brushes with true danger, and it had rewarded them with a priceless artifact: the Abyssal Umbral Bead, a rare and powerful refining material capable of increasing the speed of any weapon it was fused into a hundredfold.

  An incredible opportunity. The kind that only came once in a lifetime.

  But Mo Jian had made sure that particular encounter would never happen.

  For one, if the original timeline still held any weight, that event wasn’t supposed to occur until the next time the Domain opened—ten years from now. And even if the timeline had shifted due to his interference, he’d already scanned the entire island with his spiritual sense before the formation activated. There had been no entities stronger than Foundation Establishment down there. None. The grand formation surrounding the Domain suppressed spiritual energy too heavily for anything stronger to survive inside for long.

  And yet... in the book, the Ghost King had still appeared.

  No explanation had been given. The author hadn’t gone into the mechanics. But it had happened.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Mo Jian had his own theory. Perhaps the Domain absorbed the remnants of every cultivator who died inside it—soul, essence, regret. Perhaps over time, those echoes of death slowly coalesced into something more. A Ghost King might take decades to form. Centuries. But if it was possible once, it could happen again.

  Still, that wasn’t his concern. Not truly.

  Once Bai Ning returned, he’d file a report with the Harmonious Rain Sect, the ones responsible for monitoring this section of the Thousand Shattered Islands. He’d let them know there was a risk of a Ghost King forming in the future. Let them handle it. After all, a Ghost King was dangerous to Qi Condensation or Foundation Establishment cultivators unprepared for it—but to any half-decent Core Formation expert, it was nothing more than a warm-up.

  Still seated, Mo Jian exhaled slowly, allowing his breath to flow through the meridians of his body, sinking deeper into cultivation. The warmth of his qi hummed faintly beneath the surface, coiled and ready, even as he continued to mask his presence. Outside the cave, the wind rustled through the trees, carrying the sharp, salt-laced scent of the sea. Somewhere in the distance, a beast howled, the sound carrying through the wind.

  All he had to do was wait. Bai Ning was smart and strong. She would be fine.

  “You’d better come back in one piece,” he muttered under his breath. “I didn’t put you through three years of training just to dig your bones out of a ruin.”

  He knew she couldn’t hear him.

  He said it anyway.

  …................

  Bai Ning was starting to have a disturbing amount of fun in the Enigmatic Death Domain.

  Was that wrong to admit?

  After the horror of her first day, she'd been hyper-cautious—treating everything she came across as a potential threat. On one occasion, she’d run into two other cultivators and ended up in a tense standoff, all three sides bristling with qi. Somehow, they’d managed to back off without a fight. Another time, she’d passed a Qi Condensation cultivator in the third stage, who tried to hide the moment he sensed her. She’d paused, then moved on. To him, she must’ve felt like a tiger crossing his path. Of course he’d hide.

  That night, she had set up the Reverse Flow Silver Light Formation between two outcroppings of boulders, keeping herself hidden. She could have kept moving, but ghosts and jiangshi grew stronger at night—it was smarter to rest and rebalance her qi. The formation had been tested relentlessly through the night, waves of ghosts hurling themselves against it, but it held. Her master had refined this formation himself. There should be nothing on the island capable of breaking through its defenses.

  The next day had gone better.

  She’d found a small cave that led into a vast underground cavern swamped with ghostly winds and packed with shambling corpses. She’d thrown herself into battle immediately, unfurling the Golden Silk Coiling Dragon Banner and burning through corpse after corpse. The yin qi there had cleansed her meridians like ice fire as she fought. And that had only been the beginning.

  In the weeks since, she had cleared two jiangshi nests, fought off a ghostly tide while crossing a narrow cliff pass, and even battled a Wei Wu—a high-level corpse equivalent to a peak-stage Qi Condensation cultivator. Between those major encounters, she’d been in constant combat, her skills sharpening by the day.

  Now, she spun, just barely avoiding the razor-sharp claws of a corporeal ghost by inches. In the same motion, she lashed out with her banner. It struck the ghost’s back, and it shrieked—a piercing, awful sound—as golden light burned through its form. The Six-Trigram Crimson Parasol floated closed behind her, waiting until she needed its shielding ability.

  The ghost wheeled around, refusing to admit defeat.

  With a flick of her wrist, Bai Ning swept the banner forward again. This time, the golden dragon emblazoned on its surface peeled away and soared toward the ghost, winding its serpentine body around it in a single, fluid motion.

  It shrieked again, high and ragged, pain and resentment thick in its voice—but the dragon was too strong. Golden flames consumed its form, unraveling it into tattered mist and dissipating light. The dragon gave a soundless roar of triumph before fading into the air.

  Bai Ning grinned and turned her attention back to her surroundings.

  She had come a long way in the nearly three weeks she’d been on this cursed island. The dense forest where she’d first landed was now far behind her. Since then, she’d crossed a massive gorge, explored twisting underground tunnels, braved a precipitous ravine, and climbed one of the obsidian mountains that dotted the landscape. She had passed through withered forests, over cracked black soil, across rivers of smoke and shadow. She’d fought more ghosts and spirits than she could count.

  Now, she stood near the center of the island. Strangely, instead of rising into a peak like she’d expected, the land sloped downward into an enormous crater—though “crater” didn’t feel like the right word. It was vast, easily over ten thousand li across, and the base was hidden beneath a churning sea of impenetrable mist. It felt like standing above the clouds.

  The air here was thick with ghosts and jiangshi. Mist-shrouded figures floated in the sky, while the ground below was more bone than stone. High-level ghosts like the one she’d just fought were everywhere. And the number of Wei Wu was increasing.

  This was clearly the heart of the Domain.

  Bai Ning crouched at the edge of the jagged overlook, eyes sweeping across the vast crater below. Her senses stretched outward, spiritual awareness brushing against the thick miasma like fingers trailing through a spider’s web. The qi here was dense. Not just ghost qi—though that alone saturated the air like mist after a storm—but something deeper, older. Something that clung to the bones of the earth.

  She sat there a moment longer, perched on the edge of the world, debating whether or not to take the plunge.

  Of all her goals coming into the Enigmatic Death Domain, she’d only achieved one: cleansing her meridians with yin qi and ghostly winds. She hadn’t found an Umbral Bead—not that she was too bothered. Her master had warned her those were more a matter of luck than effort. But she hadn’t found even a single Soul Stone, and that stung.

  She knew Master Mo Jian likely wouldn’t care. The mission had always been a loose one, more about giving her direction than expecting results. A way to keep her moving forward, growing stronger, instead of turning back the moment she reached one milestone.

  Still, the failure rankled. She wasn’t used to falling short. She excelled. That was the unspoken rule she’d built herself around. It was half the reason she’d explored those underground passages—hoping a dragon vein might lead her to a cache of Soul Stones. No such luck, of course.

  But now, as she stared down into the heart of the island, a quiet certainty settled in her bones. If there were Soul Stones anywhere, they would be down there. And even if there weren’t… she couldn’t ignore the pull. Some part of her wanted to see how far she could go. Her fingers brushed against the smooth fabric of her storage pouch. The Vast Yang Firebird Talisman lay within, its presence warm and steady. A trump card, if she needed it.

  The risk was real—but manageable.

  She took the plunge.