Xiao Lei advanced with measured steps toward the site named in his task, his breath carrying faint clouds in the chill that lingered despite the sun’s steady climb.

  The morning light sharpened, gilding tiled rooftops and stone paths, but it did little to soften the edge of the air. His body felt the cold less than his thoughts did. It clung not to skin but to the silence within him.

  The outer academy stretched vast before him, a sprawl he had not truly grasped until this moment. Its scale alone spoke of its purpose. The number of disciples housed here far outstripped the inner academy, and so the grounds had been built to swallow them whole.

  Courtyards and dormitories lined in rows, training squares littered across the fields, markets echoing with too-loud laughter, even theatres of diversion meant to cage the restless. They were forbidden to leave the premises. Variety was the solution, confinement the rule.

  Yet size alone did not explain the strict order that bound this place. Xiao Lei’s gaze lingered on the distant silhouettes of armoured men stationed along the walls. Royal troops—the emperor’s will embodied in steel.

  Two decades ago, when war dragged the kingdom to the brink, the garrison here had not been moved. Instead, another legion was sent to reinforce them, swelling the academy’s might until its halls held more soldiers than students.

  When the war ended, that second force withdrew, but this original garrison remained. Their presence endured, a quiet warning that the emperor’s shadow never lifted. Since then, few dared raise their hands too freely within the academy. The emperor’s regard was both shield and noose.

  He cut westward, to the edge where stone paths thinned into quiet. The barracks loomed into view. Once, they had housed soldiers. Now, they stood abandoned, their purpose rotted away.

  Time had left them not empty, but claimed by infestation. Crying Spiders had turned the place into a nest, forcing the academy to seal the grounds rather than waste efforts retaking them. There had never been shortage of space. Better to leave decay behind than invite trouble.

  Xiao Lei stopped at the boundary. The barracks lined themselves into disciplined rows, their repetition stretching so far it seemed unending. Though the wood looked weathered and worn, he knew better. A veil shimmered faintly in the air, invisible but palpable. He raised a hand, testing, until his palm pressed against resistance that had no form.

  The token slid from his sleeve into his fingers. He pressed it against the unseen wall. At once, the air shivered. A hiss—like steam striking cold metal—cut the silence. Before him, the barrier peeled open, forming a gate no wider than his shoulders, its edges glowing with a dull, rectangular shimmer. He wasted no breath. One stride, and he vanished inside. The gate sealed itself behind him as though it had never existed.

  The difference struck immediately. From outside, the barracks had only seemed decrepit. Within, ruin was complete. Webs sagged like torn drapery from rafters and beams.

  Dust hung thick in the air, veiling the rafters. A cloying stench pressed close, scratching the throat. The air itself carried rot—damp, sour, and faintly sweet in a way that warned of corruption.

  Xiao Lei did not advance at once. He paced the perimeter, each step deliberate, eyes measuring distance, mind sketching escape lines. Every doorway became a marker, every gap a thread to pull when retreat demanded it. Only when the map in his head was set did he draw back toward the quarters.

  The first board groaned under his weight. At once, silence fractured. A stir rose in the dark ahead—thin, whispering, as though countless threads had shivered at once. It spread through the room like breath drawn too close, subtle yet suffocating, promising that something awake had noticed.

  Xiao Lei narrowed his eyes, the faint rasp of movement drawing closer, closer. His posture remained loose, hands hanging at his sides, as if careless. Yet every muscle waited.

  The sound halted. Silence spread, a silence heavy enough to cause deafness. Air slid slow into his lungs, sharpening his focus; in the stillness, he shifted lightly to the side.

  A drop fell where he had stood.

  The liquid hissed as it struck the wooden boards, a stench rising—rancid, sharper than rot, like bile burning through the air. The floor sagged, eaten slowly but relentlessly, as though time itself had sped against it. Xiao Lei’s gaze lifted. Above, something scurried back into shadow, its thin legs dragging it toward concealment.

  His hand closed on the railing. Wood groaned under his grip, torn free in a strip no longer than a finger. With a flick, qi sharpened the splinter to a spear. The throw came swift, an arc of intent more than motion. The spear pierced the wall with a dull thud, nailing the brood mid-scuttle. Its body quivered once and hung limp.

  Small. Barely larger than his palm. Its body gleamed grey-black, scales of shadow blending it seamlessly into darkness. Alone, it was a trivial thing. Its venom could not kill even a mortal—it could not spit, could not leap. Its only trick was patience. The slow, silent climb until it hovered above prey, able to let its poison drip like unseen rain.

  Yet one meant nothing. Thousands meant ruin. In such numbers, even a mild venom became a tide. It did not need to pierce or strike—it only needed to drown.

  Xiao Lei moved on, pushing into one of the rooms ahead. The moment his foot crossed the threshold, the walls stirred. Legs scraped. A hundred shadows broke from corners and beams, scuttling toward him from all sides.

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  His chest rose once, slow and deliberate, before he slid back. His hand tore loose a rotten board, fibres fraying in his grip. Qi threaded into the wood, filling its fibres until it hardened like tempered steel. The weight shifted, balanced, and he swung.

  The air cracked. Thirty arachnid crushed in an instant, bodies rupturing beneath the blow.

  The rest halted, clustering into a ring. A sound rose from them—not the rasp of legs, but a voice. Thin. Fragile. The faint wail of an infant, multiplied yet still too soft to overwhelm. A lure, perhaps, or the echo of something bred only to unsettle. But Xiao Lei’s strike cut through again, his movements measured, relentless. Heartbeat to heartbeat, the room fell silent, the last twitching body ground to stillness.

  Time stretched. An hour slipped past. One room after another, over a hundred cleared. His makeshift weapons blackened and failed, corroded to splinters as venom gnawed them. He fashioned more, never hesitating. This was why he had not purchased a blade—not even a common iron one. To watch good steel eaten away would be nothing but a waste. He had little coin already, he would not throw it into acid.

  It felt easy. Too easy. Why would academy rewards three points for such task? The thought rose as he advanced into the inner barracks.

  Then his eyes widened.

  He turned at once, retracing his cleared path—but froze, struck dumb. His gaze grew wider still, as if his very sight refused to contain what he saw. The floor rippled, alive with countless skittering limbs.

  Without pause he spun and bolted, qi flared raggedly, each step shuddering the weakened boards as if the floor itself would tear him down. His lungs burned, each gasp tearing raw against his throat.

  “Three points—for this pit of ghosts?!” His breath ripped out in curses.

  The voice fell behind him as he ran, ran as though the corridor itself meant to swallow him whole.

  Wherever his gaze fell, the world dissolved into squall. Grey-black currents coiled like living smoke, surging in every direction until sky and earth vanished beneath their writhing folds. Each shadowed wave threatened to swallow him whole.

  Xiao Lei spun, searching for even the narrowest break in the tide. Yet every turn only tightened the trap. The sensation was not of standing on open ground but of a mouse confined within a cage, walls invisible yet unyielding.

  His fists answered before thought. He drove them forward in a blur—one, two, three—each strike detonating like thunder in the murk. The air quivered with booming echoes, vibrations tearing through the brittle scaffolding of this place. Fractures split apart with a shriek, and for an instant he glimpsed a fissure in the tempest. A way out. He lunged—

  —but the world wailed.

  The keening of infants pierced the atmosphere. Some voices shrieked, others gurgled in broken gasps, as if thousands of cradles had been overturned at once, swelling into a force that battered bone and soul alike. Xiao Lei faltered. His vision blurred, the storm doubled, and a hot thread of blood slid from his ears.

  By the time he forced his body to steadiness again, the breach he had torn had already healed. The gap now crawled with thousands of skittering brood, their pale bodies knotting over one another as they poured into the void he had made.

  Still, Xiao Lei did not give himself to fear. His breath slowed. The tremor in his fists eased into stillness, fingers flexing before curling firm again. He let his eyes drift across the ocean of skittering limbs, weighing, judging, then chose his path. Muscles coiled. He hurled himself forward, fists snapping multiple times in rapid succession, each blow carving a fleeting tunnel.

  The wailing returned, jagged as shattered glass. But this time, energy flared through his meridians. He wrapped his qi around his ears, a crude barrier, not enough to silence but enough to blunt the edge.

  The shrieks still drilled into his skull, but he clamped his teeth together until they ached and pressed on. One savage kick sent another wave of pale swarm scattering—hundreds crushed in a spray of legs and ichor. A gap yawned open, and he was already moving to tear through it when a voice, long absent, struck through his mind.

  Stop! Stop—don’t run. There’s something here. Something good.

  Xiao Lei froze mid-stride. That voice…

  The puppy.

  The memory burned sharp. That day two months ago, when Wu Qing’s corpse lay cooling and Xiao Lei himself collapsed at some distance from it, his strength hollowed out. He hadn’t even been able to lift a finger when a rank-two spirit beast prowled out of the forest, hungry eyes settling on his helpless body. Flesh had already been torn from him before salvation came.

  Not by his own hand—he had been powerless—but by the tiny, sharp-toothed beast that had attached itself to him. The puppy had killed the creature with startling ferocity, only to curse him in exhaustion before plunging into silence. Since then, it had slumbered. Not a whisper, not a stir. Until now.

  Xiao Lei’s feet carried him toward the gap regardless, instinct ruling over recollection.

  Kid, wait! You’ll regret it. Don’t let cowardice rob you. You burn for power, don’t you? To crush the ones who shamed her?

  The opening yawned before him, salvation only a step away. His calves coiled, ready to spring. But his feet refused—rooted as though the earth itself had judged him unworthy to leave.

  The words struck harder than the storm’s cries. Xiao Lei’s steps slowed. The opening was just ahead, a breath away, yet his chest clenched. Cold light flickered in his eyes. In its haze, another scene rose—Liora’s figure, back bent, knees trembling as she nearly bowed before Lei Xuanlan. The humiliation seared him anew.

  His body pivoted. Slowly, deliberately, he turned his back on escape.

  He stood, straight-spined, as tens of thousands of spiders pressed in, their endless chorus of infant wails swelling to drown the air. He ignored them. His gaze held steady, and when he spoke, his voice carried neither fear nor ease but something sharper, more dangerous.

  “Speak. Quickly. If you dare trick me, I promise I will find a way to kill you.”

  On the other end of the bond, the puppy hesitated. Shock flitted through its tone, but the moment was too perilous for indulgence.

  No trick. If you die, I die—why would I wish it?

  “Get to the point.”

  Irritation edged the creature’s reply. There’s a mutated crying spider here. Likely the queen. If I can consume her soul, my recovery would—

  But Xiao Lei was already moving, cutting down the arachnid tide, forcing another line toward freedom. The countless legs around him rasped like bone on stone. The air thickened with the stench of damp silk and rot. He had no time, no heart to gamble on anyone else’s gain.

  Brat, stop! Listen. She’s guarding something. I swear it—whatever it is, it’s not ordinary. If you seize it, it will become a blade in your hand, a true aid.

  Xiao Lei halted again.

  He did not merely need strength. He needed more. To shield Liora. To protect Rhen. To crush the weight of their disgrace beneath his fists. For those things, he already trusted in his own growth. He believed, with time, he would rise. But beyond those vows lay another dream—an act so defiant it strained the very heavens, a goal that demanded not only strength but supremacy.

  For that, he would need power that even the sky could not deny.

  His body screamed to flee—the opening gaped before him—but his feet rooted, caught between survival’s command and the pull of that voice.

  The choice crystallized, sharp and absolute. His chest rose, fell. The silence cut sharper than the howls. Then, a single word.

  “Where?”

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  Destiny Reckoning. It’s set in the same universe, and you definitely don’t want to miss it, because the stories will eventually crossover.