The chill of dawn clung to Canglei Mountain , thick with mist and unease, as the warning bells tolled , deep, mournful, like the tolling of fate echoing through stone and sky.

The Mistveil Depths were under complete lockdown. Every outer courtyard had been sealed off. Disciples were rounded up and interrogated. 

The sect’s most feared enforcers had been deployed , the Killing Enforcement Hall had unleashed its hounds, merciless elite disciples known only as the Blood Seekers .

Jiang Xuan moved like a phantom through the lower valleys, his every step silent, his breath shallow, his spirit sense stretched razor-thin across the landscape , scanning, searching, hunting.

[Hunger Brand Active: Life Signature Detection Enhanced. ]

There.

Four figures, moving fast , closing in with the precision of trained killers.

Sect Blood Seekers.

Three at Foundation Establishment , one at Qi Condensation , armed with soul-suppressing talismans , their robes marked with the sect’s crimson insignia.

They weren’t coming to question him.

They were coming to erase him.

A slow, cold smirk tugged at Jiang Xuan’s lips , sharp, merciless, and utterly confident.

“I’ve been meaning to test this.”

The Blood Seal Breaker flickered in his palm like a living flame, its energy coiling and shifting with hunger. 

His Hunger Brand itched , a dull but insistent pulse beneath his skin , craving release. 

A sharp pulse from the Relic fragment guided him forward, toward a thicket of dead pines where shadows clung unnaturally, thick as smoke.

The first Blood Seeker barely had time to register movement before a claw of black mist speared through his chest , piercing heart and soul in an instant , silent, swift, lethal.

The others reacted instantly , swords flaring with blinding spiritual light , spell talismans snapping open with bursts of sealing energy that cracked the air like thunder.

Too late.

Jiang Xuan’s hand curled into a claw , and the Devour Vein Pulse erupted outward in a violent surge of dark energy. 

It tore through two of the Blood Seekers mid-flight, ripping their blood and essence from their bodies in an instant. 

Their screams were muffled by the heavy mist, swallowed before they could escape their lips. 

Their corpses collapsed like husks, drained of life and power, their eyes hollow and glassy.

The last disciple turned to flee , only for a shadow-cloaked figure to step soundlessly from the trees, as if born from the darkness itself.

A woman clad in flowing black robes, her face half-hidden behind a porcelain mask etched with ancient sigils , bearing the faded insignia of the outer sect.

She slit his throat with practiced ease , a single stroke that ended him before he could even scream. 

Not a flicker of hesitation crossed her gaze.

Jiang Xuan’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not from the sect.”

“Not anymore,” she murmured, voice low and steady, carrying the weight of memory and loss. “The Harbinger has followers even here.”

Before he could speak another word, a blood talisman ignited in the sky , its crimson flare slicing through the mist like a warning shot. 

Reinforcements were on their way.

The masked woman tossed him a crimson jade slip , faintly glowing with hidden power , pulsing like a heartbeat trapped within stone. 

“Take this to the Withered Shrine . They’ll know what to do. I’ll stall them.”

And with that, she vanished , swallowed whole by the mist, like a ghost never meant to be seen.

In the distance, sect elders gathered solemnly around an ancient divination mirror , its surface rippling with ominous shadows and fragmented visions. 

Venerable Shan snarled, fury twisting his aged features. “Two Blood Seeker squads lost . The boy’s deeper than we thought.”

Elder Qiu’s voice was cold, edged with grim understanding. “I warned you. The Mistveil relic’s taint lingers .”

Higher still, atop a jagged peak wreathed in storm clouds, a black-robed cultivator sent a signal flare slicing into the sky , a streak of unnatural violet fire that split the heavens.

In a language long forgotten by men, spoken only in dreams and nightmares, he whispered:“The Brand-Bearer rises.”