Xuanyan moved toward the Outer Sect Tournament grounds at an unhurried pace, his steps measured and even, each one placed with quiet deliberation. There was no excitement in his eyes, no trace of the feverish anticipation that infected most of the sect that morning.
While countless disciples hurried along the stone paths, voices raised and spirits high as they imagined themselves standing beneath Hei Yuling’s gaze, Xuanyan treated the journey differently.
He neither sped up nor slowed down, allowing the flow of the crowd to part around him naturally. His attention drifted instead to terrain, distance, and the subtle shifts in atmosphere ahead—entrances, sightlines, places where attention would gather and places where it would thin.
By the time the tournament grounds came into view, he had already adjusted his breathing and pace, his focus settled not on what was about to begin, but on where he needed to be when it did.
With every few steps, faint traces of his qi seeped outward, subtle and restrained, sinking into the surrounding terrain before dissolving from immediate perception.
The spiritual imprints were shallow, intentionally so—just enough to register patterns, angles, and disturbances without alerting anyone actively scanning the area. Xuanyan did not hurry the process. Speed was meaningless without precision.
He would arrive at the tournament grounds eventually , Lingling would be there. That much was certain.
And more importantly, today he would finally see certain figures from the original novel with his own eyes—names that had once existed only as lines of text and vague descriptions, now walking and breathing within this world. Some of them would shine. Some would fall. A few would grow into threats he would have to account for sooner or later.
For now, though, he walked.
A soft whistle slipped from his lips, carrying a slow, unfamiliar melody through the forested path. It was an old tune from his previous life, one he used to hum absentmindedly during late nights when sleep refused to come.
Back then, music had been a constant companion—love songs especially, melancholic and slow, filled with longing for things that never quite arrived.
The melody drifted between the trees, gentle and out of place.
The moment Xuanyan left his residence, unseen eyes lit up with greed.
From the layered shadows between ancient trunks and tangled roots, a man in his twenties watched Xuanyan carefully. His appearance was so ordinary it barely registered, his clothing dull, his features forgettable.
He was the kind of person one’s gaze slid over without leaving an impression. His eyes tracked Xuanyan’s retreating figure, lips parting slightly as his tongue brushed against them in unconscious anticipation.
"So it’s him," the man thought, a faint thrill running through his veins. The top target.
Senior Brother Bai Yulan had placed an absurd bounty—large enough to make even cautious cultivators salivate. Anyone capable of offending inner sect disciples to that extent was either suicidal... or carrying something worth killing for. In the bounty world, the difference rarely mattered.
Beside him, Qinling merely nodded, offering no comment. His attention remained fixed on Xuanyan, posture relaxed but coiled, like a bowstring drawn halfway back.
Xuanyan did not sense them.
And that did not surprise him.
As long as killing intent remained tightly restrained, Heaven-Listening Guard would not fully trigger. That was its greatest strength. It consumed almost no spiritual energy while passively monitoring danger, allowing Xuanyan to move without exhausting himself through constant vigilance. It did not scream warnings. It whispered when something crossed a critical threshold.
In a world where mistakes were paid for in blood, it gave him the only currency that mattered.
Time.
Bai Yulan had not been stingy. The thought surfaced as Qinling’s brows drew together, agitation flashing briefly across his face. Only someone truly determined would spend resources like this, layering contingency upon contingency.
Two separate bounty groups had been hired, dispatched through different channels, each unaware of the other’s existence.
Silent Fang—an organization infamous for clean assassinations and quiet disappearances, experts in eliminating targets without leaving ripples behind.
And the Iron Butcher Union, a name spoken with equal parts fear and disgust, known less for killing and more for information gathering, tracking, and containment. Where Silent Fang ended lives, Iron Butcher ensured prey had nowhere left to run.
11 cultivators in total. The moment the number formed clearly in Qinling’s mind, his expression hardened. This was no simple assassination—it was a coordinated sweep meant to leave no room for survival.
Four at Qi Condensation Stage Four moved lightly at the edges, their role obvious even without words. Five at Stage Five anchored the group, their auras heavy enough to distort the flow of qi nearby.
At the center stood the leaders—two cultivators at Stage Six, calm, confident, and clearly prepared to finish what the others started
Both groups arrived at the same intersection along Xuanyan’s route—and slowed almost immediately.
A standoff.
Their messengers had warned them that another group might be hunting the same target. None of them wanted to do the dirty work only to have the reward stolen at the final moment. Bounty hunters trusted contracts, not each other.
Xuanyan approached the area just as several outer sect disciples passed nearby, their laughter echoing faintly through the trees.
He paused his qi imprinting instinctively.
Even if they couldn’t sense anything directly, drawing attention here served no purpose. Noise invited curiosity, and curiosity invited variables. Variables led to attention, attention led to mistakes—and in this world, mistakes had a way of ending lives..
Xuanyan exhaled softly, his expression unchanged, and continued forward as if nothing in the world concerned him—walking straight through the space where invisible predators waited, unaware that their patience was being tested in real time.
Elsewhere—
The two groups of bounty hunters faced one another in silence, tension coiling thickly in the narrow stretch of forest between them. Leaves stirred faintly beneath their feet, the air heavy with unspoken hostility.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then a man from the Iron Butcher Union let out a rough laugh.
"Good," Cao Jin said loudly, rolling his shoulders with lazy confidence. "I was worried those idiots would rush ahead and ruin everything before we even arrived."
The insult hung in the air, intentional and unrestrained. Cao Jin made no effort to hide his disdain. His words were a challenge, broadcast openly—an invitation for trouble, and a declaration that he had no intention of avoiding it.
Several members of Silent Fang narrowed their eyes instantly, hands drifting closer to hidden weapons.
One of them sneered. "Careful with your mouth. We still outnumber you."
The Iron Butcher cultivators grinned—not amused, but hungry. Their gazes lingered on Silent Fang’s members like knives weighing flesh.
At their center stood a towering man with a broad frame and scarred skin, old wounds crisscrossing his body like a map of violence carved over decades. His presence alone radiated pressure, thick and oppressive, as if the air itself resisted movement around him.
Aoyagi Ren.