The city gates of **Jinshi City** were closed, heavy wooden doors reinforced with iron bands. Patrols from the three clans' joint guard moved in disciplined formations along the walls and main roads, their eyes sweeping the streets, hands never far from their weapons. Unlike White Hollow City, this place **appeared alive**, despite the rumors that had begun to spread.
Merchants still hawked their goods.
Children ran through narrow alleys, laughter echoing between stone walls.
Craftsmen hammered metal, their steady rhythm forming a background heartbeat to the city.
Mortals went about their lives, unaware—or unwilling to acknowledge—the growing danger.
Yet whispers circulated quietly in shadowed corners:
*"…they say the city was attacked last night…"*
*"…all the Foundation Establishment cultivators from the three clans… gone…"*
*"…even mid-layer elders…"*
Fear had taken root beneath the surface, invisible but tangible.
---
Among the moving crowd, one figure glided silently.
Unremarkable—yet impossible to truly ignore.
She wore **commoner's robes**, her hood drawn low, features mostly concealed. Her movements were effortless, weaving through merchants, guards, and townsfolk without disturbing a single person's path.
**Elder Lianhua**—disguised, unrecognized—observed with careful precision.
After her encounter with the Cloud River Sect disciples at White Hollow City, she had learned that recognition came easily. Even the most disciplined observers, if allowed the smallest window to truly see her, would notice her presence.
This city would not afford her that luxury.
The crowds parted unknowingly as she passed, her existence **absorbed by the city itself**. Eyes did not linger. Senses did not register her.
It was not concealment.
It was **irrelevance**.
She moved through bustling streets, pausing occasionally to glance toward rooftops and alley mouths, her divine sense folded inward, restrained. Not because she feared detection—she never did—but because she needed the **environment to remain natural**. Any disturbance, however minor, might alert the **White Scale Demon** to her presence prematurely.
Above the city walls, cultivator patrols kept watch. Qi Refining warriors had already begun **reinforcing the barriers** after the night's attack. Protective formations shimmered faintly along gates and parapets, subtle but effective—meant to deter ordinary demons and opportunists.
Lianhua did not interact with them.
Did not reveal her cultivation.
She walked as a shadow, silent and observant, letting the city itself speak to her.
Every alley, every market, every corner held traces—some subtle, others impossible for ordinary senses to detect.
She paused in a narrow street as a group of townsfolk whispered about **the devastation at White Hollow City**.
Her eyes narrowed.
Not at the words—
But at the **fear beneath them**.
---
The deeper Lianhua moved into Jinshi City, the more the **noise faded**.
Not because the city truly grew quiet—merchants still called, carts still rattled, footsteps still echoed—but because the **patterns changed**. The flow of people thinned. The air lost its warmth. Even the qi circulating through the streets felt… hesitant.
Her steps slowed.
Then stopped.
The world did not shift.
The crowd did not part.
But something **tugged** at her perception.
Not forcefully.
Not urgently.
Just… **wrong**.
Lianhua's eyes lifted slightly.
A faint distortion rippled through the air ahead—so subtle it would have escaped the divine sense of a Foundation Establishment cultivator. To mortal senses, it was nothing more than a trick of light.
To her—
It was a **scar**.
Her figure blurred.
There was no wind.
No sound.
No displacement.
One moment she stood among passing townsfolk—
The next, the street was empty.
---
She reappeared in a **quiet quarter** of Jinshi City.
No vendors.
No chatter.
No children.
Only broken stone and collapsed walls.
This district had been sealed hastily. Wooden barricades stood crooked at alley entrances, warning signs nailed into them with uneven strokes. The faint scent of smoke still clung to the air.
Here—
The battle had happened.
The ground was fractured, cracked in long spidering lines that radiated outward from a central point. Several buildings had been torn open as if by invisible force, their upper floors collapsed inward, beams shattered, tiles scattered like broken bones.
Lianhua descended slowly, her feet touching the broken stone without sound.
Her gaze lowered.
Near where she stood, the ground was darkened.
Not black.
Not scorched.
**Dark red.**
The dirt itself was stained, soaked so deeply that even days later the color remained. Dry now. Cracked. Mixed with earth and debris.
Blood.
A great deal of it.
She stared at it in silence.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
After a long moment, she spoke.
Her voice was calm. Even. Almost gentle.
"This… even mixed with dirt… even after drying," she said quietly.
She crouched, two fingers lowering toward the stained ground.
They did not touch.
Her qi brushed the surface lightly.
The air shuddered.
Her eyes narrowed.
"I can still sense it."
Not the earth itself—
But what was **mixed within it**.
Her fingers shifted slightly, tracing the edge of the stain without contact.
"The quality is the same," she said. "The texture. The absence. The distortion."
Her gaze sharpened.
"And I can tell…"
A faint pressure gathered in the air.
"It is from the same source as the scales."
Silence deepened.
The surrounding ruins seemed smaller in that moment, reduced to mere scenery around her realization.
"This spilled blood is not from just any beast," Lianhua continued calmly. "It is not the fox's…"
Her fingers hovered above the darkest patch.
"This is from the **other one**."
The **White Scale Demon**.
Her qi withdrew.
"Three clans," she murmured. "More than twenty Foundation Establishment cultivators."
Her gaze drifted across the broken buildings.
"You did not fight them," she said quietly.
"You **erased** them."
The air cooled.
She took a step forward, then another, following the faint misalignment clinging to the space like an afterimage.
"White Hollow City," she said. "Then here."
Her eyes lifted toward the far end of the ruined street.
"Each time, you grow bolder."
The wind stirred faintly, lifting dust from shattered stone.
Her fingers lifted.
Qi flowed.
Not violently.
Not forcefully.
It slipped into the soil like mist into cracks in stone.
The earth trembled.
Grains of dirt began to lift, separating, floating as her qi filtered through them with impossible precision.
Dust fell away.
Debris crumbled.
The red-dark soil began to pale.
And then—
From the center of the disturbed ground, a single bead of dark crimson rose.
Thick.
Heavy.
Dense.
It hovered above her palm.
Only one drop.
That was all.
Lianhua studied it in silence.
Her qi pressed against it gently.
The drop resisted.
Not by force—
But by… **disagreement**.
As if it did not accept the rules of this space.
As if it were only partially present.
"…So even your blood does not fully belong here," she murmured.
Her eyes cooled.
"Or rather… you do not belong here."
The air around the drop wavered faintly, distorting the light.
She tightened her qi slightly.
The drop stabilized.