The roads to Heavenly Sword Villa swarmed with cultivators.
Carriages lined with silk and clan banners. Proud sect heirs surrounded by guards. Loose robes concealing hidden weapons and treasures. The air itself felt taut, charged with a thousand rivalries masked as courtesy.
The Sword Conference.
A gathering not just of Blue Wind's elite swordsmen—but of politics, hidden grudges, and secret tests. The Villa had extended rare invitations to not only the top sects, but to those few whose names had recently stirred rumors.
Among them is Yun Che.
And in the woods beyond the road, Li Fan watched.
---
He moved through the trees barefoot, leaving no imprint on the moss. His cloak of shadows was not a profound art—it was instinct now. Learned from bats. From beasts. From assassins whose bones he had long since devoured.
He didn't need an invitation.
He didn't plan to stand on the stage.
He only needed to be near.
---
Heavenly Sword Villa rose from the cliffs like a mountain forged of blades.
Its spires curved like drawn swords. Waterfalls roared down its sides, feeding rivers of mist. Sword intent lingered in the wind—refined, patient, waiting.
Li Fan stood on a high cliff opposite the main gates, staring across the chasm.
"This place has age," he murmured. "Not just strength. Memory."
He sniffed the air.
"Six hundred cultivators inside. Two hundred swords at the Earth Profound. At least twelve at Sky Profound."
Then he smiled.
"But only a handful of them could survive if the food decided to fight back."
---
He didn't walk through the gates. That would've been vulgar.
Instead, he moved through the servants' routes, borrowing shadows and silences. At one point, he walked past three disciples in conversation, his body cloaked in mist and invisibility born from consuming the habits of both snake and ghost.
He settled in the rafters of one of the guest halls, near the west wing.
It was there he saw them.
Sect heirs. Talents. Arrogant youths with sharp tongues and sharper eyes.
They boasted. They dueled. They compared bloodlines like badges.
He watched. Listened.
And waited for the weakest link.
---
On the second night, after most of the duels were over and the wine had dulled the senses of the proud, a disciple from the Celestial Sword Sect snuck out for a midnight tryst.
Li Fan followed.
The boy didn't notice the figure behind him in the fog, nor the way the trees bent away from the approaching presence.
They reached a grove. The girl he was supposed to meet never came.
But Li Fan did.
It wasn't a fight.
It wasn't even a death.
It was a feeding.
Quick. Clean. Unseen.
By dawn, only a cloak and sword remained.
And Li Fan, hidden beneath the guest villa, felt his bones stretch as the Celestial Sword Sect's footwork patterns merged into his own.
"That makes three elite sword sects now."
He flexed his hand, letting phantom qi drift along his fingers.
"And I've never held a sword in my life."
---
He heard it first from a servant's whisper.
"The one who insulted the Burning Heaven Clan…"
"He'll duel Fen Juecheng himself…"
"He's mad, that Yun Che…"
Li Fan smiled as he sat cross-legged in the darkness beneath the Sword Villa's main arena, hidden in an unused weapons cache.
"There you are."
"Daring to insult them?"
"Good. Loud prey makes the best bait."
But it was more than hunger now.
He'd watched Yun Che grow from a name in the wind to a star on the stage.
And still, the boy rose.
"You're a fire in a dry forest," Li Fan whispered. "Burning everything, even the sky."
"One day, you'll see the shadows you've drawn to you."
---
That evening, sword intent blanketed the mountaintop like snow.
The air grew heavy. Disciples grew silent. Even beasts in the forest held their breath.
Because Ling Yuefeng, Villa Master of Heavenly Sword Villa, had arrived.
And beside him walked his brother, Ling Tianni.
Sky Profound Realm.
Li Fan watched from the edge of the cliffs above the back of the villa, eyes glowing faintly in the moonlight. For a long time, he said nothing.
Then—
"I'm not ready to eat them."
"Yet."
---
But even as he turned to disappear back into the dark, he felt it.
A ripple in the air. Distant. Pure. Ruthless.
Yun Che's sword intent—Heretic God enhanced—shaking the very bones of the arena.
It touched even Li Fan.
And for the first time in his devouring life, he felt...
Threat.
Not of death.
But of being outpaced.
---
He smiled.
A sharp, hollow thing.
"Run, Yun Che."
"Climb as high as you can."
"I want to see what it tastes like… when a god falls."