The air had changed.
Li Fan could feel it in the pressure behind his eyes, in the way the insects no longer moved through the Villa's halls. The mist he once used to vanish now recoiled from the stone.
Heavenly Sword Villa had begun the hunt.
At noon, a low, pulsing hum echoed across the mountainside—deep, deliberate. No ordinary formation.
Li Fan crouched on the underside of a stone archway and whispered to himself.
"They activated a soul-detection array."
"It's not looking for qi. It's looking for… intent."
---
High above the main courtyard, within the Soul Reflection Hall, Ling Tianni stood with three formation masters.
Elder Qin was there as well, motionless, his weathered hands resting on the hilt of a sword he hadn't drawn in twenty years.
"It's not a ghost," Elder Qin said. "It's not a demon."
"It's something that was once a man."
"But eats like a god."
One of the masters adjusted the array, turning the formation's glowing plates until the detection pattern shifted from aura to karmic imprint.
"We'll find him," the master said.
"Anything that consumes this much life leaves behind echoes."
And the array pulsed again.
---
Li Fan felt it instantly.
A pressure in his skull. A pulse in his spine.
"They're reading my presence… indirectly."
"Through what I've eaten."
He stepped backward into shadow—instinctively. But the shadow twitched.
Light touched it.
"Not good."
With a flick of his wrist, he dropped a scrap of clothing—stolen from a Cold Iron Sword Sect disciple—into the wind. It fluttered like a ghost.
The array pulsed again.
Then turned.
It followed the decoy.
---
In the chaos that followed, a half-dozen disciples were deployed to the outer gardens.
Li Fan was already gone.
But not far.
He wasn't running.
He was choosing.
---
That night, Li Fan did what he had not done before.
He chose a target not for weakness, but for signal.
He entered the meditation chamber of an elder from the Seven Sword Pavilion—a man strong, confident, and expected to live until morning.
He watched the man breathe, measured his spiritual rhythm.
And struck.
Not silently.
He let the man scream.
He let the building collapse.
He let every sect elder feel it.
---
When they found the body, half-consumed and blackened from within, the Soul-Seeking Array pulsed like a bell.
"He's not fleeing," whispered Ling Yuefeng. "He's toying with us."
But Elder Qin said nothing.
He was already moving.
---
By the time the sun rose, every single exit had been sealed.
Teleportation talismans were forbidden.
Profound flight was barred by array.
Disciples patrolled in groups of ten.
They thought they had the predator trapped.
But Li Fan had stopped moving between rooms.
He was below them now.
In the bones of the Villa.
---
He sat cross-legged in a forgotten crypt beneath the old bell tower—an area long since closed due to "structural instability."
He breathed slowly.
And the fire inside him pulsed.
The blue-white flame, the stolen beast-resonance from the Burning Heaven Clan, the knowledge from the ancient sealed devourer—all of it was boiling now.
Not with chaos.
But with evolution.
His bones had hollowed in places. His skin no longer sweat. His breath, when released, came as heated mist even in the cold.
"I'm not just feeding anymore."
"I'm… changing forms."
He opened his mouth.
And breathed fire.
Not outward.
But inward.
Feeding his own lungs. Fueling his internal pathways.
The first stage of Core Flame Reversal—a technique no human should survive.
He did not scream.
---
The moment he completed the first cycle of flame reversal, the stone above his head cracked.
Dust fell.
And through it came Elder Qin, sword drawn.
His eyes didn't rage.
They mourned.
"You've eaten too far."
"Whatever you are now… the man is gone."
Li Fan looked up, rising slowly, smoke curling from his skin.
"You're not wrong."
"But the man remembers how to fight."
The elder moved like lightning.
But so did Li Fan.
Claws met steel.
Flame met swordlight.
And for the first time in this land… Li Fan bled.
A shallow cut across the ribs. The sword had memory. And it recognized that he was no longer human.
Elder Qin stepped back, coughing blood.
"I won't stop you."
"But someone… will."
Li Fan looked down at the cut, then back at the old man.
"Not here."
"Not today."
He vanished into smoke.
---
When the sun rose, Heavenly Sword Villa buried Elder Qin in a tomb of silence.
He was the only one to face the devourer and survive.
And he was dying.
But he left a final message:
"Do not follow the body."
"Follow the emptiness."
"He does not walk paths. He hollows them out."
---
And far to the south, near a nameless forest beyond Floating Cloud City, Li Fan stepped out of a broken teleportation talisman he'd stolen weeks ago.
The land smelled of rain.
He was coughing still.
But smiling.
"That was close."
He looked at his palm.
The flame inside it curled into the shape of a serpent's fang.
"Next time…"
"I'll eat the sword."