The sun had not yet risen when the noise began. It wasn't the slow, methodical sweep that Arin had expected from the junior disciples. It was the swift, coordinated action of the Inner Court. The air was sliced by the focused spiritual senses of highly-trained individuals, weaving a net of Qi across the Outer Court perimeter.
Arin moved immediately. His body was stiff, a solid framework of pain, but the Bone-Forged stage was operating. He powered through the stiffness. The sheer density and resilience of his newly reinforced body allowed him to ignore the pain and push his limits. He moved fast, not with the ethereal grace of the Blood-Engraved stage, but with the heavy, unstoppable momentum of something carved from granite.
The spiritual net swept over the area where he had hidden. Arin heard the shouts of the Inner Disciples—sharp, authoritative—as they found the disturbed copse. They were moving in a crescent formation, herding the area toward the main gates.
He broke away from their direction, driving toward the complex of structures surrounding the main administration buildings. He scrambled over walls and through low service entries, relying on the fact that the Inner Disciples were searching outwards and above—focused on the mountains and the high walls.
His only path now was down. He needed a sanctuary so base, so unworthy of their attention, that their spiritual senses would slide right over it.
He located his entry point behind the massive Inner Court Dormitories: a storm runoff grate that fed into the ancient, poorly mapped maintenance tunnels and sewage systems that ran beneath the core sect buildings.
The air here was putrid, thick with decay, stagnant water, and the subtle, corrosive byproducts of discarded, low-grade cultivation fluids.
Arin pried open the grate and slipped inside. The tunnels were dark, narrow, and immediately suffocating. He moved on hands and knees through the sludge, the cold, dark fluid washing over his limbs. The tunnels of the Inner Court were the perfect, invisible artery of the sect a place of filth and disuse, entirely beneath the notice of the disciples living luxuriously above. It was a perfect, disgusting sanctuary.
But the tunnels were not empty.
The Qi here was volatile, mixing with the runoff and the decay to create unstable pockets of energy. Worse, the isolation had attracted low-level spiritual creatures sewer rats swollen with corrosive spiritual energy, and a breed of blind, pale Tunnel Crawlers that fed on the discarded cultivation waste.
Arin was moving through a particularly dark junction when one of the Crawlers, a creature the size of a small dog with wick-thin claws, lunged out of the darkness, its spiritual aura a faint, noxious green.
The Crawler struck Arin's bare forearm. Its attack was infused with low-level corrosive Qi, meant to dissolve soft tissue. Any mortal would have suffered immediate, agonizing infection.
But the claw simply glanced off Arin's skin. The new Bone-Forged density held firm. The passive, stone-like defense that had saved him from Kaelen's killing blow protected him from the creature's petty malice. It was a physical, absolute resistance.
Arin grabbed the crawler, twisted, and crushed its thin spiritual carapace against the wall with a quick, brutal motion powered by his reinforced muscles. The creature dissolved into a plume of foul, green Qi that the Mark instantly swallowed, leaving Arin with a sudden, metallic taste in his mouth.
He was in danger, but a different kind a danger his new divine essence could handle. He had traded the arrogance of the masters for the brutality of the undercity.
Arin moved deeper, navigating by the subtle slope of the tunnels. He eventually found a sealed, disused inspection chamber: a small, dry bubble beneath the foundation. He squeezed inside, using a rusted access panel to seal the entrance. He was now beneath the Inner Court Dormitories, directly under the feet of the people hunting him.
He was exhausted but safe. He rested his ear against the rough foundation stone above his head, and through the thick stone, he could hear the muffled sound of voices.
Two disciples were speaking, their words slightly warped by the foundation, but intelligible. They were focused on the manhunt, annoyed by the heir's demand for a massive, disruptive sweep.
"Dravos is making too much noise over one cursed laborer. The Elders are displeased. Especially with Master Lin's shipment due."
"I know. He needs to secure the outer sector quickly. That Cloud-Drifting Bloom is worth enough to fund the sect for a year. It's being kept in the South Vault until the auction, but the delivery itself is happening tonight, routed through the Pill Garden's secondary storage for security."
Arin froze. The Cloud-Drifting Bloom. It was a mythical, high-grade spiritual herb used for the rarest and most powerful breakthroughs—a resource that could fuel years of high-level cultivation. And it was being temporarily stored just floors above him, near the Inner Court's Pill Garden.
It was a prize of impossible value, an act of defiance that would shatter the hierarchy of the sect and provide the ultimate fuel source for his relentless Mark.
Fuel. Power. Risk. The Mark pulsed, a deep, satisfied thrum. The challenge was presented.
Arin smiled in the dark, his face streaked with grime. He had sought simple safety, but fate had delivered him the heart of the sect's treasure. He was no longer just a fugitive; he was a viper in the foundations, and the richest prize was now within striking distance.