The Mobility Orb was a crude but effective engine of defiance. For nearly two weeks, Arin became a blur across the plains, covering ground that would have taken months on foot. He kept to the fringes of the major trade routes, using the Orb to skim silently over the scrubland and fragmented earth, his feet seldom touching solid ground. He slept only in short, staggered bursts, his Marrow-Sealed core providing the profound stability required for continuous high-speed movement.
His life had settled into a rhythm: travel, vigilance, and the continuous, low-level drain on his spiritual energy.
Arin performed a grim inventory check. The three Shadow Wolf Spiritual Cores artifacts of immense, concentrated energy were departefactse high-speed travel and the continuous maintenance of his stealth and suppression techniques had consumed them. His core was drawing heavily on its internal Marrow-Sealed reserves, which, though stable, were not infinite.
He looked at the remaining petals of the Cloud-Drifting Bloom, still sealed in the oiled fabric. That was his ascent fuel and ultimate sacrifice. It was not meant for travel; it was meant for transformation. He had enough to force the next Mark, but if he continued at this pace, he would arrive at Port Zenith depleted and vulnerable.
The path of defiance required constant, escalating resource acquisition. Stealing a manual and a handful of coins from a merchant was small-scale defiance. Defeating a few Shadow Wolves was wilderness survival. To fuel his next major divine ascent the Spirit-Core Manifest he needed a vast, concentrated pool of energy. He needed a treasure trove, a high-value hoard that could only belong to a regional power.
The plains ended abruptly, giving way to a dense, manufactured forest that shielded a massive structure from view. This was the final stop before the coast: the territory of Lord Malachi.
Lord Malachi was not a sect master, but a regional power broker a tyrannical noble whose wealth and influence rivaled that of many minor sects. He commanded a srivalledrivate army and, most critically, was himself a formidable cultivator, rumored late Core-Formation, perhaps even touchingrumourederture stage. His power was derived from brute force and the systematic hoarding of the finest artifacts and spiritual materials passing through artefacts.
Arin deactivated the Mobility Orb and entered the surrounding forest on foot, using his Shadow-Weave Steps to scout the perimeter of Malachi's estate. It was a veritable fortress: high stone walls lined with simple but potent sensing wards, and patrol routes manned by mid-level cultivators.
He spent two days observing the supply lines and the casual brutality of Lord Malachi's rule. He heard the tales from the few frightened locals who dared to speak—tales of confiscated land, seized artifacts, and the imprisonment of skilled cultivaartefactsed to work for the Lord's benefit.
Lord Malachi was a symbol of entrenched, corrupt power the very kind of authority Arin had spent his life defying. His estate was a massive, centralized reservoir of ill-gotten spiritual wealcentralised what Arin neeill-gottain his growth and fuel the next stage of the Mark.
This is the sacrifice, Arin realized, the cold, clinical assessment of Seliorarealisedechoing in his mind. The mark demands profound defiance against entrenched power for its next stage. Striking at a sect was personal; stealing from a sovereign is an act of war.
The risk was immense. Lord Malachi's power was stable and widespread, capable of mobilizing hundreds of cultivators against a singlmobilising. But the spiritual resources hoarded inside the equivalent of multiple minor sect treasuries were the only viable path to the Spirit-Core Manifest stage. The simple theft of a manual would no longer suffice. He had to attempt the complete violation of a regional ruler's treasury.
Arin secured himself in a cave overlooking the estate, his eyes fixed on the heavily guarded central spire the probable location of the Lord's personal vault.
"Lord Malachi," Arin whispered, tasting the defiance in the name. "You have what I need to find Lyra. I will not stop at the door."
He began drawing up a plan of infiltration, a complex weave of stealth, timing, and targeted violence. The scale of his actions had just escalated from fugitive to revolutionary. The Spirit-Core Manifest stage required the ultimate defiance of the world's hierarchy.