The Weeping Willow Forest on the eastern outskirts of the Fourth Plateau was a place where the golden light of the Central Continent went to die. It was a sprawling, suffocating thicket of ancient trees whose long, drooping branches were draped in spirit-moss that pulsed with a faint, sickly violet glow. Unlike the pristine gardens of the Heavenly Selection Pavilion, the air here was thick with a damp, metallic fog, a byproduct of a failed experimental formation from centuries ago that had left the local Qi unstable and jagged. It was a natural graveyard, the perfect place for those who wished to vanish, or for those who wished to kill without leaving a trace for the City Guard to find.
Qin Feng and Ye Chen moved through the gnarled roots like two wraiths. Qin Feng's Eclipse Vision was at its absolute peak, the world appearing to his mind in shades of monochromatic silver and charcoal. Through the fog, he could see the heat signatures of hidden predators glowing like embers in the dark.
"They've been tailing us since we crossed the Jade Bridge," Qin Feng whispered, his hand resting firmly on the hilt of the Eclipse Sunderer. The weapon was still warm from the earlier resonance, vibrating against his back. "Four of them. Two are flanking at the 8th Layer of Foundation Establishment. One is trailing directly behind at the 9th Layer. But there's a fourth presence... a shadow within the shadows. I can barely track it, even with the System's help. That must be the Inquisitor's silent watcher."
[DING! Quest Started: Night of the Long Knives.] [Objective: Neutralize the Moon Sect Inquisitors without alerting the Fourth Plateau Authorities.] [Detection: Enemy is utilizing 'Void-Step' movement techniques. Tactical Suggestion: Use Seismic pulses to disrupt their spatial anchor points.]
"Let them close the distance," Ye Chen replied, her voice a chilling breeze that seemed to blend with the rustling leaves. She came to a halt in a small, circular clearing, her white silk veil flowing behind her like a ghostly banner. She looked vulnerable, a lone woman standing in the heart of a cursed forest, but her Moon-Severing Blade was already humming with a low-frequency, murderous hunger. "I want them to feel the bite of the ice before they even realize they've stepped into their own tomb."
The silence of the forest was suddenly shattered as the air behind Ye Chen fractured like a sheet of thin glass. A tall, gaunt man clad in the obsidian-plate armor of the Moon Sect's Inquisitor Guard materialized from the void, his longsword already mid-swing in a lethal horizontal arc. "Die, traitorous filth!" he hissed, his voice dripping with religious fervor.
Ye Chen didn't even bother to turn around.
CLANG.
A jagged pillar of absolute-zero ice erupted from the earth with the speed of a springing trap, catching the obsidian blade inches from her porcelain neck. Before the assassin could even register the failure of his strike, Ye Chen spun on her heel, her sword becoming a blur of transcendent silver light. The Inquisitor barely had time to widen his eyes before a wave of frost encased his head in a solid block of diamond-hard ice. His body, still warm and twitching, slumped to the frozen moss like a discarded statue.
"One," Ye Chen counted, her voice devoid of any emotion other than a cold, lethal focus.
"Behind you! They're committing!" Qin Feng roared, his own Qi finally exploding out of his body in a violent, violet-gold surge.
The other three assassins emerged from the weeping branches simultaneously, their movements perfectly synchronized in the 'Tri-Star Killing Formation'. These weren't the arrogant, pampered young masters of the Sun Sect; these were professional state-sponsored killers who understood that teamwork was the only way to bridge the gap against superior power. Two of them came in low, their daggers glowing with toxic green light, while the 9th Layer leader leaped from above, his heavy claymore wreathed in black flames.
Qin Feng stepped forward, his boots sinking into the mud. He didn't use the bladed head of his pickaxe. Instead, he gripped the handle with both hands and slammed the blunt, reinforced end into the base of a massive willow tree.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: Seismic Resonance (Enhanced).]
The vibration didn't just shake the tree; it traveled through the root system of the entire clearing, turning the solid ground into a liquid-like state for a fraction of a second. The three assassins, mid-lunge, lost their footing as the very earth they stood on betrayed them.
"My turn to mine some souls," Qin Feng growled, his muscles bulging as he swung the Sunderer in a wide, punishing arc.
He lunged at the nearest 8th Layer assassin, who desperately tried to conjure a shield of shadow-Qi. But the Eclipse Sunderer was now a 'Spirit-Grade' tool, imbued with the Vein Seeker ability. It didn't strike the shield; it struck the flaw in the shield. The pickaxe punched through the shadow-barrier as if it were wet parchment, the black crystal head burying itself deep in the assassin's chest.
[DING! Critical Hit! Vein Seeker Bonus: 200% Internal Organ Damage.]
As the man collapsed, vomiting blood and blackened spirit-fragments, the 9th Layer leader of the squad let out a guttural scream of rage. He bit his tongue, spitting blood onto his claymore to unleash a forbidden technique: 'Moon-Eater's Curse'. A swarm of black, spectral wolves made of pure necrotic Qi surged from the blade, their jaws wide enough to swallow a man's soul whole.
Ye Chen appeared at Qin Feng's side as if she had stepped out of his very shadow. Their hands locked together in the familiar, soul-searing Dual Core Resonance. The heat of his sun-Qi and the absolute cold of her moon-Qi merged into a singular, devastating force.
"Eclipse Art: Absolute Zero Void!"
A sphere of pure, shimmering darkness expanded from their joined hands, growing with terrifying velocity. When the spectral wolves collided with the sphere, they didn't just dissipate; they were erased from existence, their energy neutralized and absorbed into the void. The 9th Layer leader was caught in the outer edge of the expansion. He didn't have time to scream before his legs were instantly frozen to the bone and then shattered into thousands of tiny ice-shards as he tried to recoil.
He collapsed into the dirt, clutching his mangled stumps, as the hidden "Shadow Presence" Qin Feng had detected finally emerged from the fog. An old man with skin like wrinkled parchment and eyes like dead coals stepped into the clearing. He carried no weapon, but his presence was a heavy, suffocating weight, a Half-Step Golden Core Elder.
"You... you have mastered the forbidden resonance," the Elder whispered, his voice trembling not with fear, but with a terrifying religious fervor. "The prophecy of the Overlord and the Fallen Moon... the scrolls were true. You are the herald of the end."
Qin Feng walked toward the Elder, his Sunderer glowing with the residual violet lightning of the tribulation. "Prophecies are just stories for people who are too afraid to dig their own path. I'm just a man taking back the dignity you stole from my wife."
He didn't kill the Elder immediately. He placed the white-hot tip of the Sunderer against the man's forehead, the smell of singed hair and scorched skin filling the clearing. "Tell me every secret of the Moon Sect's defenses on the Ninth Plateau, or I'll let my wife show you what ten thousand years of absolute isolation feels like."
[DING! Quest Completed!] [EXP Gained: 120,000! Level 7 Foundation: 45% to Level 8.] [Loot Acquired: 'Elder's Soul-Key', 2x High-Grade Spatial Rings, 50,000 High-Grade Spirit Stones.] [System Update: You have unlocked the 'Soul-Interrogation' module.]
Ye Chen stood amidst the frozen, shattered remains of her former brothers-in-arms. Her white veil was now stained with a few drops of dark blood, her breathing calm and rhythmic. She looked up through the canopy of the weeping willows at the shimmering, golden lights of the city above.
"The tournament officially begins in two days, Qin Feng," she said, her eyes returning to their lethal, violet calm. "By sunrise, the Moon Sect will know their Inquisitors have been silenced. They will no longer send dogs. They will send a true Golden Core Master."
"Let them send the whole Sect," Qin Feng replied, his grip firm on the handle of the Sunderer as he wiped the blood from the crystal. "I've spent ten years digging for scraps in the dark. I think it's time I started digging some graves for the gods."