Lianyan cut him off. "Take them first. Count later."
The next room belonged unmistakably to an alchemist. Stone shelves lined every wall, though most of the containers resting on them had already decayed into dust and fragments. One box, however, remained perfectly sealed. Mo Xuan approached it carefully, and the moment he lifted the lid, a faint medicinal fragrance escaped into the room. Even after countless years sealed away, the scent remained astonishingly pure.
Inside, several gathering pills rested, their surfaces bearing delicate, swirling patterns that spoke of a remarkable level of refinement. Mo Xuan couldn't help but think back to the Alchemy Association in Skyreach as he studied them — compared with the pills he'd watched refined there, these carried an indescribable sense of mystery.
Another corridor led them toward a solitary cultivation dwelling, tucked away from the rest of the ruins. On a pedestal inside lay a tome, its cover woven from dark hide unlike any beast they recognised. Ancient patterns shimmered faintly across its surface, and a single title was written on the front: Alchemy Atlas.
Mo Xuan approached it with visible excitement, though he paused the moment he noticed the restrictions wrapped around it, studying them carefully for several minutes before attempting to break them. Forming a series of hand seals, he worked through them one at a time until, after a patient stretch of effort, the restrictions finally broke apart entirely.
He lifted the tome carefully and stored it away.
Jin Bao finally broke the silence, looking around the ancient dwelling with something close to unease. "I think whoever lived here must've been terrifying."
Lianyan nodded in agreement.
Mo Xuan thought for a moment before turning to look at the other three. "Don't you feel something is wrong? Everything feels too easy."
Silence settled over the room for a moment before Lianxue finally spoke. "I've had that feeling too. We shouldn't linger here too long. Our gains are already enough — we shouldn't be greedy and end up losing everything."
They all agreed and turned to leave.
They headed for the palace entrance, and outside, the valley greeted them with the same unsettling silence as before. The eternal dawn remained unchanged overhead. The grass swayed gently in the breeze. Nothing appeared different at first glance.
The palace gate shut behind them.
Then—
Ruffle...
The grass moved.
Ruffle...
Another patch shifted, closer this time.
Mo Xuan's footsteps stopped abruptly.
Figures emerged slowly from behind the broken pillars scattered around the valley. One. Two. Three. Each wore robes embroidered with the same coiling serpent emblem, and behind them, small serpent-shaped Cosmic Souls shimmered faintly into existence, their emerald eyes reflecting a cold, patient amusement.
Mo Xuan studied the ambush settling into place around them. "No wonder something felt off."
The leader smiled. "We've been waiting. Didn't expect children to open this damned palace." His voice was calm, almost conversational, as though greeting guests rather than cornering prey.
Mo Xuan's pupils narrowed. "Waiting for us?"
The man tilted his head slightly. "For whoever opened the palace." His gaze lingered on the Storage Rings on their hands before returning to Mo Xuan's face. "It seems fortune favoured children."
The three cultivators spread out naturally, years of working together making their movements instinctive as they cut off every obvious path of retreat without a single wasted gesture.
The man chuckled. "Our ancestors spent generations searching for this inheritance." He tilted his head slightly. "Do you know how many humans have come in here? The blood quota needed will soon be complete, after adding you four."
The four of them stiffened.
He spread his hands. "Though what we're actually after isn't the treasures in this damned palace; having more can't hurt. Just leave those treasures behind, and maybe we'll leave your bodies intact."
Mo Xuan studied the man speaking for a moment. "The map was bait."
The leader smiled. "Seems you're not too dull."
Hearing this, Yu Lianyan and Yu Lianxue both turned to look at each other, startled. "We got this map after raiding a beast lair," Lianyan said.
The unknown cultivator sneered. "Humans and their greed."
The twins turned toward Mo Xuan and Jin Bao. "Sorry," Lianxue said quietly. "We dragged you both into this. We never knew it was a trap."
The leader's patience finally ran thin. "Enough. When you all meet at the Yellow Spring, you can reminisce there." He raised a hand. "Attack."
The three moved at once, charging toward Mo Xuan and his group. The leader flicked his sleeve, and a jade vial shattered soundlessly in the air. Instead of exploding, it dissolved, pale smoke pouring outward and spreading unnaturally fast, flowing across the ground like living mist as it twisted around broken pillars and ancient stone as though guided by invisible hands.
"Poison!" Lianxue reacted first, frost erupting beneath her feet, crystal-blue ice spreading outward to freeze the advancing smoke before it could reach them.
For one heartbeat, it worked.
Then the frozen poison changed. The pale mist slipped through tiny cracks forming within the ice itself, wrapping around both sisters from the rear before either of them could react. Lianyan swung a blazing fist through it, her flames scattering the cloud — only for it to gather again immediately, undeterred.
Their movements slowed almost at once. Lianyan's breathing turned uneven. Lianxue's frost gradually lost its sharp brilliance, dimming at the edges. Purple discolouration crept beneath the skin around both their wrists, their bodies stiffening as their breaths grew shallower with every passing second.
Jin Bao reacted on instinct. "Talisman!" Three protective talismans flew into the air, golden light descending around him in a defensive dome.
The leader only smiled. One of the remaining cultivators formed a serpent phantom behind him with a simple hand seal, and a purple snake shot forward, charging directly at Jin Bao. The talismans flickered violently under the assault, then dimmed as the poison smoke seeped through the gaps between them.
Jin Bao stumbled to one knee, his face draining of colour. Purple veins crawled upward from his fingertips, spreading across his neck like poisonous vines. He clutched at his own throat, air refusing to enter properly no matter how hard he tried, every breath growing heavier than the last.
Mo Xuan's heart sank. Of the four of them, he alone carried some measure of resistance to poison — a quiet benefit of the body-tempering he'd undergone years ago when he first began cultivating the Revolution Connecting Mantra.
The cultivators advanced together, the outcome already decided in their minds. The leader drew a narrow emerald blade, its edge shimmering with poisonous light. "Kill them," he said quietly.
The two subordinates moved instantly, one attacking from the left, the other circling behind. Mo Xuan drew his sword to meet the first.
Clang!
The impact forced him back across the ancient stone. Before he could recover his footing, another blade flashed toward his ribs. He activated Cloudwalk Script on instinct, his figure shifting just enough for the strike to graze past his robe instead of flesh.
The poison cultivator didn't pause, attacking again and again, relentless and disciplined in a way that made something click into place in Mo Xuan's mind. These weren't opportunistic thugs. These were experienced assassins, trained specifically for exactly this kind of work.
He stole a single glance behind him mid-exchange. Lianxue's skin had turned frighteningly pale, her frost aura flickering weakly. Lianyan's fists still burned with crimson fire, but they trembled now, the flame losing its earlier confidence. Jin Bao remained on one knee, his talismans already gone dark, his breathing growing weaker with every passing second.
Their lives teetered on a knife's edge, and something inside Mo Xuan tightened at the sight of his friends falling one by one. His breathing sharpened. The world seemed to narrow around him.
The leader's blade descended once more. Mo Xuan barely raised his sword in time, steel screaming against steel, the impact numbing his arms straight up to the shoulder. Another strike came immediately after. Then another. His vision blurred at the edges, his heartbeat accelerating into something uncontrollable.
Behind him, Lianyan coughed blood. Jin Bao collapsed completely, folding to the ground without resistance. Lianxue's frost shattered beneath another wave of poison, the last of it dissolving into nothing.
The sight struck him harder than any blade had.
Something inside him broke.
His fingers clenched around the hilt until his knuckles whitened. His chest burned with something he couldn't name.
A whisper escaped before he even realised he'd spoken.
"...Enough."
The single word echoed through the silent valley.
Something inside him snapped. His eyes turned red.
His breathing turned ragged. Every heartbeat pounded against his chest like a hammer striking iron. The sounds of the battlefield sharpened into painful clarity — the hiss of poison drifting through the air, the scrape of steel against steel, Jin Bao's strained, shallow breathing, Lianyan's suppressed groan, Lianxue's weakening frost cracking apart entirely.
Then everything blurred.
His Rune Sword Soul emerged and erupted without warning, black-and-white energy bursting outward in a wave that flattened the grass around him. His black-and-white hair whipped wildly behind him in the sudden pressure.
The ambushers froze in place. The leader's confident smile disappeared for the first time since he'd stepped out from behind the pillars. "What—"
He never finished the sentence.
The pressure erupting from Mo Xuan wasn't orderly or controlled. It was raw instinct given form, runic light intertwining with sword light until neither could be told apart from the other.
The leader's pupils contracted. For the first time, he took half a step back.
Every instinct he'd cultivated through years of killing screamed danger.
"Kill him!"
They were already upon him.