Atop the arena platform, Lin Feng stood in white, proud and unhurried.
The Red Iron Primeval Essence fluctuation of his Rank 2 middle stage radiated from him like a blazing sun, instantly smothering the savage momentum Li Huang had built up.
Faced with that insurmountable suppression of rank, the White Bone young lord — who had been utterly imperious just moments ago — now gripped his bone spear with hands that trembled faintly.
His bloodshot eyes burned with deep, venomous hatred. But buried beneath that hatred, impossible to fully conceal, was a thread of fear.
"Young Master Feng is mighty!"
"Show these White Bone savages what Black Blood Stockade is made of!"
The home crowd erupted in a wave of cheering that shook the air.
At the far edge of the stands —
Lin Mu sat with both hands tucked into his sleeves, watching the scene with an unhurried gaze.
He knew with absolute clarity. The moment Lin Feng stepped onto that platform, the outcome had already been decided.
In the world of Gu Masters, the hierarchy of rank was an uncrossable gulf. If a mere peak Rank 1 cultivator could defeat a Rank 2 middle stage Gu Master on nothing but sheer willpower, then what was the point of the countless Gu Masters who bled and broke themselves, pouring staggering resources into accumulating Primeval Essence and forcing breakthroughs?
"No need to watch any further."
Lin Mu made a quiet mental calculation of the time, then glanced toward the high platform.
He estimated that Li Mang had already swept this entire area several times over by now.
Since those probing waves had never locked onto him, it meant the Sparse Shadow Gu's concealment was working flawlessly.
If discovery had ever been a real possibility, Lin Mu would already be a corpse.
What Lin Mu did not know was that up on the high platform, the White Bone Patriarch he so deeply feared had just barely survived a brush with death. Li Mang was now mentally and physically drained, barely holding himself together — he had neither the energy nor the nerve to dare activate the scepter again.
"Let's go."
Lin Mu shook his head and reached over to tap Lin Wuxie, who was still staring fixedly at the arena.
Taking advantage of the moment when every eye in the arena was fixed on Lin Feng, the two of them slipped into the crowd like two drops of water dissolving into the sea, and quietly left the clamorous martial arena without looking back.
——
Walking down a quiet street far from the arena, Lin Mu finally let out a long, slow breath from the depths of his lungs.
Today's crisis had been navigated — barely, but completely.
Going forward, that old dog Li Mang would not dare set foot into the heart of Black Blood Stockade so easily again.
This meant Lin Mu had finally bought himself a precious window of time to grow.
But —
Before that breath had fully left him, a suffocating wave of dread rose in its place.
This is a genuinely thorny problem...
Lin Mu stopped walking. He raised his head and looked at the grey, overcast sky, turning the situation over in his mind.
That venomous, serpentine witch lurking beneath the Grey Street Market — the Rank 4 Gu Master, Wuxiang — had already fixed her eyes on him.
It was Wuxiang's Sparse Shadow Gu that had perfectly dissolved Li Mang's death trap for him. But the price had been devastating.
In exchange, Lin Mu had effectively laid every last one of his cards bare before her eyes.
Wuxiang now knew with complete clarity that this Rank 2 Gu Master was carrying the Black Bone King's inheritance.
An innocent man becomes guilty the moment he carries a treasure.
Lin Mu found himself thinking back to the underground chamber beneath Grey Street — the oppressive, suffocating force that had radiated from Wuxiang's every movement.
Her cultivation is absolutely not as simple as early Rank 4. That effortless, total control — she could very well be a terrifying Rank 4 middle stage.
The thought sent a chill through him.
The higher one climbed in Gu Master cultivation, the more brutal and unforgiving the walls of aptitude and foundation became.
Even someone as formidable as Fang Yuan — with five hundred years of memories, with the Spring Autumn Cicada, a heaven-defying Immortal Gu — had been forced, when on Qing Mao Mountain, to resort to the extreme measure of the Stone Aperture Gu to break through by force. A method that destroyed his own foundation and severed his future potential, just to barely touch the threshold of peak Rank 3.
And himself?
He was nothing more than a Rank 2 cultivator.
Yet he was simultaneously facing a peak Rank 3 Li Mang who watched him with predatory hunger, and a volatile, unpredictable Rank 4 demoness in Wuxiang.
The difficulty of his situation was, to put it plainly, astronomical.
There is always someone stronger. There is always a higher sky.
The thought drew a quiet sigh from him.
Lin Mu knew himself well. He was not the kind of Gu Master who could calculate every variable and never miss a step.
In the early stages, he had leveraged the meticulous logical thinking of a modern mind, along with his foreknowledge of the original story's events, to seize every advantage he could and stay one step ahead.
But in this world of Gu Masters — were all those who had clawed their way to the top truly ordinary?
A single Rank 5 inheritance from the Black Bone King had drawn out a web of entangled, far-reaching powers that far exceeded anything Lin Mu had originally anticipated.
But what of it?
After a brief silence, a sharp light rekindled itself in the depths of Lin Mu's eyes.
Things are as they are. A fly caught in a spider's web has only one path — to fight toward death, and force a bloody way out.
The only way to break through this situation was to rely on himself.
With that thought, Lin Mu turned his head, his gaze settling on Lin Wuxie beside him with quiet, measured depth.
The two of them had already made thorough preparations for this journey.
Tomorrow, they would leave Black Blood Stockade and venture once more into the depths of the treacherous ten-thousand mountains.
For this excursion, Lin Mu had set three core objectives in his mind.
First: Find the treasure.Following the clues tied to Lin Wuxie, locate the mysterious cave he had stumbled into before, and investigate whatever inheritance might lie within.
Second: Hunt the king.Track down a wild Thousand Beast King, scout it out in advance, and lay the groundwork for unlocking the second level of the Black Bone King's underground inheritance.
Third: Forge himself through battle.
This was the most important of all. He had gone too long without tempering himself in the field. Lin Mu knew clearly that his current Rank 2 cultivation and Gu worms still needed endless life-and-death combat to be hammered into something truly sharp.
Sitting behind closed doors in the stockade, building strength in isolation — that was always the inferior path.
Only blood and death, only real combat, was the true shortcut to elevating one's fighting strength and forging one's trump cards into killing instinct.
As for Lin Mu's affairs within Black Blood Stockade's External Affairs Hall — his business dealings, his assets, his various worldly entanglements —
He had already arranged all of it, with great care, into Lin Ping's hands.
Lin Ping's aptitude was simply too low. Dragging him into the deep forest to risk his life would only get him killed.
Letting Lin Ping live out his days in Black Blood Stockade in comfort and security — that was, in truth, the best life he could hope for.
If the opportunity arises someday, I'll think about what more I can do for Lin Ping.
Lin Mu held the thought quietly.
With everything settled in his mind, the two of them followed the quiet path back to their residence in the Silent Stone District.
BOOM——!!
At that moment, from the distant direction of the martial arena far behind them, a roar of cheering erupted — thunderous, earth-shaking, as though it might tear the sky open.
There was no need to look. Lin Feng had clearly claimed a decisive victory in this so-called friendly tournament.
The wild, fevered noise drifted toward them on the night wind.
Lin Mu paid it no mind. His footsteps did not slow for even half a second.
He pushed open the door, lay down quietly on the bed, and closed his eyes.
With a still and undistracted mind, he began to rest.
It was nothing more than a passing frost.