Silence settled over the courtyard after Bái Wǎn's promise.
Zhì Yuǎn raised his hand. Mò Zhōng stepped out of the shadows and activated his jade ring. In seconds, the tables, armchairs, and the entire structure of the Crystal Dome were sucked into the pocket dimension. The luxury vanished, leaving only the smooth rock of the peak.
A cold wind struck their faces.
"Put on the veils," Zhì Yuǎn ordered.
Yù Qíng raised her hands. The Law of Illusion descended over the group, transforming the four women into ordinary peasant women dressed in thick, dirt-stained tunics.
Zhì Yuǎn adjusted his gray cloak and walked to the edge of the cliff. He lifted his face. The sky was clear, but the air was already beginning to grow heavy. A low static made the hairs on his arms stand on end.
He turned to his wives. The relaxed posture from minutes ago had disappeared.
"I'm going to tear through this barrier by brute force," he said, his voice dry. "The crossing will consume almost everything I have, and may leave my mind in darkness for some time."
Yù Qíng took a step forward.
"Our dantians are full of Primordial Qi, my heaven. We can—"
"No."
The word came out sharp. Zhì Yuǎn stared at the four of them.
"This is the only rule," he said flatly. "No matter what happens — don't try to help me."
Zhì Yuǎn took another step forward and stopped right in front of the four women. His posture changed. His body became straighter, his gaze heavier. When he spoke, his voice came out low, but with a different tone — firmer and sharper.
"No one supplies me with Qi during the crossing. Not even if I seem to be losing control."
He looked at each of them in turn, holding their gazes.
"Do you understand?"
The silence that fell was dense.
Yù Qíng clenched her hands into fists. Mò Yán looked away. Yù Méi bit the inside of her cheek. Bái Wǎn simply lowered her head slightly, accepting in silence.
Zhì Yuǎn remained still for another second, as if making sure they had understood. Then he turned his back.
Mò Zhōng kept his head lowered the entire time, having no idea what was being discussed.
Zhì Yuǎn raised his hands and drove his fingers into the air in front of him. The fabric of reality tore with a dry crack. He entered first. The group followed. The rift closed behind them, erasing the lower world.
On the other side, there was no tunnel. Only the Chaotic Void.
Formless space. Raw, dark energy swirled in blind whirlpools. Zhì Yuǎn raised his arms and created an invisible bubble around the family, protecting them from the spatial storm.
For the first few days, the barrier easily withstood the friction. As they walked through the folded spatial fabric, crossing space at inconceivable speed, Zhì Yuǎn walked ahead, eyes fixed on the storm outside. He barely paid attention to his wives walking silently behind him.
The black star of the Law of Destruction in the center of his chest pulsed. It did not perceive the Chaos as a threat, but as something that could be devoured. However, Zhì Yuǎn could not simply swallow it. To assimilate such an unstable rule, he first needed to understand it. And the Chaos had no pattern, no form, no paths. It was pure disorder.
He spent days walking in the dark, eyes fixed on the whirlpools outside, trying to make sense of that anarchy through sight alone.
------
The journey had already lasted more than a week.
During that time, the reserve of Qi he had stored over two years in his Dantian had been enough to keep the bubble stable. On the eighth day, however, the stock ran out completely. His Dantian emptied.
Without the reserve, Zhì Yuǎn had to burn his own cultivation. The Law stars within his chest began to extinguish one after another, burned away to maintain the barrier against the Void's growing friction.
The effort increased. Cold sweat ran down Zhì Yuǎn's face. His arms trembled. He could barely keep the bubble intact.
"We've passed the halfway point," he said, his voice hoarse and tense, without looking back. "The friction is stronger in the middle."
The moment he finished speaking, a massive current of chaotic energy struck the bubble head-on.
The impact was violent. The invisible ground shook.
Yù Méi lost her balance and, on instinct, reached out to steady herself against the barrier. Her fingers crossed the protective line by only a millimeter.
There was no sound.
Her right hand disappeared up to the wrist. The chaotic energy dissolved flesh, bone, and tendons as if they had never existed. Yù Méi fell seated, staring at the stump that was spurting blood. The wound hissed and smoked, refusing to close.
The pain came immediately after. She gasped, clutching her own arm with her left hand, her face pale.
Zhì Yuǎn smelled it.
The girl's sweet, dense blood invaded the confined space of the bubble. The Hunger roared inside him, urging him to turn around. His jaw clenched so violently that a tooth cracked. He planted his feet in the air and drove the bubble forward with everything he had left, refusing to glance back even once.
He no longer knew how much time had passed.
The end of the storm came without warning.
The group fell from the rift in free fall. The impact against the ground was heavy. The women's feet sank into the tall, damp grass. The air smelled of pine and wet earth. The morning sun beat down strongly.
The bubble burst.
Zhì Yuǎn fell to his knees. His hands dug into the soil. He panted, chest heaving in shallow gasps. His Dantian was completely dry.
And the Hunger took over.
The wind blew and the scent of Yù Méi's blood — sweet and dense — reached him. The instinct of the Singularity forced the man's head to turn. For a second, he no longer saw his wives. He saw only energy.
His teeth clenched. A low growl escaped his throat. His entire body tensed, ready to attack.
But the little sanity that remained inside him acted.
Without saying a word, Zhì Yuǎn raised his hand. The Law of Space bent the air around the four women. In the blink of an eye, they disappeared from the clearing, hurled far away to an unknown distance.
Mò Zhōng blinked, still fallen near a tree trunk. He looked at the empty clearing where the mistresses had been just a second ago, confused, and then looked at the master.
Before he could react, Zhì Yuǎn extended his right hand and began tracing patterns in the air with his fingers. The movements were quick and precise, as if he were drawing something invisible. The air in front of him glowed and a small solid medallion materialized in his palm.
He threw the object against the butler's chest.
"With this, they will find you," his voice came out hoarse, almost ragged. "Help them settle in."
He waved his hand again. Space bent and Mò Zhōng disappeared, hurled into the forest.
Zhì Yuǎn was alone.
He sank his perception into his own chest. The stars representing his wives' Laws were still shining, intact. With heavy effort, he raised a karmic barrier around those stars, completely isolating them.
The moment the seal closed, the hairs on Zhì Yuǎn's arms stood on end. A sensation of absolute death crept up the nape of his neck.
Without hesitation, he vanished.
In the clear sky above the forest, a dry crack of thunder echoed. The upper world had sensed the loose anomaly.
------
The stream flowed calmly between the trees. The water was crystalline, with a faint greenish tint, and reflected the soft golden light of morning. Fish with shining scales swam slowly among the branches of ancient peach trees that had fallen into the riverbed centuries ago. The wood did not rot. It dissolved slowly, releasing a gentle energy into the water.
Sunlight filtered through the broad leaves, creating patches of light on the surface. For a few seconds, the place seemed untouched and serene.
Until the air tore.
A dry crack cut through the silence. Four bodies fell from the void and landed directly in the shallow part of the stream. The water exploded in all directions. The women rolled through the current until they hit the rocks on the bank, their tunics completely soaked.
Yù Méi was the first to move. She knelt in the shallow water and raised her right arm. The stump was still hissing faintly, but the energy of the Chaotic Void no longer existed in this world. Without the corruption of chaos, her Qi advanced on its own. Bone, muscle, and skin regenerated in a few seconds. She opened and closed her new hand in the cold water, washing away the dried blood.
"It's whole," she murmured, almost to herself.
Bái Wǎn was still seated in the water, hands trembling. She closed her eyes and tried to feel the connection. Nothing. The barrier Zhì Yuǎn had placed was firm. There was no trace of him anywhere.
Panic rose quickly.
"Where is he?" Her voice came out thin, almost shrill. She jumped to her feet, water splashing. "The connection… it's gone! I can't feel him! Where is he?!"
She took a step forward, already raising her hand to bend space and return.
Yù Qíng was faster.
The eldest grabbed Bái Wǎn's wrist with force and pulled her back. Bái Wǎn fell seated in the water with a thud. Before she could react, Yù Qíng held her face with both hands, firmly squeezing her cheeks.
"Look at me," she ordered, her voice low and sharp. "He threw us here and cut the connection because he lost control. If you go back now, you won't save anyone. You'll only die."
Bái Wǎn trembled. Tears mixed with the stream water ran down her face.
"He's alone…" she whispered, voice choked.
Yù Qíng squeezed her face a little harder, forcing her to maintain eye contact.
"He threw us far away so he wouldn't have to kill us later. Don't ruin what he did."
Bái Wǎn stopped struggling. The tears continued to fall, but she remained quiet.
The silence was broken by the sound of snapping branches. Mò Zhōng fell from the air and landed on his side on the dirt bank, letting out a grunt. The butler slowly got up, adjusting his wet, leaf-stained tunic. When he saw the four women sitting in the shallow water — tunics and dresses clinging to their bodies — he immediately fixed his eyes on the ground, as if his life depended on it.
Without looking at any of them, he extended his right hand.
"The Master ordered me to deliver this."
Mò Yán walked through the water and took the medallion. She turned the object between her fingers, examining the patterns engraved on its surface.
"Any instructions?"
"He said that with this, you will be found," Mò Zhōng replied, still looking at the ground. "And he ordered you to settle in while he takes care of his own problem."
Yù Méi furrowed her brow, wringing out her wet hair.
"Found by whom? We don't even know where we are."
Mò Yán let out a low, almost mocking laugh. She raised the medallion to eye level and shook it lightly.
"Have you already forgotten, Méi?" she said with an ironic little smile. "We sent those old men here first. The patriarchs, the Mistress of the Crane, the Swordsman… All of them were thrown into the sky like hunting hounds. They must have survived and spread the scent of our husband around here."
Yù Qíng, who had been silent until then, let out a low, satisfied laugh. The tension in her shoulders seemed to ease for the first time since they had fallen.
Mò Yán closed her hand around the medallion.
"Our heaven has already given us the leash," she finished, in an almost playful tone. "Now we just need to sit, dry these clothes, and wait for the hounds to take us to where he wants us to stay."