The dash toward the city gates was a blur of adrenaline and cold steel. As Feng Kail and Xu Guifei vaulted over the final barricade, the Shadow-Eaters did not follow. They dissolved into the gloom as soon as they neared the massive, runic-inscribed walls of the capital, their connection to the material plane severed by the city's ancient defensive wards.
Kail didn't stop. He pushed forward into the dense, ancient forest bordering the capital, his senses screaming a warning.
A group of cultivators blocked their path— not the mindless Shadow-Eaters, but high-level disciples from the Brimstone Sect, their armor glowing with malicious red heat. They had been tracking the energy spike from the inn.
"Hand over the treasures of the auction, scavenger," the lead disciple sneered, his blade dripping with molten liquid.
Kail didn't speak. He blurred, his speed amplified by the Frost-Core. He reached the disciple in a heartbeat, a Void-Iron Needle shimmering in his hand. With a precise, icy strike, he severed the man's Qi flow. Beside him, Guifei was a whirlwind of movement, her arrows piercing the formation like falling stars, while Egneel, manifesting in his full, draconic majesty, unleashed a torrent of blue flame that turned the surrounding trees to glass.
They tore through the sect members with surgical efficiency, leaving a trail of frozen, burnt debris. But as the last of the Brimstone disciples fell, a chilling pressure settled over the forest.
From the canopy above, three figures descended. They wore robes of midnight- grey, embroidered with silver patterns that seemed to shift like water. They were silent, their movements possessed of an unnerving, fluid grace.
The lead member of the Xu Clan, a woman with eyes like polished obsidian, stood before Kail. She didn't draw a weapon. "You fight well for a child of the wilderness, Feng Kail. But you are playing with matches while the world is preparing to burn."And you girl ,be careful!."
She vanished in a puff of mist, her voice echoing in their minds. "The Celestial Threshold approaches. A thousand-year convergence is upon us. The gate to the Eternal Void opens in three days. Only those who bear the crest of a legitimate sect will be permitted to enter. If you wish to claim what is truly yours, you will need a mask."
They were gone as quickly as they had arrived, leaving Kail standing in the wreckage of the forest. The Celestial Threshold — a legend of the First Epoch. A gateway to another world, a realm of forgotten weapons and heaven-defying techniques that appeared only once every millennium.
"We need a sect," Kail said, looking at the silent, imposing silhouette of the mountain ranges where the top-tier sects resided. "If we want to reach the Eternal Void, we have to stop being ghosts and start being disciples."
Two days later, they stood at the gates of the Azure Cloud Sect, a mountain-spanning organization known for its rigid hierarchy and immense resources. Kail and Guifei, their identities scrubbed of their past, stood in the long, winding line of hopefuls.
They did not aim for the inner circle. Kail knew the path to power was through the shadows. He registered them as low-level outer disciples, the expendable fodder of the sect. It was a humiliating position, requiring them to serve the senior disciples and perform menial labor, but it was the perfect veil.
Within the sect, they were invisible. No one looked twice at the quiet, diligent outer disciples who kept their heads down and their hands clean. But beneath the surface, Kail was studying the sect's maps of the Celestial Threshold, while Guifei sharpened her blades in the dead of night.
They were in the belly of the beast. The Celestial Threshold was opening, and every sect in the kingdom was sending their elite. Kail didn't care about the elite. He cared about the treasures on the other side.
As the sky above the mountain peak began to fracture, showing a glimpse of a world bathed in violet light, Kail stood on the training grounds, surrounded by thousands of arrogant disciples. He looked at Guifei .
"The gate opens in three days," he whispered. "Let the sects bring their armies. We only need the key."