The Great Dao is a grand chessboard spanning the Vast Heavens Continent. To survive, one must not only foresee their own moves, but respect the profound intellect of the pieces standing across the board. Arrogance is the privilege of the dead; true power belongs to the paranoid.
Shang Jue stared into the pitch-black interior of the jade sarcophagus.
There was no preserved corpse of a Primordial God. There were no mountains of spirit stones or racks of supreme weapons. Resting on a bed of decaying spirit-silk was a single, irregular object the size of a fist.
It looked like a heart carved from obsidian, pulsing with a slow, heavy, and chaotic rhythm. It possessed no elemental affinity—no fire, no frost, no starlight, and no sword intent. It was a Seed of Chaos. It was the raw, undiluted origin energy from the Desolate Antiquity, existing before the Great Dao had been carved into the neat, orthodox laws of the modern era.
It was exactly what the Genesis of the Ultimate Truth demanded.
Shang Jue reached into the sarcophagus. The moment his metallic-sheened fingers brushed the cold surface of the obsidian heart, the object did not resist. Sensing the violently reconstructed, primordial nature of the boy's flesh, and the chaotic vortex of his Dantian, the Seed liquefied.
It turned into a stream of thick, black mercury that slithered up Shang Jue's arm, sinking directly into his pores.
Thump.
A secondary heartbeat echoed within Shang Jue's chest. The Seed of Chaos anchored itself directly beside his violently expanded Dantian. It did not grant him an immediate, explosive breakthrough. Instead, it acted as a terrifying, infinite gravity well, slowly beginning to purify and condense the chaotic Qi he had forcefully gathered, offering him a foundation that could eventually rival the supreme gods of the central plains.
But as the Desolate aura in the valley was absorbed into Shang Jue's body, the crushing atmospheric pressure lifted.
Behind him, the three paralyzed Core Formation Elders of the Heavenly Sword Pavilion gasped as the invisible weight was removed from their lungs. Their Golden Cores, previously suppressed, violently reignited.
Shang Jue's dark eyes narrowed. He turned slowly, his right hand gripping the hilt of his black iron broadsword. He had been so focused on the ultimate prize that he had momentarily disregarded the dying embers of the false gods.
It was his first miscalculation.
He expected them to attack in a blind, furious rage. He expected them to hurl their remaining Sword Intent at him to avenge their humiliation.
But Elder Jian, the leader of the vanguard, did not summon his sword.
Jian lay half-buried in the rubble, his legs crushed by the starlight explosion, his internal organs ruptured. He was a dying man, but he was not a fool. He was an Elder of a Supreme Sect who had lived for four hundred years. He looked at the ragged, twelve-year-old boy who had just absorbed a Primordial relic.
Jian's mind operated with terrifying, sacrificial clarity. This boy is not a scavenger. He orchestrated this clash. He moves without sound, he possesses physical strength that defies his realm, and his eyes... they hold no fear of the heavens. If he is allowed to grow, he will become a calamity that will threaten the very foundation of the Pavilion.
"Do not attack him," Elder Jian coughed, his voice a ragged, bloody whisper, grabbing the arms of his two surviving peers. "We cannot kill him in our state. Save your Qi."
The other two Elders looked at Jian in shock, but obedience to their leader was absolute.
"We underestimated the frontier," Jian wheezed, staring directly into Shang Jue's dead, abyssal eyes. "We thought we were fighting wolves, but a dragon was hiding in the mud."
Shang Jue did not speak. He raised the heavy black broadsword, stepping forward to silence the variable.
But Elder Jian was faster. He did not aim at the boy. He aimed at himself.
Jian raised his trembling right hand and viciously drove his index and middle fingers directly into his own chest, piercing his flesh and striking his own Golden Core.
"I offer my foundation to the Heavens!" Jian roared, his eyes blazing with a terrifying, fanatical orthodox light. "I bind my soul to the blood!"
CRACK.
Elder Jian intentionally shattered his own Golden Core.
The resulting explosion of Qi did not radiate outward as a destructive wave. Instead, it condensed into a single, blinding crimson needle composed of pure, sacrificial soul-blood. It was a supreme tracking art—the Blood-Soul Severing Mark.
Before Shang Jue could swing his massive blade, the crimson needle shot forward with the speed of light. It bypassed all physical defense, plunging directly into the center of Shang Jue's forehead.
It did not inflict physical damage, but Shang Jue felt a searing, indelible brand etch itself into his spiritual sea. A faint, glowing red sword-mark appeared between his brows before fading into his skin.
"The Heavenly Sword Pavilion... does not forget," Elder Jian whispered, the fanatical light fading from his eyes as his life force was completely extinguished by the sacrifice. His body slumped into the dirt, dead.
Shang Jue stood frozen, his hand resting on his forehead.
He could feel the mark. It was deeply rooted in his soul. It did not hurt, but it pulsed with a faint, persistent frequency. It was a beacon. Wherever he went on the Vast Heavens Continent, the high-ranking masters of the Sword Pavilion would be able to sense his general direction.
He looked down at the dead Elder. A cold, profound respect mingled with his absolute rage. He had treated the orthodox cultivators as arrogant fools, blinded by their own superiority. But Elder Jian had proven that the supreme sects possessed individuals with terrifying resolve, willing to sacrifice their lives and their souls merely to cast a net over a potential future threat.
A lesson paid in blood, Shang Jue thought, his abyssal eyes darkening. The heavens are not just cruel; they are calculating. I will never underestimate a dying god again.
"A brilliant sacrifice, truly. The orthodox dogs always know how to die with flair."
The voice echoed from the shadows of the cavern, smooth, aristocratic, and completely devoid of the panic that usually accompanied a massacre.
Shang Jue pivoted instantly, leveling the black broadsword toward the sound.
Stepping out from behind the ruined, petrified roots of the bronze tree was a young man. He appeared to be no older than sixteen. He wore flowing, silken robes of deepest crimson, embroidered with black lotuses. His skin was pale, his features aristocratically sharp, and he held a closed folding fan made of jade and silver wire.
He was entirely untouched by the battle. He possessed an aura that was incredibly well-hidden, but to Shang Jue's chaotic Dantian, the young man radiated a dense, suffocating scent of blood and profound malice.
A heretic, Shang Jue calculated instantly. Crimson Blood Cult.
"Do not swing that heavy piece of iron at me, little demon," the young man smiled, tapping his folded fan against his palm. "I am not here to fight. If I wanted the Seed of Chaos, I would have intervened while the Daoist Palace was dropping the sky on the Pavilion's heads. I am merely an observer... an appreciator of fine strategy."
"Who are you?" Shang Jue demanded, his voice flat, completely unbothered by the young man's relaxed demeanor.
"You may call me Yan," the crimson-robed youth said, offering a slight, elegant bow. "And I must say, watching a twelve-year-old mortal boy play two Supreme Sects against each other to steal a Desolate Antiquity relic from under their noses... it was a masterpiece. The Heretical Factions would pay handsomely for a mind like yours."
Yan's dark, blood-red eyes glanced at the spot on Shang Jue's forehead where the tracker had entered.
"Though," Yan chuckled softly, "it seems you tripped at the finish line. The Blood-Soul Mark. Unfortunate. Every Pavilion Elder within a thousand miles will be hunting you the moment they realize Jian is dead."
"I am not interested in joining a cult," Shang Jue said, his grip on the broadsword tightening, shifting his stance to prepare for a heavy strike.
"I didn't offer you a place, little demon. I offered you an observation," Yan corrected smoothly, opening his fan with a sharp snap. "The Vast Heavens Continent is vast, and the chessboard is wide. You have just declared war on one of its largest players. You are strong for your age, possessing a terrifying physical foundation, but brute strength alone will not save you from a grandmaster's strategy."
Yan turned to leave, his crimson robes blending into the shadows of the abyss.
"We will meet again, boy with the black blade," Yan's voice drifted back, echoing in the ruined valley. "Try not to die before you reach the central plains. It is so rare to find someone who actually understands the rules of the game."
Shang Jue watched the heretic vanish into the gloom.
He stood alone in the center of the devastation, surrounded by the corpses of elite cultivators. The Seed of Chaos beat slowly in his chest. The heavy black broadsword rested in his hand. And a target was painted on his soul.
He had plundered the ancient tomb, but he had also stepped onto the grand stage of the world. The true cultivation journey—a path paved with brilliant enemies, lethal politics, and infinite bloodshed—had officially begun.
The disappearance of the crimson-robed heretic left the ruined subterranean valley in a heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by the ragged breathing of the two surviving Heavenly Sword Pavilion Elders.
With the Seed of Chaos absorbed into Shang Jue's Dantian, the paralyzing atmospheric pressure of the Desolate Antiquity had vanished. The two Elders, their silver robes stained with ash and their own blood, felt the familiar, refined thrum of their Golden Cores reignite within their meridians.
They pushed themselves up from the dirt. They looked at the shattered remains of Elder Jian, realizing the absolute finality of his sacrifice. The Blood-Soul Severing Mark was not an art used lightly; it was the ultimate, desperate curse of a dying grandmaster.
Their eyes, previously filled with the arrogant light of orthodox superiority, now burned with the fanatical, blinding wrath of zealots.
"You are marked by the heavens, demon," the Elder on the left hissed, blood spilling past his teeth. Though his legs were heavily damaged by the starlight explosion, his Qi was stabilizing. He raised a trembling hand, forming a sword seal with his fingers. "There is not a shadow deep enough on the Vast Heavens Continent to hide you. The Pavilion will strip your flesh from your bones and burn your soul for a thousand years."
Shang Jue turned his gaze away from the empty space where Yan had vanished. His dead, abyssal eyes locked onto the two Elders.
His obsessively analytical mind processed the immediate variables. They are heavily injured. Their meridians are fractured by the spatial implosion. But they are Core Formation experts. If they escape this tomb, they will report my exact age, my weapon, and my appearance to the Pavilion. The mark provides a direction; witnesses provide a face.
A mistake had been made in allowing Jian the time to cast the mark. Shang Jue would not make a second mistake by allowing these witnesses to breathe the air of the outside world.
He gripped the heavy, leather-wrapped hilt of the black iron broadsword.
"The Pavilion will hunt a mark," Shang Jue whispered, his voice devoid of any inflection, chilling the ambient air. "But they will not know what they are hunting. Because the dead tell no tales."
"Arrogant ant!" the second Elder roared. He drew a fractured, half-shattered silver longsword from his spatial ring. He channeled the entirety of his recovering Golden Core into the blade. "Even broken, a god can crush a mortal insect! *Heavenly Severing Void Strike!*"
The Elder swung the shattered blade. A massive, crescent-shaped wave of blinding silver Sword Intent erupted toward Shang Jue, tearing a deep trench into the petrified earth as it advanced. It was a strike that could cleave a small mountain in half.
Shang Jue did not attempt to dodge. The Primordial Earth Marrow flowing through his bones demanded a different approach. He did not evade the Great Dao; he confronted it.
He widened his stance, his bare, frostbitten feet sinking deep into the star-iron floor, anchoring his thousand-pound density to the bedrock. He raised the black broadsword, holding it vertically like a massive shield of dark iron.
*CLANG!*
The collision was deafening. The blinding Sword Intent struck the flat of the black blade. The sheer kinetic force of a Core Formation attack was catastrophic. A normal Qi Condensation cultivator would have been instantly vaporized, their weapon turned to molten slag.
But Shang Jue was not normal. The pulverized direwolf bone-dust running through the spine of his sword dispersed the piercing intent, while his Primordial-forged skeleton absorbed the kinetic shockwave. The ground beneath him spider-webbed and cratered for fifty yards in every direction, but the boy himself was only pushed back a mere three inches.
The silver light shattered into harmless, glowing sparks.
The two Elders stared in absolute, mind-shattering disbelief. A Second Stage Qi Condensation mortal had just face-tanked a lethal art from a Core Formation expert without shedding a single drop of blood.
Before their minds could process the impossibility of the physics, Shang Jue moved.
He channeled the chaotic, abyssal Qi from his Dantian, infusing it heavily with the terrifying, gravitational density of the Earth Marrow. He kicked off the ground. The sonic boom of his acceleration shattered the remaining petrified roots of the bronze tree.
He crossed the distance instantly, appearing directly in front of the Elder who had cast the strike.
The Elder tried to raise his broken sword to parry, but he was far too slow.
Shang Jue swung the black broadsword horizontally. He did not aim for the blade; he aimed for the torso. The massive, bone-infused iron cleaved through the Elder's defensive aura as if it were wet paper.
CRUNCH.
The heavy spine of the blade smashed into the Elder's ribs, utterly destroying the Golden Core hidden within his Dantian, and cleanly bisected the man. The upper half of the Elder's body was launched into the cavern wall, while his lower half collapsed into the dust.
The final surviving Elder let out a horrifying scream of terror. His orthodox pride vanished entirely, replaced by the primal, desperate instinct of a cornered animal. He abandoned his dead peers. He abandoned the legacy. He turned and attempted to summon a blood-escape art, burning his own lifespan to flee into the sky.
Shang Jue did not swing his sword a second time.
He dropped the heavy blade. Reaching out with his right hand, he violently activated the Taiyin meridian. The chaotic vortex in his Dantian spun in reverse, generating a terrifying, localized gravitational pull powered by the Seed of Chaos and the Earth Marrow.
"Return to the dirt," Shang Jue commanded.
The invisible gravitational singularity latched onto the fleeing Elder. The man was violently yanked backward out of the air, crashing spine-first into the star-iron floor directly at Shang Jue's feet.
Before the Elder could even gasp for breath, Shang Jue raised his right foot and stomped down onto the man's chest.
The thousand-pound density of his leg, reinforced by Qi, struck with the force of a falling meteor. The Elder's ribcage imploded. His heart was instantly pulverized. His eyes bulged one final time before the light of his cultivation was permanently extinguished.
The valley was finally silent.
Shang Jue stood over the broken bodies of the false gods. He felt no exhaustion, only the slow, rhythmic, dual heartbeat in his chest one mortal, one chaotic. He calmly knelt and stripped the two dead Elders of their spatial rings, ensuring no resources were left behind. The Path of Plunder demanded absolute thoroughness.
Suddenly, the cavern violently shuddered.
A massive fissure tore through the black star-iron walls. A colossal chunk of the cavern ceiling, the size of a manor, detached and plummeted, crashing into the valley floor and sending a massive plume of toxic dust into the air.
The Secret Realm was dying.
By removing the Seed of Chaos from the black jade sarcophagus, Shang Jue had removed the foundational anchor that maintained the artificial spatial bubble. The dimension was collapsing in on itself, threatening to crush everything within it into the void.
Shang Jue retrieved his black broadsword and strapped it tightly to his back over the Alpha pelt. He did not panic. His mind mapped the trajectory of the falling debris and the shifting tectonic plates of the cavern.
He ran.
He moved like a phantom shadow, his heavy footsteps cracking the stone, propelling him forward with explosive bursts of speed. He navigated the crumbling ruins of the valley, dodging falling stalactites and leaping over rapidly widening chasms that revealed the pitch-black void of space beneath the tomb.
He reached the sloping corridor where he had slain the first vanguard specialist. He charged up the incline, his Primordial-forged muscles ignoring the steep grade. The petrified bone-walls were caving in, the Corpse Qi miasma swirling violently as the atmospheric pressure violently equalized with the outside world.
He reached the massive chasm that led back to the Blackpine Ridge. The green fog was dissipating, sucked into the collapsing void below.
There were no stairs. There was no easy path up.
Shang Jue leapt onto the sheer, vertical rock face. His metallic-sheened fingers dug directly into the frozen, solid stone like daggers. Driven by the terrifying strength of his dense bones and chaotic Qi, he scaled the cliff face with the speed and ferocity of a demonic spider, ignoring the massive tremors threatening to shake him loose.
With one final, explosive leap, he launched himself over the edge of the chasm, rolling perfectly into the knee-deep snow of the Blackpine Ridge just as the spatial rift behind him violently snapped shut.
BOOM.
A muffled, subterranean shockwave rippled through the frozen forest, shaking the snow from the ironwood pines. The Secret Realm was gone, erased from the Vast Heavens Continent, taking the corpses of the Nine Stars Daoist Palace and the Heavenly Sword Pavilion with it.
Shang Jue stood up in the dark, frozen forest.
The harsh winter wind howled around him, biting at his exposed, blood-stained skin. But he did not feel the cold.
He reached up and touched the center of his forehead. The faint, glowing red sword-mark pulsed slightly against his skin. The Blood-Soul Severing Mark was a permanent tether, a ticking clock hanging over his head. The Sword Pavilion would soon realize their Elders were dead, and the hunt would begin.
He could not return to Blackridge Hold. The frontier town would soon be swarming with high-level Pavilion investigators searching for clues.
He looked toward the southern horizon, where the frozen wasteland of the Azure Cloud Province eventually gave way to the prosperous, infinitely dangerous central plains of the Vast Heavens Continent.
He had entered the wilderness as a starving, weeping mortal boy digging a grave in the dirt. He was leaving it as a Cultivator forged in the abyss, carrying the weight of the Primordial, a Seed of Chaos, and the wealth of fallen gods.
Shang Jue adjusted the heavy black broadsword on his back and began to walk south. The mortal had died in the snow; the demon was heading for the heavens.
Thousands of miles southeast of the freezing Azure Cloud Province, the climate was eternal spring. Here, the spiritual energy of the world was not chaotic or biting; it flowed like calm, clear rivers through valleys of blooming spirit-peach trees.
Rising above the clouds were the jade peaks of the Heavenly Sword Pavilion's central sect.
At the very summit of the highest mountain sat the Soul Hall. It was a massive, silent structure constructed entirely from soul-nurturing white jade. Inside, tens of thousands of thumb-sized jade slips floated in the air like a constellation of stars, each containing a sliver of an inner disciple or Elder's soul. The brighter the slip, the stronger the life force.
An old man in gray robes sat in lotus position at the center of the hall, his eyes closed in meditation. He was the Soul Hall Master, a cultivator at the Late Stage of Core Formation. His sole duty was to monitor the constellation.
Suddenly, a sharp, dissonant *crack* echoed through the silent hall.
The old man's eyes snapped open. He looked toward the highest tier of the floating jade slips the tier reserved for the High Elders.
A slip bearing the name of Elder Lin had fractured into dust.
Before the Hall Master could even stand up, a second crack rang out. Elder Wu's slip shattered, the spiritual light within it completely extinguishing.
"Two Core Formation Elders... dead in the same breath?" the Hall Master whispered, a cold dread pooling in his stomach. They had been dispatched to a minor border province to secure a newly formed Secret Realm. It was supposed to be a routine plunder.
Then came the third sound. It was not a crack, but a violent, explosive shattering.
The jade slip belonging to Elder Jian—the leader of the vanguard—blew apart. But unlike the others, a thick, crimson mist erupted from the fragments, forming a floating, blood-red sword insignia in the air.
The Hall Master's face drained of all color. He fell to his knees. "The Blood-Soul Severing Mark... Elder Jian sacrificed his foundation."
The heavy, iron-bound doors of the Soul Hall swung open.
A man strode into the room. He did not walk; he seemed to glide, his feet hovering an inch above the jade floor. He wore robes of pure, unblemished white, and his eyes were like two pools of liquid mercury. He possessed no fluctuating aura, no oppressive spiritual pressure. He felt completely, utterly ordinary.
Yet, the Hall Master trembled so violently he could barely speak. This was the phenomenon of returning to the natural state—the hallmark of the Earthly Transcendence realm. This was a Nascent Soul Grandmaster. This was the Sword Punisher of the Pavilion.
"Speak," the Sword Punisher commanded, his voice perfectly smooth, possessing no anger, only an absolute, terrifying authority.
"Grandmaster," the Hall Master bowed, his forehead pressed against the floor. "The Azure Cloud Vanguard has been annihilated. Elder Jian triggered the Blood-Soul Mark before his death."
The Sword Punisher looked at the floating crimson insignia. He raised a single, pale finger. The blood-mist swirled, reconstructing the final, fragmented memories transmitted through Jian's dying soul.
The image projected into the air was distorted, painted in the red hues of death. It showed a massive subterranean explosion. It showed the Daoist Palace disciples. And then, the image focused. It showed a twelve-year-old boy in a ragged tunic and a white direwolf pelt, holding a black iron broadsword, radiating a terrifying, ancient heaviness.
The vision faded.
The Sword Punisher's mercury eyes narrowed by a fraction of a millimeter. To the Hall Master, this microscopic shift in expression was more terrifying than a raging thunderstorm.
"A mortal boy," the Hall Master stammered, trying to rationalize the impossible. "Perhaps the Daoist Palace crippled our Elders, and a local scavenger simply dealt the final blow?"
"Do not project your own mediocrity onto the heavens," the Sword Punisher replied coldly. "A scavenger does not inspire a four-hundred-year-old Elder to sacrifice his Golden Core. Jian saw a calamity. He marked it so that we might erase it."
The Grandmaster turned away from the shattered jade slips. His mind, refined by centuries of brutal sect politics and warfare, immediately began moving pieces across the continental chessboard.
"Deploy the Blood-Tracking Hounds to the Azure Cloud Province," the Sword Punisher ordered, his voice echoing down the mountain. "Send three squads of the Shadow Hunt Division. Do not send arrogant inner disciples looking for glory; send the executioners. I want the borders of the province sealed. Check every merchant caravan, every rogue cultivator, and every beggar heading south."
"Grandmaster, committing the Shadow Hunt Division for a child... won't the other sects notice the massive deployment?"
"Let them notice," the Sword Punisher said, pausing at the doorway. "If a spark is born in the abyss that can burn three of my Core Formation Elders, I will not wait for it to become a wildfire. I will smother it in the cradle. Find the boy with the black blade. Bring me his head, and bring me whatever he stole from that tomb."
Far to the north, in the freezing wilderness of the Azure Cloud Province, Shang Jue sat cross-legged inside a shallow, wind-carved cave.
Outside, a fresh blizzard was howling, erasing his tracks.
He was not resting. His eyes were closed, his consciousness turned entirely inward, focused on the spiritual sea within his mind.
Floating in the center of his consciousness was a blinding, crimson sword. It was the Blood-Soul Mark. It acted as an incredibly complex array, constantly drawing a minuscule amount of ambient Qi from the world to broadcast a signal across the Great Dao.
Shang Jue did not panic, nor did he curse the dead Elder. Panic was a mortal flaw. He analyzed the problem.
It is anchored directly to my soul, Shang Jue calculated. If I attempt to forcibly rip it out with my chaotic Qi, the backlash will shatter my spiritual sea, turning me into a brain-dead husk. The orthodox sects excel at binding curses.
He opened his eyes. The faint red mark on his forehead pulsed softly.
He could not remove it. But the Path of the Origin was not solely about destruction; it was about assimilation and dominance. If he could not destroy the beacon, he would drown it out.
He focused on the new, second heartbeat in his chest—the Seed of Chaos.
Slowly, carefully, Shang Jue drew a thread of the thick, black, mercury-like energy from the Seed. The Desolate Qi was heavy, rotting, and fundamentally opposed to the clean, refined laws of the modern era.
He guided this thread up through his meridians, pushing it into his spiritual sea. He did not attack the crimson sword. Instead, he wrapped the black, chaotic energy around the mark, creating a dense, localized sphere of static.
The crimson sword vibrated violently, fighting against the Desolate Qi, trying to pierce the veil to broadcast its signal. But the Seed of Chaos possessed the gravity of antiquity. It suppressed the beacon, muffling its frequency.
Shang Jue exhaled, wiping a bead of sweat mixed with blood from his temple. The process was mentally exhausting.
It is not a permanent solution, he realized, opening his eyes. The static will mask my exact coordinates. To the Sword Pavilion scryers, my signal will appear as a massive, blurred smudge covering a hundred miles, rather than a pinpoint location. But it requires constant, active suppression from my Dantian.*
It was a stalemate, but it bought him the most precious resource of all: time.
He looked down at his own attire. The Alpha direwolf pelt had kept him alive, but it was now the most recognizable piece of clothing in the province. Elder Jian had transmitted his image. If he walked into a southern border city wearing a white, silver-streaked pelt and carrying a massive black sword, he would be immediately identified.
Shang Jue drew the heavy black broadsword. He looked at the beautiful, incredibly valuable pelt that had cost him so much blood to acquire. He felt no sentimental attachment.
With precise, brutal strokes, he cut the massive pelt into smaller, unrecognizable strips. He used the coarse fur to wrap the hilt and the scabbard of his black blade, disguising the bone-infused iron beneath layers of mundane beast hide. He then took the ashes from his dead campfire, mixing them with melted snow, and systematically dyed his ruined tunic and his face, dulling his metallic-sheened skin into the grayish pallor of a sickly, starving refugee.
When he emerged from the cave hours later, the demon of the abyss had vanished. In his place stood a dirty, hunched, entirely unremarkable vagrant boy carrying a wrapped bundle of firewood on his back.
The Heavenly Sword Pavilion was hunting a monster. Shang Jue would ensure they found nothing but ghosts.