The chamber stretched vast as a hall of stone, its walls alive with shifting radiance. Blue light rippled like water across rock, breathing illusions of depth and shadow. Yet none of it held Xiao Lei’s gaze.

  At the centre loomed a creature so strange his mind faltered to name it. Its form hung between bird and toad—a grotesque knot of wing and jowl, claw and web. What rooted him was not its deformity but its sheer scale—colossal, rivalling the height of his own Primordial Echo. The air seemed to sag beneath its bulk, each breath dragged into his lungs as if against resistance.

  Its hide was no flesh. Translucent, glass-sheened, it resembled armour spun from brittle crystal. Beneath that casing churned veins of stormlight, arcs snapping in silence, illuminating the cavern from within. The whole chamber pulsed to its rhythm, shadows fleeing and returning at every flicker.

  Behind the beast. The pup’s voice brushed his mind, faint, almost lost. Even so, Xiao Lei barely heeded it. Before that monstrous form, even the promise of treasure dulled. His gaze dragged itself away, searching—until it caught the huddled outlines of the earlier group. They crouched behind a jagged, half-broken pillar, half-hidden yet clearly transfixed by the beast.

  They had not fled. Fear and greed tethered them to the same spot, their indecision hanging in the air as tangibly as his own.

  The creature slept—at least by motion. Its vast frame rose and fell in silence. Only when it exhaled did sound emerge, a faint crackle as sparks bled from its nostrils. Each breath unravelled into faint arcs that drifted outward, lazy yet lethal, staining the gloom with light.

  Xiao Lei’s pulse quickened. He measured in silence. Even at rest, its aura pressed upon him like a mountain. He guessed at Core Formation. Perhaps higher—the thought alone made his breath hitch. One careless strike would scatter both body and spirit.

  Doubt whispered. To step forward was to court death. Yet to retreat…

  His eyes slid back to the group. They whispered in gestures, fingers cutting the air—debating attack, escape, or some desperate ploy. They had not yet noticed him.

  Xiao Lei’s gaze narrowed, thought hardening. They must have something. A hidden card, a talisman—or madness greater than his own.

  A curl of breath fogged the air before vanishing. His chest tightened, then released. The hesitation that clung to him broke with that breath. Whatever waited here—treasure, death, or both—he would not step back without grasping for it.

  The chamber’s glow deepened, sliding across the beast’s crystal hide, making it seem less asleep and more watching.

  Xiao Lei’s hand stilled at his side. Resolve, like lightning before thunder, gathered in silence.

  His steps pressed into silence, deliberate as a stalking cat. He did not move straight but edged along the wall, shoulder grazing stone, body angled as though the rock might swallow him whole. Breath thinned. Heart slowed. Still, sweat slid cold down his brow.

  The silhouette ahead drew all his focus. The beast’s bulk loomed like a mountain in the glow, every line of its frame heavy with sleeping menace. He fixed his gaze, refusing to blink, as if the smallest lapse might rouse it.

  Half the distance had fallen behind him when motion stirred elsewhere. From the shadows of the jagged pillar, one of the six men caught sight of him. For a heartbeat, disbelief froze the man’s face—someone else was here, reckless enough to walk toward the monster.

  The shock lasted no longer than a breath. Their leader raised a hand, sharp and silent. A signal.

  The group began to move too, hugging the nearest wall, shadows mirroring his path with hurried care.

  Xiao Lei did not turn. Their presence was marked and dismissed. His eyes held only the beast—and the faint glimmer hidden behind its mass. A reddish shimmer, weak beneath the beast’s blue, teased the edge of his sight.

  Closer. Ten steps. Twenty.

  The glow sharpened, and at last the treasure came into view.

  Behind the sleeping colossus rose a platform shaped like a lotus. Its stem rooted black into the earth, charred and cracked, while the bloom itself shone with a blue more ethereal than the electric heat in the beast’s veins. Glassy petals trembled with otherworldly light.

  At its heart floated a single orb. Red—but not fire’s warmth. The strained red of congealed blood. Darker threads crawled across its surface, lightning bound into serpents that writhed and struck in silence, their arcs splitting before they could escape.

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  Xiao Lei’s breath caught. His voice brushed the pup in his mind. What is it?

  The little one, usually so quick to chatter, fell silent. Curiosity pulsed through their bond, sharp and restless, yet no answer came. Even it could not name what stood before them.

  The air thickened. Unease pressed heavier, yet so did resolve. Whatever that orb was, it was no common prize.

  By then, the others had reached their own vantage. Their gazes locked on the lotus, widening with awe. One look was enough. No ordinary relic. No ordinary gain. Desire split their fear, splintering it to dust.

  But when their eyes flicked back, the sight of Xiao Lei’s next motion stole the breath from their throats and froze them where they crouched.

  Xiao Lei’s gaze lingered on the hidden group, the faint curl of his lips sharpening into a smile. In the charged silence of the chamber, that slight expression weighed heavier than any threat. Unease rippled through their ranks, a warning without a word.

  Before hesitation hardened, his hand moved. A bow flared into his grip, string drawn in one smooth arc. An eagle’s cry split the silence—then arrows streaked through the blue glow.

  Even as they left the string, his figure dissolved. Void Step. One heartbeat he stood in plain sight, the next he was gone, air folding soundlessly behind him.

  The men cursed—“Madman! Fool!”—but their anger broke apart almost instantly.

  The beast stirred.

  A tremor rippled through the ground as its colossal frame shifted. Lightning flared within its glassy hide, blazing the cavern bright. The arrows had not grazed its skin, but their ripple of qi had shattered the stillness.

  Its head rose.

  The cry that followed was the same wail that had drawn them here, but closer—so close the walls shook. The sound tore into marrow, vision whitening, thoughts unravelling. Cultivators clutched their skulls as if their minds might spill free.

  Even Xiao Lei staggered, though the pup’s concealment kept him veiled. Chaos spilled through the chamber. This was the crack he had gambled on.

  He moved.

  No time for doubt. No chance for retreat.

  Qi surged through his meridians, jagged as it gathered in his marrow. His focus narrowed, will compressed to a point. Air bent. The malformed arrow condensed from nothing and lanced forward.

  The unnamed technique—once clumsy, once reckless, the same that had felled Qingshan—now steadier, sharper.

  The beast felt it. Its head snapped toward the lotus as the arrow struck. The warped shaft cut deep into the black stem, shattering most of its root. Fibres clung stubbornly, threads of energy binding stem to earth.

  Xiao Lei did not wait. His form flashed again. He appeared beside it, hands clamping the weakened stem.

  He pulled. Muscle tore; his shoulder screamed. A tendon felt like a live wire. His knees dipped and he braced through a haze at the edges of his sight.

  The stem gave way.

  The lotus vanished in the next moment. In its place thundered sudden solidity—ironbound chests slamming into being, their impact rattling the cavern.

  The beast roared — a pressure that shoved dust from ledges — and its tongue cracked the air like a lightning-whip.

  But Xiao Lei was already gone. Another Void Step folded him into distance. He reappeared near the chamber’s edge, close to the passage he had entered.

  His lungs burned. His body ached. He spared no glance for what he had seized.

  Hurry! The pup’s voice tore through his mind. More are coming!

  And Xiao Lei moved.

  He forced the copper taste of blood back down his throat and pushed himself to full speed. Void Step three times in quick succession, each teleport a stitch through space that ate at his stamina.

  The last leap was everything he had; when he unfolded from the void his limbs screamed and his breath came ragged, as if the world had pressed a hand against his chest. Behind him the cavern answered with a sound like a mountain tearing: the beast’s growl tore the air—proof rest would not be granted.

  Blue crackles crawled over the creature’s glassy hide, veins of light pulsing like a living storm. It lunged, eyes slits of malice—then froze, sensing motion to its flank. Its great head swept; the group stood frozen, their faces white with the shock of how suddenly fate had tilted.

  A whip of a tongue lashed the air. The leader moved without hesitation: from his sash he drew something bell-shaped, strange and compact. He twisted the bell in his hand; it uncoiled like a folding bloom—metal folding out with a low, resonant hum as spirit braided with alloy into a dome that enveloped them. The tongue struck the bell like a rod of ozone sting. Impact rolled through the metal in a sound like distant thunder, and for an instant every ear in the chamber heard the bell sing. It held.

  The beast struck again, its tongue glittering with stormlight, electric and cruel. Cracks spidered across the bell’s surface where lightning met alloy, hairline fractures running like veins. Still the dome held, stubborn as will, shielding the men within from teeth and fury.

  The roar that answered was different—less hunger now, more frustrated rage. It turned its colossal head toward the exit. The beast abandoned the hapless group, its decision simple and cold, and fixed on Xiao Lei instead.

  The cavern trembled less as distance grew between them. Only when the shaking slackened did the leader inhale and summon the bell back, fingers moving as if pulling a cord through thought. The metal shrank, the dome collapsing into something pocket-sized once more. He held it, now marred by hairline scars of thunder.

  Regret hit him like a weight. The bell had saved them. It was a treasure rare enough to blunt attacks from Core Formation experts, a shield worth more than many blades. But the protection had come at a cost: its surface was rent, its integrity compromised. Worse, they had gained nothing from the exchange; the treasure was gone.

  Rage folded into shame and then sharpened into a single pointed fury. He stared into the dark where Xiao Lei had fled, mouth twisting until his teeth showed. “Who was that kid?” he spat, voice low and wet with blood and heat. “I will tear him apart with my bare hands.”

  The words were a match. He surged forward, the bell kept back in the sash like a wounded heart. The beast, thunder in motion, followed with the blind, terrible momentum of a hunting storm. The rest of his group—pulled by loyalty, by fear, by the simple human hunger for reprisal—fell in behind him.

  The chamber filled with the metallic scent of ozone and the raw, hot promise of collision. Each step closed the distance between theft and ruin.

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  Destiny Reckoning. It’s set in the same universe, and you definitely don’t want to miss it, because the stories will eventually crossover.