The elders' breath fogged in the cold night air as they watched the beast below—silent, frost-veined, unblinking. The courtyard's ice reflected the moonlight like fractured glass, casting eerie patterns across the lizard's scaled hide. Every ripple of its breath, every subtle shift of its claws, seemed deliberate.
Elder 1 swallowed tightly.
> "It's not moving… but its attention is drifting. It's watching us."
A shiver passed through the line of elders as the lizard's golden eyes flicked—just once—in their direction. Slow. Deliberate. As though acknowledging their scrutiny.
Elder 3's grip tightened on his sleeve.
> "It's… focusing. Its Qi flow is slow, suppressed, but—"
He never finished.
A faint sound rippled across the courtyard.
Crack.
Barely audible. Almost gentle.
Elder 4 stiffened, a tiny tremor running up his spine.
Elder 2 frowned.
> "Did you hear—?"
The air shifted. Not violently. Not loudly. It moved like silk pulled taut. A pressure—thin, razor-sharp—unfurled through the night, invisible yet heavy, threading through the moonlight like a breath of winter.
Elder 5 blinked.
Elder 1's eyes widened.
> "…Wait—"
Two elders—Elder 2 and Elder 4—went rigid.
Their pupils shrank. Their breaths hitched. A soft, strangled exhale escaped their throats—
—and their bodies went limp.
Thud.
Two silhouettes dropped from the rooftop like puppets with cut strings, hitting the fractured tiles below with a sickening dullness. No blood. No cry. No Qi disturbance. Just sudden, absolute collapse.
Elder 1 lurched forward.
> "What—?!"
Elder 3 stumbled back, heart hammering.
> "They—they're dead—?!"
Elder 5's voice cracked, horrified:
> "N-No… no Qi disturbance, no spiritual clash—nothing! Something… something struck them—subtly—silently—!"
The remaining three elders stared down at the fallen bodies—faces frozen in shock, limbs slack, mouths slightly parted. As though their lives had been plucked away without force.
The courtyard below remained utterly quiet.
The fox did not look up. It did not shift or spare them a glance. Instead, its turquoise eyes glimmered with faint annoyance as it sifted through the fallen cultivator's pouch.
The lizard, however…
Its golden gaze rose. Slowly. Smoothly. Almost lazily.
Its eyes locked onto the three surviving elders. A single breath escaped its nostrils—cold enough to frost the air.
> "Hmn. So a soul strike as limits couldn't kill all at once. It only killed two—and they weren't the strongest. But they weren't the weakest either. It thought it could kill all at once… yet three remain."
Sparks of lightning ran along its scales, tiny at first before bursting across its form.
The lizard unfurled its wings.
Elder 3 felt his knees weaken.
> "Was it responsible for their deaths…? But it wasn't even moving until just now. It simply looked—His eyes widened slightly. Huh… was that it—!"
The thought lasted only a moment as he stared at the lizard, meeting its glowing gold eyes.
The moonlit rooftop suddenly felt crushingly small.
The lizard's form struck like a lightning bolt. Instantly, it appeared before the elder, who froze, eyes wide, unable to move. The lizard's jaw widened, clamping down on his head. Fangs sank into flesh as lightning coursed through his body, slowly crushing his skull.
Below, without lifting its head, the fox murmured—softly, yet with effortless calm:
> "Hump. Guess I really didn't have any reason to worry."
Its tail flicked—a delicate, icy swish.
The glaive lying on the ground glowed faintly, alive with divine energy. It hummed as it lifted into the air with preternatural precision, as if the laws of gravity barely applied, and slid seamlessly into the pouch worn around the fox's neck, the metal catching the moonlight.
Elder 3's body, already smoking faintly from the earlier surge of lightning and Qi disruption, shuddered once. Then, with a soft hiss of air and ozone, it collapsed fully onto the fractured tiles, limbs splayed, utterly still.
The courtyard remained silent, save for the faint crackle of residual energy lingering in the icy night air.
The lizard's jaws unclamped with a wet, tearing sound.
It lifted its head slowly—almost languidly—strings of blood sliding down its fangs, dripping in crimson arcs onto the shattered tiles. Moonlight caught its maw, turning the slick red into something glistening, feral. Its golden eyes gleamed—not with rage, but with clarity. Cold. A knowing hunger.
It stared at the two remaining elders.
The pressure that followed was suffocating.
Elder 1's breath seized. Elder 5's pulse hammered painfully against his ribs. Neither dared to exhale as the creature's gaze pinned them where they stood, stripping away composure, pride, and illusion with the ease of a blade passing through silk.
And in that frozen heartbeat—
their thoughts surged all at once.
Elder 1's mind screamed:
Impossible—this thing is only Third Layer—Third Layer—WHY IS IT STRONGER—WHY—?!
Elder 5's thoughts spiraled uncontrollably:
It killed Elder 3 like nothing… an unseen strike killed two and it wasn't even trying—NO—NO—THIS CAN'T—THIS CAN'T BE—!
A shared, wordless realization flickered through them:
We're dying. We're dying like insects before a creature that shouldn't even be able of moving in this state—injured, wounded, suppressed—and still… still…
The lizard's pupils narrowed, focused entirely on them.
A chill raced down Elder 1's spine—a primal, ancient terror older than cultivation itself—and something inside him snapped.
His rationality.
His dignity.
His mission.
Everything.
It all shattered at once.
> "I— I won't die here—!"
The words tore themselves out of him, high and panicked.
In the next instant, his Qi erupted chaotically—not for battle, not for defense—but for escape. His form flickered, blurred, and vanished from the rooftop altogether, leaving only a collapsing imprint of cold air and scattered frost.
He fled.
Abandoned everything.
Ran with the single-minded desperation of prey escaping a predator older and more perfect than fear itself.
Elder 5 was left standing alone.
Isolated.
Exposed.
Frozen in place as the night wind whispered past.
The lizard slowly lowered its bloody head, golden eyes narrowing at the remaining figure.
Silence clenched the rooftop like a hand around a throat.
And Elder 5 finally realized—
with crushing, breathless clarity—
that he had never been the survivor.
Only the next in line.