By dusk, Li Shen had reached the foothills that marked the outer edge of the Moon Sect's domain. The path rose and fell through granite spires and cold streams that glittered like veins of silver under the setting sun.
He moved with silent purpose, each step guided by the Codex's whisper and his own growing hunger. The spirit stone he'd taken from the bandits sat heavy in his pouch, but he felt no warmth from it now — it was little more than a spark against the abyss roaring inside him.
At the crest of a narrow ridge, Li Shen stopped. Below, lanterns flickered among a scattered camp. Cultivators in pale robes — the silver crescent stitched at every shoulder — sat watchful among tents and spirit warding talismans. Sentries paced in pairs, blades at their hips, bows strung tight.
In the center of the camp, half-shrouded by silk curtains and faint moonlight, stood a single figure — still as stone. Li Shen knew her before he saw her face.
Yue Lan.
The girl from the storm. The one who had tossed him a clay bottle and a chance to live. The Saintess of the Moon Sect — a title whispered across a dozen provinces with equal parts reverence and envy.
Li Shen crouched behind a slab of stone, breath steady. Her presence stirred something that the Codex's poison could not drown: a spark of memory, the shape of warmth in a world that had turned cold and red.
She spared you once, Ku Mo rasped inside him. Will you spare her? Or will you drown her mercy in blood?
Li Shen ignored him. His eyes never left Yue Lan.
She stood before a small altar — an array of jade talismans fanned around a bowl of still water. Her hands moved through the air like a weaver threading starlight — each gesture pulling slivers of silver Qi into the water's surface.
A sentry approached her, bowing low. Yue Lan inclined her head, her voice carrying on the wind, soft yet unmistakable.
"The scouts confirmed it," she said. "Another village. Another slaughter."
Li Shen felt his jaw tighten. Ashvale. And now more.
The sentry's words were muffled by distance, but Li Shen didn't need to hear them to taste the fear drifting from the camp. Whispers of a ghost with blood-red eyes. A reaper with no clan, no ties, no mercy.
A shadow moved behind Yue Lan. An older man in flowing gray robes, his hair bound with a silver clasp — Elder Zhen Wu.
Li Shen's breath caught. He knew the name from overheard curses and whispered prayers. Zhen Wu — one of the Moon Sect's iron-fisted enforcers. A cultivator who hunted Blood Path inheritors with a zeal matched only by his cruelty.
Zhen Wu's eyes swept the hills, sharp and hungry. For a heartbeat, Li Shen thought they locked with his — but the shadows held him like a second skin.
"Saintess," Zhen Wu said, voice like cold iron scraping silk, "the rumors grow bolder. This boy — this Li Shen — must be rooted out before his taint spreads."
Yue Lan's hands paused above the water. The reflection of her face rippled in the bowl — serene, but her eyes flickered with something sharp. Doubt, perhaps. Regret.
Or pity.
"He is alone," she said quietly. "Hunted. Cornered animals bite hardest."
Zhen Wu smiled thinly. "Then we shall not corner him — we shall snuff him out under moonlight."
He turned, barking orders. Disciples scattered like leaves in a gust — spirit wards unspooling, blades drawn, talismans flaring with silver light.
Li Shen felt the trap close around him like an invisible noose.
Run, Ku Mo hissed. Slaughter them. Or die.
Li Shen's fingers curled around the spirit stone in his pouch. He could feel Yue Lan's Qi even from here — gentle as drifting snow, yet deep as the sea. Her presence pulled at something in him the Codex could not drown — a memory of what he had been, what he could be.
A boy. A son. A soul that wasn't just hunger and knives.
But the path was blood. The Codex's runes burned hotter beneath his skin. The taste of the stalker's soul still simmered in his bones. To retreat now would mean chains. To hesitate would mean death.
Li Shen rose from the stone's shadow. The moon broke free of the clouds — a white coin hanging over the ridge.
Below, Yue Lan lifted her gaze — and met his.
For a heartbeat, time froze. Her eyes widened. Recognition. Warning. Regret.
Then Zhen Wu turned — and the night cracked open.
"There!" the elder roared.
Silver arrows hissed through the darkness. Li Shen spun away as the first hissed past his cheek. He dropped behind the stone, breath tight, mind a roaring storm.
Run, Ku Mo growled. Or kill.
Li Shen's eyes flicked back to Yue Lan's pale face, framed in moonlight and lantern flame. Somewhere inside him, a voice that was still his own whispered: Not yet.
He turned and vanished into the rocks as arrows shattered stone behind him.
The hunt had begun.
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⚡ End of Chapter Six
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