Luo Feng's re-emergence was not a triumphant return, but a calculated breach. He did not storm the war council with demands. Instead, he requested a private audience with Elder Wu and, leveraging the residual authority of his name and the chilling plausibility of Mo Ye's intelligence, he presented his case. He spoke of the returned bodies, the Zhao's botanical espionage, and the imminent threat of a new, more insidious poison. He framed it not as a desire for personal redemption, but as a necessary, surgical strike to protect the sect's very lifeline—the Spirit Herb Gardens.
Elder Wu listened, his expression unreadable. He was a man who despised recklessness, but he respected evidence. The logic was sound, the threat tangible. More importantly, he saw an opportunity. A small, successful mission led by a rehabilitated Luo Feng, operating under his ultimate authority, would be the ultimate vindication of his methods. It would demonstrate that even the most flawed blade could be repurposed with the correct guidance.
Permission was granted.
The news sent a jolt through the sect. Luo Feng was back. Whispers of a "secret mission" flew through the corridors. The cautious stability of Elder Wu's reign was suddenly pierced by a spike of dangerous anticipation. The emotional atmosphere, which had settled into a dull grey, now shimmered with uneasy vibrancy.
Lin Tianyao felt the shift like a change in barometric pressure. The Soul Flame stirred, its hunger awakened. He watched from the gardens as Luo Feng selected his team—not the proud elites of his former circle, but a handful of grim, competent outer sect disciples whose loyalty could be bought with a chance at glory. They moved with a focused, lethal purpose that was entirely new.
The night before the mission departed, Mo Ye found a small, smooth river stone placed deliberately in the center of his sleeping mat. It was unmarked, cold to the touch. A message. An acknowledgment. The pact was sealed.
He closed his fingers around the stone, a faint, cruel smile touching his lips. The tiger was unleashed. Now, he had to ensure it mauled the correct prey.
The mission was a whirlwind. Luo Feng's team moved with a speed and ruthlessness that spoke of his desperate need to prove himself. They bypassed known patrol routes, using the forgotten paths Mo Ye had gleaned from the old maps. They located the Zhao convoy not on a main road, but hidden in a narrow canyon, exactly as the "ghost's" intelligence had suggested.
The ensuing ambush was not a battle; it was a slaughter. Luo Feng, his power honed by his ordeal and fueled by a bottomless well of resentment, was a whirlwind of focused violence. He fought with a cold fury that stunned his own team. They secured the objective: several sealed casks marked with the Zhao serpent sigil, emanating a faint, sickly-sweet odor that made the spirit feel numb.
But as they prepared to withdraw, the true nature of Mo Ye's gambit was revealed. The convoy was not just carrying poison ingredients. It was a trap within a trap, a nested deception. A second, larger Zhao force, hidden with superior formation-concealing talismans, emerged from the canyon walls, surrounding them. The "intelligence" Mo Ye had provided was accurate, but incomplete. He had known, or strongly suspected, that the Zhao would anticipate such a strike. He had sent Luo Feng into a meat grinder.
The battle turned desperate. Luo Feng's team fought like cornered animals, but they were outnumbered and outflanked. Disciples fell. The air was thick with the scent of blood and the coppery tang of unleashed qi. Luo Feng himself, a figure of terrifying grace and brutality, was a beacon of defiance, but even his rekindled power was being slowly worn down.
Back in the sect, the waiting was an agony. The first distress flare—a streak of bloody red against the twilight sky—was seen from the watchtowers. Panic, held at bay for weeks, erupted. Elder Wu's face turned to ash. The cautious, stable world he had built was crumbling in an instant.
And in the West Quadrant, Lin Tianyao stood amidst the glowing Luminous Roots, his head tilted back, watching the crimson light fade. The emotional tsunami that hit the sect was unlike anything he had ever felt. It was a compound of terror, grief, shattered hope, and recrimination so potent it was physically palpable. The Tri-Flame Vortex exploded into activity. The violet outer layer drank the panic, the amethyst middle layer churned with the complex stew of betrayal and fear, and the core of absolute black devoured the profound despair.
Power, raw and violent, flooded his meridians. It was too much, too fast. The barrier to the Fourth Stage, which had felt so distant, suddenly loomed, thin and brittle before this onslaught. He felt his consciousness expanding, his spiritual senses sharpening to a razor's edge. He could feel the individual threads of every disciple's terror, the crushing weight of Elder Wu's failure, the distant, fading sparks of the dying disciples on the mission.
He was the silent, screaming center of the storm.
In the canyon, Luo Feng, bleeding from a dozen wounds, felt a shift in the spiritual pressure around him. It was faint, a mere whisper on the edge of perception, but it was there—a familiar, chilling cold that sapped the warmth from the air. In that moment, facing death, the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place. The ghost had not just given him a mission. He had given him a suicide mission. This was not a path to redemption; it was a sacrifice. A sacrifice to fuel something.
With a final, gut-wrenching roar of pure, undiluted hatred—not for the Zhao, but for the pale, silent gardener who had orchestrated his doom—Luo Feng unleashed a technique that burned his life force. A shockwave of energy blasted outwards, creating a temporary breach in the encirclement. He grabbed the sealed cask of poison and, with the last of his strength, threw himself through the gap, his surviving disciples scrambling after him.
They returned to the sect not as heroes, but as bloody, broken harbingers of disaster. Of the ten who left, only four returned. Luo Feng collapsed at the gates, the poisonous cask clutched in his arms, his body ravaged and his spirit teetering on the brink.
The sect was thrown into absolute chaos. Elder Wu was disgraced. The aggressive faction, long suppressed, saw their chance and seized it, blaming his weakness for the debacle. The air was a toxic mix of grief, fury, and a frantic, desperate energy.
And in the heart of it all, unseen and unsuspected, Lin Tianyao opened his eyes. The world was different. Sharper. Colder. The emotional cacophony was no longer just fuel; it was a symphony he could conduct. The influx of power had been immense, pushing him to the very precipice of the Fourth Stage.
He looked towards the infirmary where Luo Feng lay, a broken tool that had served its purpose perfectly. The ghost's gambit had cost the sect dearly, but it had bought him everything he needed. The Verdant Sword was wounded, enraged, and leaderless. It was a beast primed for a reckless, vengeful charge.
And he was the one who would point it in the right direction. The unseen conflagration he had ignited was now a raging wildfire, and he stood ready to wield it as his torch.