The collapse of the Archive of Final Order sent ripples through mediums beyond sound or stone.
In the celestial observatories of the Star-Seer's Alliance, a constellation of crystal orbs flickered from serene blue to pulsating crimson. An ancient, priority-one alert—unused for millennia—flashed across communication arrays. "Cataclysm-Class Anomaly Confirmed. Location: Azure Dragon Continent, Western Dead Zone. Archive Sigma-7 Destroyed. Subject: Chaos-Attuned Humanoid, Designation 'Storm-Reader.' Threat Projection: Planetary Instability."
In the great halls of the continent's major sects—the Crimson Heaven Valley, the Soaring Sword Pavilion, the Verdant Dragon Sect (now led by a vengeful, crippled Elder Guo)—spirit-messenger butterflies burst into flames, leaving behind scrolls of condensed light. The message was simpler, more visceral: "BOUNTY: The Ruin-Destroyer. Wanted for Desecration of Ancient Heritage, Chaotic Deviancy, and Crimes Against Cosmic Order. Reward: 10,000 High-Grade Spirit Stones, One Earth-Grade Spiritual Artifact, Favor of the Star-Seer's Alliance. Condition: Alive for interrogation preferred. Dead acceptable."
Ten thousand stones. It was a fortune that could found a small sect. The favor of the Star-Seers was a political weapon beyond price. The hunt was no longer a regional affair. It was a continental feeding frenzy.
For Ling Xiao, the world shrank and sharpened into a prison of watching eyes.
He fled the collapsing hills, but there was no true wilderness left to hide in. Patrols from sects he'd never heard of crisscrossed the skies on shimmering disks and flying swords. Scrying formations, like invisible nets of ordered energy, swept the forests and valleys. Village noticeboards now bore rough sketches next to the bounty—a child with a star on his brow, his eyes often drawn too old for his face.
He was a ghost, but ghosts don't command such prices. He was a prize.
He survived through absolute minimalism. He used his Chaos Breathing only in microscopic sips, drawing energy from dying leaves or still puddles to avoid detection flares. His Pattern Reading was constantly active, a exhausting, low-grade hum in his mind, mapping the patrol routes, the scan patterns, the hungry intentions of every traveler on the road. He slept in shallow holes, covered by illusion-weeds he coaxed with tiny chaos nudges. He was eight years old, and he was running the most high-stakes maze in the world.
He was cornered five days later in the foothills of the Jagged Peaks. A scout party from the Soaring Sword Pavilion—three disciples with the keen, sharp auras of sword cultivators—had a hound. Not a flesh-and-blood animal, but a Qi-Tracker, a construct of woven light that sniffed the air for deviations from spiritual norm. It had caught the faint, smoky scent of his last controlled absorption.
They had him pinned against a granite cliff face. There was no clever environmental chaos to use here, just hard stone and sharper swords.
"Drop any artifacts and kneel, ruin-destroyer," the lead disciple, a woman with frost in her voice, commanded. Her sword hovered at her side, pointed at his heart. "The bounty says alive. It says nothing about intact."
Ling Xiao calculated, his mind racing through patterns of attack and counter. He could maybe disrupt one sword. Not three. The fight would be short, brutal, and end with him in chains.
Then, a new variable entered the equation.
A man dropped from the cliff top above, landing between Ling Xiao and the swordsmen with a soft thud that spoke of immense control. He wasn't young, maybe thirty, with a face that had forgotten how to smile. His hair was tied back roughly, and he wore practical, worn leathers, not sect robes. A long, unadorned blade was strapped to his back. His energy wasn't the polished, uniform gleam of a sect disciple; it was a contained, wary storm—ordered, but scarred, with jagged edges of bitterness.
"Back off," the man said, his voice gravelly and tired. "The kid's mine."
The swordswoman sneered. "By what right, wanderer? This is Soaring Sword Pavilion business."
"By the right of a bigger stick," the man said, and his aura flexed. It wasn't a blast, but a sudden, dense pressure that made the air feel heavy. The three disciples paled. This was someone at the peak of Sea Formation, a realm above them. "And by the right of hating every stitch of pompous silk you people wear. Now scurry back to your master and tell him Feng got to the prize first."
The name meant something. The woman's eyes widened. "Feng? The traitor of the Silver Lake Sect? You're a wanted man too!"
"Makes us a pair, doesn't it?" Feng said, a ghost of a smirk touching his lips. He didn't look back at Ling Xiao. "You have three seconds before I decide teaching manners is worth the mess."
The disciples exchanged glances. The math was bad. They backed away, the qi-hound whining in confusion. They vanished into the trees, no doubt to report.
Silence descended, broken only by the wind. Feng finally turned. His eyes were the color of flint, and they examined Ling Xiao without greed or fear, only a deep, weary assessment. "Storm-Reader. Cataclysm-Class. You're a little small for the end of the world."
"Why did you help me?" Ling Xiao asked, his senses stretched taut. This man was powerful, dangerous, and his energy patterns were complex, tangled with old anger and purpose.
"I didn't. I intercepted you." Feng crouched, bringing himself to eye level. "I've been tracking the bounty alerts. When I heard an archive of the Star-Seers got broken, by a kid no less, I had to see for myself." He nodded at Ling Xiao's forehead, where the mark was hidden under cloth. "Chaos-touched. Real one. Not just some deviation. They'll peel you apart layer by layer to see how you work."
"What do you want?"
"A deal.You're a walking problem for the entire ordered cultivation world. I have a… personal problem with a specific part of it. My old sect, the Silver Lake. Their master framed me for murdering my own brother to steal a family heirloom—a 'Soul-Cleansing Pearl.' It's a trinket that can supposedly prove spiritual truth, clear my name. It's kept in their inner treasury." He leaned forward. "The security formations around that treasury are based on Star-Seer ordered principles. The same kind, I'd wager, that you just made look like a child's puzzle."
Ling Xiao understood. "You want me to break you in."
"I want you to bypass the security. I get the pearl, clear my name, and get to spit in my old master's face. In return…" He gestured to the surrounding wilderness, which felt suddenly full of invisible hunters. "I offer you protection. Real training. Not in your chaos—I can't help with that. But in how to survive in their world. How to fight orthodox cultivators, how to move, how to not stick out like a bleeding thumb in the snow. And while we work together, I'll keep the small-fry off your back."
It was an offer from a wolf. But the forest was full of tigers.
"How do I know you won't just turn me in for the bounty once I've helped you?" Ling Xiao asked.
Feng's flinty eyes didn't waver. "Because the bounty is from the Star-Seer's Alliance. The same arrogant, cosmic bureaucrats whose ancestors framed my entire family line as 'tainted' generations ago. Helping them is the last thing I'd do. And because…" He sighed, a genuine sound of fatigue. "I know what it's like to have the whole world decide you're a monster because it's convenient for them. I won't add to that."
There was a raw truth in his energy pattern as he said it, a resonance of old pain that matched the memory of Li Ming's last words. Don't become like them.
Ling Xiao was silent for a long moment, weighing the patterns. Alone, he would be caught within weeks. With this bitter, powerful rogue, he had a chance. And he might learn what he desperately needed: how the other side fought.
"Okay," Ling Xiao said.
"Smart kid." Feng stood. "First lesson starts now. We're moving. Your little standoff here will have drawn more than just those three sword-brats."
He was right.
They had traveled less than a mile into a narrow canyon when the patterns of ambush snapped into place in Ling Xiao's mind. "Stop."
Feng halted instantly, his hand going to the hilt of his blade. "What?"
"Ahead. The rockfall pattern is wrong. Deliberate. Left wall, too smooth—no erosion. Right gully, smell is off. No animal scat." Ling Xiao's senses painted the trap. "Three groups. One ahead blocking the canyon exit. One behind, sealing us in. One above on the ridges."
Even as he spoke, figures emerged from the shimmering air ahead, robes of deep blue: Azure Mist Sect. From behind, in robes of earthy brown: Stone Sentinel Sect. And from the canyon rims above, in green he knew all too well: Verdant Dragon Sect, led by a disciple with a familiar, hate-filled glare—one of Jin's former lackeys.
"The bounty hunter Feng and the demon spawn!" the Verdant Dragon disciple shouted down, triumph in his voice. "The heavens favor us today! We claim them both!"
Feng cursed softly, then a fierce grin spread across his face. He unsheathed his blade. It was simple steel, but it hummed with his contained, stormy energy. "Well, kid. Theory's over. Time for practical application. Stay behind me. And watch how order fights."
He looked at the surrounding disciples, dozens of them, and his grin widened.
"Actually,scratch that. Let's show them what happens when order meets something it can't categorize."
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END OF CHAPTER 15