The foothills of Silent Peak were no place for ordinary mortals. The air grew so thin it felt like a blade drawn across the throat, filled with microscopic ice crystals drifting among the trees like shards of diamond. Breathed too deeply without qi protection, these slivers would slowly score the lung lining, leaving a dull, persistent ache. Lin Ye felt this at once; he shallowed his breath, letting the black jade at his chest gently filter the air entering his body. They followed a path all but swallowed by eternal snow. Around them, giant pines rose like the pillars of a forsaken temple, their boughs sheathed in thick ice that glimmered with pale light beneath a perpetually overcast sky. No birds called; no wind stirred the leaves; not even the track of a small creature marked the undergrowth. The silence was so absolute it pressed against the ears, as though the world itself had stopped breathing centuries ago and dared not start again. This was no mere quiet of nature — it was a

Lin Ye stepped out from the shelter of the rocks, Nullification Sword gripped firm in his right hand. The biting cold touched his face, yet he scarcely felt it — his attention fixed entirely on the five figures closing in from every side. Their black armour gleamed pale beneath the overcast sky, enclosing them from neck to fingertip, leaving only narrow eye-slits that watched him with unblinking focus. These were the Iron Blood Squad's elite — warriors capable of overwhelming dozens of ordinary cultivators alone. Further off, atop a flat rock outcrop, Viper stood with arms folded, watching as if observing a performance. His wooden mask hid half his face, yet the thin, cold smile playing upon his lips spoke of satisfaction. "Surrender, Lin Ye," Viper said, his voice calm yet commanding, as though the outcome were already decided. "You stand alone, surrounded by five Core Formation warriors. Your master is long gone, and no help will come. Resistance will only prolong your suffering."

Lin Ye tumbled down a natural ice tunnel, flung from side to side, striking cold, sharp rock walls again and again before finally crashing into a drift of softer, deep snow at the bottom of a vast underground cavern. He gasped for breath, every inhalation feeling like swallowing shards of glass. His body was covered in bruises; the gash on his arm bled anew, and pain radiated from his cracked ribs. But he was alive. He had made it down. He rose slowly, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, and stared around in awe. He was deep within the belly of Silent Peak — a place unseen by anyone for hundreds of years. The cavern stretched wide, its walls and ceiling lined with pale blue crystals that shed a faint, pulsing light, as though the rock itself possessed a heartbeat. And there it was — a deep, heavy, steady thud-thud sounding from far ahead, the vibration travelling up through the soles of his feet. This mountain was not dead. It breathed. Or at least, something enormous and livi

Thick darkness swallowed them instantly, as though the mountain itself had sealed shut behind them. Lin Ye, his father, and Shen Kui plummeted down a vertical stone shaft whose bottom could not be seen, its walls glistening damp and cold. Wind howled loudly in their ears, tearing at their clothes and hair, yet strangely there was no fear of crashing. Their bodies felt light, drifting as if suspended in invisible water. It was like falling through a dream — where the laws of physics no longer held, where time ceased to move in a straight line. Lin Ye reached out, trying to grasp his father who drifted a short distance away, but soft yet inescapable currents kept pulling them apart. In the distance, he saw Shen Kui wave toward him, attempting to summon flight magic to slow their descent — yet the light from his palms was faint and trembling. His strength had been drained away by flight, battle, and relentless mental pressure. They kept falling, floating through silent darkness, waiting

They were pulled across immeasurable darkness, then cast adrift into a realm with no walls, no floor, no ceiling — no boundaries of any kind. There was no true direction: no up, no down, no left, no right. Only blinding, endless white emptiness glowing from no discernible source, wrapping everything in a light that cast no shadows. Gravity had no hold here; their bodies floated freely, drifting apart, the distance between them widening with every passing heartbeat as if the space itself was pulling them away from one another. Lin Ye moved his limbs, swimming through the thick, air-like substance toward his father, who receded slowly into the distance. "Father!" he called — but his voice did not carry; it dissolved the moment it left his lips. His father turned, his face etched with suffering, his form already fading and growing translucent. "Do not grasp at anything too strongly, Lin Ye!" His voice sounded directly within Lin Ye’s mind. "This place reads your desires and fears. The