I DESTROY THE LAW'S OF HEAVEN

INFILTRATION OF THE BLIND

Dead men made the best disguises.

Thorn dragged a lifeless miner into the thick shrubs, stripping off the man's filthy, dirt-caked linen shirt and brass identification badge. He ignored the smell of sweat and dried blood, forcing his bruised arms into the ragged sleeves.

"Keep quiet and move," Thorn whispered to himself, pinning the badge stamped with the number seven to his chest.

He dragged his feet into the dusty valley below, where the iron gates of the iron-mine camp towered over hundreds of exhausted laborers. Massive wooden carts loaded with glowing blue raw crystals rolled past guards wearing the white and silver robes of the Radiant Sword Sect.

A burly guard shoved a heavy pickaxe into Thorn's hands at the entrance. "Get to line four, rat. You are late."

Thorn bowed his head low, hiding his face behind his matted dark hair. "Yes, master. Right away."

"Faster," the guard barked, kicking the dirt near Thorn's boots. "The sect demands ten tons of spiritual crystals today. Anyone who misses their mark goes without food."

Thorn moved quickly into the dark, damp mine shafts, keeping his shoulders hunched. The air inside smelled of dust and damp stone. All around him, desperate men with hollow eyes chipped away at the cavern walls, their bodies thin as skeletons. Under the rule of the divine sects, commoners and fallen royals were treated as nothing more than cattle.

Thorn struck his pickaxe against a rock ledge, pretending to work while watching a small pile of raw blue crystals sitting in a wooden crate nearby. His body burned from his ruptured veins, but as he stepped closer to the crystals, the stone fused to his chest cooled down.

"The energy inside the rock," Thorn muttered softly under his breath. "It calms the artifact."

When the surrounding miners turned away to load a wagon, Thorn reached into the crate, touching a rough blue stone. Instead of letting the artifact burst, he focused hard, releasing a tiny, invisible tick of power. The stone's outer shell dissolved instantly, releasing its pure, raw life force directly into his hand.

The icy pain in Thorn's chest faded slightly. His torn muscles began to knit back together.

"It works," Thorn breathed, a small, dark smile touching his lips. "I do not need to fight them. I just need to bleed them dry."

For three days, Thorn stayed invisible. He spoke to no one, ate thin water soup, and worked until his hands bled. But while others slept in the filthy barracks, Thorn crept through the shadows toward the camp's main supply vault. High-grade spiritual crystals were stored there under glowing red warding seals.

A guard stood near the vault entrance, yawning in the dark.

Thorn leaned against a wooden beam forty paces away, staring at the glowing seal on the heavy vault door. He did not charge the guard or draw a weapon. Violence brought attention, and attention brought death.

Instead, Thorn pointed one finger toward the vault door. He sent a microscopic thread of black energy crawling along the dirt floor.

The black thread touched the glowing red seal. The protective ward did not explode or alert the guards. The magic spell simply unmade itself, dissolving into cold mist.

The vault door clicked open an inch.

The guard blinked, turning around in confusion. "What was that? Did the latch break?"

While the guard walked over to check the lock, Thorn silently reached through a hole in the wooden back wall of the vault, grabbing a pouch filled with refined crystal cores. He pulled his hand back into the shadows just as the guard turned around.

Thorn slipped back into the dark corridor, crushing a crystal core in his hand. The rich energy flooded his body, repairing his broken ribs and soothing his damaged meridians.

"Smart," Thorn whispered, leaning his head against the cool stone wall as his strength returned. "Let the sect mine the wealth, and I will take the prize."

The next morning, Thorn stood in the center of the camp, holding a pickaxe and blending into the crowd of hundreds of tired workers. His skin had regained its color, and his internal injuries were almost completely gone thanks to the stolen crystals.

A young miner next to him leaned over, whispering in a frantic voice. "Hey, number seven. Did you hear? Someone raided the inner storage last night."

Thorn kept his eyes on the ground, his face totally blank. "Is that so? Must have been a thief from the mountain gangs."

"They say three bags of top-tier cores are missing," the young man whispered, his hands trembling. "The overseers are furious. If they do not find the thief, they will execute ten workers from every squad."

Thorn did not blink. "Then you had better hope they find him soon."

"They will," the young miner said, horror creeping into his voice. "Look up at the hill."

Thorn raised his head just enough to see. At the top of the central wooden platform stood the Sect Master himself, wrapped in flowing white silk robes stitched with gold thread. Beside him rested a massive, pitch-black mirror held up by three iron chains.

The Sect Master stepped forward, his voice booming across the entire valley like thunder, carrying the heavy weight of high-level cultivation.

"Listen to me, dogs!" the Sect Master shouted, his voice echoing off the cliff walls. "A rat has been crawling through our vaults, using strange, forbidden methods to break our sacred seals. You think you can hide among the trash?"

The crowd of thousands of miners shuffled nervously, murmuring in absolute fear.

"Silence!" the Sect Master roared, unleashing a wave of pressure that forced dozens of miners to their knees in the dirt. "No one leaves this valley. No one returns to the mines."

Thorn tightened his grip on his pickaxe handle, keeping his breathing steady and slow.

"Bring out the Soul-Screening Mirror!" the Sect Master commanded, pointing a long finger at the black glass on the platform. "Every single laborer will walk past this mirror and pour a drop of blood onto the frame. If you hold forbidden energy, if your soul is corrupt, the mirror will burn your flesh to ash on the spot!"

A loud, piercing brass alarm horn blared across the entire mining camp, echoing off the high stone walls. The heavy iron gates slammed shut, locked down by glowing golden arrays.

"Form a single line!" the guards shouted, swinging heavy iron whips into the terrified crowd. "Move forward or die where you stand!"

The young miner beside Thorn panicked, grabbing Thorn's sleeve. "What do we do? What if the mirror makes a mistake?"

Thorn gently pulled his arm away from the young man's grip, his dark eyes fixed on the glowing black mirror at the top of the hill.

"It will not make a mistake," Thorn said softly, his mind racing as the line began to move forward toward the platform.