With no other choice, Lin Shu turned and fled down the passage they had come from. Luckily, the formations they'd set earlier still lit the way—faint but enough to see. Still, the exit was far, and the narrow tunnel offered little room for error. The dweller chased without pause, its limbs stretching unnaturally as it bounded after him, every step echoing like death's footsteps behind him.
But Lin Shu had one advantage now: he could see. The beast's greatest strength—darkness and stealth—was gone. This wasn't its domain anymore, and that alone cut its deadliness in half. But half was still too much.
Lightning crackled around Lin Shu's arms and legs, flickering wildly as he surged forward, his breath ragged and blood drying on his face. His wounded shoulder, though still aching, was beginning to mend thanks to the healing pills he'd taken earlier. But the beast was gaining.
It lunged.
Lin Shu threw himself down into a slide, the beast's claws raking just inches above his back. Sparks flew as he twisted mid-slide, bone blades erupting from the backs of his hands, and he slashed upward as he passed beneath the beast. The dweller twisted midair, deflecting the blow with its forearm, and retaliated with a savage swipe.
Lin Shu wasn't fast enough.
The claws smashed into his face. His bone armor cracked, then shattered across his jaw. Blood sprayed the floor as he tumbled across the stone, skidding to a halt on his side. He groaned, reforming the armor as quickly as he could.
"I'm running out of Qi…" he thought grimly. "I have to kill it now."
Back in the mother's chamber, chaos reigned.
The remaining students fought desperately, forming broken circles as the shadow dwellers came from every angle. Screams, battle cries, and steel on bone filled the vast, echoing space. But amidst the chaos, Madam Qu was a whirlwind of precise death.
She'd already slain one of the peak-stage dwellers. Three remained.
With fluid grace, she weaved between two more, her blade a blur as it carved through lesser dwellers like paper. The peak-stage beasts lunged in unison, but she didn't falter. Her eyes pierced through the dark as if it were daylight—formation or not, she could see them.
And she welcomed the chaos.
The destruction of the light formations suited her perfectly. The others couldn't see. But she could. It gave her all the advantage she needed.
Because her true goal wasn't just to kill the mother dweller.
It was the inheritance.
"The oversized lump of flesh can wait," she muttered to herself, ducking under a claw swipe and driving her blade into a beast's ribcage. "The map says it's close. I'm almost there."
This cave wasn't chosen by accident.
Madam Qu had been ordered by the empire to maintain order in this remote town. A simple assignment, no rank, no honor—just a job for a forgotten officer. But fate had smiled on her during the Chi Clan massacre. Amidst the chaos, she'd looted the ring of a dying criminal and found it: a fragmented map leading to the legacy of a long-dead demonic cultivator.
The Roaring Echo Master.
A Rank 2 madman whose voice had once torn men apart. He had weaponized sound, wielding his shouts like blades and shockwaves. His cries could shatter bones, distort minds, and mimic voices to deceive his enemies. The righteous sects had hunted him for years, and though they claimed to have killed him, the truth was more complicated.
He'd escaped. And he'd left behind an inheritance.
Scattered maps, secret locations—and this place was one of them.
She had waited years. Endured political stagnation. Handled petty border disputes. But now, with the mother dweller weakened by poison, and the students distracted, she could almost taste it.
"This is it," she whispered, cutting down another dweller that lunged too close. "Once I kill the mother… the legacy is mine."
She could already feel the shift in her fate. No longer a forgotten pawn of the empire. No longer forced to stand on the sidelines of history. Once she acquired the Roaring Echo Master's inheritance, she could leave—disappear into the world, become a rogue cultivator.
Become Free.
Back in the tunnel, Lin Shu staggered to his feet just in time to deflect another claw swipe. Bone surged from his arms, forming jagged shields that cracked under the pressure of the beast's strength.
His Qi was running dry.
But so was his hesitation.
The dweller lunged again, and Lin Shu met it head-on. He ducked low, thrusting his palm forward—thunder roared from his strike. A bolt of lightning surged forth, illuminating the tunnel in a flash of brilliance. The dweller screeched, its shoulder charred as the blast struck home.
It stumbled.
Lin Shu didn't wait.
Bone erupted from his spine and shoulders, forming his full Ivory Monolith armor once more. He charged, blades swinging. The beast recovered, but he caught it mid-turn, driving a spike into its thigh. It roared, raking claws across his chest, but Lin Shu held on, gritting his teeth against the pain.
He rammed his knee into its gut, followed by an uppercut laced with electricity.
The dweller's jaw snapped shut, its hollow eyes wide.
With a final surge of Qi, Lin Shu roared—and drove both blades through its throat.
The dweller convulsed. Then went still.
Lin Shu collapsed to one knee, chest heaving, his armor cracked and smeared with blood.
But he was alive.
And now, he had to decide whether to return to the others… or carve his own path through the cave.
"This is bad… I've got maybe five percent of my Qi left. If I leave now and run into another blood beast, I'm dead. And I'm not going back into that chamber."
Lin Shu leaned heavily against the wall, dragging in ragged breaths. His entire body throbbed—his left arm was limp, the bone armor cracked and scorched. Blood soaked his robes.
"I'll stay here and recover," he muttered under his breath. "Can't move my arm. Covered in wounds. I'm a complete mess… Might as well heal."
His gaze fell to the dweller's corpse, still twitching faintly in death. With effort, he knelt beside it, wiping some blood from his eye as he muttered, "Let's see if you've got anything useful inside you."
He ran his hand along the beast's chest, fingers coated in black, viscous blood. After a few seconds of searching, he found it—a hard sphere nestled deep within the creature's core.
Lin Shu pulled it free slowly, holding it up in the dim light.
The bloodcore shimmered with a faint red glow, warm in his palm.
"A high-stage Rank 1 bloodcore," he said, his voice low and tired. "Should fetch me some gold… I guess."
He let himself slide down the wall, clutching the core in one hand, while his other remained limp at his side. Around him, the cave was silent—no echoes, no footsteps, only the distant rumble of battle far away.
"For now… I recover."
His eyes closed. Bone retracted slowly. Lightning dimmed.
And for the first time in what felt like hours, Lin Shu allowed himself a moment to breathe.
The battle within the chamber had reached its conclusion. Madam Qu stood amidst the carnage, her blade dripping with the blood of the last of the shadow dwellers. She took a slow breath, her chest rising and falling with the satisfaction of the moment. There was a glint of excitement in her eyes as she surveyed the room.
"Unfortunately," she muttered to herself, a sly smile curling on her lips, "I can't take it now. Not with all these people still here."
Her fingers tightened around her blade. "I'll dismiss them later… when they leave. I'll say I'm here to ensure no young mother candidate of the dwellers is hiding. I didn't bribe my way into this village and take this specific mission just to risk losing it because someone saw what I got. No… I've waited too many years for a chance like this. I won't squander it due to impatience."
She turned her gaze to the mother of the dwellers, still writhing in agony from the poison coursing through her veins. The beast, once powerful, was now helpless—too large to move, its size working against it. It had never hunted for itself; its children had always done the work. But now, in its weakened state, it was rendered defenseless.
"Now… you die."
With a swift, practiced motion, Madam Qu cut down the mother of the dwellers, silencing the beast's painful gasps. Her blade gleamed brightly, its edge sharp and unforgiving.
The battle was over. The last of the shadow dwellers had been dispatched. Not a single student had lost their life, though their faces were grim from the carnage they had witnessed. Lin Shu, having recovered his Qi, finally returned to the chamber. He found the group already finished with the fight, their eyes darting between him and the slashed remains of the beasts.
"Where were you?" one of the students asked, suspicion in their voice. "You disappeared when the battle got tough."
Before they could accuse him further, Lin Shu held out the high-stage dweller's corpse. The students fell silent as they took in the sight of the beast's remains.
At first, they were shocked, unsure how Lin Shu had managed to kill the creature, but the pieces quickly clicked into place. He had fought it directly, under the light, where its strength had been reduced to half. In the darkness, the beast was a terror. In the light, it was far less formidable.
"You fought it and killed it in the light," one of the students said, his voice tinged with understanding. "That explains everything."
After hours of clearing out the remaining beasts in the cave, the group finally made their way out, the mission now complete.
Madam Qu, however, had other plans. As soon as the students departed for the institute, she moved back into the cave with a gleam of anticipation in her eyes. Little did she know, she was not alone.
Standing in the shadows, observing her every move, were three figures. A young woman in a dark robe, her hair long and hidden beneath a mask, stood with a man wearing a white mask, his hood pulled low. Both were at the high stage of Rank 1. The third figure, a man with a black hawk perched on his shoulder, was cloaked in a dark mask.
"Finally, she's alone," the man with the crow said, his voice low and menacing. "Did she really think we'd just let her take what we worked so hard for?"
The woman next to him nodded, a cruel smile creeping up her face. "We already lost something once… We won't lose again."
Without a second thought, they moved in unison, entering the cave with nothing on their minds but blood. Their footsteps echoed through the cavern as they closed in on Madam Qu, ready to claim what they believed was rightfully theirs.