The sky above the White Continent had never looked this vast.
It hung high like a scroll painted by gods, dipped in twilight ink and smeared with ancient stardust. Somewhere within its endless canopy, the world below shifted again — and Shen Li Yuan was no longer the same youth who had awoken in a stone chamber days ago, dazed and displaced.
He now walked the narrow mountain paths of the Four Seasons Sect with a quiet step and darker thoughts. Though his robes were plain, his presence had begun to shift. No longer the fragile soul lost in a foreign body, something else now simmered in his blood—something he had no name for, only instinct.
The whisper of the blood pond still echoed in his marrow.
He could feel it, now more than ever.
It wasn't just that his body had grown stronger, or that the red sword-shaped mark between his brows now glowed faintly in moonlight. No, it was something deeper. It was the sensation that time flowed differently for him now—that some invisible chain had been broken.
As he walked toward the outer sect training grounds, he noticed something odd. There was a strange tension in the air today. The disciples passing him gave curt nods or quickly looked away, whispering to each other.
His hearing had grown sharper since the pond. He picked up the fragments.
"…He's the one that came back from the Deadwood Grotto…"
"…They said the blood cocoon shattered when the moon turned red…"
"…That mark between his brows—did you see it?"
Li Yuan paused at the base of the stone steps leading to the training grounds.
He looked up. A circle of outer sect disciples surrounded someone, their expressions mixed with fear and reverence. And in the center—smiling coldly—stood Bai Mu, the strongest among the outer sect.
His cultivation had already reached the Fourth Stage of Qi Condensation. That meant one more step and he could petition to enter the inner sect. A talented monster, praised by elders, feared by juniors.
Bai Mu glanced toward Li Yuan, and his grin widened.
"So the coward returns," he said aloud, his voice laced with scorn.
Li Yuan said nothing, only stared back with a calmness that unsettled the crowd.
Bai Mu stepped forward slowly. "I heard you vanished for days. People thought you were dead. But now you come crawling back? Wearing that strange mark and looking like a demon?"
There was laughter behind him.
"I asked you a question," Bai Mu said. "Where were you?"
Li Yuan stared at him. Then he said evenly, "I found something the sect forgot. Something older than your arrogance."
Bai Mu's smile vanished.
Before he could respond, a shrill voice interrupted them.
"Enough!"
A sharp-featured elder appeared at the edge of the courtyard. His green robes fluttered like leaves in the wind, and his eyes swept over the gathered disciples like twin blades.
It was Elder Shen Yan, one of the four Outer Sect supervisors.
"This is a training ground, not a dog's den. If you want to bark, do it on your own time." His gaze paused on Li Yuan for a beat longer than necessary. "…As for you, follow me."
Li Yuan nodded and obeyed.
He followed Elder Shen through winding paths until they reached a quiet stone pavilion overlooking the northern cliffs. Mist drifted beneath them like ghostly silk.
"You should be dead," Shen Yan said without turning.
Li Yuan stood silently.
"No one returns from the Deadwood Grotto. Not intact. That place was sealed for a reason."
Li Yuan said, "I didn't choose to go."
Shen Yan's mouth twitched. "Yet you came back with a mark not even I recognize, and blood that smells like dragon essence. Who… are you?"
For a moment, Li Yuan hesitated. Then he said, "I don't know yet. But I think I was meant to come here. And I think this sect… has secrets even its elders have forgotten."
Shen Yan's eyes narrowed. "Careful, boy. Some knowledge costs more than it's worth. And some powers—"
"—are worth the cost," Li Yuan interrupted softly.
Silence stretched between them.
Then Shen Yan chuckled. "You speak like someone much older than seventeen. Very well. Since you've returned, I'll give you a task. Prove your strength. In two days, there is the Outer Sect Trial. You'll represent the western peak."
Li Yuan blinked. "Isn't that for advanced disciples?"
"You said your power is worth the cost. Let's see if you can pay."
---
Two nights passed like falling petals, swift and silent.
During that time, Li Yuan meditated beneath the waterfall known as the Crying Cliff. The place was secluded, and the roar of the falling water drowned all sound. He needed this quiet.
Inside his dantian, the flow of Yuan Qi was erratic, violent. The blood-red essence that had invaded his meridians during the pond baptism hadn't settled fully. He could feel something ancient slumbering within it—an incomplete memory. A roar. A chain breaking.
He focused.
Each breath was a war.
Each second a carving knife against his soul.
He had no techniques. No master. Only instincts and a sword mark between his brows. But that mark pulsed now, more alive with each cycle of breath.
When he opened his eyes, the world looked clearer.
Colors were sharper. Wind patterns visible. Sound was layered.
He had changed again.
---
The Trial Day came with overcast skies. Thunder rumbled far away, like some sleeping beast turning in its lair.
The outer sect arena was filled with onlookers. Disciples sat in the balconies, and elders watched from the jade towers above. Li Yuan stood alone on the arena floor. Across from him was the first challenger.
A burly disciple named Kang Wei, known for his Earth Manipulation spirit and brute strength.
The match began.
Kang Wei smashed the ground with a punch, sending a wave of stone spikes toward Li Yuan.
But Li Yuan didn't dodge.
He took one breath—then vanished.
When he reappeared, Kang Wei was already falling.
No one saw what had happened.
The crowd gasped.
The elders leaned forward.
The next challenger came, and the next, and the next.
Each one fell without understanding how.
By the end of the day, Li Yuan stood alone.
Even Bai Mu, who had watched from the shadows, now frowned with unease.
What had this boy become?
---
That night, while the sect slept, a shadow slipped into the outer courtyard.
Li Yuan was meditating again, his body suspended between dream and wakefulness.
Then he heard it.
A voice. Whispering from within his own blood.
"Not yet… not complete…"
He opened his eyes, heart pounding. The red sword mark flared brightly—and suddenly, the courtyard twisted.
He found himself in a strange space. A blood sea surrounded him, and floating above it was a fragment of a giant claw—black and scaled, pulsing with malevolent energy.
The voice echoed again.
"Find me… before they do…"
Then darkness.
Li Yuan gasped as he returned to reality.
The mark on his brow was now warm.
And far in the depths of the sect, in a sealed underground chamber, an old coffin trembled ever so slightly—its surface covered in dragon-shaped runes that began to glow.
---
Cliffhanger:
From behind the waterfall where Li Yuan had trained days ago, a figure emerged.
A girl in black robes, with silver hair and eyes like obsidian, watched the distant peak where he slept.
She touched the red gem embedded in her palm.
"So… it's begun again."