The girl coughed violently with blood leaking from her mouth and eyes.
Her lips suddenly moved rapidly as she chanted.
Victor's eyes widened. "No, wait—!"
He reached down to cover her mouth, but it was too late.
A swirl of dark red energy exploded around her and poof!—she vanished in a blink.
"Shit!" Victor shouted while spinning around to scan the landscape.
"I should have broken her teeth," he muttered.
Minutes later, the eerie voice returned...
"You're going to regret that, little boy."
"Old hag," Victor corrected smugly. "For soone with over two thousand years' worth of cultivation, you're as strong as a blind squirrel."
"Shut up! I told you, I'm not over two thousand—my master is! I'm his loyal follower!"
Victor crossed his arms. "Right. Loyal ancient fangirl."
The voice quieted for a mont, then resud with less irritation.
"My master led the charge against the cultivators when the immortals were betrayed and banished. He was a legend. The gate you inspected was forged by his enemies. That seal is his prison—a vile injustice."
Victor rolled his eyes. "Boo hoo. Sounds like he lost. Deal with it."
"You have no idea what was taken from us! We were the pinnacle of cultivation, unshackled by petty morals. My master brought enlightennt to the world before the hypocrites caged him!"
Victor yawned. "Your master sounds like a galomaniac. You, on the other hand, sound like a groupie with Stockholm syndro."
"I will see him freed! And you will remain here as long as it takes!"
Victor began pacing in deep thought. Clearly, this girl was just a pawn. The real enemy was the corrupt immortal she served. He didn't know how powerful her master was, but if this was all to keep him from delivering seal information to the City Lord, then sothing big was brewing.
His gaze hardened.
"Alright. If I have to tear down this entire realm to get out of here, so be it."
Victor stood still with his arms folded as he voiced out; "Tell more about your ti with your master..."
The female voice returned with a distance but cold tone. "I suppose it no longer matters now. You will die here eventually, and I may as well tell the story of my master's greatness before the seals finally break."
Victor raised a brow but didn't speak. He figured if she was willing to talk, he may as well learn sothing. Maybe it would give him the edge he needed.
---
Flashback - Two Thousand Years Ago
The sky had burned crimson in the twilight over the Land of Echoing Graves. The battlefield stretched on for miles, littered with the bodies of Immortal cultivators and beasts beyond comprehension.
A rift in the heavens spat endless waves of energy, tearing at reality. The Corrupt Immortals were being pushed back. They had once ruled vast stretches of the realms with their power unchecked.
And among them, he had stood: Master Vaeril the Severed Mind, a being said to have devoured his own soul and stitched it back together using fragnts of ancient laws.
None could match him in sheer spiritual force. But when the seals were placed, it had taken the combined sacrifice of hundreds of the Void Temple's elite and the will of the last Void Emperor to trap him behind the gate.
She had been there too.
Na: Serika Varnis. Once a proud Divine Dao Mistress of the Moonshadow Clan, Serika had turned against the celestial orders, drawn to Master Vaeril's visions of boundless cultivation unshackled by morality or restraint.
As Vaeril was sealed, she had scread, clawed at the fabric of space, and in her desperate attempt to stop it, sacrificed her own cultivation to weave a hidden escape clause within the binding matrix.
A clause that, over the centuries, would begin to weaken the seal.
But the cost had been severe. She had lost her Divine Sea, and what remained of her was a shell—a powerful soul attached to a brittle vessel.
Her cultivation slowly slipped until she was barely hanging onto the Nascent Soul Realm. The spiritual backlash from interfering with the void-borne seals had cursed her. Her body rejected qi now. She could no longer cultivate but she could still occasionally use powerful/forbidden techniques.
She created the Abridged Ancient Grove as a trap—a fractured shadow-space layered into the folds of the real grove. Whenever soone triggered the array hidden at the exit point, they'd be sent into her domain. And from within it, she used ancient ans to feed on the lingering power of their bloodlines to further erode the seals.
---
Back in the present, Victor let the silence linger after the story ended.
"So," he voiced with a mocking tone. "You're weak, your master is sealed, and you trapped here to... what? Use like a battery?"
"You underestimate the power of aligned destinies. Your Void Emperor bloodline is a catalyst. I needed it to accelerate the unraveling."
Victor snorted. "You really are pathetic. Two thousand years and this is the best you could co up with?"
Serika's voice hissed. "Mock all you want. You cannot escape and you cannot get to . I am no longer inside the Abridged Grove."
Victor grinned.
"Good. Then I guess you won't mind if I do... this."
He held out his hand, and a pale glow erupted from his palm as he activated his Spectral Anchor Disk.
Monts from earlier flashed in his mind. That split second when he had her pinned to the ground—the mont he slamd her into the crater. Unseen to her, he had tagged the Anchor Disk onto her robes. It clung there, cloaked by his void qi, his own bloodline's cloaking ability.
The disk locked onto her qi signature.
[ Spectral Anchor Disk activated. Target lock confird. Executing dinsional tether jump. ]
There was a flash.
The wind whooshed around Victor as space twisted.
---
Outside the Abridged Grove
Serika stood on a precipice, hunched over and visibly drained. Her skin, though still youthful in appearance, cracked faintly with pale lines that pulsed with old curse marks.
She held a translucent orb filled with swirling mist—a portion of Victor's bloodline energy, harvested from his ti in the Abridged Grove.
"With this, the unraveling will finally reach its peak," she muttered.
Then she stiffened.
There was a shift in space.
A sudden chill...
And behind her, Victor appeared.
He didn't hesitate.
"Surprise, old hag."
He drove his knee into her back with enough force to cause the ground beneath them to crack. Serika scread while trying to teleport, but Victor had prepared.
He slapped a Void Tether Seal on her neck.
"You're not going anywhere this ti."
She gasped while trembling.
"How?! How did you escape?!"
Victor leaned in with a look of amusent. "You made two mistakes. First, you underestimated . Second, you let touch you."
Without wasting another second, he lunged at the woman. She barely had ti to scream before his fist ramd into her gut, sending her sprawling backward. Her body skidded across the mossy ground, crashing into a tree and snapping it in half.
Victor stepped forward slowly with cold eyes. "This ti, you're not getting away that easy."
The woman coughed blood as she tried to scramble up. Her expression was no longer arrogant but frantic. "Y-You… You—"
He delivered a precise palm strike to her ribs, careful not to kill her. She let out a choked cry and dropped to the ground. With a few quick hand seals, Victor summoned chains and bound her limbs.
"You're going to answer a lot of questions," he said before hoisting her up. "Starting with how long you've been weakening the seals."
But just as he began looking around for a way back to Bluefla, her eyes widened.
A crazed smile curled her lips.
"If I can't escape… I'll just break myself out!"
Her body began to emit a dark light as a series of runes etched across her skin erupted with violent energy.
Victor realized what she was doing just half a second too late.
"A forbidden technique!"
BOOM!
The explosion of smoke and chaotic spiritual energy sent Victor flying backward.
When the dust settled, she was gone.
He groaned and pushed himself up from the forest floor with his hair ruffled and face sared with dirt.
"Damn it. She escaped again," he muttered while clenching his fists. "But this won't be the last ti we et."
When he looked around, it struck him.
The ancient grove was nowhere to be found neither was the path to it.
The sky above was a strange maroon, the clouds moved slow and unnatural. The forest trees were tall, like towers, with twisted black vines drooping down like snakes.
Victor had no idea where he was.
"Well… this is new," he muttered. "And that stupid anchor disk is on cooldown for another five days. Even if it wasn't... its not in my chamber at the Violet Spring Sect so I can't return to Bluefla city through it."
He checked his system notifications, hoping for so clue or landmark, but nothing helpful ca up.
Still, he knew he couldn't stay put. He started trekking in what he hoped was a direction leading toward civilization.
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