For a moment, Xiao Lei felt weightless—suspended in emptiness—before the world heaved beneath him. He was falling. Sky and earth twisted, stomach lurching as if the heavens had hurled him down.

  Then, abruptly, stillness.

  His boots struck stone. Breath dragged into his chest, rough and uneven. He blinked hard, forcing the blur from his eyes, and found himself at the lip of a narrow cliff. His knuckles ached; his hand had closed around an arrow without thought, instinct answering where his mind had faltered.

  The chaos in his head settled into form. A forest stretched ahead, dense with ancient trunks and veils of mist. Cliffs jutted between ancient trunks, carving the forest into a labyrinth of stone and shadow.

  Perhaps the outer fringes, he guessed.

  His gaze lifted. The sky glowed a muted red, stained like embers smeared across glass. Yet when they had entered, it had been mid-afternoon. His brows drew tight. Evening? Already?

  He turned slowly. To the front, endless trees and faint clearings vanished into haze. Behind, the treeline pressed close, less wilderness than wall.

  A knot tightened in his chest. Where do I begin?

  The academy had given no map, no warning—only danger wrapped as opportunity. Xiao Lei’s jaw set. Never again. In trials to come, knowledge would be the first weapon he seized. The taste of being pushed blind into peril left him raw, restless, like a beast caged with no room to pace.

  He leapt from the cliff’s ledge, landing lightly. The ground smelled of damp soil and resin. He had taken no more than three steps before pressure pricked his spine. His body moved before thought—he rolled.

  A hiss split the air. A bolt of lightning, green as burning jade, slammed into the spot where he had stood. Earth charred, soil hissed with steam.

  Mid-tumble, his fingers loosed the arrow he had gripped. The shaft cut through the mist, straight toward the source.

  A cry—high, brittle, like glass shattering.

  From the shadows slid a serpent. Its body was translucent, crystalline, veins of green light racing beneath its scales. Lightning crawled its length, gathering in arcs before sputtering out. The beast spasmed once, then crumpled, its glassy form cracking, dissolving.

  In moments it was gone, leaving only a shard upon the scorched earth—a crystal no larger than a fingernail, pulsing with contained storm.

  Xiao Lei approached warily, retrieving both arrow and prize. Lightning coiled within the gem like a living thing, and as it sparked across his palm, the fine hairs along his arms rose.

  The air smelled of ozone. His heartbeat thudded steady—yet restless, as though some storm within had only just begun to stir.

  The green crystal pulsed faintly in his hand, like a heart still beating. Threads of jade light writhed inside, gathering and scattering as if unwilling to be bound. This was no corpse, but lightning qi returning to essence. Every participant would need such fragments—each drop a step toward earth-grade lightning, or, if fate allowed, the elusive sky-grade.

  He drew out the small flask the academy had provided. Inscriptions gleamed faintly at its rim. The moment the crystal touched the mouth, it melted, brilliance unravelling into colourless liquid. Within, five drops now glimmered like dew on glass.

  A long road yet.

  He slid the bottle into his ring, replaced the arrow in his quiver, and exhaled. His shoulders eased, though the bowstring tension in his spine held fast. The strike had taught him enough—their prey did not stalk, it waited. These lightning-born creatures revealed themselves only when they lashed out. Until then, even the sharpest senses scraped against emptiness.

  Caution wound tighter around him.

  He pressed deeper into the forest. Branches clawed at the sky, shadows draped heavy across the ground. The earth smelled of damp moss and iron-rich stone. No beasts stirred. No students passed. The hush thickened as he walked.

  The valley must be vast, he thought, eyes flicking through the treeline. Too vast. Time blurred, yet when he looked up, the sky remained unchanged—stained with that same smouldering red. An hour, perhaps two, and still the heavens had not shifted. Not dusk, not dawn. Just that endless glow, as though the valley refused to let time move forward.

  His pace slowed. The silence felt alive, clinging like a second skin.

  Then—sound.

  Faint. A disturbance threading the stillness. Xiao Lei’s head turned east. Voices. Human.

  He angled his steps toward the noise, each movement deliberate, the forest parting slowly before him.

  The air stirred. Leaves shivered overhead—as if something unseen had just passed through.

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  Hidden high within the canopy, Xiao Lei’s breath slowed until it matched the whisper of green around him. Through the weave of branches, the scene below sharpened: four youths in silver robes, each marked with the emblem of a sun crossed by a sword—Radiant Sword Sect.

  Opposite them, ten beasts prowled. At first glance, they resembled boars, yet their forms carried the valley’s strangeness: translucent bodies like sculpted glass, veins of green lightning coiled within. Compared to the serpent earlier, their glow was darker, denser—pressure forged into danger.

  The air between both sides felt brittle, a balance ready to break. Several beasts bore cracks along their crystalline hides, light leaking like molten fissures. Across from them, the three young men and single woman showed their own wear—slashed sleeves, blood at the mouth, guarded stances. Wounded, but unbroken.

  Individually, these creatures were little more than obstacles. Together, their rhythm smothered—charges and retreats woven into a near-perfect net. The Radiant Sword disciples pushed back, yet each clash only tightened the trap.

  A warning stirred in Xiao Lei. Instinct moved before thought. He sprang aside, branches whipping past as he rolled across another limb.

  Flame tore through where he had perched. The tree split with a groan and toppled, sparks hissing into damp earth.

  Xiao Lei’s gaze snapped to the source. Someone had marked him.

  The crash shattered the stillness. All eyes turned. The beasts roared, their bodies sparking wildly, frenzy feeding on disruption. From below, one silver-robed youth cupped his hands and called out, voice sharp yet polite.

  “Friends, we are disciples of the Radiant Sword Sect! Please, take your battle elsewhere. Disturbances only drive these lightning beasts to madness—and then none of us will leave unharmed.”

  Well said, neatly framed. But Xiao Lei caught the edge beneath. They feared not just the beasts, but the blade that might strike once their strength ran dry. A plea disguised as caution.

  Xiao Lei gave no answer. His face remained still, cold. Words wasted breath. Their survival was not his concern.

  His focus had already shifted.

  On the treeline, three silhouettes stood against the ruddy sky—watchers, patient as carrion birds.

  And among them, a face he knew.

  Mu Pei.

  “Well, well… I didn’t think a worm like you could crawl this far—let alone in so little time.”

  Mu Pei’s sneer cut sharp, but his eyes betrayed him. Beneath the scorn flickered disbelief. Barely two months had passed since their last meeting, yet the boy before him had bridged a gulf of four, perhaps five levels. Impossible. Unless this worm had hidden fangs.

  Xiao Lei’s own surprise ran colder. Mu Pei belonged to the inner academy, yet he had not been among the fourteen who entered the valley. So how had he come here? His gaze slid, almost without thought, to the two figures at Mu Pei’s side. Their cultivation matched his, but danger clung to them like scent to steel.

  Mu Pei’s smirk widened. “What? Too afraid to speak?” His fingers traced a sigil, fire coiling eagerly to his call. A blade of flame condensed, edge biting with heat. He swung—and carved only empty air as Xiao Lei slipped aside, motion fluid, unhurried.

  The distance closed, stretched again. Xiao Lei’s eyes measured, weighing odds. Three against one—too steep unless he bared cards better kept hidden. Not yet.

  His lips curved, words flint on stone. “If I’m a worm, what does that make you? Couldn’t even earn a place in the academy. Did you beg for one—or just wave your father’s coin purse until someone listened?”

  The insult struck raw. Mu Pei’s teeth ground as fury surged. His family’s strings, the Xun clan’s reluctant favour, the weight of coin—all brands he carried beneath polished robes. To hear them spat back by the one he loathed most—unbearable.

  “You—!” Flame roared as his sword reignited, and rage drove him forward.

  The two beside him moved in concert. One’s bow unfolded, brown arc pulsing with restrained force, no less formidable than Xiao Lei’s own Stormbranch. The other raised his palm, qi sharpening into serrated wind.

  Arrows hissed. Fire split the air. Wind howled, tearing bark from trunks.

  Xiao Lei darted between strikes, each dodge narrowing the net. To onlookers, he seemed harried, cornered, footing breaking beneath pressure. Mu Pei’s laughter rang.

  “Run, worm! Let’s see where you hide this time!”

  The three attacks converged.

  And Xiao Lei smiled.

  A flicker—his form dissolved like mist. Void Step. Gone in a breath.

  But their strikes did not vanish with him. They flew on, wild, unmoored—until a cry split the clearing. An arrow had found flesh, buried in the shoulder of a Radiant Sword Sect youth.

  “What in the hells are you doing?!” the silver-robed disciple who had spoken earlier roared, glare spearing the trio.

  For a heartbeat, Mu Pei and his companions froze. But by the time realization struck, it was too late. The trap had closed.

  Shockwaves ripped through the clearing as flame and wind collided, scattering force like shrapnel. The beasts, once held at bay by the Radiant Sword Sect’s formation, staggered under the stray blasts. Balance broke. With snarls and pounding hooves, they surged forward.

  The embattled disciples found themselves pressed harder than before.

  Xiao Lei moved at once, arrow flashing as he drove a massive boar back, tusks gouging earth as it toppled aside. His intervention looked seamless, almost loyal, and his voice cut sharp across the chaos.

  “Shameful. Even beasts stand together—yet you strike at those holding the line.”

  The tone rang with righteousness, and under mounting pressure, the four disciples seized on it. For that moment, they forgot whose bait had dragged the attacks upon them. He stood beside them now, lending bow and words alike. Their gazes hardened—not on him, but on the trio across the clearing.

  The girl among them spat, cold as iron. “We won’t let this pass.”

  Mu Pei’s companions only laughed. The bowman tilted his weapon lazily, mockery curling in his voice.

  “Oh? You won’t let it slide? Do you even know who you’re speaking to? We are of the Xun Clan. Even if we butcher every one of you here, your little sect won’t dare squeak.”

  The name dropped like iron into water, sinking heavy until silence drowned their anger. The Xun Clan—an unshakable pillar of the Shanli Kingdom. Against that weight, the Radiant Sword Sect was nothing. Their defiance bled away, unspoken but plain in their eyes.

  Xiao Lei’s own heart stirred. Xun Clan. That truth was unexpected. The neat strands of his plan—to borrow the Radiant Sword group’s strength—unravelled as swiftly as they had formed. Yet he did not falter.

  He pressed his hands together in a courteous bow, voice firm but calm. “Friends, allow me to draw them away. Otherwise, they will only make things harder for you.”

  Without waiting for reply, he turned, slipping into the forest like a shadow through branches.

  The trio blinked, caught off guard by his decisiveness. At Prince Tianze’s palace, Xiao Lei had been iron, unyielding—yet here he fled without hesitation, swift as a cornered fox.

  Mockery followed him into the trees, laughter sharp as blades. Still, they gave chase, unwilling to let their prey escape.

  Behind them, the Radiant Sword disciples drew ragged breath. Their eyes lingered on the path he’d taken—no suspicion, only gratitude. To them, Xiao Lei was the very image of righteousness, a man who risked himself to shield others.

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  Destiny Reckoning. It’s set in the same universe, and you definitely don’t want to miss it, because the stories will eventually crossover.