Thump.

  A golden pulse spread through the world, highlighting all life signatures within a five-mile radius.

  Thump.

  Another, tighter pulse immediately followed, causing the weakest and most powerful signatures to gradually disappear. Cade roughly recreated the citadel in his realm of consciousness, matched it to his life sense, then searched for Jade’s signature near the lecture halls, the training rooms, and in her own chambers first. Having found nothing, he scanned the rest of the monastery. Again, nothing.

  Thump.

  The third pulse further refined the results of the previous two, fading out all life signatures with average and elevated emotional fluctuations, as Castien’s would certainly fall below this range. Only twenty or so signatures remained, all of which seemed to be sleeping soundly, likely exhausted after a long day.

  Castien isn’t in the monastery, and neither is Jade. Not good!

  Cade opened his eyes, an ominous feeling creeping up his spine. “Lucy, how long were you assigned to Tiarsus for?”

  Lucretia’s gaze momentarily flashed with resentment. Her hand on the cup tensed, and her fingers turned white. “Just over two years, Senior Cade. I arrived with him in the monastery, along with eight other people from Carpathian Peak."

  However, this time Cade thoroughly examined her emotional fluctuations. Jade’s life could be on the line; he had no time to waste wondering whether she was lying or holding back information. “He must have had many conversations with Castien during that time, right?”

  Lucy nodded, the muscles in her jaw taut.

  “Do you have any idea where Castien might go if he wanted to discuss something away from prying eyes and ears? Please take your time to think. This is very important.”

  Her brows drew together at first, then relaxed, and her eyes unfocused—a sign she had entered her realm of consciousness. Even first-tier cultivators had impressive memories.

  Cade’s blood was bubbling with slowly rising fury. The idea of Castien daring to hurt his friend - someone placed under his watch no less - brought his rage to the verge of eruption, his Asura nature begging to be unleashed. This fucker thinks he can do whatever he wants and I’m just going to sit and watch?!

  Visions of violence crashed into his mind like an endless tide, and Cade immediately bit down on his tongue. Right now he couldn’t afford to show any signs of rising bloodlust. Lucy had obviously gone through a lot working for Tiarsus. His explosion of anger would only cause her unnecessary distress.

  Finally, Lucy’s eyes regained their clarity. The brief but noticeable stretch of silence reminded him once again that his vastly accelerated time perception within his own realm of consciousness—something he’d been experiencing years before his rebirth—was far from typical.

  “On a couple of occasions, Tiarsus agreed to meet up with Castien at the caves. I didn’t really want to listen to their conversations, but he didn’t try to hide them from me. Tiarsus… he often discussed heinous things, Senior Cade,” her voice shook. “I believe he meant the Well of the Ancients.”

  “What is it? I’ve never heard about it,” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

  “I’ve never seen it myself. It’s supposed to be a huge, deep shaft drilled into the desert by ancient cultivators. There are thousands of caves carved into its walls. It was abandoned a very long time ago. Hardly anyone goes there, as there’s nothing of interest to be found, at least not anymore. And it’s far away,” Lucy explained.

  “Do you have a rough idea where this Well is located?”

  Cade quickly pulled out the map crystal, projecting it above the table.

  Lucy’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the map of the desert, before pointing to an area northwest of the monastery.

  “I think it’s around here… But I can’t be sure,” she said reluctantly.

  Cade magnified the same view in his realm of consciousness, his mind scanning through the vast sprawl of desert terrain. There was no place to hide in the Desert of the Thousand Lakes. Most of the ruined structures from previous ages were barely visible above ground, the vast majority either long covered with sand or devoured by time. If Castien had indeed taken Jade away from the citadel, these places couldn’t serve his purposes.

  It didn’t take him long to find a round, dark spot on the surface, a little over 2000 miles from the monastery. It was hard to get a true sense of its scale, but just by comparing it to the oases in its surroundings, the opening must have been enormous.

  If someone really wanted to disappear from sight, the Well appeared like the perfect spot. It would be very hard for a cultivator without a far-reaching soul sense to find anyone hiding inside.

  Thankfully that wasn’t a problem for him.

  “Thank you,” he said to Lucy, trying to fit all his sincerity and gratitude into these two words.

  She looked at him with surprise in her eyes, blushing slightly.

  “I’m glad I could help, Senior Cade,” she said, offering him a shy, warm smile.

  “I might be gone for a few hours, maybe longer. Please enjoy some more tea if you like. If you could break through into the seventh stage with its help, that'd be putting it to good use. Naturally, you are free to come and go as you please.”

  Lucy blinked, momentarily speechless, and a thankful smile spread across her face.

  Cade, however, was no longer there. She twitched upon hearing the entrance doors slamming into the wall, opened with a force that nearly tore them from their hinges. A faint, shimmering afterimage hovered in front of her eyes before fading away.

  Cade shot out of the citadel and immediately mounted his speeder.

  It’s been some time, old friend. Let’s find Jade and that half-dead fuck, soon to be full-dead.

  He rapidly ascended towards the clouds, their soft shapes bathed in the orange rays of the fading sunlight. The moment he cleared the protective formation above the courtyard, he unleashed the full power hidden within the darksteel flier. A huge shockwave exploded behind him, and his Arrow pierced the air toward the setting sun.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  The Asura was aware of the risk he was taking by leaving the citadel's safety; however, his danger sense remained unchanged—a constant, soft pressure, just as it had been since he discovered the soundcatcher under Jade’s bed. He strongly doubted Darkheart bothered to keep constant watch over the monastery.

  Unfortunately, this wasn’t a situation where he could count on his friends. He didn’t want to involve them, not with the threat of Darkheart looming on the horizon.

  The greatest risk was that either Arthur or Roland would notice him leaving, but the chance for that wasn’t high—unless the brothers kept people watching the exits at all times. He had to admit this was a much stronger possibility. Cade scanned the life signatures of people he passed by on his way out, but there wasn’t anyone immediately suspicious among them.

  In the end, he had no choice. Jade wouldn’t have left the monastery on her own, not when Var Du Long told her not to. She knew what kind of risk she would be taking.

  My luck, in the past you have failed me numerous times. Now I need you to pull your weight. Her path doesn’t deserve a shitty ending.

  The Arrow tore through the air at full speed, flying just below the clouds, leaving a deafening boom in its path. Cade forced himself to remain calm and think clearly, repeating his father’s mantra like a prayer against seething fury. After traversing nearly 2000 miles of monotonous desert—its gorgeous sights having long since turned mundane in his eyes—he finally saw a huge gaping hole emerging on the horizon. There wasn’t much to it other than its sheer size, which must have been approaching a mile in width.

  As he got closer, he started noticing tiny openings within the otherwise smooth surface of the Well. There were thousands of them. It was impossible to ascertain the true depth of the hole, as its bottom was covered in an ocean of darkness, but it was obvious a powerful sect with dozens of thousands of cultivators had once called the Well home.

  Even though Cade wasn’t afraid of heights and was quite used to flying at high altitudes, for some reason, floating high above this imperceptible blackness made his skin crawl. Launching his life sense, Cade ignored all lesser life forms and focused on looking for signatures around the Foundation Establishment realm.

  A short while later, his brow creased. Other than a few Rank 2 spirit beasts, there wasn’t anything that would suggest Castien or Jade’s presence. He began his controlled descent into the Well, sending pulse after pulse.

  After being half a mile deep, there was still no sign of them. The air around him had cooled down significantly and was filled with a damp, earthy smell.

  How deep is this thing?!

  Only when he was nearly a mile and a half deep into the Well and the opening above him had shrunk to the size of a small circle did the edge of his life sense finally pick up two Foundation Establishment signatures close to each other. They were positioned slightly below his level and far to his right, meaning Castien had entered one of the caves carved into the walls.

  Cade’s blood instantly heated up, but he also felt a great sense of relief. His night sight helped him out immensely, magnifying the small amount of light present. One of the openings carved into the wall was just a touch brighter than the others. As he approached it on his speeder, he realized it was an entrance to a tunnel, its ceiling over thirty feet tall—the opening was far larger than he had initially assumed. The Well of the Ancients really made everything feel small in comparison.

  Judging from the distance between the entrance and the signatures, he had around two miles to cross. Instead of walking, Cade chose to fly inside. At such slow speeds, the Arrow was completely silent. He stretched all his senses, focusing on detecting anything that Castien could have planted in the tunnel to warn him of any uninvited guests, but apparently, the core disciple wasn’t too concerned with being discovered.

  In truth, he didn’t want to move at a snail’s pace. Concern for Jade gnawed at him, but he knew he could not give away his position by rushing in. Not knowing what awaited him, he needed the element of surprise on his side. Castien was clearly not expecting anyone to find him, which meant Cade would have a decent chance at an ambush.

  The tunnel was a straight line with a tiny pinprick of light at its end. For someone without his night vision, it would have been barely discernible among the darkness. Once the pinprick grew to the size of a coin, the Asura knew he was close. He chose to land his speeder, moving as quietly as he could. After sending the Arrow into his ring, he gently unveiled his Blood Wings and took out Legion’s dark, corroded form.

  It would have been great if you woke up already.

  He tried to contact the spirit through its silver avatar in his realm of consciousness, but the sword remained silent. He sensed that Legion was still not quite ready, and needed more energy to bring it out of its dormant state—a spike of soul qi—but he didn’t know how he could deliver it without greatly weakening his own soul. For now, he had to do without the spirit’s help.

  Fortunately, he wasn’t facing Darkheart, but someone in the late Foundation Establishment. If Castien was indeed one of the undead - and all signs pointed to that - he was about to find out what it meant to face an Asura life cultivator with over 2,000 prismatic spherules excited to unleash hell.

  Cade wrapped his Blood Wings around his torso, and the translucent ribbons disappeared beneath his black robe. This was something he had thought of during the trial. The tendrils were flat and extremely thin; despite their significant length, they could be easily concealed with this simple method. The only downside was that flying this way consumed more blood qi. As long as he didn’t try to move at full speed, it wasn’t much of an issue. Still, Cade had already placed several bloodstones in the internal pockets of his martial robe to be on the safe side.

  He rose toward the tunnel's smooth, stone ceiling, halting a few inches away before continuing forward. If Castien was at the ground level, being a couple dozen feet higher would slightly reduce his chance of being discovered upon entering the chamber at the end. To a mortal, the tunnels would seem utterly silent, but Cade could hear the insects skittering within the wall cracks and a slow, rhythmic drip of condensation.

  After a few breaths, he found himself less than a few hundred feet away from the exit, and after magnifying the view, he could finally get a decent idea of what awaited him on the other side. The prevalent stench of damp slowly made way for a dusty smell containing a faint trace of rot. Having an extremely sensitive nose wasn’t always great.

  Past the tunnel’s exit was a huge circular chamber carved directly into the rock, filled with dozens of collapsed buildings surrounding a wide-open plaza at its center. Everything was covered with a thick coat of dust. Cade imagined how many thousands of years ago, cultivators had gathered in this chamber to listen to their elders’ lectures. He continued to fly very slowly, gradually approaching the exit.

  After taking a careful peek inside the cave, he saw the light was coming from behind a few dilapidated walls, appearing like a bright, shining beacon among the surrounding darkness. A lone ray shot sideways from a rough opening in one of the walls, reflecting off a few shards of broken, thin crystal scattered on the ground. It was likely all that remained of a narrow window. Save for those few lone skeletal walls enveloping the brightness, everything else nearby had long turned to rubble.

  The sound of barely audible breathing reached his ears, and Cade immediately held his own breath. He didn’t know how sensitive the hearing of the half-dead was, but with Jade’s life on the line, he would take every possible precaution. Instead of moving towards the source of light, he chose to fly to a higher vantage point. He stayed outside the light sphere, sticking as close to the chamber’s wall as possible. He doubted that Castien could detect him, as his eyes were likely adjusted to the surrounding brightness, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

  So far, his sixth sense had remained at its constant low level of activation, suggesting he hadn't yet been spotted.

  After carefully rising a couple hundred feet into the air, he finally saw Castien and Jade’s motionless figures. She was lying inside a complex formation circle, pale-faced, a small, glowing red gem hovering over her barely rising chest.

  This fucker is siphoning off her blood qi!

  The moment Cade’s gaze shifted to the core disciple’s wiry figure, his blood came to an instant boil, and he barely managed to stifle a vicious snarl rising in his throat. As he fought the torrent of rage threatening to break out of the shackles placed by his conscious mind, red fog began to seep into his vision, and killing intent flooded his consciousness. With teeth clenched so hard they began to creak, he attempted everything to regain control—calming mantra, blood qi ignition, tongue biting—and it almost worked.

  Just as he was on the verge of pushing the bloodrage back, the joints in his jaw shifted, producing an audible pop.