Chapter 47: The Escape Through the Shadows
The moment Han Feng stepped through the hidden passage, the blue runes beneath his feet faded one after another.
Behind him, the ancient altar chamber fell silent.
But Han Feng did not mistake silence for safety.
The spiritual mark inside his consciousness was still warm.
Not powerful.
Not dangerous by itself.
But unmistakably connected to the Celestial Diagram Scroll.
And as long as that connection remained, the Black Moon Sect could potentially find him.
Han Feng moved immediately.
He did not run in a straight line.
He crossed the rocky passage, climbed over a broken section of stone, and deliberately stepped into a shallow stream before following the water downstream.
His Celestial Veil spread across his body.
His Qi fluctuations diminished.
His breathing slowed.
Then—
A pressure suddenly swept across the mountains behind him.
Han Feng froze.
A powerful spiritual sense had entered the area.
Already?
He turned his head.
Through the gaps between the trees, several distant figures appeared above the forest.
They were moving far too quickly.
Han Feng's expression changed.
The Black Moon Sect had not merely noticed the disturbance.
They had reacted almost immediately.
He stepped backward.
A second wave of spiritual sense swept through the forest.
This time, he felt it pass directly over his position.
Han Feng's heartbeat accelerated.
His Celestial Veil concealed his cultivation, but it could not erase every disturbance caused by his movement.
A voice echoed faintly through the trees.
"Spread out."
Another voice answered.
"The residual resonance is still nearby."
Han Feng's eyes narrowed.
They had already established a connection.
The Soultrace Plate.
He remembered the tracking method from before.
They were not tracking his aura.
They were tracking the spiritual resonance left by the Celestial Diagram Scroll.
And that meant hiding his cultivation would not be enough.
A third spiritual sweep approached.
Han Feng moved.
He stepped onto a fallen tree, pushed off, and vanished between two cliffs.
Behind him—
BOOM!
A palm struck the ground where he had been standing.
Stone exploded.
Fragments tore through the trees.
Han Feng twisted in midair and landed behind a boulder.
His face became cold.
They're not just searching anymore.
They're attacking anything that might conceal me.
He did not wait.
He ran.
The Elders in Pursuit
Several dozen meters behind him, three figures descended into the forest.
They wore the dark robes of the Black Moon Sect.
The leader was an elder with silver hair and a narrow face.
In his hand was the Soultrace Plate.
Its surface was covered with tiny silver inscriptions.
At the center, a faint golden thread trembled.
"There."
The elder pointed.
The golden thread pulled sharply toward the canyon.
"He's moving."
One of the younger elders frowned.
"Can you determine his exact position?"
"No."
The silver-haired elder's eyes narrowed.
"The resonance only gives direction and approximate distance."
He adjusted his Qi.
The golden thread became brighter.
Then it suddenly flickered.
"He entered the canyon."
"Then we cut him off."
The three elders moved simultaneously.
Han Feng sensed them approaching.
His expression became grim.
The canyon ahead narrowed rapidly.
Bad.
There was only one obvious route through it.
If the elders entered from behind, he would have nowhere to go.
He looked around.
Cliff walls.
Loose rocks.
Dense spiritual ore beneath the ground.
A narrow crack.
Han Feng stopped.
His eyes flashed.
Not a path.
But perhaps enough to survive.
He pressed his palm against the cliff.
Then released a tiny amount of Qi.
The stone shifted.
Not enough to collapse the mountain.
Just enough to loosen several heavy rocks above the passage.
Han Feng continued forward.
Three breaths later—
BOOM!
The rocks collapsed behind him.
Dust filled the canyon.
One of the elders cursed.
"He's trying to slow us down!"
The silver-haired elder raised his hand.
A powerful gust of Qi swept through the dust.
The rocks were blasted aside.
But Han Feng had already disappeared.
The Narrow Escape
Han Feng moved through the darkness.
The passage was barely wide enough for his shoulders.
Sharp stone tore his sleeve.
He ignored it.
His breathing became heavier.
His spiritual sense remained focused behind him.
The elders were still coming.
Faster than expected.
They're Rank 3 or higher.
Han Feng gritted his teeth.
His current cultivation was only Qi Cultivation Rank 3 Early Stage.
Even with his techniques, fighting three elders head-on would be suicidal.
He needed distance.
Not victory.
A faint light appeared ahead.
Han Feng pushed through the crack.
He emerged on the other side of the cliff.
A steep slope descended into a forest filled with spiritual mist.
He immediately jumped.
His body dropped several meters before he caught a tree branch.
The branch snapped.
Han Feng fell again.
He twisted in the air and landed heavily on another branch.
Pain shot through his ankle.
He continued moving.
Behind him—
"He's outside!"
The elder's voice echoed through the canyon.
Han Feng accelerated.
Breaking the Trail
Only after putting several kilometers between himself and the elders did Han Feng stop beside a stream.
He took three ordinary spirit stones from his spatial pouch.
His eyes remained focused.
There was no time for a complicated formation.
He placed one beneath a tree.
Another beside the stream.
The third farther up the slope.
Then he released three extremely weak traces of Qi.
One carried his normal spiritual rhythm.
Another carried a distorted version.
The third was intentionally unstable.
Han Feng activated the Celestial Transmutation Gu.
A tiny amount of Qi became Gu energy.
He used it to alter the three traces just enough to resemble the fluctuations surrounding his spiritual mark.
The technique was crude.
Temporary.
And extremely risky.
But it did not need to fool the Black Moon Sect forever.
It only needed to buy him time.
Han Feng turned and disappeared into the forest.
The Soultrace Plate trembled.
The silver-haired elder looked down.
The golden thread suddenly split into three.
His expression changed.
"Three traces?"
"Which one is real?"
The elder did not answer.
He closed his eyes and adjusted his spiritual sense.
One trace moved east.
Another moved northeast.
The third seemed to remain near the stream.
The elder's expression darkened.
"False."
"Which one?"
"All three may be false."
The younger elder stared at him.
"Then we've lost him?"
The silver-haired elder slowly opened his eyes.
"No."
His gaze turned toward the distant mountains.
"We've only lost the certainty of his direction."
He looked down at the Soultrace Plate again.
"Whoever did this understands spiritual tracking."
A faint smile appeared.
"That makes him more dangerous than we thought."
The Crystal Cave
Han Feng had already traveled much farther.
He crossed another ridge and entered a narrow valley surrounded by jagged cliffs.
The terrain was unstable.
Spiritual ore veins ran beneath the ground, creating irregular fluctuations that distorted spiritual perception.
That made the valley useful.
But not safe.
Han Feng searched the area carefully.
He found no fresh footprints.
No campfire.
No obvious formation.
No spiritual beast territory.
Only a small crack between two cliffs.
Behind it was a cave.
Han Feng entered.
The cave extended deeper than expected.
Its walls contained scattered crystal deposits that emitted faint spiritual fluctuations.
Exactly what he needed.
But he did not relax.
He inspected the ceiling.
The walls.
The floor.
Even the shadows.
Only after confirming that nothing was hiding inside did he begin preparing a concealment formation.
Three spirit stones.
A few lines carved into the ground.
And a thin layer of Qi woven through the surrounding crystal ore.
The formation did not make him invisible.
It merely distorted the spiritual fluctuations inside the cave and made them blend with the natural energy of the ore.
Han Feng finally sat down.
Only then did he allow himself to breathe normally.
His ankle throbbed.
His sleeve was torn.
A shallow cut crossed his forearm.
None of the injuries were serious.
But they reminded him of how close the pursuit had come.
The spiritual mark inside his consciousness pulsed once.
He focused on it.
The faint six-pointed pattern appeared again.
Not as a physical symbol.
Not as a mark on his skin.
It existed only within the depths of his consciousness.
Han Feng studied it.
So this is what the altar left behind.
He tried to touch it with his spiritual sense.
A sharp pain immediately spread through his mind.
He withdrew.
His breathing became heavier.
"Too dangerous."
The mark was not obeying him.
It was merely reacting.
And that meant there was still something he did not understand.
Han Feng leaned against the cave wall.
"The altar didn't give me power."
His eyes narrowed.
"It gave me a connection."
That connection might become useful.
Or it might eventually become the reason he died.
For now, he had no way to know.
The Resonance
Outside the cave, the night deepened.
The Black Moon Sect's pursuit gradually weakened.
The spiritual currents of the mountains interfered with the Soultrace Plate.
The false traces had bought Han Feng time.
But he knew the elders would eventually understand what had happened.
The question was how long that would take.
Han Feng took out the Resonance Marker.
It was still warm.
He frowned.
The marker had reacted to the altar.
It had reacted inside the Ruins of Eternal Night.
And now it was reacting again.
But this time—
The reaction was different.
Han Feng slowly raised his head.
A faint vibration traveled through the stone beneath him.
Once.
Twice.
Then silence.
His eyes narrowed.
That rhythm.
He had felt it before.
The same heartbeat-like vibration that had come from beneath the Heart of the Ruins.
Han Feng's expression became grim.
The altar wasn't the end.
He looked toward the darkness beyond the cave.
It was another connection.
The Resonance Marker slowly cooled.
But the spiritual mark inside his consciousness remained warm.
Han Feng closed his eyes.
He could no longer think of the events in the Black Moon Sect, the Ruins of Eternal Night, the Heart, and the ancestral altar as separate mysteries.
They were connected.
He simply did not yet understand how.
And that uncertainty was more frightening than any enemy pursuing him.
A New Problem
Before dawn, Han Feng finally began cultivating.
He did not attempt a breakthrough.
He did not force his cultivation forward.
He simply circulated his Qi through his meridians while maintaining the Celestial Veil.
Rank 3 Early Stage.
That was enough for now.
His foundation had only recently stabilized.
The incomplete Dark Chaos Refinement was still dangerous.
The Dual Chaos Larva was still evolving alongside his understanding of the two energy systems.
And now he carried another problem inside his consciousness.
The spiritual mark.
Han Feng opened his eyes.
"If I cannot remove it..."
His gaze became sharp.
"...then I need to learn how to control what it reveals."
He placed the Resonance Marker beside him.
Then he began experimenting.
Not with power.
With concealment.
He first suppressed his aura.
Then weakened the connection between his consciousness and the spiritual mark.
The result was immediate.
The mark dimmed.
But a faint pressure appeared behind his eyes.
Han Feng stopped.
He understood the danger.
The more aggressively he suppressed the resonance, the more noticeable the disturbance became.
I can't simply erase it.
He slowly relaxed his control.
The pressure disappeared.
The mark stabilized.
Han Feng gave a bitter smile.
"So even hiding it has limits."
He looked toward the cave entrance.
The first light of dawn had begun to appear.
The Black Moon Sect had lost his trail for the moment.
But they had come dangerously close.
And now they knew something important.
Whoever had entered the ancestral altar was not helpless.
He could interfere with spiritual tracking.
He could create false traces.
And he understood enough about the Black Moon Sect's methods to make their pursuit difficult.
That knowledge would change how they hunted him from now on.
Han Feng stood.
He had escaped.
But barely.
The next time they met, they would be better prepared.
And so would he.
Somewhere beneath the ancient ruins, another pulse answered the fading resonance inside his consciousness.
The ancient world was awakening.
And Han Feng had just become one of the people caught between its awakening and the forces desperate to control it.
To be continued...