Wei An emerged from the fissure on the other side of the hill, his body covered in dirt and scrapes. He didn't dare to stop, immediately melting back into the deep shadows of the Blackwood Range. He moved with the silence of his new Wraith Step, a crude imitation of the Grave Art he'd imagined, but effective enough. His feet barely disturbed the fallen leaves.
He put as much distance as he could between himself and the Jade Sword disciples, his fear a cold stone in his gut. He had overheard their destination: they were returning to the city of Silver-Mist, which lay at the edge of the mountain range.
For two days, he traveled in a wide, looping arc, always moving away from his old village and towards the direction of the city. He survived on what he could forage, the hunger in his dantian a constant, dull ache. The wilderness, once his only home, now felt like a prison. It was too empty. There was no sustenance here, no Remnant Essence to fuel his growth. To grow stronger, he needed death. A lot of it.
The wilderness offered only the occasional beast. A city, however... a city was different.
Cities were places of conflict. People lived and died every day. There were slums riddled with disease, alleys where cutthroats preyed on the weak, and arenas where cultivators due toled for fame and fortune. A city was a graveyard in motion, a tomb teeming with life. For someone who fed on death, it was the ultimate hunting ground.
On the third day, he stood upon a high ridge and saw it. Silver-Mist City. It lay sprawled across a wide plain, a vast collection of buildings surrounded by a high stone wall. A river snaked beside it, shimmering under the morning sun, and the faint mist that gave the city its name still clung to the fields outside its walls.
It was the largest gathering of people he had ever seen. It was terrifying. It was beautiful.
He looked down at his worn hemp clothes and his thin, grimy frame. He was a beggar boy from a forgotten village. But within him was a power that the proud cultivators in their fine robes could never comprehend. They absorbed the faint warmth of the living world. He commanded the potent echo of the dead.
A cold, determined light shone in Wei An's eyes. He would enter that city. He would find a way to survive, to grow stronger. He would become a ghost in the crowds, a scavenger in the shadows, feeding on the endless cycle of life and death.
The Blackwood Range was his cradle. Silver-Mist City would be his training ground. He took a deep breath, the air tasting of distant smoke and civilization, and began his descent.