Zhang Wuji led them through winding mountain paths, his steel-gray form moving with the effortless grace that had so thoroughly humiliated Zhao Chen moments before.
The young master followed in sullen silence, his bronze eyes fixed on the ground, while Yu Xiang walked beside him with her calculating mind already spinning, thinking how she could manipulate that old man.
The crippled Zhao Wuji shuffled behind them, his nervous energy palpable as sweat continued to bead on his forehead despite the cool mountain air.
They had been walking for perhaps an hour when the world itself seemed to convulse.
The air around them suddenly began moving—not wind, but the atmosphere itself being pulled in a specific direction with such force that Yu Xiang's carefully arranged hair whipped forward, and even Chen stumbled as his robes were tugged by the invisible current.
"What in the nine hells—" Chen began, but his words died as he looked up at the sky.
