Chapter 9:
"Worse! The Supreme Immortal Body Refinement Art… it requires a constant, massive influx of spiritual energy to maintain the new body! If you don't find a new, powerful source of Qi within the next few hours, your new meridians will collapse, and the backlash will not only shatter your foundation but kill you instantly! We are out of time, Liyun! You are dying!"
The Emperor's frantic warning slammed into Ye-Liyun's mind, cutting through the adrenaline of his escape. He skidded to a halt, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his newly forged ribs. He looked around the dense, ordinary forest—no spiritual herbs, no hidden springs, only trees and dirt. He was a fugitive, broke, and now facing a ticking clock that would end his life before his journey even began.
"How long, Emperor? Be precise!" Ye-Liyun demanded, his voice a mental shout, his hands instinctively clutching the wooden ring.
"Two hours! Maybe less! The Crimson Sun Grass was a volatile, high-burst fuel, not a steady source! We must reach Azure Cloud City! It is the only place with enough concentrated spiritual energy to sustain you temporarily!"
Ye-Liyun pushed his body to its absolute limit, sprinting toward the city gates. The icy tremor in his core was back, a cold, sharp warning that the furnace was cooling. He burst out of the forest and onto the main road, pulling his hood low to blend into the stream of merchants.
He found the Spiritual Stone Exchange Market—a massive, open-air plaza where the air visibly shimmered with concentrated spiritual energy. He dropped to his knees in the center and aggressively began to absorb the ambient Qi, momentarily halting the collapse.
A large, burly man in the robes of a mid-level guard, radiating the power of the Qi Condensation Realm, stepped forward, his face red with anger.
"Boy! What do you think you are doing?! You are disrupting the flow of Qi! Get out of here before I break your legs!"
"Liyun! You don't fight him! You need money! Look around! Find a flaw! Find a way to make a quick fortune!"
Ye-Liyun quickly scanned the market, his eyes darting over the stalls. He heard a vendor loudly warning a customer about a "shady dealer in the corner."
"Don't buy from that old snake, Old Man Jin!" the vendor shouted. "He'll sell you dirt for spiritual stones! He's packing up now, thank the heavens!"
"There! The dark corner! The old man packing up his wares! He has a faint, complex spiritual signature—he deals in high-value, often stolen, goods! That's our man! Old Man Jin!" the Emperor confirmed.
Ye-Liyun dodged the guard's grab, his new body reacting with lightning speed. He sprinted to the dark corner where Old Man Jin, a wizened merchant, was packing up his wares. He slammed the dull, grey Void Stone onto the counter, his voice ragged. "Old Man Jin! I have a Void Stone! I need a thousand low-grade spiritual stones! Now!"
Old Man Jin, whose eyes missed nothing, picked up the stone. He rubbed the surface, his expression neutral, but the faint tremor in his hand betrayed his excitement. He knew exactly what the stone was—a priceless Array catalyst.
"A Void Stone?" Old Man Jin scoffed, his voice smooth and dismissive. "Boy, this is just a piece of dull granite. Worthless. And a thousand low-grade stones? Are you mad?"
"Liyun! He's lying! It's worth ten thousand stones! But we can't bargain! You're collapsing!" the Emperor screamed, his mental voice frantic.
Ye-Liyun felt a sudden, sharp, agonizing pain—a meridian had just torn. He gasped, clutching his chest, his knees buckling slightly. He knew he had seconds, not minutes. The pain was so intense that a thin sheen of cold sweat instantly covered his face.
Old Man Jin's eyes narrowed, seeing the physical collapse. The boy wasn't mad; he was dying. The stone was real.
"Look at you, boy," the merchant said, his voice dropping to a smooth, predatory whisper. "You're bleeding internally. You need a spiritual infusion, not a negotiation. I can give you five hundred low-grade stones. That's a fair price for a piece of granite to a dying boy. Take it, or collapse on my counter."
"No! Liyun! Don't take it! It's a massive loss! You'll regret this!" the Emperor pleaded.
Ye-Liyun ignored the Emperor. He looked Old Man Jin straight in the eye, his own eyes burning with a cold, desperate resolve. He had to live.
"Four hundred," Ye-Liyun choked out, his voice raw with pain, pushing the stone slightly toward the merchant. "Four hundred low-grade spiritual stones. And you give me a healing pill. A low-grade one. The stones are for the Art. The pill is for the pain. That is my final offer."
Old Man Jin hesitated. The boy was still negotiating, even while dying. He was either a fool or a genius. The healing pill was a negligible cost.
"Done," Old Man Jin said, his voice sharp. He tossed a heavy pouch and a small, brown pill onto the counter. "Now get out of my sight."
The exchange was made in a blur. Ye-Liyun snatched the pill and swallowed it instantly, then poured out the stones and began to absorb the Qi from them with a desperate, frantic speed. The stones were weak, but their sheer number provided the necessary burst of fuel.
The icy tremor in his core finally subsided. The collapse was averted. He had bought himself a day, maybe two, and a temporary reprieve from the pain.
He looked up, but Old Man Jin was already gone, having vanished into the crowd with the priceless Void Stone. Ye-Liyun had just sold a treasure worth ten thousand stones for four hundred and a cheap pill, but he was alive.
Ye-Liyun knew he couldn't stay. The guard from before was likely already rounding up reinforcements, and Old Man Jin would soon realize the true value of the stone he had just acquired for a pittance. The market was a trap.
He pushed himself to his feet, his new body still trembling from the near-collapse. He had to disappear into the city's labyrinthine alleys.
"Liyun! We need to move! But not just anywhere! I sense a faint, familiar spiritual signature—it's a tracker from the Ye Clan! They are already here! They are looking for the ring!"
"Where, Emperor?!"
"Near the main gate! They are sweeping the area! You must go deep into the city's slums! It's the only place chaotic enough to hide your signature!"
Ye-Liyun sprinted out of the market, his heart hammering. He ran through the crowded main streets, then veered sharply into a narrow, filthy alleyway. The air immediately grew stale, and the spiritual energy thinned, but the chaos of the slums provided cover.
He ran for ten minutes, his lungs burning, until he reached a dead end. He pressed himself against the cold, damp stone wall, trying to catch his breath.
"They are close, Liyun! Two Qi Condensation masters! They are following your residual Qi trail! They will find you in minutes!"
"I can't run anymore! I have to fight!"
"No! You are a beginner! You must hide! Look! The ground! There is a loose cobblestone! I sense a faint, hidden array beneath it! It's a temporary smuggling tunnel! Quick! Lift it!"
Ye-Liyun scrambled to the ground, his fingers digging under the heavy stone. With a grunt, he lifted it, revealing a dark, narrow hole leading down into the earth.
He didn't hesitate. He dropped into the hole, pulling the cobblestone back over the entrance just as he heard the heavy footsteps and the angry voices of the trackers echoing at the entrance of the alley.
He was in complete darkness, the air thick with the smell of sewage and damp earth. He was safe for now, but he was trapped underground, with no idea where the tunnel led.
"Liyun! You escaped! But listen! The tunnel is unstable! It's a smugglers' route! It's about to collapse! And I sense something else… something massive and powerful moving through the earth! It's a massive, spiritual beast! It's coming for you!"
Ye-Liyun heard a low, guttural growl echoing from the darkness ahead, followed by the sound of earth and stone grinding together. He was trapped in a collapsing tunnel, and a spiritual beast was hunting him.