The carriage came to a halt at dusk.
Its wheels rolled over the last patch of hardened earth before sinking into loose sand. The driver lifted the curtain and pointed ahead, where the dying light stained the desert in dark gold.
"This is as far as I go," he said. "Half a mile ahead is the outer edge of the Phantom Sea Sandbank. Your contact should be waiting there—if she's still alive."
The last words were tossed out lightly, but they lodged like a thorn.
Ji Bochuan stepped down. His boots sank into the sand.
Before him stretched a desolate tidal flat. Shards of broken shells glimmered pale and lifeless across the ground, remnants left behind by the retreating sea. Far away, the sun was slipping beneath the horizon, its final glow setting the endless dunes ablaze in crimson gold. The sand ridges rose and fell like frozen waves, stretching to the very edge of sight.
The air was thick with salt from the sea wind—and beneath it, something else. Sweet. Cloying.
Phantom pollen.
A hallmark of the Phantom Sea Sandbank. Invisible motes carried on the wind from deeper within the dunes. Breathe too much of it in, and the mind betrays itself—showing you what you crave most, or fear most, until you wander willingly into the quicksand and vanish.
Ji Bochuan pulled out a thin stick of ash-gray incense.
Phantom-Calming Incense.
He struck a spark. The incense burned, releasing a straight thread of blue smoke that didn't disperse upward, but instead curled around his body as if alive, forming a faint protective veil. The sweetness in the air receded instantly. The dull pressure behind his eyes lifted.
Worth every coin, he thought. Han Tie hadn't cut corners this time.
He moved forward across the flats. The sand beneath his feet was wet and soft; every step left a deep imprint. Yet when he glanced back after only a dozen paces, those footprints were already being swallowed—drawn down slowly, inexorably, by the shifting sand.
Half a mile took nearly fifteen minutes.
He tested every step with his toe before committing his weight.
Ahead, a jagged black reef jutted from the sand like a fang.
Someone sat atop it.
A woman—early twenties, lean and sharp. She wore tight dark-blue leather armor, scored with several old cuts. In her hands, she polished a pair of twin daggers shaped for underwater combat, their blades glowing faintly blue with poison. At the sound of footsteps, she looked up. Her gaze was hawk-sharp even in the fading light.
"Ji Bochuan?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Then move." She leapt down from the rock, landing without kicking up a grain of sand. "Name's Blue Scorpion. Han Tie sent me. We're short on time—talk while walking."
She turned and strode straight into the sandbank.
Her pace was fast, but deliberate. Each step landed on patches of darker, denser sand—subtle markers that formed a winding path only visible to the trained eye.
Ji Bochuan followed at a distance of three steps, memorizing her footwork. This wasn't brute speed—it was experience. One misstep here could mean death.
"The Phantom Sea has three layers," Blue Scorpion said quietly. "The outer zone is the Quicksand Belt. Looks solid. It's not. Beneath it are undercurrents like open mouths. The middle layer is the Mirage Zone. Dunes move on their own. False horizons. You lose direction, you're done."
She paused briefly.
"The inner zone—the Core—I've never entered. Those who have either came back broken… or didn't come back at all. Supposedly there are ancient ruins there. That's why the Yan Clan sealed it off. Arrays everywhere. Trespassers don't get warnings."
"What is the Yan Clan looking for?" Ji asked.
"No idea." She shook her head. "But it's not just sand-gold. They sent two full guard units and hired three formation masters. They've been inside seven days now. Yesterday, a freelance miner saw them carry out a body. Wrapped in white cloth—but the hand sticking out…"
Her jaw tightened.
"Shriveled. Black blood under the nails."
Ji Bochuan felt a familiar chill. It reminded him of the Blood-Scourge sealed in the Coldwater Crystal—that same rotten, clinging cold.
They pressed deeper.
The sand turned brighter, reflecting the last of the light like molten metal. The air warped, as if viewed through heat haze. Distant dunes blurred and trembled.
Ji suddenly realized his footprints were gone.
Not buried.
Erased.
The sand itself was flowing, smoothing away all traces.
This place devoured marks. And people.
"We're at the Mirage Zone," Blue Scorpion said, stopping. She pulled out a small bronze compass engraved with trigrams. She bit her finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the needle.
It spun wildly—then shuddered, pointing northwest.
"This way. Stay close."
She lit another calming incense, its smoke enveloping them both, and moved forward.
The dunes shifted as they walked. Some took the shape of crouching beasts. Others twisted into half-formed human silhouettes. Ji kept his eyes on her back, refusing to look directly.
Still, his peripheral vision betrayed him.
To his left—his childhood courtyard in Qingyan Town. Morning glory vines blooming along the fence. His younger brother Ji Boyan sat on a stone bench, smiling, waving.
To his right—his second uncle, Ji Yunche. A flash of blue robes. A backward glance. Complicated eyes.
Illusions.
Ji inhaled slowly. The incense steadied him. In his sea of consciousness, the flame of his inner lantern flickered—warm, unwavering—burning away the noise.
Yet the feeling of being watched grew stronger.
As if countless eyes lay hidden in every grain of sand.
"Sand Wyrms," Blue Scorpion whispered. "Native beasts. They hunt the lost. No eyes—only heat and emotion. Fear raises your temperature. Makes you loud."
The ground ahead bulged.
Silently.
A thick yellow Sand Wyrm burst free, its ringed body shedding sand as it lunged. Its circular maw yawned wide, rows of teeth spiraling inward into darkness.
It struck straight for her.
Blue Scorpion slid forward instead of back. Her feet carved a bloom of sand as both daggers flashed, plunging into the soft nerve nodes flanking the creature's mouth. The wyrm shrieked and thrashed, spraying foul slime.
"Run!"
She didn't look back.
Ji followed.
Behind them, more dunes erupted. Not one. Several.
They sprinted through shifting corridors, Blue Scorpion navigating paths that barely existed. Ji extended his perception outward, his inner lantern sensing vibrations beneath the sand.
"Left!"
A second wyrm exploded upward. Ji twisted aside just in time, its maw grazing his sleeve. He flicked three talismans into the air.
"Detonate."
Fire bloomed.
The blast didn't pierce its armor—but it staggered the beast long enough.
They regrouped—two steps apart.
"Nice technique," she said between breaths. "But fire here is a beacon. Heat draws them."
As if summoned, a deep rumble rolled through the sand.
Too many.
"We can't go further," she said grimly. "The meeting point's at the edge of the Core—but a swarm now would kill even late-stage cultivators."
Ji looked ahead.
Black stone pillars rose in the distance. Between them, cold blue-white light pulsed—formation arrays. Sometimes tinged with red.
Yan Clan… or worse.
"They never meant to trade," Blue Scorpion said. "The Sandbank's perfect for clean kills. Toss the body into the dunes. By morning, nothing's left."
Ji already knew.
Some traps must be entered to be understood.
Some games must be played to be broken.
He drew out a thin beast-skin scroll—the Sandflow Burrowing Art.
"I need thirty minutes," he said calmly. "Guard me. After that, you're free to leave."
She stared. "Here? At night?"
"Is there a safer choice?"
Silence.
She scattered black pellets around them. "Repellent. Buys time. Thirty minutes. Not a breath more."
Ji sat within a shallow sand hollow and lit his final incense.
The technique unfolded in his mind—not brute force, but resonance. Matching the vibration of sand itself.
Others would struggle.
He did not.
The lantern within him illuminated every fluctuation, every flaw. Even errors in the copied technique revealed themselves and corrected under its light.
Fifteen minutes.
He formed seals—simpler, sharper.
Golden light rippled across his skin.
Harmony.
When he rose, his presence blended seamlessly with the desert.
"You learned it?" Blue Scorpion whispered. "In half an hour?"
"Barely usable."
He paid her. Warned Han Tie.
Then turned toward the Core.
Later, beneath blackened skies, he found the stone pillars.
And the ambush beneath them.
Four cultivators. Hidden weapons. A watcher.
A kill box.
Ji Bochuan did not retreat.
He waited.
When blood-scorched beads stirred the sand, madness followed.
Wyrms. Screams. Betrayal.
And as chaos consumed the hunters—
He sank beneath the sand.
Toward the most dangerous place of all.
Because only in deadliest waters does a new path open.
A true hunter doesn't prepare one trap.
He lets his prey build a death maze—
then walks out through another door.