The ruins did not welcome visitors.
They tolerated them.
Alaric felt it the moment he moved again—a subtle resistance layered into the land itself. Not pressure. Not rejection. More like hesitation, as if the ground remembered too many failed paths and no longer trusted those who walked upon it.
He walked anyway.
His pace was slower now, deliberate. Each step was measured against the faint strain still lingering in his meridians. The encounter earlier had left marks—not visible ones, but reminders etched into circulation and breath.
This foundation demanded restraint.
He honored it.
As the terrain shifted from collapsed structures to jagged stone ridges, the air changed. The metallic tang faded, replaced by something sharper. Wilder.
A beast's domain.
Alaric stopped.
Ahead, claw marks gouged deep into stone, fresh enough that dust still clung to their edges. Whatever had passed through here was not mindless—it had claimed territory.
He adjusted his path slightly, circling the marks rather than crossing them.
A ripple passed through the air.
Alaric's eyes narrowed.
Someone else was here.
Not close.
But not far enough.
He turned his head just as a figure appeared atop a fractured spire—robes dark, posture relaxed, aura carefully restrained.
A scout.
Sect-trained.
The man's gaze swept the ruins with practiced efficiency before settling—briefly—on Alaric.
Their eyes met.
The scout's expression flickered.
Only for an instant.
But it was enough.
Alaric felt it then—a thin thread of observation brushing against him. Not Heaven. Not pressure.
Intent.
Controlled.
Curious.
The scout descended lightly, boots touching stone without sound. His aura remained calm, well-cultivated, far more refined than the scavengers from before.
"Strange place to wander," the man said casually.
Alaric did not answer immediately.
He observed.
The scout's circulation was clean. Stable. Corrected properly. He followed Heaven's accepted diagrams closely—but not blindly.
Competent.
"Is it?" Alaric replied.
The scout smiled faintly. "Most who come here don't return."
Alaric met his gaze evenly. "Most who return didn't belong here."
The scout studied him more carefully now.
"You came from the Broken Foundation," he said, not asking.
"Yes."
The smile thinned. "You shouldn't have survived."
Alaric tilted his head. "And yet."
Silence stretched.
The scout circled slowly, eyes sharp, never fully turning his back. "You interfered with some of our people."
"They interfered with me," Alaric corrected.
The scout chuckled softly. "Fair enough."
He stopped a few paces away.
"You didn't cripple them," he said. "Not completely."
"No," Alaric agreed. "I stopped them."
The scout's eyes gleamed with interest.
"That's the strange part."
He glanced around, then back at Alaric. "You have no visible cultivation. No stable foundation. And yet you understood where to touch them."
Alaric said nothing.
Some truths did not benefit from explanation.
After a moment, the scout straightened.
"I'll report what I saw," he said plainly. "Whether you like it or not."
Alaric nodded. "I assumed you would."
The scout paused, then smiled again—this time with something like respect.
"Good. Then you're not naive."
He turned to leave.
After a few steps, he stopped.
"One more thing," he said without turning. "If you value staying unregistered… avoid the eastern ridges."
"Why?" Alaric asked.
The scout hesitated. "Because the beasts there have started moving."
He leapt away, disappearing among the ruins.
Silence returned.
Alaric exhaled slowly.
So the world had begun to look.
Not Heaven.
Not yet.
But its instruments.
He turned his attention inward.
The foundation responded sluggishly, still strained. The encounter had been short, but presence alone carried weight. His body could not afford many more disruptions without rest.
He needed a place to settle.
A low growl echoed through the ruins.
Alaric turned just as a shadow emerged from behind a toppled wall—a beast, lean and scarred, eyes glowing faintly as it stepped into the open.
Its aura was feral. Unstable. But powerful.
A scavenger like him.
The beast lowered its head, claws scraping stone.
Alaric remained still.
Slowly, he shifted his stance—not threatening, not submissive.
Balanced.
The beast hesitated.
Its instincts screamed at it to attack.
But something in Alaric unsettled it.
Not strength.
Not dominance.
Absence.
As if the path before it did not exist in any pattern it understood.
After a long moment, the beast snorted and backed away, retreating into the shadows.
Alaric watched until it vanished.
"Even beasts feel it," he murmured.
He moved on.
Behind him, far beyond the ruins, a sect elder closed a report and frowned.
And somewhere deeper within the world's structure, a line had been drawn.
Faint.
Unlabeled.
But real.
An unregistered existence had begun to take shape.