The stone corridor was damp, lit by green fire torches that cast dancing shadows. Han Fei ran, his lungs burning, his heart beating so hard he thought it would explode.
The Lower Peak Dungeons.
The original body's memories unfolded like a mental map. There were two viable escape routes from here:
The Corpse Chute: a vertical shaft where they threw the dead. It led to the outer forest, but was filled with carrion beasts and toxic miasma.
The Outer Disciples' Dormitories: he could try to blend in with the crowd, but if Li raised the alarm, they'd search door to door.
The Chute. Without hesitation.
He heard heavy footsteps running toward his position from the end of the corridor. Guards alerted by the scream. Deaconess Li was coming from behind, her Level 5 aura pressing the air like a storm about to break.
Han Fei turned a corner and saw the hole: a dark circle in the stone floor, three meters wide. The stench hit like a physical hammer: rotting flesh, excrement, and rancid death. From the depths rose humid heat and the sound of things grinding bones.
Without hesitation, he threw himself into the void.
The fall lasted three eternal seconds. The wind whistled in his ears before he hit the "cushion."
SPLAT.
He landed on an unstable mountain of decomposing bodies. It was soft, slippery, and disgusting. He sank into the mass of cold limbs and bloated torsos, using them as visual and olfactory shield just as he'd planned.
Above, at the mouth of the shaft, he saw Deaconess Li's silhouette lean out. A red light glowed in her hand, illuminating the descent, but Han Fei was buried under the rot.
Suddenly, he felt something. His Blood Pearl vibrated violently inside his chest. This place was saturated with stagnant blood and Death Qi. For the Pearl, this was a feast.
Without Han Fei asking, a dim reddish sphere of light surrounded him, repelling the filth. The greenish miasma floating in the shaft was absorbed, entering his chest. The Pearl filtered it and converted it into a warm stream of pure Qi, albeit slightly cold and of Yin nature.
His crippled, weak body roared with pleasure at the injection of clean energy.
What the hell...?
Han Fei accessed his inner consciousness for the first time. He felt a connection with the Pearl. There was a void inside, a dimensional space of approximately one cubic meter, currently empty. Perfect for storing objects or preserving herbs.
It reminds me of a legendary artifact from a famous cultivation novel I read in my past life—a pearl that could refine anything. But this version seems darker... it feeds on blood and impurities instead of just poison.
The miasma kept entering his body, and the Pearl processed it tirelessly. Han Fei felt his meridians, which had been on the verge of collapse, filling with energy. The pain diminished. His broken ribs began to heal.
But most importantly: he felt pressure in his Dantian. Level 1 of Qi Condensation was saturated. He was on the verge of a breakthrough.
Above, he heard Deaconess Li's frustrated voice:
"He vanished! Impossible! The blood trail ends here!"
Then, the sound of her moving away. She was searching in another direction.
Han Fei crawled toward the edge of the shaft, where the forest began. It was the Black Wind Forest. The trees were twisted, with metallic bark. In the distance, he heard the howls of Wind Wolves, Level 2 beasts.
On the cliff, he saw torches moving. They'd sent patrols to surround the forest.
Shit. I can't run like this. I need to advance.
He hid in the cavity of a giant root of a Black Iron Tree, just a few meters from the forest's edge. The stench of the dump still clung to his skin, camouflaging his human scent.
He closed his eyes. Time was gold.
The Blood Pearl spun in his Dantian. It wasn't a smooth current; it was a drill. He felt his atrophied meridians stretching violently. The refined miasma Qi flooded his body, burning the black impurities that emerged through his pores like oily sweat.
CRACK.
His bones cracked as they realigned. The energy inside him sought to break through the barrier of the First Level.
In the distance, he saw the torchlight descend into the shaft. Sharp voices shouted:
"Blood trail here! The little bastard survived the fall!"
The patrols were entering the forest.
No time. Either I advance now, or they capture me.
Han Fei channeled all the accumulated Qi toward the invisible barrier separating Level 1 from Level 2. He pushed with his will, with his desperation, with his survival instinct.
The barrier resisted. Then yielded.
BOOM!
The breakthrough was explosive. His body expelled a wave of dirty air that shook the nearby trees and raised a cloud of dust. He felt lighter, his muscles charged with the strength of a spiritual ox.
But the blast had been like lighting a flare in the night.
"THERE HE IS!" shouted a hoarse voice to his right. "Damn bastard, he used the miasma to advance! Cut off his legs!"
Three silhouettes leaped from the trees. Outer disciples of Level 3, dressed in gray, armed with crossbows and broad swords.
Han Fei broke into a run. Thanks to Level 2, his feet barely touched the ground. The wind whistled in his ears, but he heard the characteristic hum of crossbow bolts cutting through the air behind him.
A fast, quadrupedal shadow flanked him on the left: a Wind Wolf, the sect's pet, drooling as it tried to cut off his path.
Calculating trajectories. Wolf's relative speed: 40 km/h. My current speed: 35 km/h. Can't let it escape.
The wolf leaped toward his jugular from the left flank.
Han Fei acted on pure instinct. Just as the beast was airborne, he lunged forward, using its head as a springboard. The wolf bit empty air and crashed into its own masters, creating chaos of growls and curses.
But he didn't escape unscathed. An arrow grazed his left arm, opening a deep furrow in the muscle. Blood dripped constantly onto the dry leaves, leaving an olfactory trail that any spiritual beast could follow for kilometers.
Damn it.
He ran until his lungs burned like embers. The forest grew denser and quieter. He'd lost his pursuers visually, but the price was high.
His Blood Pearl vibrated inside him, restless. It didn't like losing blood; it wanted him to reabsorb it or find a source to replenish it.
He stopped for a second, leaning against a tree covered with blue moss.
The original body's memories unfolded again. He was near the "Phantom Mist Valley." In the original novel, there was a hidden cave behind a dry waterfall that the protagonist had used to hide, protected by a basic illusion formation.
If I can get there...
The wolves' howls resumed, more organized. They were tracking his blood.
Han Fei walked hastily, using a piece of cloth from his robe to bandage the wound while moving. He needed to reach the river. Water would eliminate his olfactory trail.
He found the Shadow River. The water was colder than ice, charged with Yin energy that bit to the bone. As he submerged, the wound on his arm burned like white fire, but he gritted his teeth and channeled his newly acquired Qi to maintain his body temperature.
He saw his bloodied piece of cloth float downstream, catching on a distant branch. A second later, three shadows with glowing eyes—the Wolves—broke through the undergrowth on the shore. They sniffed the air, growled, and... turned toward the cloth.
The decoy worked.
He swam against the current, hugging the rocky bed, until he reached the base of the "Dry Waterfall" cliff. It was a wall of black rock, smooth and damp. According to the novel, the entrance was a crack invisible to the naked eye, hidden by a low-level illusion that distorted light.
He was trembling. His Qi was depleting rapidly fighting the cold. He needed to find that crack now or the cold would kill him before the wolves.
Think. Think like a scientist. A basic optical illusion works by refracting light. There should be a distortion in the air, like heat over asphalt.
He pressed against the stone, searching with his hands, feeling every irregularity. The icy water lapped at his boots. His vision blurred from the effort.
And then... his hand sank into the solid rock as if it were smoke.
There it is!
A sensation of vertigo invaded him. He took a step forward, falling to his knees on dry, dusty ground.
The sound of the river disappeared instantly, replaced by sepulchral silence.