Evening settled over Flame Phoenix City like a heavy quilt. Marcus came out of his slumber with a sharp knock on the door. His body jolted upright. His feet hit the wooden floor with a dull thump that echoed . His heart kicked once, hard, before settling. He moved toward the door on instinct, legs still heavy from sleep and last night's exhaustion. He twisted the knob and pulled.
An old butler stood there. His back remained straight despite the years carved into his face. He bowed low the moment their eyes met. The gesture was practiced and precise.
"Sir. Lady Sarah ordered me to deliver this to you."
A storage pouch rested on the butler's open palms. It was plain black silk embroidered with faint silver threads. Marcus took it. He brushed his spiritual qi across the surface and scanned the contents.
His breath caught.
Inside lay every single part he had sketched that morning. They were perfectly machined. Their edges were sharp enough to draw blood from light alone. The alloy gleamed under qi sense like liquid moonlight. He had handed Sarah nothing more than rough schematics on cheap paper at dawn. Now, by evening, the blacksmith had already forged them all.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. A quiet laugh escaped him, half disbelief and half awe.
"This world…" he murmured. "Its industrial capacity rivals Earth. Maybe it surpasses it."
He looked up. The butler waited patiently with eyes lowered.
Marcus nodded once.
The old man bowed again.
"Sir. If you are crafting now, you may follow me to the secure room."
Marcus studied him for a heartbeat. He noted the butler's posture, the calm authority in his voice, and the way he spoke of Sarah's orders like sacred law. This man was more than a servant. He was family, or as close as blood could get without sharing it.
"Show me the way," Marcus said.
Footsteps echoed in the narrow stairway as they descended. Stone walls swallowed sound after the first flight. Cool air rose to meet them. After two full floors underground, the butler turned into a shadowed alleyway. At the end stood a massive door. Black iron banded with silver array lines pulsed faintly like veins under skin.
The butler produced a jade slip from his sleeve. He placed it into a carved mould at chest height. The door answered immediately. Arrays shimmered awake with soft blue light racing along every rune. Deep mechanical gears groaned somewhere behind the stone. The ground vibrated under Marcus's feet. Mild tremors rolled up through his soles. The door parted with a slow, heavy sigh.
Bright light spilled out.
Marcus squinted against it. He stepped inside after the butler. His eyes adjusted slowly. The room opened into a vast underground workshop. The high ceiling was lost in shadow. Rows of workbenches stretched into the distance. Damaged weapons lay in neat ranks on racks: broken swords, cracked shields, scorched array plates. Unknown instruments hummed quietly. Qi lanterns floated overhead and bathed everything in steady white-gold light.
A dozen cultivators, men and women, bent over benches. They remained focused and silent. Hammers rang in controlled rhythm. Carving knives scraped metal. Sparks flew in tiny arcs. No one looked up. No one spoke. They existed in their own worlds of concentration.
The butler stopped. He bowed once more and handed Marcus another jade slip.
"This will activate the defensive array in your section," he said quietly. "Just in case."
Marcus took it and nodded thanks.
The butler retreated. Gears groaned again behind him. The door sealed shut with a final heavy clunk.
Marcus walked to the assigned workbench. He set down the pouch and took out the parts one by one. He laid them in careful order. Then he took the carving knife. Its edge caught the light like a promise.
He began.
He started with the explosion array. The blade scraped metal with a sharp, grating whine that set his teeth on edge. Shavings curled away like silver ribbon. Qi flickered at each rune's completion with tiny sparks that smelled faintly of ozone. Next came the qi gathering array, then qi storage, then the protective fail-safe. Each stroke grew more precise than the last. His hand found rhythm. The uncomfortable screech of metal on metal faded into background noise and became almost meditative.
Hours passed.
Midnight came. Not a single cultivator left their bench. Hammers still rang. Knives still scraped. Marcus welcomed the silence and the shared focus. No one asked questions. No one stared. They simply worked side by side, strangers bound by craft.
He liked it here.
It felt better than being alone.
It felt better than the alternative waiting upstairs.
Sarah had promised punishment tonight. Her whisper still echoed in his ear, warm, wet, and merciless. Part of him craved it: the ache, the surrender. But another part, deeper and quieter, was exhausted. He felt bored of the same cycle. He missed the others, the women back in Tianluo City. Not Xue Lian. Never her. But the rest. Their laughter. Their warmth. Their softness that did not always demand to break him.
And yet…
Even thinking of Xue Lian sent heat curling low in his belly. Those thick thighs. That dripping, greedy pussy. The way she rode him until he forgot his own name. He shook his head sharply and cursed under his breath.
"Why does my cock harden just thinking about her?"
He forced his mind back to the workbench. He took a short meditation. Qi circulated and calmed the fire in his blood. Then he continued carving.
Hours bled into one another.
Sarah never called for him.
Relief washed through him, quiet and grateful. At least tonight he had escaped the promised punishment.
Inside his head the dark voice stirred. It wanted to warn him. It wanted to say something cruel about tempting fate. Then it smiled instead with a slow, sinister curl.
Let him suffer. It will be more enjoyable later.
Poor naive Marcus. He did not know that by making her wait, he was digging his own grave.
Meanwhile in the city lord's mansion.
Huo Tianyang stood in the main hall. A red aura flickered around him like dying coals. His head guard knelt before him with face pressed to cracked marble. The city lord's foot came down again. The floor shattered under the stomp. Veins bulged thick on his forehead. His eyes burned redder than flame.
He had just learned of the Silence Lotus Yin Sect's involvement.
"You had them," he snarled. "You had them cornered. And you let them slip away."
The guard trembled and said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Huo Tianyang's past humiliation rose like bile in his throat. Elder Mei Lingxue's face flashed behind his eyes. He remembered the way she had beaten him black and blue years ago and left him broken on the ground while her disciples laughed. He had buried that memory deep and tried to forget. Now it tore open again, fresh and raw.
He stomped once more. Marble spiderwebbed outward.
"Someone inside this city helped them escape," he growled. "We had the perfect chance. And we lost it."
Guards and captains lined the walls and shook. Every second felt like a blade hovering over their necks. They waited for the snap, for the order to lose their heads.
After long minutes Huo Tianyang calmed, barely.
"What about the other one?" he asked.
The head guard bowed deeper and presented another report.
The masked man. Ghost-like movement skill. He vanished into shadows. They had investigated mask shops. Only one in the south district sold this particular design recently. Twelve customers. Lucky for them the shop used a recorder jade slip outside. Portraits followed: seven men and five women.
If Marcus had seen his own face staring up from that report, he would have started digging a tunnel with his bare hands.
Huo Tianyang looked at the portraits. His anger cooled to cold purpose.
"Capture and interrogate every suspect on this list."
The order echoed in the hall.