Chapter 218 — Star Severing

My Dao to Eternity

Chapter 218 — Star Severing

"Our accounts are recorded," he said, his voice flat and even behind the mask.

His body dissolved into a dark blur edged with silver before Jian Suyao's trembling hand could force out a second strike. Li Fan merged into the broken terrain and returning fog, his movement too fast for anyone remaining in the clearing to track. Within a single breath, he had disappeared completely.

Jian Suyao's sword tip dropped toward the churned earth. His breathing was ragged, and his eyes remained fixed upon the empty ground where his opponent had stood moments earlier.

"What a monster," he said quietly to no one capable of answering. "Who is he?"

Li Fan put six miles between himself and the marsh before his legs began to weaken. The tension of the battle left his body, leaving exhaustion and a deep ache throughout his overstrained meridians. He found a narrow gap between two collapsed boulders, entered the shadows, and hurriedly arranged a concealment formation around the space. His hands trembled more than he wanted.

Only after the formation settled did he allow himself to stop moving.

He sat with his back against the cold stone, breathing heavily. The taste of blood remained faintly at the back of his throat. He closed his eyes and began the long, careful process of recovering his body.

Li Fan remained in the dark gap between the two collapsed boulders for most of the day before his hands stopped trembling.

The concealment formation he had established in his exhaustion continued to hold, though its power was limited, and no pursuer found him through it. He spent the first several hours doing nothing beyond breathing and regulating his qi. His overstrained meridians gradually settled into a steadier rhythm, while Returning Marrow vitality worked through the deep internal injuries left by the reflected force of the collision. Only after his qi recovered beyond half its full reserve did he allow himself to examine anything beyond immediate survival.

The thought that had arisen during the confrontation in the marsh returned to him. Two Great Sects had arrived at his exact location within the same hour. The matter required a proper examination.

He drew everything currently in his storage ring onto the flat stone before him and inspected each item in order rather than relying upon memory. The materials from the grove. The jade fragments from the ape. The seeds from the extinct garden. The section of formation-marked hide taken from the direwolf. Then, separate from the rest, the storage pouches taken from the six Nine Rivers disciples in the Spiritual Herb cavern weeks earlier, the four surrendered at the mine, and several others taken during his journey without further thought after transferring their contents into his own storage ring.

He picked up the first Nine Rivers pouch and examined it properly for the first time. His fingers moved slowly along the embroidered silk lining. After several breaths, he found a thread finer than a strand of hair woven directly into the seam. It carried an extremely faint resonance, so weak that ordinary divine sense would have overlooked it.

An ancestral tracking mark. Its exact nature was uncertain, but its purpose was clear enough.

He remained silent for a long moment. He had taken storage pouches from cultivators he had killed or defeated throughout the past several weeks and had transferred their contents into his own storage ring without considering that the pouches themselves could carry a mark separate from everything stored inside them. Six pouches from the Nine Rivers cavern. Four from the mine, which he confirmed after careful examination carried no such marking. Loose cultivators rarely possessed the resources required for a Great Sect to place tracking marks within ordinary belongings. Several others were clean, while one or two required further examination.

As he held the marked thread between two fingers, he understood that he had probably carried the mark through every mile of travel since the battle in the cavern. It had followed him through the grove, the direwolf's canyon, and the stone guardian's forest. Anyone capable of detecting such a faint resonance could have followed his movements. Jian Suyao's arrival now had a clearer explanation. He had not merely heard a rumor about a masked cultivator. Something had guided him to that precise clearing, at that precise time, just as it had brought the Nine Rivers cultivators there.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting NovelPhoenix for this novel and more.

Li Fan did not waste time dwelling on his mistake. He examined every pouch methodically, removing the contents and transferring anything useful into his own storage ring. Spirit stones. Several minor talismans. Two jade slips containing ordinary sect correspondence, useless to him but harmless enough to retain. The pouches themselves, including the six confirmed carriers, were placed together at the edge of the boulders.

He burned them there, feeding the fire with dry branches until the silk was reduced to ash and the remaining resonance disappeared. He watched the flames for a while, considering the consequence of the discovery.

From this point forward, every storage pouch he obtained would be examined before entering his storage ring. Its contents would be removed and inspected individually. The pouch itself would be discarded or burned unless he could establish with certainty that it carried no mark capable of revealing his position. He had once made a living refining artifacts, regardless of how many years had passed since he had practiced that craft openly. If he required a container, weapon, or other artifact, he could refine one himself from materials he had examined personally.

The fire burned down to embers as darkness settled over the hollow between the boulders. Li Fan sat against the cold stone and extended his divine sense through the surrounding wilderness in a slow, careful sweep. For the first time since leaving the marsh, he detected no trace of pursuit within its range.

He remained in the hollow for another two days, allowing his body to recover properly rather than relying upon the minimum recovery required for movement. He ate sparingly from his remaining provisions and circulated his qi until the last of the bruising along his arms faded. When he finally rose and stepped into the forest, he carried less than before the battle and possessed a clearer understanding of the danger surrounding him.

He checked the formation current against the terrain ahead. It remained steady and continued toward the west. Li Fan followed it.

News of the battle in the marsh spread farther than Li Fan expected, and it traveled faster than he preferred.

He first heard the rumors three weeks after leaving the boulders where he had burned the tracking pouches. He was resting inside the hollow trunk of a fallen tree when two loose cultivators established a small fire less than fifty paces away. He had not intended to listen. Their conversation was simply close enough that hearing it required no effort.

The fire cast a small circle of orange light across the clearing. Li Fan watched the flames through a gap in the rotten bark while keeping his breathing steady. The two men carried dried meat and trail dust upon their clothing, and their light packs suggested that they traveled independently rather than belonging to a sect.

"Six Nine Rivers disciples killed in a single clearing," the older cultivator said while placing a dry branch into the flames. "Then the Falling Star party arrived and lost two more. Jian Suyao himself was injured in front of witnesses. Do you understand what that means?"

"It means someone is strong enough to fight the Great Sects," the younger cultivator replied. His voice contained more caution than admiration.

"It means the Great Sects can no longer ignore him," the older cultivator said. "A masked stranger with no sect banner killed cultivators from two Great Sects, and no one obtained a clear look at his face. My cousin's caravan passed within a mile of the marsh three days later. The basin was still filled with the smell of scorched stone and blood."

The younger cultivator stirred the fire and remained silent for several breaths. "They have given him a name. I heard it from a trader who came from the eastern camp."

"Xiaoyao," the older cultivator said. "Unrestrained. It suits the stories. No sect. No banner. No concern for offending people who would frighten ordinary cultivators."

Li Fan remained motionless within the hollow tree and listened as two strangers discussed the battle he had just survived.

The wood against his back had softened from years of decay, and its damp scent mixed with the smoke drifting through the clearing. A small beetle crossed the back of his hand. He allowed it to continue without moving.

He considered the name without pride or discomfort. Xiaoyao. Until now, he had given little thought to how the cultivation world might interpret his actions. The people who had witnessed the aftermath knew only fragments. Others would receive those fragments through travelers and sect disciples, then form their own accounts from incomplete information.

The two cultivators continued speaking, and their stories became increasingly exaggerated. One claimed the masked cultivator had fought twenty people rather than eleven. Another claimed he had left without a single wound. A third claimed that he had spoken grand words over the fallen before disappearing into the fog. Li Fan knew those accounts were false, but he allowed them to pass without correction. Correcting them would have required revealing his presence.

He waited until the fire had burned low and the two travelers had fallen asleep. Then he quietly left the fallen tree and continued west along the formation current at the same unhurried pace he had maintained since entering the Secret Realm.