The sky over the Wraithblood Sect was a swirling sea of black clouds, roiling with spiritual pressure and dotted with pale moons. Lightning arced soundlessly across the heavens, illuminating the fortress of flesh and bone that floated midair—an abomination built on sacrifice.
Rael stood at the edge of a long bridge of living stone, the fresh memory of the trial still pulsing in his bones. Blood crusted his wrists, and faint tremors ran through his legs—not from fear, but exhaustion.
[Temporary Trait: Blood Echo – Duration: 23:12:49]
Partial healing on successful physical strikes.
*[Inner Domain Progress – Ashborne Heart: 1.3%]
Emotional anchor: Rage, Guilt, Purpose.
The system was silent beyond that. Watching. Calculating.
The path ahead rose sharply, winding toward a gate carved into the floating fortress's underbelly. Guarding the passage stood two massive statues, each ten meters tall—one of a skeletal serpent, the other a blindfolded woman with four arms, each holding a different weapon.
Rael approached.
The serpent's stone eyes glowed red.
"State your blood right."
Rael said nothing.
Instead, he raised his left hand and pricked his finger with a sharpened bone shard. A single drop of blood fell onto the black stone beneath him.
It hissed. Sank into the surface.
A heartbeat passed.
Then the gate opened.
---
Inside, he was led through winding corridors carved from bone marrow. Each step he took was accompanied by whispers—faint voices echoing through the walls. Not illusions. Memories.
The Wraithblood Sect was not built on architecture. It was grown.
Rael passed by hundreds of other candidates. Some wore veils soaked in spiritual ink. Others bore chains on their limbs, symbols of pacts made in desperation.
But most looked at Rael and turned away.
They had seen the ranking.
They had heard of the boy with no known origin.
No clan. No spirit backing. No sect history.
Yet he stood at Rank 7 after a single trial.
---
He was shown to a dark room—bare, save for a circular stone seat and a basin of black liquid in the center.
A masked elder stood beside the basin. Her presence was like a frozen wind—silent, ancient, and unwavering.
"You survived the first trial," she said, voice echoing unnaturally. "You bear no clan mark. No spirit core of lineage. Yet you drew the blood gate open."
Rael didn't respond.
The elder gestured to the basin.
"This is the Pool of Echoes. It will not lie. Touch it, and we shall glimpse your path."
Rael stepped forward.
His fingers brushed the surface.
---
Flash.
He stood once more on a burning hill.
Smoke curled around him.
But now the corpses were not strangers. They were sect brothers. Friends. A girl with silver eyes.
Lin?
No. Older.
And Rael was the one holding the sword.
His hands… were trembling.
"You will kill them all."
The voice came not from the memory—but from the pool itself.
Rael yanked his hand back.
The black liquid hissed, retreating from him like oil from fire.
The elder's expression was unreadable beneath the mask.
"Interesting."
She turned.
"The Grand Council will now take interest. Until then—train. Survive. Bleed."
---
Over the next seven days, Rael was given quarters deep within the underlayers of the sect—a region called the Hollow Bastion. He was granted access to the first-tier martial halls, as well as a single practice chamber grown from the bones of a Sky Whale.
His time was split between two things:
Training.
And Watching.
In the dark corridors of the Wraithblood Sect, the weak were eliminated swiftly. Alliances were formed in whispers. Power was traded in secret. Rael didn't join any group—but they began to whisper his name.
The boy who used no Qi.
The boy who could not be tracked.
---
One night, as he was returning from meditation, he paused by the central canyon—a vast wound that split the sect in half. Below it ran the Blackstream, a river of liquefied spirit remains.
That's when he saw her.
Or felt her.
A presence, balanced perfectly on the edge between elegance and danger.
She was cloaked in silver silk, her long hair glowing faintly beneath the twin moons.
She turned—eyes meeting his.
Moonlight met ash.
And she smiled.
"You're the one from the rankings," she said.
Her voice was gentle. But Rael could hear the poison laced behind it.
"You're Yue Qingshi."
Her brows rose.
"So they've already been whispering about me, too."
---
**[Emotional Alert: Unfamiliar Attraction Detected.
Source: Yue Qingshi
Affiliation: Yue Clan (Core Branch)]**
Rael ignored the alert.
"I thought the Yue Clan didn't involve themselves with blood sects."
She smiled again, taking a step closer. Her presence distorted the air—a fluctuation of Lunar Qi, cold and mesmerizing.
"Normally, no. But I was curious about someone like you."
He tilted his head.
"Curiosity gets people killed."
"True," she said softly. "But so does boredom."
A pause.
Then she added with a smirk, "Besides, you owe me."
"I don't recall any debt."
"You stared at me for too long. That's a high price in the Yue Clan."
Rael was about to reply when—
Boom.
An explosion rocked the sect.
They both turned.
Far below, a blaze erupted from the Hollow Bastion—flames mixed with screaming Qi.
Rael's eyes narrowed.
"Someone's attacking the trial vault."
Yue Qingshi's smile faded.
She looked at him seriously for the first time.
"Come with me. If they breach the vault, we'll both lose more than just ranking."
He hesitated for only a second.
Then nodded.
The hunt had begun.