The disciples had no energy to cheer, but had they been able to, they would have been interrupted. Loudly, a sharp, familiar sound pierced through the room, distant but unmistakable—a scream. Before Fu Ran could process it, more followed, filling the air with panic and fear.

Lin An, always quick to react, stumbled first toward the balcony. With the back of her trembling hand she pushed aside the red curtains. “Shizun… I think something’s wrong. There are people gathering in the street.”

In an instant, everyone piled onto the narrow balcony. Fu Ran gripped the cold metal railing, leaning over to get a better view of the commotion below.

A large group of people stood near the gates of The Faceless City, most likely guards like a fight had broken out.

People charged away from the crowd like little ants, running from an onslaught of fire.

And while most of the lower city seemed terrified, this seemed to be merely entertainment for those of the higher sections. The hordes of people who stood on the bridge watched and gossiped. They were closer, but still he couldn't make out the words, only hushed and excited murmurs.

“This isn’t supposed to happen… I thought things were going well.” Tian Han’s voice was almost inaudible, lost in the cacophony below. Fu Fu Ran heard the strangeness.

Fu Ran frowned. “What do you mean? What isn’t supposed to happen?”

He didn’t get an answer. Instead, Tian Han’s hand shot out and grabbed the railing. With a swift and reckless movement, he vaulted over the edge. Fu Ran’s heart stopped, his mind screaming at the realization—they were thirteen floors up! He reached, trying to catch hold of Tian Han’s sleeve, but his fingers only grazed the fabric as he disappeared over the balcony.

“Tian Han!” Fu Ran shouted, panic flooding his voice.

To his shock, Tian Han landed with cat-like grace on a nearby rooftop. He glanced back up at Fu Ran, his expression a mix of pity and apology. “Shizun, I’m sorry! But this is an emergency. You should stay behind!”

Why would I do that?!

“Like hell we would do that!” Meng Xiao growled from behind, echoing Fu Ran’s own thoughts. He couldn’t believe he was matched in reckless impulse by a fifteen-year-old! But still, he wouldn’t accept Tian Han’s half baked answer this time.

He had allowed that tyrant to get away with far too many things as of late.

Fu Ran grabbed Shi Wei Ji, and with a touch of spiritual energy, urged the weapon to float on the side of the balcony. But before he could move, Lin An’s small hand tugged at his sleeve. Her wide, pleading eyes stared up at him. “Shizun… you’re not planning to leave us behind, are you?”

Fu Ran’s heart clenched at the sight of her. Yes, he had planned on leaving them behind, actually. When his obvious intentions were seen, Meng Xiao grabbed onto the deep gray robes as well.

“Don’t you dare leave us behind, Shizun!”

Fu Ran sighed, giving in to their persistence. “Fine. We’ll go together, but we have to travel on foot. Get dressed, grab your weapons.” His voice softened slightly. “I don’t know what Tian Han saw, but if he says it’s an emergency, it probably is. We need to be careful.”

The children hurried inside to gather their things, leaving Fu Ran alone on the balcony. His eyes scanned the chaos below, the crowds surged like waves. The most commotion seemed to be near the city entrance, but even the bridge connecting the Twin Summits was packed. Traveling on foot was going to be difficult, but Shi Wei Ji wasn’t safe with his disciples under the influence of drugs.

“This isn’t supposed to happen,” Fu Ran echoed Tian Han’s last words. “This isn’t supposed to happen…?”

His brows furrowed tighter.

***

As soon as they exited onto the bridge, Fu Ran scruffed the children's robes before walking forward. “Keep close, stay alert, and don’t let anyone grab you.” He quickly listed the rules with an easy-to-understand cadence.

When they agreed, he nodded firmly and pressed on. The bridge was packed with bodies, and he hesitated for a moment. But the sounds of women’s gossiping chatter drew him deeper.

“Did you see ‘em?”

“No, but I heard they are from Bei Zangli!”

“Kind of right, but more accurately: they were from Bei Zangli.”

The conversation that had first caught his attention quickly got lost in the roar of voices.

“Were?” Fu Ran muttered to himself. The way the woman emphasized that word felt wrong. He wanted to chase down the gossiping duo, but they disappeared into the crowd.

Then, from below the bridge, someone else yelled, “They’re all dead! I saw them! They looked like they just crawled out of a grave!” This time the words belonged to a man, his panic clearly obvious. His voice sounded like he’d seen something horrific, and judging by what he said, he might have.

All the gossiping chatter did was clarify some things Fu Ran had already been worried about, putting his fears on a golden pedestal. He could no longer turn away and hope for better, so he grimaced.

“We’re too late?” he whispered.

Pressed against the bridge’s stone wall, he saw guards with weapons drawn. Metal clashed and sparked against dark figures with pale, ghastly skin. Their movements were unnatural, and even from a distance, he could see them tearing through armor with ease. The guards’ blood painted the street as the attackers’ nails glistened with red.

From his vantage point on the bridge, Fu Ran watched the fight unfold in grim silence. The bustling nighttime streets had become a sea of spiraling panic. Spirits, once human but now corrupted, ripped through the soldiers like wolves among sheep, moving with unnatural speed. And the citizens… they moved with the willpower of survival: their steps messy but desperate.

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Fu Ran held tight to his glistening white sword.

These people stood absolutely no chance against evil spirits because their strength was imbued with demonic qi. Sections and sections of the front line were felled with single strikes. Fu Ran’s stomach churned, and his jaw clenched. This wasn’t just a fight anymore. Far too quickly, it shifted into a massacre.

“Shizun, are those the evil spirits?” Meng Xiao asked. His hand vibrated, furiously shaking the sword in his grasp. At first, Fu Ran thought it was in fear or drugged-up neurological distress, but upon further inspection of the boy’s face—he looked enthralled.

Damn bloodthirsty brat, Fu Ran thought.

“Are we going to fight—?”

“Meng Xiao, cool it,” Fu Ran growled, yanking the back of his disciple’s robe. “We’ll save whoever we can, but we’re cultivators of An Xian Yun Peak, not sword-happy tyrants. Got it?”

Meng Xiao’s smile faded, but he nodded.

Once the fighting started, the crowd realized this wasn’t a spectacle anymore, and worry began to fill the whispers. This was not entertainment: this was real. And when this reality struck, wails of fear broke out.

With little preparation, because all of this had happened far too suddenly, Fu Ran wrapped an arm around each of his disciples and hopped up on the railing of the bridge. It didn’t require much effort for him to drop to the ground and land flat on his feet.

And with that, with each disciple underneath his arm, he ran. All the way to the entrance where the fighting had originally gathered a horde of guards and a matching horde of evil spirits.

His eyes widened at the number. There are way too many, he thought. The first time he’d witnessed an evil spirit, he was shocked that they were so tangible and that when cut, they bled. However, now when he looked over the scene, it only disgusted him, as if they were no different than mortal beings.

The guards weren’t trained quite like cultivators, but they were good at their jobs. However, an evil spirit, fueled by demonic qi, had naturally greater strength. The hits of the evil spirits were more damaging to the guards, and not the other way around.

Fu Ran swallowed thickly.

Fu Ran wanted to help them, but what good would it be if he didn’t get to the source? Because of his own inability to act sooner, this was the current state of The Faceless City. He couldn’t very well pretend that he didn’t hold some level of responsibility for this. After all, it was his responsibility to do the mission in the first place: So the blame was not even partial. He was 100% at fault.

“Shizun!” Lin An said from beneath his arm, her voice shaking, clearly afraid. She whined again, “If we don't do something they're going to get further into the city! How can we fix this?”

She had every right to be worried, as this was not a typical situation she was taught at the sect. Never once had disciples been forced to be briefed on a city being completely overrun with demonic entities. Fu Ran carefully explained, “In a situation like this, we have to go to the source. We can’t waste time dealing with the mass of them when there could be more pooling out.”

“The source?” Meng Xiao asked.

“The source has to be the shrine,” Fu Ran clarified. There was no other option. It was the place of burial, after all. If the spirits came from anywhere it was there. But right now he didn’t know what to do. His face paled in despair. If he left the city, people could die… But if he didn’t stop the flood of spirits, there could be bigger troubles.

“Shizun—” Meng Xiao interrupted. “Can you trust us?”

Fu Ran was taken aback and blinked a few times. “What?” Fu Ran waited patiently for the boy to explain.

“We're cultivators, let me and Lin An handle it. Still better than regular guards, right? There are no Fall Corpses either.”

Fu Ran was close to denying it immediately. His disciples were currently frail, and they could barely walk.

“Besides, it’s better than having another massacre.” Meng Xiao’s words sounded like they held little care at first, but something about them made Fu Ran pause.

Was he talking about the entrance exam?

Even during the entrance exam, Meng Xiao fought. He threw punches, and slashes with only a training sword until he couldn’t move anymore.

Meng Xiao urged him to respond, “Shizun.” He shifted his weight onto the other foot and crossed his arms. Somehow it felt like his student had a stronger hold on what needed to be done than he did. Fu Ran drew in a sharp breath and placed a palm to his forehead.

Fu Ran had no faith in himself, but he wanted to have faith in his students.

“Fine. This Shizun entrusts you with a very important duty. Please, minimize damages in the Faceless City—protect the people here at all costs. Do so while also protecting yourselves. This Shizun will quickly sort things out and come back to help you—”

“We got it, we got it,” Meng Xiao said, smiling. He threw his arms behind his head for only a moment before his eyes shone with a dangerous glint. He lifted his sword, and Lin An matched his motion.

The two children took on brave poses and held up their swords in front of their bodies: a respectful position they did even while training. The simmering blades acted as a line that cut their figures in half as they spun them around to show the flat side.

Fu Ran huffed, “That’s an order, you two.”

“Yes, Shizun!” they both called out in unison.

They wasted no time doing what they were best at. Meng Xiao immediately joined arm-in-arm with one of the guards, most likely terrifying the man. But when he struck down one of the evil spirits, the guard seemed to question no more. Lin An, on the other hand, quickly moved to some of the nearby citizens. Despite the fact that there were some “rougher ones” among the group, she handled them with ease and started to guide them further away.

Fu Ran had to tear his eyes away from his disciples’ hard work as he stepped upon Shi Wei Ji and flew.

***

Only a few moments outside of town, the red stains of blood had turned into the red color of fall. Truthfully, he quickly grew tired of the sight and, already, he missed the pinks of his home.

As Fu Ran hovered over a sea of trees, a heavy, dark energy began to rise around him. It wrapped him in a cold grip, squeezing the air from his lungs. His stomach twisted with dread. This wasn’t right. Something awful was happening. His eyes scanned the tree line, desperate to find the source.

The trees below were mostly maples, their leaves glowing faintly in the dying light. They should have been beautiful, but the sight made Fu Ran uneasy. Branches were twisted and gnarled, and the way the trees swayed felt unnatural. The ground was thick with fallen leaves, an endless ocean of red that stretched out below him. It was like a sea of blood no different than the foreseeable future of Jinan, should he do nothing about it.

Then, his gaze fell on the shrine, or the visible black roof. It was hidden deep within the forest. This feeling was undoubtedly demonic qi.

Suddenly, a violent gust of wind slammed into him, shaking his sword. Hundreds—no, thousands—of leaves were ripped from the branches and hurled into the air. They spiraled and swirled like flames, the storm of red and orange rising higher and higher. Fu Ran shielded his face with his sleeve as the leaves slashed against his skin. His heart pounded faster. This was a surge of energy that wracked him to his core.

Every time I think this couldn’t get worse, somehow it does. Even Jinan must have felt that. So that means, that particular wave of spiritual energy was even worse than the one that awoke the previous batch of evil spirits.

When the wind finally calmed, the leaves began to fall, drifting back toward the earth like dying embers. From a distance, the scene might have looked peaceful, but Fu Ran felt no relief. His hands shook as he brushed the leaves off his robes and pulled a few from his hair. He tapped Shi Wei Ji, urging his sword forward with a sharp mental command: Quickly, quickly!

As he neared the clearing, the wind kicked up again, tossing more red and orange leaves into the air. They swirled and danced in chaotic patterns, but Fu Ran’s eyes were drawn to the ground.

His heart skipped a beat.

There, lying in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by fallen leaves, was Wan Yu. His small body was still, spread flat on his back.

Horror washed over Fu Ran as he stared at the unmoving figure. The cold in the air felt sharper, biting at his skin, and for a moment, he couldn’t move. This was no different than his nightmares.