Jalen's breath tore through his lungs, ragged and sharp, as the second serpent's hiss echoed behind him. The sound wasn't just cruel—it was hungry. This one didn't fight with elegance; it hunted like a storm: fast, venomous, relentless.
He hadn't even stabilized his qi after the recent battle. His reserves flickered like burnt-out lanterns. But he ran anyway. Not because he was strong. Because he wasn't ready to die. Not yet.
The temple warped around him—walls folding inward, floors shifting as though the structure itself was alive. The serpent lunged again. He ducked into a side corridor, its edge lined with carvings shaped like flame glyphs twisted into spears. For one breath, he thought he'd escaped.
And then the traps activated.
The walls behind pulsed once—then shattered. From hidden crevices, a storm of high-grade spirit-thread arrows tore through the air, each inscribed with velocity-enhancing formation lines. Their tips weren't ordinary—they glowed blue with Spirit-Forged Reaping Qi.
One hit, and his soul could unravel.
He pivoted sideways, Dance Like the Wind surging through his limbs—wind qi flaring beneath his feet, drawn from the depths of his spirit.
The arrows rained past, carving through stone like parchment.
One grazed his shoulder—a clean slice, no impact—but the sting was a warning:
Hesitation meant death.
His movements weren't calculated. They were instinct.
The second technique didn't just guide him—it became him.
Wind wasn't his ally. It was his rhythm.
The floor jolted—then shifted. Tiles beneath dropped six inches, revealing a complex grid of pressure glyphs. His foot nearly slipped. He threw himself forward as the grid activated. Gravity multiplied instantly—twentyfold.
He struck the ground, hard, and rolled away as the collapse tiles crushed inward like a broken jaw. If he'd been slower? Flattened.
Up ahead, three rotating blades spun through the corridor—each tethered to a time-glyph circuit. They didn't move in real time. They blinked between moments.
He couldn't read their rhythm. He had to feel it.
One flickered into his path—vanished—then reappeared inches away. He inhaled once. Calculated. And ran straight through the corridor with precise timing, aligning his sprint with the blink windows. Behind him, the blades hummed. One caught his sleeve. But nothing vital.
A corridor of polished obsidian formed a mirror-like passage. But the reflections weren't his—they were alternate versions. Each stepped toward him from the walls, then lunged, launching false flame strikes that exploded like ember bombs.
He dodged each clone. None were real, but their flame pressure could destabilize his balance. He had to navigate the center line—where no reflection touched.
Wind compression silk blurred around him, shielding him from one reflected shockwave. But the heat still bit into his back.
Midway through a hallway, three tiles pulsed purple. He recognized the frequency—Void-Skipping glyphs. If he touched any, his body would be dragged into a fracture in spatial flow. No known exit.
He summoned a thread of wind qi—thin, sharp, silent.
Wind Spirit Needle.
It vanished instantly. No resistance. No echo.
Confirmed. The array was active.
He triple-jumped across the hallway, kicking off the stone columns and barely catching the opposite edge. His foot scraped the final void tile—but momentum saved him.
The next chamber dripped with pale mist. Harmless at first glance—until his spirit detection flared.
The mist wasn't neutral. It drained active qi.
As he stepped into it, the air clung to his skin like damp silk. His aura flickered. His spirit trembled.
He gritted his teeth and held his breath, compressing his presence inward and masking his output completely. He passed through slowly, blind, but intact. A single flare might have erased his defenses.
Three statues activated when his presence was detected. They launched a barrage of sound-form glyphs, sonic blades vibrating on resonant frequency. His ears rang—his balance swayed.
He twisted into a spin, using the Sixth Form of the Spirit Wind Art—Echoing Wind Shell—to redirect the vibrations. They cracked behind him like thunder. One wave cut across his calf, shallow but deep enough to bleed.
Steel-weave chains burst from the ceiling—each tipped with suppression anchors. They weren't aimed to kill. They were meant to immobilize his qi channels.
He'd read about the technique: Chain-Weave Bind, used in ancient sect prisons. He surged forward, firing twin glyph bursts into the anchors before they closed.
Too late for one.
The final chain lashed his ankle. He dropped, but twisted mid-fall, slicing the weave with the fifth technique of his Spirit Wind Art:
Tornado Slash.
The metal sparked. Freed.
He entered a narrow spire walkway—and the ceiling shuddered. A countdown glyph pulsed once, twice.
Then fire.
Six seconds.
He didn't hesitate. Wind surged beneath him as he tore down the walkway, rolling through bursts of flame that scorched the air. Smoke clung to his robes. His vision tunneled. But he reached the end—half a breath before the final spiral erupted.
Finally, a tunnel with light at its end.
He sprinted toward it, every inch of his body aching. But as he stepped inside, the exit shimmered. A projection glyph—a bait.
Behind the illusion: stone spikes.
He stopped two inches from impalement. Gasped. Shook his head.
Just as the serpent caught up again—crushing toward him with rage—he spotted another tunnel. Narrow, vein-lined, flickering with red glyphs.
He dove inside.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the tunnel groaned—and the exit sealed behind him. A glyph pulsed to life. And then—
Flames.
Not normal flame. Not sect-grade flame. This was Worldfire, a compression phenomenon rumored to burn even Imperial cultivators if they lacked affinity.
It chased him like a living storm. Each footstep behind hissed with incineration.
His lungs already strained. His reservoir barely rippled. He had almost nothing left. And for the first time in a long time, he felt fear.
The tunnel stretched endlessly—ten miles, according to his sense pulse. His feet staggered. His limbs howled. His vision bled red. But the fire screamed louder.
So he ran, despite how much it hurt to do so.
He called on the wind once more, burning the last residue in his dantian to activate the Seventh Form of the Spirit Wind Art— Tempest Surge.
It summoned winds more violent than tornadoes, more primal than storms—raw, unrefined, and absolute.
The tunnel shook beneath his feet. The Worldfire screamed behind him.
It helped—but not enough.
Halfway through, he tripped. Rolled. Got up. Kept going.
Then, finally—a door.
Huge. Rusted. Glowing faintly. But it was moving—closing.
He cursed. Surged forward. Each muscle screamed. The Worldfire drew closer. The light warped.
Ten steps. Five. One.
The door shrieked as it sank downward—but he dove, arms extended.
Half a second before the seal clamped shut—he burst through.
He collapsed beyond the threshold.
The stone beneath him was cooler. The flames did not follow.
But his lungs burned, his vision blurred, his legs went numb. His breath came shallow and sharp, as if his ribs had caught fire from within.
He wasn't dead.
But it was close.
He rolled onto his back, eyes staring upward at the flickering ceiling glyphs.
And he laughed, just once—breathless, ragged, stunned.
This temple didn't want survivors.
Too bad.
It had one.