The tremor split through Qingyun Sect like a living thing.
Stone bridges cracked. Formation lights flickered violently across the inner peaks. Several outer disciples lost balance as the mountain shook beneath them, panic spreading instantly through the crowded courtyards.
Above it all, the spiraling clouds continued rotating over the central summit.
Not naturally.
Deliberately.
---
The ancestral grounds.
---
Every major sect possessed one.
A restricted region containing spirit shrines, inheritance halls, meditation chambers of former elders, and the tombs of powerful cultivators who shaped the sect's foundation.
Sacred in public.
Political in reality.
---
And now, apparently, built atop the true convergence core.
---
Elder Han moved first.
"Seal the lower districts," he ordered Wei Jun immediately.
"Prevent disciples from approaching the central peak."
Wei Jun frowned.
"That won't hold if the formations collapse."
"I know."
"Then what exactly are we containing?"
Elder Han looked toward the spiraling clouds above the summit.
His answer came quietly.
"…Panic."
---
Then he disappeared.
Not metaphorically.
One moment he stood there—the next, the air folded faintly and he was gone, moving toward the ancestral mountain at terrifying speed.
---
Wei Jun stared upward for half a second before turning toward Shen Luo.
"You noticed it before he did."
Not accusation.
Observation.
---
Shen Luo said nothing.
Because the truth was difficult to explain.
---
The closer the pathway moved toward convergence, the clearer its structure became inside his mind. Not knowledge exactly.
Instinct.
Recognition.
---
Like standing near something his body remembered even when his thoughts did not.
---
Wei Jun studied him carefully.
Then nodded once, as if confirming something privately.
"Come with me."
---
They moved quickly through the inner sect pathways while the mountain continued trembling intermittently beneath them. Around them, disciples scrambled between courtyards carrying formation materials, spiritual weapons, communication talismans.
Sect order remained intact.
Barely.
---
Fear hadn't fully become chaos yet.
But it was close.
---
A distant explosion echoed from the western side of the mountain.
Wei Jun's expression darkened.
"One of the stabilizing formations failed."
Shen Luo looked toward the cloud spiral overhead.
The rotation was accelerating.
Qi across the mountain had become uneven now, surging unpredictably through the air in violent currents.
And beneath it—
he could feel hunger.
---
Not emotion.
Function.
The pathway was attempting reconnection through the ancestral grounds.
---
"Why would the core be beneath the central summit?" Shen Luo asked as they moved.
Wei Jun answered immediately.
"Because the founding elders believed proximity allowed better suppression."
Of course they did.
---
Cultivators always believed control improved through closeness.
And eventually, closeness became dependency.
---
The irony would have been amusing under different circumstances.
---
They reached the lower formation courts just below the central peak.
The area had already descended into controlled disorder.
Inner sect elders stood within a massive rotating formation array, attempting to stabilize the mountain Qi manually while disciples carried spiritual stones between formation pillars.
Several cultivators lay unconscious nearby, blood running from their noses and ears.
Meridian backlash.
---
Wei Jun grabbed a passing disciple.
"What happened?"
"The ancestral seal chamber opened," the disciple answered breathlessly.
"No one touched it—the doors just…"
He hesitated.
"…unlocked."
---
Shen Luo felt a cold certainty settle inside him.
---
Not unlocked.
Answered.
---
Something beneath the mountain had sensed instability in the western ridge and begun responding automatically.
---
The pathway wasn't awakening.
It had never been asleep.
---
Another tremor struck the sect.
Stronger this time.
Formation pillars across the lower court flickered simultaneously before stabilizing again.
Several elders shouted new instructions immediately.
---
Then—
someone screamed.
---
Not from fear.
Pain.
---
One of the unconscious cultivators near the formation court suddenly convulsed violently.
Dark fractures spread beneath his skin.
Convergence marks.
---
Wei Jun reacted instantly, moving toward him.
Too late.
---
The disciple's eyes opened.
Completely black.
---
Then he lunged at the nearest cultivator beside him.
---
Everything happened at once.
Inner sect disciples moved to restrain him. Formation Qi erupted across the courtyard. The infected cultivator slammed into another disciple with unnatural force, fingers clawing directly toward the man's dantian.
Not killing.
Consuming.
---
Shen Luo's expression hardened immediately.
The pathway had progressed further than expected.
This wasn't passive resonance anymore.
It was behavioral override.
---
An elder struck the infected disciple across the chest with a suppressive technique powerful enough to shatter stone.
The cultivator collapsed instantly.
Dead before he hit the ground.
---
Silence spread through the lower court.
Heavy. Shocked.
---
The elder looked down at the corpse grimly.
"…It's already reached this stage."
No one asked what "this stage" meant.
No one wanted the answer.
---
Wei Jun returned toward Shen Luo slowly.
His face had gone colder.
"You were right."
Not emotionally.
Factually.
---
"This gets worse."
---
Another explosion echoed from higher up the mountain.
This one much closer to the summit.
Several disciples looked upward instinctively.
Then froze.
---
The spiraling clouds above the ancestral grounds had started descending.
Not physically.
Structurally.
The sky itself looked compressed around the summit now, forming a vast rotating pressure field centered directly beneath the ancestral peak.
---
And Shen Luo felt something inside himself respond immediately.
Violently.
---
The pathway surged beneath his skin.
The fractures along his arm darkened sharply.
Void Grasp activated instinctively for half a heartbeat before he suppressed it again.
Too late.
Wei Jun saw.
---
Their eyes met briefly.
And for the first time since they met—
Wei Jun looked genuinely alarmed.
---
"You're resonating with it."
Shen Luo steadied his breathing carefully.
"…I know."
"That's not a good answer."
"No," Shen Luo agreed quietly.
"It isn't."
---
Above them, the clouds continued collapsing inward over the ancestral summit.
And somewhere beneath Qingyun Mountain—
something enormous had started trying to reconnect.