Fang Lin did not open his eyes immediately after swallowing Feng Jiu'er's pill.
The medicinal strength spread through his chest with a clean warmth, pushing back the worst of the pain left by the ninth trial. It was a good pill. Better than the ordinary recovery pills he had taken in public earlier, and gentle enough that it did not clash with the hidden Nether Life Spirit Qi moving beneath his skin.
He let both powers work slowly.
Too slowly for his real foundation, but fast enough for a wounded cultivator who had survived a dangerous hidden trial.
Around him, the Green Bamboo Alliance disciples kept their loose screen. No one stood shoulder to shoulder like guards. That would have drawn eyes. They only shifted naturally, some speaking in low voices, some checking weapons, some pretending to watch other doors. Ye Qinglan stood a little farther away with two Thousand Leaf Immortal Sect disciples, calm enough to make her presence look accidental. Gu Man sat with one knee raised, broad body blocking one angle of sight without any elegance at all.
Mo Qingchuan fanned himself once, then stopped because the hand holding the fan trembled.
Feng Jiu'er remained closest.
She did not ask what had happened inside the ninth chamber. She only watched Fang Lin's left arm, his temple wound, and the way his breath caught faintly when the pain in his back pulled too deep.
"You should stop here for now," she said.
Her voice was quiet.
Fang Lin opened his eyes.
Across Myriad Halls Plaza, another cultivator staggered out from a trial door and fell to his knees. His companions rushed over, but the man only shook his head and clutched his broken spear. No plaque lit up. No ancient voice spoke. No one knew whether he had failed, surrendered, or crawled out after passing by luck.
The blank plaques had turned every return into a lie waiting to be believed.
Fang Lin looked back at Feng Jiu'er. "If I stop too long, the wound becomes a different kind of answer."
"Let it answer," she said. "Living people can correct rumors."
Gu Man grunted from the side. "Dead people are poor at argument."
Mo Qingchuan gave a pale smile. "For once, Brother Gu's wisdom arrives in a shape even scholars can use."
Fang Lin's lips moved slightly, but he did not laugh. The movement pulled at the cut near his temple.
Feng Jiu'er saw it.
Her eyes became colder.
"This is not Level 6," she said. "Whatever waits beyond that door is changing faster than the people outside understand."
Fang Lin lowered his gaze to Night Burial Sword. The black blade rested across his knees without a sheath, quiet and dark, as if it had drunk enough blood to become patient.
"I know."
"Then why go?"
Because the tenth level was a gate.
Because the mansion had changed its rules after watching them.
Because the hidden result protected him now, and protection never lasted forever.
Because every level before this had sharpened something: recovery, movement, meridians, body, blood. The path was not random. The mansion was measuring him, feeding him, and forcing him to show what kind of blade he was.
But those reasons were not words he could give in public.
So Fang Lin only said, "Because this is the right time."
Feng Jiu'er looked at him for one long breath.
Then she stepped aside.
"Come back," she said.
There was no softness in her tone. That made the words heavier.
Fang Lin stood.
The pain in his back flared. His left arm still hung lower than it should have. He allowed that to remain visible. Let the watching eyes see injury. Let them measure weakness, danger, arrogance, endurance, and whatever else their hearts wanted to invent.
Xu Hanjiang looked over from beneath Heavenly Sword Lake's shadow.
Jian Wuchen's gaze followed Fang Lin for half a breath, then lowered toward his own sword.
Kong Mingyuan turned one prayer bead between two fingers, righteous face calm, eyes unreadable.
Fang Lin walked past all of them.
The nearest door opened before he touched it.
Ancient light swallowed him.
Myriad Halls Plaza disappeared.
This time, Fang Lin landed in darkness.
Not the darkness of a chamber without lamps. Not the natural black of night. This darkness was deep, layered, and heavy, as if a piece of some ancient battlefield had been folded beneath the earth and sealed away until even sound grew old.
The ground beneath his feet was bone-white stone.
It stretched in a wide circular arena, cracked by countless old impacts. Around the arena stood twelve black pillars, each carved with unfamiliar figures. Some had four eyes. Some had horns curling backward like crescent moons. Some had long arms that touched the ground. Each carving bowed toward the center, not in worship, but in warning.
Above the arena floated no sky.
Only a vast black mirror.
Fang Lin's Dark Bud stirred once inside his foundation.
He did not need it to tell him this place was dangerous.
Across the arena, a figure sat on a stone throne made from fused weapons.
It was shaped like a man, but no human bloodline had made that body. Its skin was dark silver, covered in fine lines that looked like old star cracks. Two short horns grew from its forehead, smooth and black as polished obsidian. Its hair fell behind it like threads of night metal. Its eyes were closed, but a vertical mark burned faintly between its brows.
Four arms rested on the throne.
Two looked human.
The other two were longer, jointed strangely, with fingers ending in dark claw-like nails.
When Fang Lin arrived, the figure opened its eyes.
There were no whites in them.
Only cold gold, ringed by deep shadow.
The pressure that followed did not explode outward.
It simply arrived.
Fang Lin's wounds tightened at the same time. His bones seemed to remember the giant from the ninth level and then understand that this opponent was worse in a different way.
The ancient race figure rose from the throne.
The fused weapons beneath it dissolved into black dust.
"Spirit Foundation," it said.
Its voice was calm, clear, and old.
Fang Lin's fingers closed around Night Burial Sword.
The figure looked at him for a moment longer. "But your shadow is heavier than your realm."
Fang Lin did not answer.
The figure smiled faintly.
"Good. Words are for those who have time to be spared."
It moved.
Fang Lin's soul perception caught the movement, but only barely. The ancient race figure did not rush in a straight line. Its body folded through shadow, stepping from one angle to another as if the distance between them had been cut and rearranged.
A dark claw appeared beside Fang Lin's throat.
Fang Lin went all out from the first breath.
Nine Nether Phantom Body surged through flesh, bone, meridians, and blood. Nine Abyss Shadow Scripture circulated with it, cold Darkness and Death force sinking into his movement instead of spilling outward. The Dark Bud opened like a silent eye inside his foundation, releasing a thin stream of condensed shadow power.
Night Burial Sword rose.
Claw and blade collided.
The impact rang across the bone-white arena.
Fang Lin's feet sank half an inch into the stone. The ancient figure's claw left a pale mark on Night Burial Sword's edge, but the figure did not pause. Its second hand formed a seal. Its third arm stabbed toward Fang Lin's ribs. Its fourth hand spread open, and shadow threads shot toward Fang Lin's ankles.
Too many attacks.
Too clean.
Fang Lin's eyes became cold.
Frost flashed beneath his step.
Not a wide display. Not a beautiful field of ice. Only a thin, precise layer that hardened the stone under the shadow threads and slowed them for a fraction of a breath. Fang Lin used that fraction. Flowing Wind Steps moved beneath him, but the wind was wrapped in shadow, twisted by Nine Abyss Shadow Scripture until his body shifted like a blade passing behind a lamp flame.
The rib strike missed.
The seal struck his shoulder instead.
Pain burst through him. A dark force drilled into the wound and tried to numb the meridian beneath it.
Fang Lin let Nether Life Spirit Qi bite into it from inside.
Life and the foreign shadow force clashed silently under his skin.
At the same time, Night Burial Sword cut across the ancient figure's chest.
The blade entered.
Only half an inch.
Dark silver blood appeared.
The ancient figure looked down at the wound, then back at Fang Lin.
"Death, darkness, frost, life, soul, body." Its smile widened slightly. "Messy. Greedy. Alive."
It stepped forward.
The arena changed.
The twelve pillars lit one after another. Their carved figures opened stone eyes, and ancient pressure descended from above like invisible chains. Fang Lin's body grew heavier. His injured arm throbbed. The black mirror overhead reflected him, but the reflection did not match his movement. It was half a breath behind, then half a breath ahead, then wrong.
The ancient figure vanished into that wrong reflection.
Fang Lin did not look up with his eyes.
His soul moved in a tight thread.
The attack came from his reflection's left side.
Fang Lin turned right.
A claw tore through the space where his head had been. He stepped in under the arm, shoulder driving forward with savage force. Black Mountain Guard locked his frame. Black Mountain Descent sank beneath his step. The bone-white ground cracked outward in a ring.
His shoulder struck the ancient figure's chest.
The figure slid back three steps.
Only three.
Its knee rose and hit Fang Lin's abdomen.
Fang Lin's breath broke. Blood climbed into his throat and spilled between his teeth. Before he could fully recover, a hand pressed against his chest and released a pulse of dark gold force.
The pulse was not Qi.
It was something close to battle instinct made physical, a crushing rhythm that struck body, meridian, and soul at once.
Fang Lin flew backward and crashed into one of the black pillars.
Cracks spread behind him.
The carved figure on the pillar opened its mouth and released a silent roar.
Soul pressure slammed into Fang Lin's spiritual sea.
If his soul had been ordinary, that roar would have frozen him long enough for the next strike to take his head.
His Late Stage Solid Soul State held.
Fang Lin's gaze sharpened through the blood running down his face.
Soul Thrasher answered.
The attack was not grand. It was a needle of force, cold and ruthless, aimed at the instant the ancient figure's own soul rhythm brushed against his. The figure's eyes narrowed for the first time.
Its next step slowed.
Fang Lin was already moving.
He crossed the distance like a black wind.
Night Burial Sword cut down.
The ancient figure raised two arms to block. The blade bit through one forearm and stuck against bone. Fang Lin did not pull it free. His left palm struck the flat of the sword, driving the blade deeper. Death force entered the wound. Darkness followed. A thin strand of Dark Bud power condensed at the edge like black dew.
The ancient figure's flesh withered around the cut.
It looked at Fang Lin with cold gold eyes.
Then it tore its own arm free from the sword edge.
Dark silver blood sprayed across the arena.
The severed flesh did not fall. It became shadow mist, gathered at the stump, and began forming again.
Fang Lin did not let it finish.
Frost Trace Sword Art unfolded in silence.
Frost marks appeared across the air, thin and sharp, each one hiding a sword path. Fang Lin moved through them with Night Burial Sword, black blade carrying frost on one edge and death-shadow on the other. The cuts landed from three angles at once: shoulder, ribs, throat.
The ancient figure avoided the throat cut.
It allowed the shoulder and rib wounds.
Then its horned head slammed forward.
Fang Lin twisted aside, but the horn still tore across his cheek and temple. His vision flashed white. A claw stabbed through his side below the ribs.
The pain was real.
Deep.
Hot.
Fang Lin's eyes did not waver.
His left hand closed around the wrist that had pierced him.
Black Mountain Lock executed at point-blank range.
Heavy pressure clamped down through his grip, pinning the ancient figure's arm for one breath. Nether Life Spirit Qi sealed the worst of Fang Lin's torn flesh around the claw, not healing it cleanly, only keeping his body from losing strength too quickly.
One breath was enough.
Fang Lin stepped closer instead of away.
His forehead nearly touched the ancient figure's chest.
Black Mountain Breaking Palm struck upward.
The palm force drove into the ancient figure's sternum. Bone-white stone beneath them exploded. The ancient figure's chest caved in slightly, and its reforming arm scattered before it fully returned.
Fang Lin pulled himself off the claw and turned with the motion.
Night Burial Sword followed.
One of the ancient figure's longer arms flew away.
This time, Fang Lin sent Abyssal Death Shadow after it.
The severed arm dissolved into a darker stain before it could return.
The ancient figure finally stopped smiling.
The vertical mark between its brows opened.
Inside was a third eye, black at the center, gold at the rim.
The arena vanished.
For one instant, Fang Lin stood beneath a starless abyss. Countless ancient shadows looked down from impossible heights. Their eyes carried bloodline pressure, race memory, and the cold contempt of beings born before the current world learned its own name.
Kneel.
The command did not enter through his ears.
It pressed against his bones.
Fang Lin's knees bent.
The wounds from Level 6, Level 7, Level 8, and Level 9 seemed to open again. His left arm trembled. The claw wound in his side spilled blood down his robe. The shadow pressure above him grew heavier, trying to force his soul, body, and will into the same posture carved on the twelve pillars.
Fang Lin lowered his head.
For half a breath, it looked as if he would kneel.
Then his lips curved.
"You are not qualified."
Nine Nether Phantom Body roared through him without sound.
Nine Abyss Shadow Scripture deepened.
The Dark Bud released a heavier stream of shadow dew power, cold and condensed, wrapping Fang Lin's foundation in a darkness that did not worship the abyss above it. His soul rose like a blade from black water. Frost gathered at his feet. Death force crawled along Night Burial Sword. Nether Life Spirit Qi held his torn body together from within.
He straightened.
The pressure cracked around him.
The ancient figure's third eye narrowed.
Fang Lin moved first.
No pause.
No hesitation.
No mercy.
He became a crushing momentum wrapped in darkness.
The first strike broke the air before the ancient figure's face. The second forced its remaining human arm aside. The third cut across its throat deeply enough to reveal dark silver bone. The ancient figure retreated, but Fang Lin followed with the same terrifying closeness he had once used in a far weaker arena, only now every movement carried death, frost, shadow, soul pressure, and body force sharpened by blood.
The ancient figure formed another seal.
Fang Lin shattered it with his fist.
The figure's claw came for his heart.
Fang Lin let it pierce his shoulder instead, trapped the arm with Black Mountain Lock, and drove his knee into its ribs. Something cracked. The figure tried to fold through shadow again, but Fang Lin's Dark Bud trembled, sensing the darkness shift before the movement completed.
Night Burial Sword was already waiting.
The blade cut through the space where the figure appeared.
Dark silver blood splashed across the black mirror overhead.
The ancient figure staggered.
Fang Lin stepped in.
Black Mountain Descent crushed the ground.
Frost sealed the figure's left foot for less than a blink.
Abyssal Death Shadow wrapped its wounded throat.
Soul Thrasher struck its opened third eye.
Night Burial Sword thrust forward.
The ancient figure crossed two remaining arms before its chest. Fang Lin's sword pierced through the first arm, then the second, but stopped before the heart.
The figure's third eye blazed.
Fang Lin released the sword with one hand.
His palm pressed against the hilt.
All the force in his body gathered into one point.
Black Mountain Breaking Palm.
The hilt drove forward.
Night Burial Sword punched through both arms and entered the ancient figure's chest.
The figure's back arched.
Its third eye released a final beam of dark gold light.
Fang Lin tilted his head, but not enough.
The beam tore across his neck and shoulder, opening a wound so deep that blood sprayed across the bone-white stone. His right arm nearly lost strength. His vision dimmed at the edges.
The ancient figure's hand reached for his throat.
Fang Lin's eyes became colder than the frost beneath his feet.
He stepped closer.
The sword went deeper.
Death force erupted through the blade.
Darkness followed.
The Dark Bud condensed all the remaining loose shadow power he dared spend into a single black point at the sword tip. It bloomed inside the ancient figure's chest, not like a flower, but like night swallowing a lamp.
The ancient figure froze.
Its hand stopped before Fang Lin's throat.
The third eye dimmed.
For the first time, something like respect appeared in those cold gold eyes.
"Good," it said softly.
Then Fang Lin twisted the sword.
The ancient figure's chest split open from within.
Its body cracked into dark silver lines. The twelve pillars around the arena shattered at the same time, and the black mirror overhead broke into countless silent fragments. The ancient shadows watching from above disappeared one after another.
Fang Lin pulled Night Burial Sword free.
The ancient race opponent fell to one knee.
Then it dissolved into black and silver dust.
The arena became silent.
Fang Lin stood alone in the center of it.
Blood ran from his neck, shoulder, side, mouth, temple, and back. His left arm was almost numb. His right hand trembled around Night Burial Sword. The wound near his neck was serious enough that even he could not leave it unattended for long.
This victory could not be fully hidden.
He took one slow breath.
Nether Life Spirit Qi moved at once, stronger than before, sealing the neck wound first. He swallowed an Azure Marrow Recovery Pill from the sixth trial and crushed one Dark Wind Tendon Pill between his teeth to steady the torn strain in his legs and shoulder. The medicinal strength spread quickly, but he did not allow the wounds to close cleanly.
He only made sure he could stand.
Ancient light descended.
But no box appeared immediately.
Instead, an old figure formed in front of him.
The elderly man wore plain grey robes. His hair and beard were white, his back slightly bent, and his eyes carried the weight of someone who had watched too many geniuses die before their names became history.
Fang Lin's grip on Night Burial Sword tightened.
The old man looked at him and smiled faintly.
"No need. If I wished to kill you, little fellow, the door would not have opened."
Fang Lin did not relax.
The old man seemed more amused because of it.
"Good. You should not relax before an unknown spirit either."
Fang Lin's eyes moved slightly. "You are the one controlling the trial."
"One of the ones permitted to speak for it," the old man said. "That answer is enough for now."
Fang Lin said nothing.
The old man looked at the blood across his robe, then at the shattered arena fading into light around them.
"Peak Early Spirit Foundation Realm," he said slowly. "Yet your battle prowess has already reached the peak of Early Core Formation stage."
The words fell quietly.
No plaque carried them.
No voice announced them to Myriad Halls Plaza.
Only Fang Lin heard them.
The old man's gaze deepened. "Body, soul, darkness(death), frost, life, pressure, sword, and a foundation that should not belong together so peacefully. Messy, yes. Dangerous, yes. But not hollow."
Fang Lin lowered his eyes. "What was that opponent?"
"A remnant imitation of the Night Horn Battle Race," the old man said. "Not a true living member. If it were living, you would be dead. If you were ordinary, its imitation would have been enough."
Fang Lin accepted that without argument.
The old man seemed satisfied.
"The tenth level is the first true milestone after the trial stops flattering the talented. You passed it. Not cleanly. Not easily. Correctly."
Light gathered between his hands.
It did not form a pill, a weapon, or a jade bottle.
It formed a black jade scripture.
The scripture was thin, but the moment it appeared, Fang Lin's Dark Bud trembled so violently that pain flashed through his foundation. The incomplete method inside him reacted like a broken blade seeing its missing edge.
Ancient characters surfaced across the jade scripture.
Dew of Ten Thousand Shadows.
Fang Lin's breathing changed for the first time.
The old man watched him carefully. "You carry a modified and incomplete version. Useful, but crooked. Strong, but missing its true road. This is the complete Cultivation Art."
The black jade scripture floated toward Fang Lin.
"Do not cultivate it here," the old man said before Fang Lin touched it. "Do not open it in front of others. Do not think receiving the complete road means you have walked it. Your Dark Bud will not leap to Midnight Lotus because a book has entered your hand."
Fang Lin raised his eyes.
The old man's expression became serious.
"You will need time, darkness, soul steadiness, resources, and the courage to cut away what was wrong in the modified path without damaging what you already built. Do it carelessly, and this reward will become a knife inside your own foundation."
Fang Lin took the scripture.
The black jade felt cold, almost wet, like night dew resting on stone.
He stored it immediately.
"Thank you, senior."
The old man waved one sleeve. "Thank me after you survive long enough to use it."
The arena around them began to fade.
Before the trial door formed, the old man looked toward Fang Lin's wounds again.
"Hide what you can. Bleed what you must. The plaza is blind now, but blind men still listen."
Fang Lin's eyes sharpened.
The old man smiled once more.
"Go."
The trial door appeared behind him.
Fang Lin adjusted his breathing. He let the worst wound at his neck remain ugly but not fatal. He disturbed his aura until the medicinal strength looked insufficient. He loosened his left arm. He allowed exhaustion to sit openly on his face, because after this battle, pretending otherwise would be foolish.
Then he stepped through.
Myriad Halls Plaza returned around him.
For a moment, the nearest cultivators did not speak.
Fang Lin walked out with blood darkening his collar, one side of his robe nearly soaked, and Night Burial Sword hanging low in his hand. His steps were steady, but only barely. The air around him carried the rough scent of medicine, blood, frost, and something dark that faded before anyone could grasp it.
No plaque lit up.
No voice spoke.
No one knew what level he had entered.
No one knew what he had obtained.
But when the cultivators saw the wound near his neck, several faces changed.
Feng Jiu'er appeared beside him.
This time, she did not bother pretending she had moved slowly.
"Sit," she said.
Fang Lin looked at her and gave a faint, tired smile. "Again?"
Her eyes burned beneath their calm. "Now."
Fang Lin sat.
The Green Bamboo Alliance screen tightened around him. Gu Man stood fully this time, broad shoulders blocking more than one gaze. Mo Qingchuan's fan opened with a soft sound, hiding the lower half of his face. Ye Qinglan stepped closer, her expression still gentle, but the Thousand Leaf disciples behind her turned outward.
Across the plaza, Xu Hanjiang's face became very still.
Jian Wuchen looked at Fang Lin for a long time.
Kong Mingyuan's prayer beads stopped moving.
Fang Lin lowered his eyes and let Feng Jiu'er press another pill toward him.
He accepted it without arguing.
Inside his storage treasure, the complete Dew of Ten Thousand Shadows rested silently.
The tenth trial had fallen.
Outside, no one knew.
But the silence around Fang Lin had changed.
It no longer felt like the silence after a man survived.
It felt like the silence around a sealed blade that had just cut something no one else could see.
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