The Beast Gate inhaled.
Stone-teeth flexed, mist turning thick and wet-looking, like a throat lining. The pull yanked at sleeves, hair, loose talismans. The incense scent twisted from "comfort" into something closer to rot-sweet hunger.
Shen Lu's pendant throbbed violently against his chest.
Not reacting like an object.
Reacting like prey.
His fingers locked around the vial in his sleeve. The black pellet key inside trembled, tugged toward the Beast Gate as if the realm had tied them together with invisible thread.
Helian Feng's eyes flashed. He felt it. He understood in that instant that the gate wasn't just activated—it had chosen a target.
Wei Shanshi saw it too. His gaze sharpened with satisfaction, like he'd finally found the soft spot in Helian Feng's armor.
Song Ruo's smile widened. She didn't look panicked. She looked delighted.
"Go on," she said lightly, as if offering advice at a market. "Hold onto your secrets tighter. The realm likes them."
Luo Yin laughed from where he'd half-scrambled up, hooking his blade into a crack in the floor to anchor himself against the pull. "If the gate eats him, do we get what he swallowed?"
Shen Lu's stomach turned.
The beast tamer clutched his fox-spirit to his chest, teeth chattering. The talisman disciples dropped to their knees, palms pressed to the stone, trying to keep from sliding backward.
The outer disciple made a thin, broken sound and began to crawl forward again, away from the gate, as if sheer humiliation was better than being swallowed.
Helian Feng's sword flashed.
Not at Wei Shanshi.
At the floor.
He drove the blade down into a seam, thunder-thread erupting in a narrow line that split stone and created a jagged anchor point. Lightning crawled along the crack like living wire.
"Hold," Helian Feng snapped to his team.
The sword lineage disciples grabbed the crack edge, fingers bleeding as stone tore skin. The talisman disciples latched onto robes, onto wrists, onto anything solid.
Shen Lu crouched instinctively, one hand braced on the floor, the other still gripping the vial. His hair whipped across his face, purple strands stinging his cheeks.
The Beast Gate's pull intensified again, a greedy lurch.
The pendant jerked hard.
Shen Lu's breath hitched.
For a terrifying heartbeat, it felt like the pendant was going to rip through his skin and fly into that mouth of stone and mist.
Helian Feng moved.
He released his sword anchor—just long enough to cross the space in three steps, faster than the pull could drag Shen Lu backward. He grabbed Shen Lu by the front of his robe, fist closing over fabric and pendant chain, pinning it against Shen Lu's chest with brutal force.
Shen Lu's ribs compressed.
Pain flared.
Helian Feng leaned in close, voice low enough that only Shen Lu could hear it over the gate's roar.
"Do not open it," Helian Feng said.
Shen Lu's eyes widened a fraction. "I wasn't—"
Helian Feng's grip tightened. "Don't."
It wasn't just suspicion.
It was fear.
Fear that if Shen Lu opened the jade space now, the realm would latch on and swallow it, swallow them, swallow every advantage Shen Lu had kept hidden.
Shen Lu swallowed hard and nodded once.
Helian Feng's gaze flicked to Shen Lu's sleeve. "What's in there."
Shen Lu's jaw clenched.
The vial jerked again, tugged toward the gate as if the black pellet key was trying to answer a call.
Helian Feng felt the tug through Shen Lu's arm. His eyes sharpened.
Wei Shanshi's voice drifted in, amused. "Ask him nicely, Helian Feng. Maybe he'll share."
Helian Feng didn't look away from Shen Lu. "Now."
Shen Lu hated being cornered like this. Hated that the realm and the rivals and Helian Feng's control all converged on the same point.
But the Beast Gate didn't care about his pride.
It cared about swallowing.
Shen Lu made the decision in a single ugly breath.
He pulled the vial free.
The black pellet key glimmered faintly even in the harsh light, swallowing light rather than reflecting it.
Song Ruo's eyes brightened. "Oh?"
Wei Shanshi's smile turned real for the first time. "There it is."
The Beast Gate lurched, pull spiking toward the pellet.
The realm wanted it.
Helian Feng's gaze narrowed. "That's what the cauldron made."
Shen Lu didn't answer. He couldn't afford to explain. Not now.
He flicked his wrist and threw the pellet—not into the Beast Gate, and not into the hidden seam.
He threw it straight down onto the incense ash map pattern on the floor, right where the ash lines crossed like a knot.
The pellet hit stone with a sharp click.
For half a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the incense ash ignited—not with flame, but with light.
Fine lines flared along the floor like threads being pulled taut. The ash pattern rose into the air in a spiraling ribbon, twisting into a three-dimensional shape: a floating map, delicate and bright, showing branching corridors and one pulsing point that matched the hidden seam.
A true path revealed.
The realm reacted like an animal stung.
The Beast Gate's pull faltered.
Not stopped.
But confused.
As if the pellet key had satisfied part of a demand, and now the mechanism had shifted.
The hidden seam in the wall shuddered violently and began to open faster, stone grinding, widening by inches instead of hairs.
Shen Lu's breath punched out of him in relief that wasn't relief, because the floating map didn't just show the path.
It also showed something else.
A red mark blooming behind them on the corridor line—fast, closing, like a stain spreading.
Rivals weren't the only ones approaching.
The realm itself was sending something.
Helian Feng saw the map too, eyes narrowing. "Move."
Wei Shanshi's voice snapped sharp, losing its polite edge. "Stop them!"
Luo Yin lunged.
Shen Lu's whip snapped out, catching the hooked blade mid-swing and yanking it sideways. The blade screeched against stone, sparks spitting.
Song Ruo raised her hand, talisman ink forming a seal in midair—aimed at the hidden seam.
A sealing talisman. To lock their escape.
Helian Feng moved like thunder made flesh.
He let go of Shen Lu, grabbed his sword anchor again, and ripped it free from the floor with a crack of lightning. The blade flashed upward, cutting through Song Ruo's forming seal before it could complete.
Ink scattered like black rain.
Song Ruo's eyes widened, then narrowed, impressed. "So fast."
The hidden seam was now open enough for a person to slip through.
But the Beast Gate, enraged by being cheated, opened wider too.
Its stone teeth flexed.
Its mist-throat surged forward like a tongue.
It reached.
Not for the nearest body.
For the floating map.
For the pellet's light.
To swallow the truth back down.
Shen Lu's stomach dropped as the mist-throat lashed out, and Helian Feng's hand shot to Shen Lu's wrist again, yanking him toward the opening.
"Go," Helian Feng said, voice like a verdict.
Shen Lu stumbled toward the seam.
Behind him, Wei Shanshi's blade whistled through the air.
And the Beast Gate's mist surged forward in a final greedy gulp—
Right as the hidden passage widened, dark and waiting, like another mouth opening to decide what it would take from them next.