They ran.
Not a tactical retreat. Not a careful withdraw. An actual run — full pace through the terrain north of the relay, Cai Rong and Li Qing setting the physical standard and the Ling siblings matching it on pure determination.
The Tiger ran alongside at a pace that looked casual and covered ground at a rate that was not.
Zhou Jin was last in line. He had taken the position deliberately — back-read, the group's rear sensor. His Level Four qi sense maintained a constant sweep. He reported to Wen Dao in brief gestures and directional indicators.
Hour one: Forest Mind still occupied with the advance party.
Hour two: Wei Dao's full group reaching the relay site. Dispersing to assess.
Hour three: The group moving north. Faster now. The elder had cleared the Forest Mind's assessment — Spirit Opening Realm could negotiate the encounter faster than Core Formation or below.
Hour four: Three hours behind. Moving faster than expected.
He kept the group running.
The terrain north of the relay was not flat. The northern watershed was broken by geological formations — long ridges of exposed stone running east-west, each one requiring either a climb or a detour. The Tiger chose routes without hesitation. He followed. The group followed him.
At hour five, Cai Rong said: "How much further to the blind spot?"
"River Stone's record said approximately two days north of the relay." He kept running. "We're making it in half that if the pace holds."
"It'll hold," Cai Rong said. He was breathing hard but controlled. Level Four physical stamina had genuinely improved his endurance baseline.
Li Qing had not flagged at all. She ran with the economic movement of someone who had made cultivation efficiency her specific priority.
The Ling siblings were beginning to struggle.
Ling Tao's face was white. Ling Fan was compensating for a slight left-foot issue — favoring it, which meant pain somewhere in the ankle from the earlier hard terrain.
He slowed ten percent. Not enough to matter for the pursuit. Enough to matter for the siblings.
"What's the entity blind spot?" Ling Fan asked during a brief water break at a stream.
"A location where the entity's detection capacity is naturally reduced," he said. "The geometry of the terrain creates a qi-shadow effect without a Void Tiger present." He paused. "River Stone used it to practice sustained integration safely before she reached Soul Ascension."
"So it's a practice ground for you," she said.
"Yes."
"And you need it because—"
"Because reaching Spirit Opening from Level Six requires sustained integration at an intensity that will activate the entity's detection if I'm not shielded."
"And the entity's active cycle restarts in—"
"Approximately eight days now."
She nodded and stood up and kept running.
She hadn't complained once since the mudflats.
He noted this.
Hour seven: the pursuit had closed to two hours.
The Spirit Opening elder was faster than the Core Formation members. He was pushing ahead of his group.
One Spirit Opening cultivator, one hour thirty behind.
Wen Dao ran the calculation.
If the elder caught them before the blind spot—
He would not fight a Spirit Opening cultivator at Level Six. He would not survive it. The elder wasn't going to kill him — Xuan Bing wanted him intact — but intact under a Dao Saint's control was not better than the alternative.
"Zhou Jin," he said.
Zhou Jin appeared beside him, running.
"If I need you to slow the elder—" He didn't finish.
"Yes," Zhou Jin said simply.
"Without engaging directly. Buy three minutes."
"What's three minutes worth?"
"If we reach the blind spot's boundary, the entity's natural qi-shadow will partially mask our signatures even outside of it. It becomes harder for a Spirit Opening cultivator to pinpoint a specific location within the shadow."
"Like hiding in a fog," Zhou Jin said.
"Yes."
"Three minutes," Zhou Jin said. "When you give the signal."
He nodded.
They ran.
Hour eight: the terrain changed.
Subtle at first — the exposed stone formations that had been running east-west began to curve. Then curve more. The curve tightened until the ridges ran in a near-circle, converging on a central depression. The depression was approximately half a mile across.
Inside it: different air. The Pale Flame sense registered immediately. The qi in this depression was not suppressed. It was organized differently — running in a specific geometric pattern that canceled the entity's detection frequency the way two sound waves cancel each other when out of phase.
Natural formation. Geological. A gift of this specific terrain.
River Stone had found it through necessity. Broken Dawn had encoded its location in the relay's stone.
He ran to the depression's rim.
Behind them, one hour away: the elder.
"Signal," he said to Zhou Jin.
Zhou Jin peeled off south without another word.
He looked at the group.
"Into the depression. Move fast. Once we're inside, suppress cultivation to minimum and don't integrate."
He went over the rim and down into the blind spot.
The qi-shadow settled over them the moment they entered.
His own signature dropped. The Pale Flame sense, reading from the entity's detection frequency perspective, showed their group as a quiet background signal rather than a distinctive combination.
He looked south.
Behind them, at distance: Zhou Jin.
And behind Zhou Jin — faster now — the Spirit Opening elder.
One hour.
Forty-eight minutes.
He watched from the depression's rim.
And thirty minutes out, the elder stopped.
Just stopped. Stood in the terrain between two ridges and looked at the depression ahead.
He could feel something but couldn't pin it. The blind spot's qi-shadow was breaking the signal pattern that should have told him exactly where to go.
He was searching.
Thirty minutes of searching.
Wen Dao stayed completely still at the depression's rim and watched.
Zhou Jin emerged from the terrain to the elder's east — visible, deliberate. Giving the elder a different signal to read.
The elder looked at Zhou Jin for twenty seconds.
Then turned and went back south.
Not because he'd been defeated. Because he'd lost the signal and had no way to reacquire it from outside the blind spot's range. A Spirit Opening cultivator with no specific location to target could search general terrain for days without success.
He would report to Xuan Bing.
And Xuan Bing would make a different calculation.
But that calculation would take days.
He exhaled.
Zhou Jin came to the depression rim twenty minutes later.
Wen Dao helped him over.
Zhou Jin had a cut on his arm — nothing serious. His expression was controlled.
"He touched the perimeter of the blind spot," Zhou Jin said. "He could feel the qi-shadow but not penetrate it. Stayed for one minute. Withdrew."
"The report will tell Xuan Bing we're in a formation-protected area," Wen Dao said. "He'll know it's temporary. He'll wait for us to emerge."
"So we have the time inside, and then—"
"Then we move again. Faster." He looked at the depression around them — the natural geometry, the qi-shadow. River Stone had spent years here. He had days.
He needed to make those days count.
He turned to the group.
Seven tired people and a Tiger, sitting in the world's most inconvenient hiding spot.
"We rest for six hours," he said. "Then I start training. Sleep now if you can."
No arguments.
He sat down at the depression's center and began reviewing River Stone's transferred awareness from the relay.
The clarity was still there. Settling. Organizing itself in his cultivation network like furniture arranging itself in a room after a move.
He had everything he needed to understand the path.
He just needed the time to walk it.
The depression provided that time.
Use every moment, he told himself.
And began.