Ash-Ridge. The family of the dead boy.
"Ash-Ridge Valley," the Void God murmured, a distant memory threading through its tone. "Ten thousand years ago, it was a river of blood where your First Patriarch slew the Iron-Fleshed giants. Now it is nothing more than a quarry for mortal slaves."
Dver ignored it. The dead boy's family meant nothing to him, and neither did the history of giants. They were strangers. But if Shen brought them back to the Sect, the first thing they would do upon seeing him would be to deny him. The identity he wore would fracture at once. The elders would take notice, then verify, then uncover what lay beneath. The Void would not remain hidden. He would be erased before he had grown strong enough to erase them in return.
A loose thread. One that could not remain.
"They intend to pull it," the Void God said, its voice quiet, almost curious.
"Then we sever it,"Dver replied.
He watched the three Enforcers pass through the Sect's iron gates and descend along the mountain road into the Blackwood Forest. He gathered no weapon. He simply stepped from the roof and dropped into the darkness below, landing without a sound.
The game had shifted. He was no longer hunting for sustenance. He was hunting to preserve his lie. Beyond the gaze of the elders, deep within the forest, there would be no need to restrain himself. There, the Void could feed.
Tracking three armored terror-horses through the Blackwood Forest required no effort. The beasts left deep tracks in the wet earth, and their riders moved with the careless confidence of men who believed themselves beyond danger. They had mistaken safety for distance.
For three days, Dver followed. He moved through the canopy without haste or waste, his pace steady, his presence concealed beneath the stolen Qi in his veins. As he advanced, he continued refining his body through the Asura's Iron-Blood Mantra, breaking and reforging muscle and bone in quiet succession. He was preparing the vessel.
On the evening of the third day, the forest thinned, and Ash-Ridge Valley revealed itself below. It was not a settlement. It was a pit. Crooked wooden shacks clung to the edges of a vast open iron mine, sagging under years of neglect. The air carried the taste of rust, ash, and exhaustion ground into the land over generations. This was the foundation of the Blood Lotus Sect—mortal lives spent and replaced, their labor turned into the resources that sustained the peaks above.
Dver crouched on the branch of a dead, lightning-struck tree overlooking the basin. His expression remained unchanged, his eyes still as he observed the movement below.
The three Enforcers rode straight into the center of the camp without announcement. The scarred leader drew his spiked whip and lashed it outward, catching a passing miner around the throat and dragging him violently into the mud.
"The family of the boy named Dver," the Enforcer said, his voice carrying a wave of Qi that forced the surrounding mortals to their knees. "Where is their shack?"
The miner choked, coughing mud and blood, before lifting a trembling hand toward a collapsing hovel at the edge of the pit.
Dver did not move.
"They are about to sever your loose thread for you,"the Void God murmured, faint amusement beneath its stillness. "Most would hesitate. Regret. Do you feel anything?"
"No," Dver said.
Below, the Enforcers shattered the door and dragged two figures out into the freezing rain—a frail, soot-stained man and a woman already breaking under fear. They were the parents of the boy whose face Dver now wore.
"By order of Deacon Shen," the scarred leader said as he dismounted, his tone flat, "you come with us. Your son has offended the Discipline Hall."
"Our son?" the man coughed, confusion breaking through his fear. "No… there must be some mistake. He sent word—he failed the examination. He said they sent him deeper into the mines…"
Dver's gaze narrowed slightly. So the boy had known. He had chosen to lie. It had changed nothing.
"Silence."
The Enforcer's boot drove into the man's ribs. Bone cracked cleanly, the sound cutting through the rain. The man folded, air leaving him in a broken gasp. The woman screamed and threw herself over him, her voice collapsing into panic. "Please—take me instead! Leave him! His lungs are gone—he won't survive the journey—"
The Enforcers laughed.
The scarred leader placed his boot against the man's throat and pressed down, slowly, without effort. The man clawed at the mud, his legs kicking weakly as breath failed.
Dver watched from above. The face beneath the boot darkened. The woman's cries tore apart into something shapeless. The two lives that could expose him were being removed with simple, deliberate force. He did not move.
This was efficient. There was nothing to correct.
The pressure shifted. The neck gave. The body stilled.
The woman released a sound that no longer resembled a voice. She stumbled back, her hand closing around a rusted mining pick, and swung without aim, without strength. The tool struck the Enforcer's leg and rebounded uselessly.
Annoyance flickered across his face. His whip moved once.
The woman's head separated cleanly from her body and fell into the mud beside the man. Rain washed the blood outward in thin, dark streams.
Silence settled over the camp.
"Idiot," one of the Enforcers muttered, glancing down at the corpses. "Deacon Shen wanted them alive. He meant to break them in front of the boy."
"They resisted," the scarred leader said, wiping blood from the leather. "This will serve the same purpose."
He drew a hunting knife and knelt beside the bodies.
Above them, Dver remained still. The problem had been removed—cleanly, without cost. He turned away. There was nothing left worth watching.
That was Dver's moment.
The loose ends were gone, but the lie still held.