Okay, so, what do you even do after you kill someone in a Chaos-grade city?

Like, actually. Not the scroll version where everything’s a neat “he vanished in a flash of light” ending. Real life? Real cultivation? It’s messy. Complicated. Stressful.

Ian stood there, right where Ren had been. Or… where he used to be. There wasn’t much left now.

Ash. Smoke. A few faint fragments of clothing. That was the thing about chaos lightning, it didn’t just kill, it fucking unmade. Scrambled matter. Erased energy signatures. Beautiful in theory, terrifying in practice.

But it didn’t erase everything.

Which was a problem.

Because Ian wasn’t a sect enforcer. He wasn’t an elder. He wasn’t authorized to kill someone inside city limits, even if that someone tried to assassinate him. The sect had rules. Complex ones. And one of them was: no bloodshed within the outer meditation rings.

So yeah. This could get him executed.

First step? Evidence.

He crouched down and scanned the ground. The smell of burnt silk still hung in the air. The edge of a shredded talisman was stuck to the wall, half-burned, the ink still glowing faint red. Ian cursed under his breath and wiped it off with a sleeve, then stuffed it into a tiny pouch lined with void-thread.

Talisman fragments were traceable. You don’t just leave them lying around.

Next, the dagger.

Ren’s cursed blade had snapped on impact, but the hilt was intact. Which was… not good. Spiritual objects leave impressions, especially ones designed to mess with souls. He crushed the hilt underfoot, wrapped the remains in a spirit-sealing cloth, and tossed it into a pocket dimension bead. Temporarily. He’d deal with disposal later.

Now, the area.

Could anyone have seen it?

He glanced around. Stone corridor. No surveillance glyphs. No passing disciples. Still… you could never be sure.

So Ian did what most cultivators never bothered to do.

He cleaned.

He literally swept the area with a minor wind manipulation, not flashy, just enough to stir the ash and let it scatter evenly. Then he cast a heat distortion using his chaos energy over the section of wall Ren hit when he died. Light bending, residual energy masking. Nothing fancy. Just enough to make it look like a minor unstable formation mishap. A flare, maybe. A compression burst. These things happened in a Chaos city. Too much spiritual pressure, too many idiots experimenting with ancient runes.

Then came the tricky part.

Avoiding suspicion.

Ian walked. Calm. Hands behind his back. Not fast. Not slow. Like someone deep in thought.

The key wasn’t to avoid being seen. That’s what suspicious people did. The key was to be seen, and look boring.

He even stopped to nod politely to a passing sect courier. Asked about the weather distortion over the East Garden. The man responded with a confused grunt and a shrug. Perfect.

But Ian wasn’t safe yet.

Because bodies can be erased. Witnesses avoided. But the sect elders? They didn’t need proof. They had insight techniques. Soul-scanning. Truth-gauging arrays. One elder could look at you and know you were lying.

So Ian needed… a story.

A believable one.

Which meant it had to be true, at least a little. Although with his power, he was currently the strongest in the entire city and even the entire sect. Yes, even the sect master would be killed by his chaos angel abilities.

Just that, in this new world, he wants to have a good start. He wasn’t the Grand God of Destruction now. He barely knew anyone in the Chaos Sea.

He waited until the next day. No point rushing. That would look desperate. Early morning, just before the first meditation bell, he made his way to Elder Sa Lin’s study. She was the least paranoid of the bunch. Practical. Former investigator. Still liked facts.

He bowed low.

“Elder. May I speak with you briefly?”

She looked up from her desk, one eyebrow raised. “If it’s about the scroll registry…”

“No,” Ian said quickly. “I think… someone tried to follow me last night. Near the market path. I don’t know who. I felt something strange. A presence. And then a flare. When I turned around, no one was there.”

Sa Lin frowned. “And you’re only reporting this now?”

“I didn’t want to make a fuss,” Ian said, eyes down. “But it’s been bothering me. I checked the area. There was a scorched patch on the wall. I thought maybe a formation backfired.”

He handed her a small sketched diagram. Hand-drawn. Looked messy. A little nervous. Human.

She studied it in silence. “You think it was an attack?”

“I’m not sure. But if someone is targeting researchers in the outer rings… I thought you should know.”

Sa Lin sighed and rubbed her temples. “The elders have been warning us this might happen. A rogue element entering the city. Your report matches another incident three days ago. Disciples whispering about vanishing couriers, but no bodies.”

Perfect.

“Thank you, Ian,” she said. “Keep to the inner study zones for now. I’ll file this under potential rogue incursion.”

Ian bowed again. “Of course, Elder.”

He left the room quietly. Not too fast. Not smiling.

But inside?

He was already thinking about his next question.

Why do the sects tolerate rogue cultivators so close to their sanctuaries?

And more importantly…

What was Ren so desperate to find inside Ian’s mind that he’d risk death?

Because that? That was starting to bother Ian. A lot.

…

Elder Sa Lin didn’t enjoy mornings. Not because she was tired, cultivators didn’t really get tired the way mortals did, but because mornings meant bureaucracy. Petitions, supply audits, complaints from inner disciples, rogue formation glitches. That, and politics.

Today was going to be one of those mornings.

She stood just inside the Hall of Seventy Pillars, her hands clasped behind her back, her expression somewhere between “professional concern” and “I’d rather be punching someone.”

Opposite her, seated on the raised dais, was the Sect Master himself, Lei Xu, the Quiet Root of the Ninth Spiral, and a man whose reputation for patience was only matched by his absolutely maddening ability to overthink everything.

“I’m not asking for a war,” Sa Lin said, her tone firm. “Just permission to deploy a purge team. There’s a rogue cultivator within the city. Possibly more. They’re targeting knowledge holders. That alone violates three sect decrees.”

The Sect Master didn’t respond immediately. He just tapped a slender jade ring on the arm of his chair. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Elder Sa Lin,” he said slowly, like he was teaching a lesson she hadn’t asked for. “Do you know why we allow rogue cultivators into this city?”

She blinked. “Because our surveillance isn’t perfect?”

He smiled. “Try again.”

“Because they bring in rare techniques we can later confiscate?”

He chuckled at that. “Closer.”

She scowled. “Then enlighten me, Sect Master. Because as far as I see, they’re parasites. Thieves. Liabilities.”

Lei Xu stood and walked down from the dais, his long sleeves trailing like mist. “There are three reasons,” he said, circling her like a philosopher who loved hearing himself speak. “Three reasons we tolerate them, even protect them, in subtle ways.”

Sa Lin crossed her arms.

“Reason one,” he said, raising a finger. “Rogue cultivators act as unbound variables in a world that prizes stagnation. Our disciples follow the rules. Scripts. Paths dictated by elders long dead. But the rogues? They adapt. Desperation makes them creative. That creativity, however crude, bleeds into the city. It disturbs the water. Forces our own to swim harder.”

Sa Lin frowned. “That sounds like an excuse to let wild dogs roam the library.”

He raised another finger. “Reason two. Rogue cultivators are bait.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Bait,” he repeated. “They draw in hidden threats. Demons. Cultivator-hunters. Outsider sects trying to plant spies. If a rogue dies, we investigate. If a disciple dies, we declare war. See the difference?”

Sa Lin opened her mouth, then shut it. She didn’t like it, but… it tracked.

“Reason three,” Lei Xu said, and this time his tone shifted, just a little. Less smug. More serious.

“They remind us what we could become.”

Sa Lin squinted. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Have you ever failed your tribulation?” he asked softly. “Fallen from grace? Been cast out from your own sect for being too slow, too weak, too disobedient?”

She didn’t answer.

“Most of them,” he continued, “were us. Once. And if we can’t live in a world where the fallen still walk among us, then we’re not a sect. We’re a prison.”

Sa Lin looked away, jaw clenched.

That… hit harder than she expected.

Still.

“Even so,” she said, “there is one among them who went too far. One of them tried to kill a disciple. We can’t let that pass.”

“I agree,” Lei Xu nodded. “But this? This is beyond our local authority.”

She raised a brow. “You’re invoking Grand Clause Twelve?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he turned and walked toward the northern door.

“The Demon Alpha Wolf has resurfaced,” he said. “In the Black Spine Hills. Feeding on cultivator cores. Mutating. If we kill one rogue now, it might hide again. But if we use this disruption, the creature will move.”

“…So we draw it out.”

Lei Xu nodded. “And when it comes close, we end it.”

Sa Lin’s voice dropped. “You’re planning to contact the Ancestor Master.”

He paused at the threshold. “He’s the only one strong enough to end it cleanly.”

She hesitated. “You sure he’ll agree to help?”

“Not sure,” Lei Xu said. “But he still owes me one favor. From when I saved his mortal wife during the Bonefire Siege.”

Sa Lin blinked. “Wait, he had a mortal wife?”

“Long story,” the Sect Master said, and stepped through the door.

And just like that, the decision was made.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep