Zhi Xuan sharpened his gaze, his sapphire eyes glowing in the forest darkness. He stared intently at the pattern of the ancient pine bark, peeling due to a lightning strike, a natural mark that could not be mistaken. He was a hundred percent certain that this tree was the same marker, which should have been miles behind him.

  "Ruo," Zhi Xuan hissed, his voice containing a rare mix of frustration and annoyance. "I am not drunk. I keep walking straight. Is this forest moving, or am I going mad?"

  Zhi Xuan clenched his jaw. The primordial forests of the Xingluo Plains were indeed known for their spiritual anomalies, but he did not expect to encounter such a strong spatial trap at the beginning of his journey.

  He immediately secured the moth—Xiao Die—into a special pocket hidden behind his red-silk robe. Xiao Die emitted a faint rainbow hum, as if displeased with the sudden relocation, but remained obedient.

  Zhi Xuan's vigilance instantly rose as his Divine Sense felt dulled. It was as if something in this forest was suppressing the range of his Divine Sense, making him blind in the middle of the woods.

  He muted Ruo Xianxue's voice to silence in his Sea of Consciousness. He knew, faced with this strange situation, he had to rely on his cultivator's intuition and sharp mortal senses.

  Zhi Xuan looked around cautiously, his steps circling in place as he glanced at the ancient trees that felt like dark claws in the dead of night. The usual sounds of insects seemed to fade into the distance, leaving a suffocating silence.

  'The atmosphere here... suddenly changed very quickly,' Zhi Xuan muttered in his thoughts, he slowly stepped forward, his eyes still watching his surroundings.

  Zhi Xuan felt a bone-chilling cold, not from the night, but from the shift in spiritual Essence around him. This change was too sudden. He slowed his pace, every nerve screaming a warning.

  He activated the Azure Holy Flame in his eyes, making his pupils emit a thin, dark purple glow, trying to see if there was a hidden formation. But he did not see any spiritual formation.

  "No formation?" Zhi Xuan muttered, his hair instantly stood on end. If this was not a formation, it meant he was normally in this forest.

  Zhi Xuan tried to calm himself, resuming his cautious steps. Just moments after he had walked some distance from his starting point, his shoulder was tapped by a frail hand.

  Zhi Xuan, startled, immediately turned and leaped backward, his eyes widening in shock at the sight of an old woman and behind her several other humans, who looked like villagers.

  This reaction was very unusual for a Sanctum cultivator like him. The shock was not due to a threat, but to how silent and mundane the touch was—he had not sensed it coming at all.

  The old woman had a severely hunched back, her face was covered with countless wrinkles, and she wore clothes made of bark and moss, radiating the scent of earth and forest spices.

  She had no spiritual aura, not the slightest bit, but her eyes, though cloudy with age, radiated an emptiness that seemed sharp. The old woman's lips stretched, as if she intended to smile in greeting. However, it was only like the horrific grin of a reawakened corpse.

  Behind her, about ten male and female figures stood silently in a strange semicircle formation. They were all dressed similarly to the old woman, wearing bark and moss. Their faces were pale, and their eyes—like the old woman's—had no light of life or spirituality, only a frightening sharpness.

  They were entirely mortal, without a trace of Spiritual Essence, yet their presence felt more threatening than the three armed Forest Bandits.

  Zhi Xuan's instinct screamed danger. He flicked his hand and immediately the furnace bead in his hair shot out. The cauldron was the size of a human head, hovering and spinning in Zhi Xuan's hand.

  "Who are you?" Zhi Xuan hissed, his voice hoarse. He maintained the Heavenly Trifold Reincarnation Cauldron between himself and the strange group. The dark jade-gold Cauldron spun slowly, radiating a cold and stable pressure, ready to unleash the Law of Autumn.

  The old woman did not answer. The horrific grin on her face widened, revealing decayed teeth. Her frail hand, which had just touched Zhi Xuan's shoulder, was now raised, pointing towards him.

  "Good evening, Young Master," the old woman greeted, her voice sounding like the scraping of rough, damp earth. It created an echo in the silence of the forest. "We saw you were lost here, and it happens we just finished hunting. Would you like to return to the village with us?"

  Zhi Xuan was not intimidated by bandits, but these mortal entities caused a cold sense of dread. This was a form of danger he could not overcome with brute force. Their strength might not be in the spiritual realm, but in an unexpected one.

  "Village?" Zhi Xuan repeated, his tone flat. "I have never heard of a village in the heart of this desolate primordial forest."

  The old woman laughed, a laugh that did not ring, but rather the sound of scraping bones in her throat. The men and women behind her did not move, but their empty stares were focused on Zhi Xuan, too strange for Zhi Xuan to interpret the meaning of the gaze.

  "Oh, our village is very beautiful, Young Master. So beautiful, we often just lock ourselves away from the outside world," the old woman said. She took a surprisingly quick step forward, her movement inconsistent with her hunched body; she glided over the ground.

  As the old woman stepped closer, he smelled something strange—not the smell of earth or moss, but a sweet and sickening aroma of preserved death and decaying spiritual blood. The scent felt like a thick fog, intoxicating and threatening, yet somehow drew interest.

  Zhi Xuan narrowed his eyes, the calmness he had maintained for years of closed-door cultivation was now threatened by this inexplicable touch and scent. The sweet and sickening aroma of decaying spiritual blood was a key that pierced his senses—a cultivator's resource, but in a state of putrefaction, as if something precious had been forcibly withdrawn from its host.

  "You smell of spiritual blood," Zhi Xuan hissed, the Heavenly Trifold Reincarnation Cauldron spinning faster in his hand, radiating the cold Law of Winter, trying to repel the intoxicating aroma. "Not Essence, but blood. Who are you?"

  The old woman stopped, the distance between them now only about three meters. Her horrific grin widened further, and she tilted her head with an unnatural movement. Her neck seemed to crackle, producing a sound that was loud in the silence.

  "Blood... Oh, that's just the blood of our hunted beasts, Young Master," the old woman replied. Her voice was now softer, more hoarse. "We are the Weavers; we weave everything from what the Forest leaves behind."

  Suddenly, one of the men behind the old woman moved. His movement was slow, like an old robot that had just been activated, but very definite. He raised his hand covered in bark and moss, and his finger pointed at Zhi Xuan's chest.

  "I have good liquor in the village, Young Master," the man said, his voice monotonous, like the sound of wood rubbing against itself.

  Zhi Xuan felt nauseous, not from disgust, but because his instincts screamed that he was facing something that should not exist. If they were ghosts or Devils, his Divine Sense would have sensed it. If they were cultivators, he would have sensed their aura. But they were mortal, yet they approached him in a way he could not comprehend.

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  Zhi Xuan felt cold sweat running down his back, a rare reaction for a cultivator in the First Ember Sanctum realm. The threat he sensed was not a power he recognized, but a strange distortion of mortal reality itself. No formation, no spiritual aura, just a group moving with unnatural silence and intent.

  The old woman continued to stare at him, her empty eyes piercing Zhi Xuan, as if searching for the hidden Essence deep within his bones. The bone-chilling cold aura emitted by the spinning Heavenly Trifold Reincarnation Cauldron in his hand seemed to not affect them at all.

  "Good liquor, eh?" Zhi Xuan retorted, trying to maintain an indifferent tone. "I don't drink alcohol, Grandmother. I am looking for Wild Blood Grass Root. If you can show me where it is, I will leave immediately."

  "Wild Blood Grass Root," the old woman repeated, her bone-scraping laughter returning. "Oh, we have plenty, Young Master. Our village ground is very fertile. Wild blood grass grows in every corner. But it only flourishes near… resting places."

  The word "resting places" was spoken with strange emphasis.

  Zhi Xuan watched the man who had pointed at him more closely. Suddenly, he saw it—a thin, almost invisible golden thread, wrapped around the man's fingers and extending upward, disappearing into the darkness of the forest canopy.

  Zhi Xuan narrowed his eyes. The golden thread resembled silk, but emitted a very ancient shimmer, unlike any spiritual artifact he knew. Zhi Xuan smiled faintly at this, he understood something behind all this; there was something intriguing about these people.

  With a slow movement, he recalled his cauldron, which immediately shrunk back into a jade-gold bead attached to his hair. He did not lower his guard, but instead acted subtle and polite, as if he considered them no threat and full of trust.

  Zhi Xuan slowly but surely stepped closer to the man and the old woman. Stopping in front of them, he could smell the intense aroma of wet earth. He smiled and nodded his head slightly in courtesy, his eyes not looking into theirs, but at the golden thread that was like a puppet string.

  "Very well, show me the way to your village," Zhi Xuan said with a slight bow, watching the humans' feet that were not touching the ground with full caution.

  Zhi Xuan extended his hand, his gesture calm and confident, a thin mask covering the suspicion surging in his Sea of Consciousness. His words were not agreement, but a deliberate investigation. He had seen the thin golden thread connecting the man's figure to the darkness above.

  The old woman accepted his compliance with a grin that now felt like triumph. Her wrinkled face twitched.

  "Of course, Young Master," she replied, her hoarse voice now sounding like a blunt dagger dragging across stone. "Just follow Grandmother."

  The old woman turned. Her movement was once again unnatural—not a step, but a perfect glide, without touching the ground, as if she were being pulled by an invisible string on her back. The men and women behind her followed in silence, gliding in unison, forming a silent line.

  Zhi Xuan followed them, maintaining a distance of about two meters. His eyes, veiled by the Azure Holy Flame, focused not on their backs, but on the shadows beneath their feet—or the lack of shadows.

  They moved along an invisible path, curving and winding among the giant trees. The silence was deafening. Zhi Xuan realized that in the village they were heading to, there were no sounds of birds, no sounds of crickets, no normal forest life. The surrounding forest had become an enveloping void.

  Zhi Xuan followed the silent procession, his heart beating slow and strong in his chest. The coldness of the Heavenly Trifold Reincarnation Cauldron, now a jade bead in his hair, felt calming, an anchor in the midst of an increasingly distorted reality.

  The old woman, the man, and the nine other figures glided over the moss-covered forest floor, their movement a cold pantomime. Zhi Xuan's gaze was focused on their feet that did not touch the ground, and he became even more convinced: they were puppets. The thin golden thread he had seen on the man who pointed at him must be the control mechanism. But who was the puppeteer, and what was the essence of that golden thread?

  Ahead, just some distance away. Zhi Xuan could see an old gate made of rotten wood, with natural fences made of small trees. Ancient characters that felt unfamiliar, seemed very different from those he usually spoke, were inscribed above the gate.

  "Village... Chasing... Mist..." Zhi Xuan spelled out the ancient characters, unlike the language characters commonly used by people in Shoutuo even.

  Zhi Xuan frowned, repeating the spelling he deciphered from the ancient characters on the rotten wooden gate. Mist Chaser Village—a name that felt cold and uninviting, just like the intoxicating aroma of spiritual death that shrouded the place.

  The characters, though ancient and unfamiliar, radiated a historical aura that transcended the mortal languages he knew.

  The old woman stopped right in front of the gate made of wood that looked like it would collapse at any moment. The gate had no crossbar, only stood upright, as if serving as a ritual boundary line rather than a physical barrier.

  "We have arrived, Young Master," the old woman said, her bone-scraping laughter echoing. "Welcome to the final resting place."

  As she spoke, the men and women behind her suddenly raised their heads, tilting them in unison. They emitted a uniform silence, and the faint golden thread that Zhi Xuan saw on one of the men now twitched slightly, as if the puppeteer above had just pulled the strings.

  Zhi Xuan ignored the old woman's cynical remark. He focused on the gate, which seemed to function as an entry point into the spatial labyrinth that had trapped him.

  'The final resting place,' Zhi Xuan muttered in his thoughts. Zhi Xuan took a quick and calm step forward, passing through the rotten wooden gate.

  As soon as he stepped across the threshold, the smell of freshly dug earth that he had smelled before suddenly intensified. It was not just the smell of earth; it was a mixture of wet soil, moss, and a very sharp metallic scent—the smell of oxidized blood.

  The sight before him was unlike a normal mortal village. The houses there were just small huts made of mud, bark, and moss arranged in an irregular spiral pattern, leading to a dark center.

  However, the strangest thing was the ground. The soil between the huts looked like it had been dug repeatedly.

  Small mounds of wet earth were in every corner, and in some places, Zhi Xuan saw tombstones made of rotten wood that had mostly disintegrated.

  Zhi Xuan narrowed his eyes, the Azure Holy Flame in his eyes emitting a faint purple glow. He saw not only tombstones—but between the mounds of wet earth, frail and pale human hands poked out.

  The hands were not moving, but their position was as if they were reaching upward, trying to grasp the Essence of life.

  "Where are the other people, Grandmother?" Zhi Xuan asked, his tone now cold as breaking ice. He stepped aside, avoiding the hands protruding from the ground, his feet barely touching.

  The old woman turned, her body gliding between the huts, and she laughed with a sound echoing from the bones.

  "They are all here, Young Master," she said, pointing to the ground beneath her with a wrinkled finger. "They are all resting. Our village is crowded with those who chase the Mist."

  Zhi Xuan still courteously nodded his head as if he understood. He walked among the people, like a devil descending from heaven and walking amidst death. If he wanted to survive and find something behind all this, he had to be silent and act polite.

  The bustle of the village looked normal: a mother carrying her child on a porch daybed, adult men chopping wood with axes. Then, there were dim lights from several buildings that Zhi Xuan thought were taverns.

  The old woman continued her journey, gliding between the huts, leading Zhi Xuan towards the dark-looking center of the spiral. The ten figures behind her moved in unison, not diverting their empty gaze from Zhi Xuan's back.

  "Grandmother, Mist Chaser Village," Zhi Xuan said, his voice calm, repeating the name he had spelled earlier. "What are you chasing?"

  The old woman stopped near a hut that looked the most well-maintained, its roof covered with thick, black-green moss. In front of the hut, a young man—the most normal-looking figure among them, with eyes that were not overly cloudy—was sharpening his axe on a whetstone.

  The young man stopped sharpening; his axe radiated a sharp glint under the dim light that came from somewhere. He turned towards Zhi Xuan, and his eyes radiated suspicious sharpness, but no emotion.

  "We chase the mist's light, Young Master," the young man replied, his voice clearer and less hoarse than the others, but still flat and monotonous, like a recorded tape being played. "Look at the sky, the moon is shining brightly, and the sun will not replace the moon."

  Zhi Xuan shifted his gaze upward. He should have seen the thick canopy of the primordial forest which only left a small gap to reveal the stars. However, above this village, he saw no canopy.

  Instead, he saw an endless night sky, but strangely, the sky only emitted a faint light, as if the moon itself had been covered by a thin cloth. The dim light came from a black-purplish mist floating low and dense over the village in thick layers.

  The mist was not like ordinary fog; it radiated a cold, corrosive aura and the same sweet-sickening smell he had smelled on the old woman—the smell of decaying spiritual blood.

  "The sun will not replace the moon..." Zhi Xuan muttered, repeating the young man's words. Zhi Xuan nodded his head in understanding; one thing he knew was not to express astonishment or question the strangeness here.

  Zhi Xuan maintained his polite smile, letting the black-purplish mist above bathe his skin with a bone-chilling cold. The young man's words, "The sun will not replace the moon," felt like a statement of absolute truth in this place, a terrifying promise of eternal darkness.

  He shifted his gaze from the mist-covered sky to the young man's face, who was now back to sharpening his axe with a monotonous rhythm.

  "A beautiful mist," Zhi Xuan praised in a tone that sounded like genuine admiration. "Does that mist make the wild blood grass grow so fertile?"

  The old woman laughed again, the bone-scraping laughter piercing the silence. "Of course, Young Master. The mist is... Essence. The Essence of what we chase. It falls and nourishes. It falls, and we... rest."