Chapter 12: Hunted by Heaven
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A storm was coming.
Not on the horizon, not in the skies.
But in the veins of the Ironcloud Sect.
And Yun Mu was the eye.
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He walked the cliff path to the High Sky Hall with silence in his steps and blood beneath his fingernails. The Bone Garden's echoes still pulsed inside him—memories, screams, illusions of past selves all torn down to make way for what he was becoming.
Something not human.
Not beast.
Something hollow, yet awake.
The wind here didn't howl—it listened.
He passed cultivation towers wrapped in golden wards, floating pavilions with servants who never touched the ground, and beast-bound disciples flying on spirit owls.
They all looked down at him.
A nobody.
A worm that had slithered through the cracks and emerged in the nest of dragons.
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Inside High Sky Hall, Elder Serpentshade lit incense of black lotus. The scent stung the eyes, blurred the mind—good for speaking secrets.
"Do you feel them?" he asked.
Yun Mu nodded.
"Yes."
Serpentshade smiled grimly. "That's your instincts awakening. The spiritual sense of a predator being noticed by greater ones. You're a fox who's entered the eagle's sky."
He placed a scroll on the table.
Yun Mu opened it.
The seal of the Heavenly Judgment Faction gleamed on the wax.
"They've challenged me?"
Serpentshade sipped his tea.
"No. Worse. They've acknowledged you. That's how it begins. You're not a threat until you're a possibility."
Yun Mu studied the name listed.
> Opponent: Zhen Tai
Heaven-Judged Bloodline, Inner Disciple
Rank: 41
Challenge Type: Witnessed Platform Duel
Location: Northern Flame Platform
"I'm meant to lose," Yun Mu said.
Serpentshade nodded.
"Yes. And cleanly. Publicly. Like a mongrel being corrected."
He slid a small talisman across the table.
"Kill him instead."
Yun Mu picked it up.
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Northern Flame Platform
Carved from obsidian veined with flame jade, the dueling ring glowed with pulsing red glyphs. The moment Yun Mu stepped onto it, the air grew heavier, as if the platform itself judged his worth.
Disciples filled the stands—some Inner Sect, some outer ones desperate to glimpse something that would never belong to them.
A crowd of power and poison.
Zhen Tai waited at the center, arms folded, surrounded by spirit mirrors floating in a perfect ring.
Each one showed a different version of him: one smiling, one angry, one serene, one bloodstained.
A Mirror Formation—rare, hard to master. But deadly.
"Yun Mu," he said, voice cold as snow. "Do you know why you're here?"
Yun Mu stared at him.
"To be warned."
Zhen Tai smiled faintly.
"Correct. Not by me. But by Heaven. You're walking a path that doesn't exist. No roots, no sect legacy, no bloodline. You think a Hollow Path can take you where only divine favor leads?"
Yun Mu flexed his fingers.
"I don't need favor."
Zhen Tai raised his guandao.
"You'll learn."
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The duel began.
Zhen Tai blurred forward, mirrors pulsing.
Twelve versions of him moved at once—each striking from a different angle. Some illusions. Some real.
Yun Mu closed his eyes.
Felt the Hollow Seed.
Let it guide.
His whip-blade flickered.
One strike.
Not at Zhen Tai.
But at himself—his shadow on the ground.
The blade pierced the shadow—and from it emerged a Hollow Maw, born from stolen light and personal essence.
It lashed upward, and one of Zhen Tai's real forms shattered.
Gasps echoed.
Yun Mu's feet never moved.
Zhen Tai growled.
"You dare use shadow-paths and devour-techniques in front of a full crowd?"
Yun Mu opened his eyes.
"I dare because no one else does."
He stepped forward.
Zhen Tai launched a Spirit Nova.
A twelve-fold blade wheel spun from the mirrors, filled with divine qi and burning will.
But Yun Mu's Hollow Maw bent, slithered between the attacks like smoke, and—
Bit.
Not at Zhen Tai's body.
But at his reflection.
It shattered.
And the spiritual link between them screamed.
Zhen Tai fell.
His guandao hit the stone with a clang.
The crowd stared.
Yun Mu stood over him.
Breathed out once.
"You are not Heaven," he said quietly. "You're just another wall."
Then he turned and left, leaving the guandao and its master behind.
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That night, the Heavenly Judgment Faction met in secret.
Nine golden-robed figures sat in a circle, their eyes like suns, their bodies more talisman than flesh.
Elder Hu spoke first.
"He learns fast."
Elder Xu answered.
"He was shaped by pain. But pain does not mean wisdom."
Then came the old one, Elder Wu.
His words were slow. "He has no fate thread. That's the danger. He's moving outside the Will."
The youngest girl among them raised her head.
"Then he's already Hunted."
They all nodded.
And one word was spoken that reached beyond the sect—into the world of forbidden paths and forgotten legends.
> "Heaven's Eye must open."
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Meanwhile, in the darkness beneath the sect, a door opened.
A scroll was unsealed.
A knife was prepared.
And a killer without a name, trained in the deepest halls of soul-murder, stepped into the mortal world once more.
His target:
> Yun Mu.
Sect Rank: Irregular.
Clearance: Kill.
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