Lin Shu stormed out of the auction, careful not to draw attention to himself. He didn't even take the time to check everything he had received—he simply accepted a high-rank body refinement technique and a pile of other items before leaving immediately. Staying even a second longer among those Rank 2 monsters was a risk he couldn't afford. He could barely defeat people in his own cultivation rank without resorting to dirty tactics, lacking proper battle skills, weapons, and artifacts.
Meanwhile, back in the auction hall, the man who had traded with Lin Shu sat with a broad smile, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction. He had the egg. The mere thought of it sent a thrill through his veins. Without wasting a moment, he turned to the figures beside him and commanded, "Contact the other elders. Now."
This man was one of the Chi Clan's elders, recently returned from raiding a secret inheritance—one that no one outside their clan even knew existed. And among the treasures they had claimed, the egg had been the most precious of all.He then turned to another group, his expression sharpening. "This is the Phantom Brand Seal. It allows you to track a marked item the moment it leaves a spatial ring or pouch, as long as it remains within a radius of twenty li.
I placed this mark on some of the items I just traded, and more importantly—on the trader himself.
"Find him. He won't even notice the mark, and even if by some miracle he does, he won't be able to remove it. I doubt he's even at peak-stage Rank 1. If he were, he would have known the true worth of the egg. He just handed it over for a mere fraction—one-fifth—of its actual value. He probably stumbled upon it by pure luck. Of course, there's always the chance he was desperate to get rid of it, but I find that unlikely. If he truly wanted to be rid of it, he could have just destroyed the egg or abandoned it somewhere far away.".
"And do not let him keep the arts I traded with him." His voice hardened. "Those were obtained from the inheritance, and even I don't fully know their worth. We were forced to leave before identifying them thanks to that attack by those demonic bastards. All I know is that they have some connection to lightning—the inheritance belonged to someone who mastered it."
He didn't care if they knew this much. They had already sworn an oath never to reveal anything about the inheritance, and besides, they were his clansmen. He trusted them—to a degree.
"Now go," he ordered.
But the moment they opened the door, they froze. A group of people stood waiting outside.
A woman stood in the doorway, clad in silver armor lined with gold. Her golden hair framed a striking face, her green eyes sharp yet unreadable. She was undeniably beautiful, but not a single member of the Chi Clan reacted with admiration. Their gazes turned cold the instant they saw the emblem on her armor—the unmistakable mark of the Zhao Empire.
The woman smiled, warm and composed, but none of them felt a shred of kindness in that expression.
"My name is Zhao Lian," she introduced herself. "I am a senior officer of the imperial army, and I would like to speak with you. You are an elder of the Chi Clan, I assume?"
The elder gave a slow nod.
"Wonderful." Her voice remained light, almost pleasant. "We are currently hunting down the attackers responsible for ambushing your convoys—along with many others. We've heard that something extremely precious was stolen from your clan. As soldiers of the Empire, it is our duty to protect those under us, Elder."
To the ignorant, her words would have been admirable—an officer of the Empire speaking with such righteous conviction, standing boldly against chaos. But to the elder, her presence was suffocating. The way she said under us wasn't about protection. It was about superiority. The Empire didn't see them as subjects. They saw them as lesser beings.
They want the egg. They want to track the inheritance. They know we found something, and now they want to sink their claws into it. Over my dead body. You won't get a single thing from us.
His thoughts burned with fury, but his face remained calm, his lips curving into a polite smile. "And I thank you for your concern and commitment to your duty," he said smoothly. "But we have no leads. We have been searching for the attackers for months, and we still haven't uncovered their true identities."
Now hurry up and get the hell out of my face. I need to catch that marked bastard.
He knew the truth. The Empire and the clans would never be allies. No matter what words were exchanged, the hatred between them would never fade.
The Chi Clan elder's thoughts ground to a halt as he felt something—his mark had vanished.
"How? How did he remove it? He shouldn't have even been able to sense it! And even if he could, I placed it directly on his spine for a reason—he should have been paralyzed the moment he tried to take it out! Unless… unless he's actually at peak-stage Rank 1… or even Rank 2! He can't be any lower than that!"
Rage flared in his chest. His fingers curled into fists.
"Damn it! It's all because of these imperial scum! They wasted precious seconds—seconds I could have used to catch him myself! I need to reach the last place he was detected at, now! If I'm fast enough, I might still track him down… or better yet, find him wounded. If he removed the mark by force, that means he ripped a piece of his spine out!"
—
Moments earlier, Lin Shu was running at full speed. The night stretched around him, cold and quiet, but then—he felt it. A foreign sensation, deep in his bones. His spine. Something was stuck to him.
His breath hitched. Without hesitation, he activated Ivory Dominion. The bones in his back shifted, forcing out the affected section and instantly replacing it with new, untainted bone. The severed piece dropped to the ground with a dull thud. Lin Shu's eyes flicked to it—and there, etched onto the pale surface, was a mark.
A chill ran down his spine.
"I… I was being tracked."
His breathing quickened.
"No. No, no, no."
Panic clawed at his chest. He frantically checked every inch of his body—his skin, his bones—but there was nothing. No other marks. Then, before his eyes, the severed bone began to dissolve, breaking down now that it was separated from him.
His hands clenched.
"I was lucky. I was truly lucky."
A bitter resolve hardened within him.
"I will never sell something that I don't truly understand."
He bolted, pushing forward without hesitation. He couldn't leave the area yet—that would be even more dangerous—but he needed to vanish. And quickly.
His mind raced.
"The items I got… they probably have marks too. I can't take them out of the storage ring, or they'll be detected if someone's tracking them. I need to be far away before I even think of checking them."
—
Back at the auction, within the silver room, frustration boiled over.
"No! We didn't get it! Someone else took it!" one of the trio snarled.
"But we can still find them," another said, voice dark with fury. "And when we do, we'll torture them for taking it. We suffered too much stealing it from the Chi Clan to let it slip away now."
"Wouldn't that be dangerous?" the woman in the group questioned. "Others might be after him as well."
"She's right," the white-masked teen murmured.
They left without another word. Their failure at Windgrove Village was enough—they couldn't afford another setback. They needed to regroup, meet with the other members of their gang, and report to their leader. Losing the egg was frustrating, but in the end, it wasn't the reason they had attacked the Chi Clan's convoys. It had been the most valuable thing there, yes, but they hadn't known that when they struck. Their true objective had already been accomplished.
Meanwhile, a full-blown search for Lin Shu had begun. But with the tracking mark lost, the Chi Clan found themselves grasping at nothing.
At the same time, the imperial soldiers had received new orders—watch the Chi Clan closely. The empire wanted the same thing. If the Chi Clan knew the location of the inheritance, they would make sure to extract that information, one way or another.