They rose when the sun fled.
Not just from the outer mists, but from the soil itself — from beneath ruined trees and behind crumbling stone. Shapeless things with faces long forgotten, shadows that wore the tattered remnants of the past.
They were not beasts.They were not spirits.They were the remnants of the dead.
Long ago, before the sects unified under the Great Accord, there was a war — a nameless conflict buried under ash and silence. Records were lost, monuments swallowed by time. But the land remembered. And here, in what was now called Ghastly Valley, memory had shape. It had hunger.
It began with a mythical beast. A guardian once revered, whose spirit could not be appeased after its death. Twisted by betrayal, it did not fade. It lingered — corrupted, consumed — and became something else.
A Shadow Beast.
Born of grief. Sustained by fury.
Its command seeped into the bones of the valley. The fallen did not rest. The wild creatures warped, their bodies mutating under the influence of its will. What was once sacred land became a prison — a seal forged in desperation.
And the man who forged it?
Zhen Yuan.
A hundred years ago, when the threat first reared its head, it was Zhen Yuan who stood at the centre of the storm. He led six sects to the valley's edge. Together, they built the Six Outposts, each one a pillar in the grand seal — a formation not to kill, but to appease.
Not even he could destroy the beast.
But he could bargain.
A pact was formed. Offerings made. And for a century, there was peace. The Shadow Beast slumbered beneath the binding circle. The valley, though still cursed, was quiet.
Until now.
The pact is broken.The seal is weakening.And the shadows are rising once more.
The outer outposts were the first to fall. Whispered reports spoke of night ambushes, vanishing patrols, and beasts with too many eyes. Scouts were sent. Few returned.
Now, even the main village trembles beneath the weight of what's coming.
From the central hall, urgent letters had already flown to the far reaches of the land. Messengers dispatched to major cities, calling for reinforcements. Cultivators, mercenaries, lone wanderers — anyone with strength, or courage, or foolish hope.
Quests were issued.
From the [Whispering Monastery] in the east to the [Stonefang Cliffs] in the west, word spread of a growing darkness. Those who sought honour — or coin — began their journey toward Ghastly Valley.
But time was thin.
And the shadow did not wait.
---
Lu Chen adjusted the strap on his shoulder guard, eyes scanning the ridgeline beyond the reclaimed outpost. The smoke had cleared two days ago, but the stench of ash and blood still lingered in the soil — as if the valley itself remembered every fallen name.
Zhen Yuan had told him not to engage.
"Stay back. Carry the supplies. If things go south—run."That was the order.
Lu Chen understood. At least, he thought he did. He wasn't from a sect. He wasn't bound by ancient oaths or clan legacy. In Zhen Yuan's eyes, he was just a quiet outsider who showed up at the right time — a pack mule with decent instincts.
But instincts weren't all he had.
He kept mostly to the rear, never straying too far from the healer, a gentle-faced disciple from the Azure Wind Temple. Whenever the mist thickened or the winds howled, Lu Chen positioned himself between her and the dark.
He wasn't supposed to fight.
For the system quest, yes. When the first Level 2 Shadow Monster breached the second line of defense—twitching limbs and dead eyes—he reacted. No hesitation. No fear.
His body moved before thought. Muscle memory. He remembered the fight with the Shadow Champion—how he reacted, how he deflected the attacks, how he moved and escaped with the help of the orb.Without it, his movements were cruder, sloppier—but still deadly.
The others barely caught the flicker of Ghost Signal — his short-blade humming with pale light, weaving arcs of spectral steel in the fog. With a pivot and a pulse of Falselight, he vanished from the beast's vision for half a breath — just long enough to drive his blade into the thing's eye socket.
Then another came. And another.
When the dust settled, there were three corpses of Shadow Monster sprawled at his feet — their withered flesh still twitching, the air thick with death aura. Each one was comparable to a Qi Condensation Level 5 cultivator.
Lu Chen didn't say a word.
He wiped his blade on his sleeve and returned to the healer, as if nothing had happened. The shadow essence he'd harvested from the Shadow Monster was plentiful.
[System Notification: Quest Complete + Extra Achievement. +40 Coins]
Lu Chen never got the chance to understand what the coins meant—there was no shop or explanation. But they had to be useful.
The others began to whisper.
The team, at first shocked, now looked at him with a mix of respect and unease. Even the squad leader — a Core Formation scout — pulled him aside later and asked, half-joking, "You sure you're just a porter?"
Lu Chen only shrugged.
He wasn't hiding anymore. He just wasn't ready to be known—and it was better that way.
It had begun well. Better than anyone expected.
The first few days were a success.
Teams moved like clockwork — precise, disciplined, driven by purpose. With fresh reinforcements from distant cities and rogue sects, the valley stirred not with fear, but determination. They reclaimed the first outpost by sunrise on the second day, the formation glyphs still faintly glowing under the grime.
There, they found relics of the old seal — the stone pylons half-buried in moss, the fragmented spirit wards still pulsing weakly.
With the help of spirit engineers and formation cultivators, the defences were strengthened. New wards overlaid the old. Fires were lit. The night, for a moment, held no fear.
Zhen Yuan had laughed when he found out Lu Chen had disobeyed orders."You're reckless," he said, "but for a boy who's just stepped into Qi Condensation… that was impressive work."
Lu Chen watched the younger disciples train in the courtyard, their laughter echoing off the newly raised barriers. For a moment, he almost believed things would hold.
Almost.
A few days later, they reclaimed the fifth outpost.
It should've been a turning point.
Instead, it was a warning.
The first to vanish was a scouting duo — both experienced cultivators, familiar with the terrain. No signal flares. No cries for help. Just… silence.
Then an entire reinforcement squad failed to report back. Twelve fighters. Gone.
Search parties were sent.
Only one returned — delirious, soaked in blood that wasn't his own, mumbling about voices in the mist and eyes watching from beneath the ground.
They found no bodies. No signs of battle.
Only their weapons, abandoned. Still warm to the touch.
The valley had grown quiet again. But not the peaceful kind.
The kind before a storm.
---
The wind howled through Ghastly Valley like a dying thing. Cold, wet, hungry.
In the central war tent, Zhen Yuan and the elders studied a weathered map, its surface marked with red ink and flickering formation talismans. The fifth outpost was secured—only one remained, deep in the valley.
Zhen Yuan's fingers hovered above the valley center, above the space untouched by light.
"It's stirring," he murmured, voice tight. "The Shadow Beast… it's awake."
The elders exchanged uneasy glances. One of them, Elder Yao, whispered a short prayer under his breath. Another snuffed the incense on instinct, eyes darting toward the mist curling at the tent's edges, even from within sealed grounds.
They marked the locations of the vanished parties.
A pattern emerged.
A spiral.
A pull.
Something was drawing them in.
That night, the fog grew thick enough to choke. It seeped through seams in wood and stone, clinging to skin like oil. Nightwatch cultivators reported shadows that moved without source. Whispers. Sobbing that came from beneath the earth.
When they opened one of the returned scout's memory pearls, it was corrupted — scrambled and dissonant. Screams echoed through it, garbled and layered with a deep, inhuman growl. The final image was of a mass of limbs writhing in the dark — no eyes, only rows and rows of jagged teeth, twitching in stillness.
---
Lu Chen sat in the quiet corner, his focus completely drawn into the flickering light of the lanterns. The rest of the camp seemed distant, the hum of wind and the distant voices of the others a soft background noise. He was alone with his thoughts, surrounded by the quiet pulse of spirit stones, which filled the space around him with a soft, ethereal glow. Each stone seemed to hum with its own latent energy, waiting to be drawn into him.
His fingers hovered above the stones, breath steady as Qi surged into him—swirling like a storm, threading through his veins. This was his escape, his sanctuary. The battlefield, the deaths, the looming Shadow Beast—they felt distant here. In this moment, he wasn't a soldier or a fighter. Just a cultivator, seeking strength.
Strength to survive—long enough to uncover the truth.The truth was all he sought.
Too many questions.Too few answers.
But that peace was fleeting. The recent battles had shaken him. He had faced death head-on and watched comrades fall. The growing danger of the Shadow Monster gnawed at him constantly. Despite all his strength, it wasn't enough. He needed more.
His hand gripped the hilt of the blade beside him, its cool weight grounding him. The sword was no longer just a tool; it had become part of him. He could feel its balance in his hands, how it moved when he shifted his stance. But no matter how much he had trained, it still felt like a piece was missing.
"I need more," he muttered. "More power. More precision."
With a flick, the skill console opened, its interface pulsing faintly. He began coding.
"Falselight Slash," he whispered — a technique of light, cutting through shadow and mist. In his mind's eye, the blade arced forward, charged with Qi, sharp and brilliant. It would slice clean, disrupt the unseen. He could feel the buildup of energy as if the strike were already real. Almost finished. But not enough.
"Phantom Edge." The words came unbidden. A feint cloaked in afterimages, a blur of slashes. Illusion and deception. His enemies would see multiple blades, unable to tell which was real until it was too late.
The techniques began to intertwine in his mind — light and illusion, precision and chaos. But still, something was missing.
His eyes opened."Ethereal Shift."
A sudden maneuver, honed in the middle of battle. Not just evasion, but repositioning — slipping through the cracks, gliding past defenses, and striking again before they knew what hit them. It would be a dance. Controlled. Calculated.
[System Notification: Code Compilation Complete]