"Clearly," Elyon said, clutching the pouch as if it might vanish. "Do you have any idea how long this could have fed my tribe if they were still there? Or fund my missions? This is enough to live like a king for ten years or even more."
Lin Mu simply smiled, his eyes steady. "Then use it well. We’ll need your senses when we go down. Little Shrubby and the others can’t sll here well due to the ash."
Elyon stared at him for a mont longer, then tucked the pouch away with a subtle nod. But his thoughts were racing.
’Who was this man?’
He looked at Lin Mu again—at his calm deanor, the way elental energy clung to his form like a second skin, and the quiet intensity of his gaze. The Sword Intent that occasionally flickered from him was like a living thing, sharp and dignified, but not cruel. And now, this... wealth, casually dispensed like loose change?
"People say the Hooded Tracker is dangerous," Elyon murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "But I think I just t soone far more terrifying... in a different way."
Daoist Chu gave him a knowing look but didn’t comnt.
What Elyon didn’t know was that Lin Mu’s generosity wasn’t just habit—it was calculation and principle. His Sword Heart now let him sense emotions, asure truths, and discern intentions. And what it told him now was simple:
Elyon was not a threat.
Cautious, yes. Wary, undeniably. But not malicious. Not like the assassins from the Ephera Sect who had impersonated clients. Not like those who clung to their killing intent like armor.
No, this wolf was just another soul trying to survive a ruthless world.
"All right," Elyon said finally, taking a breath. "I’ll guide you. I know exactly where the mark was. Now that the ash is gone... it should be sowhere near the western tunnel. Co on."
With that, he turned and began walking down the sloped basin.
The others followed in silence, boots crunching against the brittle remnants of cooled ash and slag. The air was dry, the residual heat simring faintly in the rocks, and distant embers still glowed between cracks like the breath of a sleeping giant.
Whatever had happened to the elders... it lay waiting in the darkness below.
The mont they descended into the exposed pit and stepped past the scorched threshold of the chamber entrance, an oppressive silence wrapped around them. The seething flas and swirling ash above were gone now—replaced by the cold, still air of ancient tunnels long buried under the Verdant Ash Basin’s molten tides.
The rock around them was dark, nearly black, with streaks of deep red and hints of glowing embers running like blood vessels beneath the stone. Charred support pillars, half-lted by millennia of exposure to heat and pressure, lined the main corridor.
Despite the absence of any torches or lamps, the path ahead was clear—lit only by the occasional, flickering veins of Earth Fla trapped within the walls.
Elyon took the lead, his tall form wrapped in his traveler’s cloak again. His long ears twitched slightly, his golden eyes glowing faintly, and his every step was soundless—effortless. Lin Mu noticed how the shadows around the wolfkin seed to move with him, subtly adjusting, parting, or clinging depending on his intentions.
"What you’re seeing," Daoist Chu whispered to Lin Mu as they followed, "isn’t stealth. It’s communion."
Lin Mu raised a brow.
"He doesn’t just hide in the darkness. He is the darkness," Daoist Chu continued quietly. "That level of affinity... that’s not sothing you gain with cultivation alone. It’s instinct. It’s bloodline. It’s sothing woven into his being."
Even ng Bai, who was bringing up the rear with the twin snakes slithering beside him and Ashy perched on his shoulder, was impressed. His experience with concealnt techniques wasn’t small when he was a pickpocket and he had improved a bit having trained under Lin Mu, but this was sothing else entirely.
Elyon didn’t vanish from sight. He simply stopped being noticed.
Suddenly, the wolfkin stopped, nose twitching, ears standing alert.
"We’re close," he murmured, sniffing the air with precision. "Sa traces from before... though faint."
"Can you still track it?" Lin Mu asked, voice low.
"Yes," Elyon said. "The scent is nearly gone, but the darkness rembers."
The words were cryptic, but the aning beca clear as Elyon stepped ahead into a cross-section of branching tunnels. Most were sealed with fallen debris or thick lava crusts—but one was open, and from within, a faint pulse of elental energy flickered.
He paused there, closing his eyes. Then, slowly, the shadows along the tunnel walls began to writhe.
It was subtle at first. Wisps of darkness peeled away from the corners and crevices, slowly drifting toward Elyon’s outstretched hand. They gathered like smoke, swirling into a nebulous sphere above his palm. His expression didn’t shift—just calm focus. And then he spoke.
"They were here. Both of them."
"Can you tell what happened?" Daoist Chu asked.
"Not precisely," Elyon replied. "But I can sense that they paused here. They were preparing for sothing... waiting, maybe. Then... they descended further."
"How far?" Lin Mu asked.
The sphere of darkness in Elyon’s hand trembled and thinned out into a trail—pointing downward into the tunnel, which sloped further into the depths.
"There’s a pocket chamber below," Elyon said, sniffing again. "Earth Fla runs through its veins. They went there. But the trace is warped. Sothing... interfered."
The group exchanged glances but said nothing. They continued down, trusting Elyon to guide them.
It quickly beca apparent that the wolfkin’s abilities weren’t limited to scent or basic perception. As they delved deeper, the light from the molten veins grew dimr, and soon even those faded completely.
Yet Elyon didn’t pause. His pace remained steady. He didn’t trip, didn’t hesitate. It was as if he could feel the tunnel itself—its width, its twists, the smallest undulation in the stone.
"What kind of technique is that?" ng Bai whispered to Ashy, who chirped uncertainly.
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