The great assembly hall of Lianshan City thrummed with a silence sharper than drawn steel. Within its towering stone walls—carved with ancient battle murals, their once-vibrant colors faded like old blood—the most powerful figures in the city sat not as allies, but as wolves circling the same dying prey.
The obsidian council table pulsed faintly with qi, its glow a sickly mimicry of vitality. At its head sat Elder Mo of the Verdant Sky Pavilion, his knuckles pale where they gripped the armrests. He is a cultivator of late-meridian expansion Realm, the kind of man who inspired whispers in court and dread in battlefield duels.
"Let us dispense with illusions," he said, his tone like gravel dragged over ice. "Without the Meridian Expansion Pill, Elder Heng dies at the threshold of his breakthrough. And without him? Lianshan dies with him."
A silence like a burial shroud settled over the hall.
"Fifth among the ten prefecture cities," Elder Mo continued, scanning faces that had long forgotten how to flinch. "A position we cling to by rotten threads. Fengyuan City feasts on our hesitation—they've secured a second peak-stage cultivator. Xiangbei of the Jade Sky Sect, has become a dog for some pseudo core elder. What do we have?"
"A dying man," Clan Head Zhu muttered.
"A dying city," Lady Shen corrected him. She of the Jadeflow Sect lifted her chin, her jade hairpin catching the lamplight like a dagger. "A city of scavengers. The Forgotten Valley Ruins gift us scraps, and we squabble like dogs over bones. If we falter now, the valley's next awakening will be our funeral pyre."
"The valley awakens in nine years," Patriarch Wei said softly. "Too soon for another Core to rise among us."
"No," Elder Mo replied. "Not rise. Return. The rumors from White Phoenix Temple—"
"Are lies," Zhu spat. "You believe a fallen divine beast stirs beneath those ruins? That a cursed land might bless us?"
Wei's eyes gleamed. "I believe in desperation. And desperate cities birth desperate legends."
Zhu slammed a fist onto the table, sending a crack spiderwebbing through the obsidian. "And yet you demand more spirit stones? Our vaults reek of emptiness! Ironwood's miners dig with hands now, not tools."
"We've resorted to other means," Wei said.
Lady Shen's smile could have frozen flame. "Ah. The 'bandits' on the southern trade routes. How convenient that they fight with techniques only our sects teach. How curious that they spare only Lianshan-bound caravans."
No one denied it.
"We strip the caravans bare," Elder Mo said, exhaling slow and deliberate, "because we must. Seventy thousand low-grade spirit stones—that is the price of survival. That is what the Pill-forger in the Sunfire Altar demands. Without Elder Heng at peak, we are nothing but a target."
"And when the Royal Investigators come sniffing?" Zhu pressed. "When the Azure Mark arrives with his men?"
"Let them," Lady Shen said coldly. Her fingers brushed the edge of her sleeve, where a hidden blade might rest. "Dead men file no reports. We've buried three agents already."
The air curdled with the unspoken truth: they were past redemption.
Mo's gaze lingered on the cracked murals—the one with a long-dead Lianshan Lord slaying a winged hydra with a single palm, the golden banners behind him fluttering in winds long since vanished.
"The Kingdom of Xianlin tolerates only strength. A pseudo-Core expert elevates a city to Special status—free of prefecture chains, answering only to the throne. Four cities hold that honor. We will be the fifth."
"A lie," Shen whispered.
"A prayer," Wei murmured.
"A threat," Zhu finished.
Patriarch Wei stood first. "The Silver Thunder Clan pledges ten thousand stones." Not loyalty—capitulation.
Lady Shen's eyes flicked to him, calculating. "The Jadeflow Sect matches it."
"Ironwood will offer five," Zhu muttered. "And don't ask for more. Our forges are cold."
Others followed, their faces masks carved by fear and pride. Not one pledged for Lianshan. Only for themselves.
Elder Mo's voice sank into their bones like frost. "One month. If Elder Heng breaks through, we rise. If he fails…"
He did not need to finish. They all knew what the ruins devoured, and what the Kingdom forgot.
The Forgotten Valley Ruins would remember their failure.
And the kingdom would forget Lianshan ever existed.