**Title: Shadows Behind the Throne**
**Chapter 7: The Abyssal Hunt and the Silent Harvest**
The transition through the obsidian gates of the Myriad Beast Imperial Reserve was akin to being swallowed by a colossal, ancient lung. The air on the other side was fundamentally different from the refined, serene atmosphere of the Imperial Capital. Here, the spiritual energy was wild, untamed, and heavy with the primordial stench of rot, ozone, and ancient bloodlines. Gravity itself felt twenty percent heavier, a natural suppression array designed by the founding Emperor to ground arrogant cultivators and force them to rely on their martial foundations.
Lin Xiyue's Snow-Treading Qilin-Horse let out a low, uneasy whinny, its hooves sinking slightly into the spongy, moss-covered earth. Towering iron-bark trees, their trunks as thick as watchtowers, stretched upward into a perpetual twilight canopy. The roars of distant, massive beasts echoed through the dense fog, sending vibrations through the soles of Lin Xiyue's boots.
She inhaled deeply, the violent qi burning her lungs in a way she found immensely comforting. This was her element. The battlefield. The wild.
"D-Did you hear that?" a high-pitched, trembling voice whined from exactly three paces behind her.
Lin Xiyue didn't turn around. She simply kept her gaze fixed on the dense treeline ahead.
Chu Yun was currently hunched over, clutching his ridiculous golden crossbow to his heavily padded chest like a protective talisman. His netted veil was snagged on a low-hanging branch, and he was struggling to pull it free without tearing the expensive silk.
"It sounded like a tiger!" Chu Yun squeaked, his knees visibly knocking together. "A really big, hungry tiger! Lady Lin, maybe we should just wait by the portal? We can tell Father Emperor we got lost! Or that I had a stomach ache!"
"If you speak again," Lin Xiyue said, her voice a low, melodic blade that cut through the ambient forest noise, "I will tie you to this tree, cover you in spiritual beast bait, and proceed with the hunt alone. Pull your veil out of the branch and walk silently."
Chu Yun let out a microscopic, pathetic whimper, frantically untangling his veil and scurrying to maintain his exact three-pace distance.
Beneath the veil, however, Chu Yun's pitch-black, depthless eyes were already mapping the entire sector. He was completely ignoring the ambient fear he was outwardly projecting. His Void Refinement consciousness, operating on a plane of existence that treated the pocket dimension's suppression arrays as mere suggestions, expanded like an invisible tidal wave.
*Sector analysis complete,* his mind categorized instantly. *Three Tier-Three demon beasts within a five-mile radius. A nest of Tier-Two Venomous scorpions to the east. And, approaching from the northwest, moving perfectly in sync with the terrain... the twelve peak Nascent Soul signatures of the Soul-Devouring Hall.*
They were fast. They had bypassed the outer perimeter beasts entirely, using high-tier cloaking talismans to mask their scent and spiritual signatures. To a normal Mid Nascent Soul cultivator like Lin Xiyue, they were entirely invisible until they chose to strike.
*They will attempt to flank us at the weeping willow gorge two miles ahead,* Chu Yun calculated, his slouched posture never breaking as he stepped over a rotting log. *It is a natural chokepoint. Perfect for a spatial locking array.*
He needed to buy time. He needed Lin Xiyue to engage a beast first, to provide the chaotic energetic cover he required to mask his own subtle manipulations.
As if the heavens themselves were adhering to his script, the thick underbrush to their right suddenly exploded.
A shadow, moving with terrifying, liquid speed, launched itself at Lin Xiyue's Qilin-Horse. It was a Tier-Three Shadow-Maw Panther. It was the size of a carriage, its fur absorbing the ambient light, making it look like a tear in the fabric of the forest itself. Its jaws, lined with serrated, spiritual-qi-piercing teeth, snapped toward the horse's neck.
Lin Xiyue did not flinch. She had sensed the beast a fraction of a second before it leaped.
She vaulted off her saddle, kicking the Qilin-Horse out of the panther's trajectory. In mid-air, her hand shot over her shoulder. The Weeping Demon Spear materialized in her grip with a sound like a screaming soul.
"Chu Yun! Get down!" she roared, her Mid Nascent Soul aura erupting in a geyser of blood-red light.
Chu Yun didn't need to be told twice. He shrieked at the top of his lungs, dropped his golden crossbow in the mud, and threw himself face-first into a patch of thick, foul-smelling ferns, curling into a pathetic, trembling ball.
Lin Xiyue landed gracefully on a thick tree root. The panther, missing its initial target, contorted its massive body in mid-air, its glowing yellow eyes locking onto the Blood Asura. It roared, unleashing a wave of sonic, mind-disorienting qi.
Lin Xiyue's aura flared, shattering the sonic attack before it could touch her mind. She gripped her spear with both hands. This was the perfect opportunity. A Tier-Three beast was equivalent to an Early Nascent Soul cultivator, but physically far more robust. It was the perfect whetstone for her new, unstable art.
*Desolate Blood Lotus.*
She channeled her chaotic blood-qi, forcing it through the newly widened meridians the 'hidden senior' had healed. At the tip of her Weeping Demon Spear, a small, violently vibrating red lotus petal materialized.
She thrust the spear forward.
The panther lunged simultaneously, its claws glowing with dark spiritual energy.
The spear met the panther's massive paw. The red lotus petal detached and sank into the beast's flesh.
For a microsecond, nothing happened. Then, the incomplete 'Severance' intent detonated.
It was not the perfect, silent erasure of Chu Yun's Void Refinement mastery. It was a messy, brutal, explosive tearing of space. The panther's right leg didn't just detach; the space containing it shattered, sending a shockwave of blood, bone, and chaotic qi rippling through the clearing.
The panther shrieked in absolute agony, crashing into the mud, a massive, jagged crater where its shoulder used to be.
Lin Xiyue landed, her chest heaving. She coughed, tasting copper. The recoil of using the incomplete heaven-grade art had caused a minor internal tremor in her dantian. It was incredibly powerful, but far too volatile.
*I need more control,* she analyzed, wiping her mouth. *The spatial fold is uneven.*
From his hiding spot in the ferns, Chu Yun watched her through the gaps in the leaves.
*Her conceptual understanding of 'Severance' is barely at two percent,* Chu Yun critiqued internally, though a flicker of genuine respect warmed his cold, calculating mind. *Yet, she forced the technique to work through sheer, unadulterated willpower and battle instinct. She is a terrifyingly brilliant martial genius. With time, she will perfect it.*
*System Link Update,* the cold voice in his head chimed. *Target has utilized the Desolate Blood Lotus in combat. Providing passive feedback synchronization to Host.*
Chu Yun ignored the system. He didn't need the feedback; his *Primordial Void Lotus* was already at absolute perfection. He had more pressing matters.
The violent explosion of the panther's destruction had sent a massive shockwave of spiritual energy into the surrounding forest. It was a beacon.
And the hunters had arrived.
High in the canopy, three hundred yards away, twelve figures clad in featureless grey robes crouched upon the massive branches of the iron-bark trees. They wore masks forged from bleached bone, completely obscuring their features.
This was the Soul-Devouring Hall.
The leader, a man known in the underworld as 'Ghost Hand' Kui, stared down at the clearing through the dense foliage. His peak Nascent Soul aura was flawlessly concealed by a dark, corrosive shroud of demonic qi.
"The target has engaged a beast," Kui whispered into his communication talisman, his voice like grinding stones. "She used a high-tier martial art. Her breathing is slightly ragged. The recoil damaged her. The intelligence from the Eastern Palace was correct; her foundation is not fully stable."
"What of the Prince?" a raspy voice replied through the talisman.
Kui shifted his gaze, spotting the lump of purple padded armor trembling in the ferns. Disgust radiated from his masked face. "The royal pig is rolling in the mud. He is less than a mortal. We ignore him until the woman is secured, then we crush his head to fulfill the contract."
Kui pulled a disc of black jade from his robes. It pulsed with a sickening, purple light. "Brothers. Formation positions. We execute the 'Four-Directions Soul-Locking Array'. Do not let her use that spear art again. We grind her down with the poison mist. Go."
The twelve assassins vanished from the branches, moving with the eerie, silent synchronization of a wolf pack.
Down in the clearing, Lin Xiyue stepped toward the dying Shadow-Maw Panther to harvest its core.
Suddenly, her survival instincts—honed by years of bloody warfare on the northern borders—screamed at her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. The ambient spiritual energy in the clearing didn't just shift; it solidified.
She spun around, bringing her spear up.
Four massive pillars of purple light erupted from the forest floor, forming a perfect square around her and the clearing. The pillars shot up into the canopy, connecting to form a semi-translucent, dome-like barrier.
The air inside the dome instantly grew heavy, thick with a sweet, cloying scent that made Lin Xiyue's head spin.
"Poison," she hissed, instantly holding her breath and cycling her qi to purge her meridians.
From the shadows of the surrounding trees, twelve figures stepped through the purple barrier, their bone masks gleaming in the dim light. They drew curved, serrated blades that dripped with a highly corrosive dark venom.
Lin Xiyue's glacial eyes swept over them. She didn't panic. She analyzed.
*Twelve. All at the peak of the Nascent Soul realm,* she deduced, a cold weight settling in her stomach. *Demonic cultivators. Their auras are linked to the array. They are not here to rob me. This is an execution.*
She knew exactly who had sent them. The Crown Prince.
"The Blood Asura," Ghost Hand Kui rasped, stepping forward, his blade resting casually on his shoulder. "It is an honor to hunt the northern sword. We were told you were a monster, but looking at you now, breathing our Soul-Rot Mist... you just look like a little girl who played too close to the throne."
Lin Xiyue didn't respond to the taunt. She subtly shifted her stance, positioning herself between the assassins and the patch of ferns where Chu Yun was hiding.
It wasn't affection. It wasn't love. It was duty, and a profound, burning pride. She would not let these demonic dogs fulfill their contract. If she was to die here, she would take every single one of them with her, and she would not let the Emperor's bloodline be spilled on her watch, no matter how useless that bloodline was.
"Chu Yun," Lin Xiyue said, her voice terrifyingly calm, not looking back. "Do not move. Do not breathe. If you run, you will hit the barrier and the poison will melt your skin off."
From the ferns, a muffled, pathetic sob echoed. "I w-want my mother!"
Kui laughed—a harsh, grating sound. "How touching. The God of War protecting her pet pig. Kill her. Slowly."
The twelve assassins moved. They didn't charge blindly. They executed a flawless, sweeping pincer movement. Four attacked from the front, four circled to her blind spots, and four remained at the perimeter, channeling their qi into the purple dome to increase the concentration of the poison mist.
Lin Xiyue roared. Her Blood Asura Battle Physique fully activated. Her skin took on a faint, terrifying crimson hue, and a phantom image of a multi-armed deity materialized faintly behind her.
She thrust her spear. *Blood River Sweep!*
A crescent wave of crimson energy erupted from her blade, clashing violently with the four front-line assassins. The sheer force of her Mid Nascent Soul power, augmented by her supreme sword intent, forced the four peak Nascent Soul cultivators to slide backward in the mud, their blades trembling.
*She is strong,* Kui thought, his eyes narrowing behind his bone mask. *Stronger than the Eastern Palace reported. But she cannot hold out forever.*
"Press the attack!" Kui commanded. "Her meridians are already burning from the poison!"
Lin Xiyue spun, parrying a lethal strike from behind, but another assassin managed to graze her shoulder pauldron, the corrosive venom instantly eating into the star-iron armor. She gritted her teeth, her mind racing. She could not use the *Desolate Blood Lotus* again; the recoil combined with the poison would shatter her foundation. She had to rely on pure, brutal physical combat.
She was a lioness surrounded by hyenas, fighting a terrifyingly brilliant, desperate battle.
And the useless pig in the ferns... was watching it all.
Chu Yun lay perfectly still beneath the massive fern fronds. The purple poison mist drifted around his padded armor, but the moment the toxic particles came within an inch of his skin, they were silently folded into microscopic spatial pockets and annihilated.
He rested his chin on his hands, his Void Refinement eyes observing the battle with the analytical detachment of a god watching mortals war over an anthill.
*Her footwork is impeccable,* Chu Yun noted, watching Lin Xiyue perfectly deflect three simultaneous strikes. *Her defense is flawless. But she is expending qi at an unsustainable rate. The poison is forcing her to use forty percent of her energy just to keep her organs from liquifying. In approximately four minutes, she will suffer a lethal lapse in concentration.*
He shifted his gaze to the twelve assassins.
*Peak Nascent Soul. Demonic foundation. Flawless teamwork,* Chu Yun evaluated. *They are competent. The Crown Prince spent a fortune on this. It would be a shame if they all had... an accident.*
Chu Yun knew he could not simply wipe out the entire forest. He had to be surgical. He had to maintain the illusion that a 'hidden senior' was intervening, an entity that operated with profound, mysterious subtlety.
He didn't need to stand up. He didn't need to chant. He didn't even need to move his hands.
He simply locked his spatial sense onto the four assassins standing at the perimeter, the ones channeling energy into the purple dome.
*Target locked. Origin points mapped.* Chu Yun executed the *Primordial Void Lotus*, but he modified it. Instead of a single, massive bloom, he fractured the intent into four microscopic, invisible seeds of pure spatial severance.
*Erase.*
At the edge of the clearing, Assassin Seven was pouring his dark qi into the array disc. He was watching the Blood Asura struggle, a cruel smile forming behind his mask.
Suddenly, the world went entirely silent.
He didn't feel a blade. He didn't feel a spell. He just felt a profound, chilling emptiness in the center of his chest.
Assassin Seven looked down. There was a perfectly circular hole, exactly three inches in diameter, entirely missing from his torso. It went cleanly through his armor, his flesh, his spine, and most importantly, his Nascent Soul core. There was no blood pouring out; the edges of the wound were spatially fused, cauterized by the vacuum of the void.
He opened his mouth to scream, but his lungs had been severed from his throat. He simply collapsed backward, hitting the mud without a sound.
Simultaneously, Assassins Eight, Nine, and Ten suffered the exact same fate. Perfect, silent erasure of their vital cores. They dropped like puppets whose strings had been cut by an invisible god.
Because the four anchors of the array were dead, the purple dome flickered violently, emitting a high-pitched whine.
Ghost Hand Kui, who was currently engaging Lin Xiyue in a high-speed clash of blades, felt the sudden drop in array pressure. He leaped backward, putting thirty paces between himself and the Blood Asura.
"What are you doing?!" Kui barked into his communication talisman. "Hold the array! The mist is dissipating!"
Silence.
Kui snapped his head toward the perimeter. He saw the four bodies lying motionless in the mud.
Panic, cold and absolute, gripped his dark heart. He was a peak Nascent Soul assassin. He had survived decades in the underworld. He knew the auras of every major player in the capital. But he had felt absolutely nothing. No spiritual fluctuation. No killing intent. Just four of his elite brothers, dead in an instant.
Lin Xiyue, breathing heavily, her spear dripping with demonic blood, also noticed the bodies. Her glacial eyes widened.
She immediately scanned the treeline. She felt the same profound, terrifying lack of presence she had felt at the Howling Wind Gorge and the Heavenly Treasure Pavilion.
*The Senior,* Lin Xiyue realized, a massive surge of adrenaline and absolute triumph flooding her veins. *He followed me into the reserve. The imperial suppression arrays couldn't stop him! He is here!*
The sudden knowledge that she was not fighting alone, that an unfathomable god was watching her back, shattered her defensive mindset. The Blood Asura smiled—a terrifying, blood-curdling expression that made the remaining assassins involuntarily take a step back.
"Is that all you have, dogs of the Eastern Palace?" Lin Xiyue mocked, her voice ringing with newfound, absolute authority. "Your array is broken. Your brothers are dead. And the shadows you hide in belong to someone else."
Kui's hands trembled. He looked at the remaining seven assassins. They were all looking at him, their eyes wide with terror behind their bone masks.
"Retreat!" Kui screamed, abandoning all pretense of the mission. "Scatter! It's a trap! There's an old monster here!"
The seven assassins didn't hesitate. They burned their blood essence, attempting to launch themselves into the canopy and flee in seven different directions.
Down in the ferns, Chu Yun let out a soft, inaudible sigh.
*Running is so undignified,* he thought.
He expanded his spatial net. He couldn't let them leave. If even one survived to tell the Crown Prince about the invisible, instant-death attacks occurring around Lin Xiyue, the Eastern Palace would go completely underground, making them harder to manipulate. The purge had to be absolute.
*Void Refinement: Spatial Compaction.*
As the seven assassins leaped into the air, Chu Yun simply commanded the space around them to solidify.
It was like flies jumping into flash-freezing amber. The seven peak Nascent Soul cultivators froze in mid-air. Their momentum was instantly nullified. They hung suspended, twenty feet above the ground, utterly paralyzed. They couldn't move their limbs, they couldn't cycle their qi, they couldn't even blink.
Ghost Hand Kui, trapped in his mid-air leap, felt a terror so profound it threatened to shatter his soul. He tried to detonate his core, a final act of suicidal defiance. But the space within his own body was locked. The void had him.
Lin Xiyue stared in absolute awe.
Seven powerful demonic cultivators, suspended in the air like gruesome ornaments. There were no visible chains, no glowing arrays holding them. Just the sheer, terrifying imposition of a higher law of reality.
*Soul Formation? No,* Lin Xiyue thought, her heart hammering with a reverence that bordered on worship. *This is Void Refinement. This is the realm of the ancient myths. A Void Refinement ancestor is protecting me.*
She didn't waste the opportunity the senior had gifted her.
She gripped the Weeping Demon Spear. She didn't use a martial art. She simply channeled her pure, physical Asura strength and leaped into the air, using the suspended bodies as stepping stones.
*Slash. Pierce. Decapitate.*
In a blur of crimson motion, Lin Xiyue moved through the paralyzed assassins. She executed them with cold, military efficiency. She didn't torture them. She simply ended them.
She landed gracefully back in the center of the clearing. Behind her, the spatial lock released. The seven lifeless bodies dropped to the forest floor, hitting the mud with a series of heavy, wet thuds.
The clearing fell deadly silent, save for the distant, ambient sounds of the primordial forest.
The twelve elite hunters of the Soul-Devouring Hall, an asset the Crown Prince had spent millions to acquire, had been entirely annihilated in less than five minutes.
Lin Xiyue stood amidst the carnage. She wiped the blood from her cheek. She turned slowly, surveying the empty treeline, bowing deeply, a full ninety degrees.
"This junior thanks the Senior for his profound grace," Lin Xiyue said, her voice ringing with absolute, genuine respect. "I do not know your name, nor why you shield me, but the Lin family repays its debts. If Senior ever requires my spear, it is yours."
The forest offered no reply. The wind rustled the leaves. The invisible god remained silent.
After a long moment, Lin Xiyue straightened up. She felt an immense burden lift from her shoulders. She was not a pawn in the Emperor's game. She was the chosen successor of a hidden deity.
Suddenly, a loud, obnoxious snorting sound broke the solemn atmosphere.
Lin Xiyue's eye twitched. She turned around.
The patch of ferns rustled wildly. Chu Yun crawled out, covered from head to toe in foul-smelling mud and rotting leaves. He had lost his netted veil, and his purple padded armor was completely ruined. He was clutching a massive, brilliantly glowing purple sphere in his hands.
It was the array disc Ghost Hand Kui had dropped.
"L-Lady Lin!" Chu Yun babbled, his eyes wide and completely unfocused, playing the part of a traumatized idiot flawlessly. "I found a shiny ball! It was glowing! Did... did the scary men drop the ball?! Can I keep it? It looks like a giant grape!"
Lin Xiyue stared at him. She looked at the blood, the corpses, the absolute devastation of the clearing. And then she looked at her husband, who was currently trying to wipe a smear of mud off his nose with the back of his hand, looking immensely proud of finding a 'shiny ball'.
The contrast was so violently absurd it almost gave her a headache.
"Put the array disc down, Chu Yun," she said, her voice filled with a profound, bone-deep exhaustion. "It is a demonic artifact. It will rot your hands off."
Chu Yun yelped, instantly dropping the priceless, peak-tier Nascent Soul array disc into a puddle of muddy water as if it burned him. He scrambled backward, hugging himself. "I didn't touch it! The mud touched it!"
Lin Xiyue sighed. She walked over, retrieved the array disc, and seamlessly stored it in her spatial ring, along with the spatial rings of all twelve dead assassins. It was a massive haul of resources. The hidden senior had not only saved her life, but had also funded her next breakthrough.
She turned back to Chu Yun, who was currently trying to squeeze the muddy water out of his padded sleeves.
"We are moving," Lin Xiyue commanded. "The blood will attract more beasts. Stay behind me. And if you pick up anything else glowing, I will leave you here."
"Yes! Yes! Walking behind! No glowing grapes!" Chu Yun nodded frantically, scurrying to fall into his designated three-pace distance.
As they marched deeper into the Myriad Beast Reserve, Lin Xiyue's posture was straighter, her aura sharper. She walked with the confidence of a woman who knew the heavens were watching her back.
And three paces behind her, Chu Yun, covered in mud and looking like the ultimate punchline of a cruel joke, walked with the invisible, absolute swagger of the god who owned those heavens.
*The Crown Prince has lost his fangs,* Chu Yun analyzed, staring at the back of his wife's crimson armor. *When the Hunt ends and he realizes his elite strike team simply vanished, his paranoia will break him. He will make a fatal mistake. And when he does... the Underworld Vault will be waiting to swallow him whole.*
The Myriad Beast Imperial Reserve was supposed to be a trap. Instead, it had just become the breeding ground for the Great Yan Dynasty's darkest, most terrifying nightmare.