“About what time?” Fei asked, his voice low and focused.

  From Yue Yang and Lulu Gan’s accounts, he was already piecing together a timeline in his mind—his mother’s movements, Wanwan’s last known actions, the gaps where everything had gone wrong.

  “Around midnight,” Lulu Gan said, frowning in concentration. “Aunt Guo pulled me down from the tower just as the command center clock dimmed its lights—right on the hour.”

  Fei nodded slowly. He remembered yesterday afternoon all too clearly: chasing the Windspirit Hare with Timo Yang, losing it because his own speed wasn’t enough.

  By the time he caught up, the boy was already under attack by the evil cultivator. Fei had tried to create a distraction, buy time to reach the sentry towers.

  Then a second evil cultivator appeared—both far stronger than him. Facing death, he’d unleashed an earth-element roar for help.

  He’d expected the nearby mountain guardians to respond first. Instead, his mother arrived—from six kilometers away.

  With her speed, that distance should have taken five or six minutes at most. Yet in his agony, time had stretched endlessly; consciousness had blurred into chaos.

  When he woke at three-thirty, her communicator showed she’d already been coordinating with the medical division.

  Yue Yang and Wanwan, out gathering herbs, had reached him shortly after. Which meant his mother had fought alone in the Blackwood Forest for over two hours.

  The realization settled heavily. The timelines aligned perfectly—until the dungeon.

  “What exactly happened in the Blackwood dungeon?” Fei asked Lulu Gan. “The Mother of Earth fought there—what else?”

  Lulu Gan nodded, eyes distant as she recalled.

  “The old evil cultivator drained the children’s spirit roots first. Then she turned on Aunt Guo—said she’d make her a slave.”

  The memory still unsettled her: multicolored spiritual energy surging, turning a withered crone into a youthful woman in moments.

  “There was another evil cultivator—Hanshuang , she called herself—and a male one. He got his reward and left for the Trial Realm.”

  “Those two must be the ones who ambushed me over the hare,” Fei said quietly. He knew his current strength was nowhere near enough to face them.

  “The Ice Evil cultivator sacrificed herself to the Spirit Lord,” Lulu Gan added with certainty. “I watched her turn to a desiccated corpse. She can’t be alive.”

  Fei and Yue Yang exchanged a glance. Possible.

  “But if someone infiltrated later,” Lulu Gan ventured, “it could be the male evil cultivator who passed the trial. What if he knows shape-shifting arts?”

  A plausible theory.

  Yue Yang wrote quickly: Why did the fight end so abruptly after reinforcements arrived?

  Lulu Gan hesitated, then leaned in. “The Spirit Lord used some unholy power—the entire space froze.”

  She mimed the old evil cultivator’s commanding gesture. “Time itself stopped. Then a black-clad figure—like Ghost Shadow—appeared out of nowhere and struck Aunt Guo from behind, shattering her absolute defense.”

  “What?” Fei’s blood ran cold. “The Mother of Earth’s full-tier earth defense—broken? By whom?”

  “He used lightning energy,” Lulu Gan whispered, “but black-red, corrupted—like evil cultivator arts.”

  The description sent chills through both Fei and Yue Yang. No one in the Watchers wielded such power. Ghost Shadow answered only to the prophetic elders; his abilities were known to every Deacon.

  “After the freeze,” Lulu Gan continued, “Sanctuary emissaries appeared in the dungeon. Together they overpowered the Spirit Lord. They vanished soon after—and Commander Yi arrived with support.”

  Only then did the full scope hit them. No wonder the prophetic elders were involved. This ran far deeper than imagined.

  “The commander loses control, Sanctuary emissaries lurk in secret, the Mother of Earth falls, evil cultivators infiltrate, a traitor aids from within…” Fei murmured. “No wonder Elder Gan declared Level One alert.”

  He felt the weight of it—the legion teetering on annihilation. He had no authority over high-level affairs.

  Yue Yang noticed the murderous glint in his eyes, brows knitting in worry. She passed him her journal.

  I woke around 2:15 a.m. That’s when something happened to Wanwan.

  Fei drew a steadying breath, channeling his father Yong Yuan’s old discipline—calm the mind, ask: What can I do?

  Wanwan. That was within his reach. She’d been part of the rescue all night. Even perfect disguise would leave cracks.

  Either Wanwan was truly gone—or replaced by a shapeshifter.

  “Where was Wanwan working mostly last night?”

  Yue Yang pointed down the corridor toward the main medical ward, where combat physicians stood grim guard outside the doors.

  “Primarily the grand medical bay,” she wrote. “Follow me.”

  She led Fei and Lulu Gan to the outermost ward.

  “Yesterday she stood in Section Four,” Yue Yang continued in her journal. “I wondered why she hadn’t turned on the lights. When she emerged, I didn’t ask.”

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  They moved to the adjacent lab. Wanwan’s data still hovered on the electronic screen from Yue Yang’s earlier match.

  “In Section Four I found this blood drop,” Yue Yang wrote. “This morning it carried the Blackwood’s foul stench.”

  She indicated the spot.

  “I thought it was mud at first—but our shoes are sterile; we change them entering and leaving. So… I believe Wanwan may be dead.”

  Fei exhaled slowly, reading the pages she’d labored over. They had to keep pushing.

  This was where Wanwan had changed. As Deacon Lan taught: answers lie at the scene.

  “Yue, take us to Section Four.”

  Yue Yang nodded and jogged ahead, slipping sterile covers over their shoes. She greeted the door guards, and they entered.

  Inside the vast ward, Fei and Lulu Gan split up, pacing the paths to Section Four, searching for any trace.

  Yue Yang noticed a curtain fluttering faintly. She inhaled deeply—the morning’s stench was gone; the floor had been decontaminated again.

  Passing Section Four, she saw two boys now awake, color returned but eyes hollow, lost. Physicians questioned them gently; they stared blankly, unresponsive.

  The little girl clutching her rag doll slept fitfully, breathing shallow. A physician worked tirelessly to stabilize her.

  The ponytail girl looked worse—skin pallid, lips bloodless. Treatment continued without improvement.

  Yue Yang’s heart clenched. These children—robbed of their roots, clinging to life by threads.

  Somewhere in this room, the truth about Wanwan waited.

  And perhaps the key to everything else.

  "We've done all we can," Physician Jiang said quietly, shaking her head. "This child's chances are slim."

  Yue Yang's heart ached at the words. She stepped closer to the girl with the ponytail, gently placing the back of her hand on her forehead. It burned with fever, her breaths faint and labored.

  Yue Yang's fingers brushed the Pure Spirit Gaze pendant. Her healer's instinct urged her not to give up. But her own essence was feeble—her spirit root damaged, barely sustaining a spark. It wasn't enough to combat such a severe affliction.

  Wanwan had been assigned to her side by Elder Bai precisely because her water essence could be fully directed by Yue Yang, amplifying the Gaze's power.

  Now, under Yue Yang's urging, the pendant emitted only a faint glow—far from sufficient for purification.

  Physician Jiang, captain of the third medical squad and a specialist in combat enhancements, saw the helplessness in Yue Yang's eyes. Without a word, she channeled her essence into Yue Yang's body.

  Even then, the pendant's glow merely intensified slightly, still falling short of activating the purifying force.

  A patrolling healer passing by took in the scene and silently placed a hand on Yue Yang's shoulder.

  As essence converged, Yue Yang felt her body rejecting the foreign flows from the two healers.

  It was like forcing down unpalatable food; she compelled herself to accept the two streams, finally igniting the purifying power.

  The moment it touched the girl, her tense body relaxed noticeably.

  Her eyelids fluttered. A hand slowly emerged from under the blanket, weakly grasping the hem of Yue Yang's robe.

  "Save me... she's..."

  The girl opened her eyes feebly, her words trailing off before she closed them again. In that brief instant, a flicker of black essence crossed her pupils.

  Yue Yang, momentarily elated by the girl's response, wondered if she'd imagined it. She gently pried open the girl's eyelid for a closer look—nothing amiss.

  "It's working! Yue, can you hold on?" Physician Jiang asked, seeing the improvement, while sweat beaded on Yue Yang's forehead.

  For Yue Yang, with her damaged spirit root, excessive foreign essence was like forcing water into a cracked glass bottle.

  One overload, and it could backfire, leaving her truly rootless.

  Yue Yang nodded, signaling the two healers to continue infusing essence. She refused to let this girl perish under her watch.

  As they intensified the flow, the Pure Spirit Gaze's healing aura grew stronger, even causing Yue Yang's lips to tremble with the strain.

  Undeterred, Yue Yang poured every ounce of purifying power into the girl's body without reservation.

  The instant the pure force met the affliction, the girl convulsed.

  Her eyelids twitched, then snapped open. A guttural "Ah!" roared from her throat.

  With the cry, a surge of black corrupt essence billowed forth.

  Patrolling and attending healers sensed the anomaly, swiftly summoning water-hued essence shields.

  A dozen of them instinctively gathered, hands clasping tightly to form a powerful essence barrier, protecting themselves and the surrounding children.

  But Yue Yang, closest to the ponytail girl and on the brink of root failure, had no self-defense. She was immediately buffeted by the unleashed force.

  Just as she was about to be hurled away, Fei reacted swiftly, grabbing her and pulling her back—even as his earthen shield shattered under the impact.

  "Sister Yue!"

  Lulu shouted, but the healers held her back at a distance. Now, everyone's gaze fixed resolutely on section four, wary of any further mishaps.

  As attention turned to the ponytail girl's bed, she levitated, the purifying force coiling around her like chains, wracking her with agony.

  Her mouth gaped open, expelling a terrifying corrupt essence that could easily rend a lone healer asunder.

  "Hold the line—full strength!" Physician Jiang commanded.

  Lulu and the arriving reinforcements linked their essence. The faltering barrier strengthened once more.

  Yet, amid the corrupt essence, no one perceived the Spirit Lord taking form.

  The Spirit Lord gradually coalesced into a humanoid shape, bodiless and pitch-black. Without a physical shell, it couldn't breach the healers' protective ward.

  But it wasn't concerned. While sowing fear, it scanned for its next vessel. Stronger healers were harder to possess; it dismissed the two boys outright.

  Glancing down, it selected the smallest girl, clutching a doll in her sleep.

  As it drifted toward her, it paused.

  A porcelain-pale girl stared directly at it.

  Yue Yang, steadied by Fei, had turned—and the Spirit Lord's dark figure loomed right before her.

  Panicking, Yue Yang fumbled for her notebook to write a warning, but the blast had scattered it—pages strewn across the floor. In desperation, she merely pointed.

  Following her gesture, Fei assumed she meant the ponytail girl.

  As the purifying force was absorbed and she began to descend, Fei darted forward, catching her gently and laying her back on the bed.

  Seeing Fei pass through the spirit's form, Yue Yang realized no one else could see the humanoid black entity.

  The surrounding healers focused intently on the swirling black miasma overhead.

  "Hold steady!"

  Under Physician Jiang's guidance, the barrier contracted, steadily dissipating the dark energy.

  Yue Yang's finger still gestured frantically, but no one understood. Those who noticed assumed she was concerned for the children.

  The black spirit approached, brushing past her pointing finger, then drawing near her face.

  It inhaled deeply, rubbing against her like smoke testing fine silk, confirming with certainty: this girl was a rootless one who could see spirits.

  "Ah..."

  Yue Yang strained to produce a sound, but as her lips parted, the black spirit sealed them with an invisible force.

  Then, like a wisp of light smoke, the black spirit burrowed into Yue Yang's body, merging into the flawless, porcelain-pale form.

  Yue Yang had no idea why she alone could see what others couldn't. Her first thought: Could this be the ghost spirit curse from the Black Forest?

  Facing this power, she was helpless to resist, only able to watch wide-eyed as the black spirit vanished from view.

  Once inside, her mind was invaded by an alien force. In her resistance, she lost consciousness in an instant, her awareness fading.

  As the barrier compressed, the black corrupt essence weakened. The moment the Spirit Lord disappeared, the dark energy was utterly dispersed.

  The healers, seeing the corruption fully eradicated, sprang into action without slack.

  Administering supplements, checking the children's conditions, notifying deacons, purging residual taint— the ward bustled with activity.

  "Surviving such a potent curse—truly a blessing from the spirits!"

  With the situation under control, Physician Jiang quickly checked the ponytail girl's pulse, finding her complexion improved and her fever subsided.

  "Strange... her spirit root is emerging!"

  Turning to inquire, she saw Yue Yang suddenly collapse, her face ashen.

  "Yue, what's wrong?"

  Fei caught her before she hit the ground, but no matter how he shook her, Yue Yang wouldn't wake.

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