Ren did not wait around to watch the human minds completely collapse. Her analytical core computed the immediate systemic risk: a global server-wide announcement meant every high-level player on the continent would be scanning the map for the anomaly. Staying positioned on the highly visible, melted marble steps of a sect main gate was a critical tactical error.
With a silent compression of her hind legs, she activated her movement vectors.
Swift Step.
Pop.
A sharp implosion of air signaled her departure. Ren morphed into a streaking, blurred line of white, throwing herself off the mountain steps and plunging straight back down into the dense, foggy canopy of the southern forest. Her Eclipse Veil hummed in the background, suppressing her massive Stage 6 cultivation signature, making her look like nothing more than a stray woodland creature slipping through the ferns. Yet, the un-maskable glowing crown of vermilion phoenix feathers nestled around her ears left a faint, beautiful trail of warm golden sparks in her wake, which she deftly brushed away into the damp earth as she ran. She needed a secure base, and she needed it now.
Back at the gates of the Clear Water Sect, the ringing silence of the cosmic departure was broken only by the sound of heavy breathing.
Grand Patriarch Han slowly pushed himself up from the smooth, vitrified stone. His ancient hands were still shaking violently, the royal jade rings on his fingers rattling against each other. He looked to the left and right. Elder Mo was curled in a tight fetal position, clutching his head, while Chief Butcher Gao sat staring blankly at his fallen cleavers as if his entire reality had been thoroughly uninstalled.
"Mo. Gao. Get up," Patriarch Han commanded. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried a sudden, hyper-focused weight that forced both men to snap out of their stupor.
"P-Patriarch..." Elder Mo stammered, pulling himself up onto trembling knees. "The world... the world knows. Every Supreme Sect Ancestor from here to the Central Continent is currently deploying their divination arrays. If they trace the tracking metrics back to our peaks—"
"They won't," Patriarch Han interrupted brutally, his old eyes flashing with a cold, desperate brilliance. "They won't, because we are going to completely scrub the server logs. Mo, listen to me carefully. The contract we signed is now a law of the Heavenly Dao. We are her logistics team. If she falls, our souls are erased by the covenant. If she is captured, our peaks turn to ash by the goddesses. Her secrecy is our absolute survival constraint."
Han turned back toward the grand courtyard, striding inward as the heavy mahogany doors began to crawl shut behind him.
"Assemble the Grand Council immediately," Han barked, his flowing robes whipping through the warm, ozone-scented air. "Every Elder, every Inner Disciple, every script-keeper. We are implementing an absolute data lockdown."
Ten minutes later, the Inner Council Hall—still sporting the melted glass pillars from the morning's divine event—was packed to maximum capacity. The atmosphere was thick with a suffocating, paralyzing panic. The Elders were whispering frantically, their spiritual pressures fluctuating wildly out of control.
"Silence!" Patriarch Han slammed his hand onto the stone dais, sending a shockwave of Qi Condensation force through the room that instantly silenced the crowd.
"I will speak this once," Han said, leaning over the table, his gaze cutting through every elder in the room. "The global announcement that just shook the continent... its origin point was our front steps. The Daughter of the Primordials is currently resting within our southern valley perimeter."
A collective, terrified gasp echoed through the hall. Several elders nearly slipped from their seats.
"But!" Han shouted, overriding the panic. "She has signed a Covenant of Mutual Reciprocity with our sect. She will provide resources; we will provide sustenance and absolute protection. To ensure the world does not descend upon our mountains, the following edicts are effective immediately:"
* The Mirage Array Deployment: The Sect Array Master will immediately activate the Seven-Layer Void Mist Formation. The entire mountain range must appear, from the outside world, as a completely stagnant, low-resource wasteland. Any spiritual spikes from her hunts must be masked by our core arrays.
* The Crimson Execution Order: Any disciple, servant, or slave who utters the words 'white fox', 'phoenix crown', or 'primordial child' outside this council chamber will have their core instantly imploded by the elders. No exceptions.
* The Imperial False Flag: When the tracking envoys from the Imperial Capital inevitably arrive to investigate the cosmic shockwave, we will report that an ancient, unstable spatial rift inside our forbidden grounds suffered a temporary, violent collapse. We will display our drained mountain veins as proof of a spiritual disaster.
"Patriarch," High Elder Ge stepped forward, his face pale but determined. "What of her food supplies? If she is cultivating at such a terrifying velocity, the meat of Level 4 wolves and Level 8 vipers will soon fail to meet her nutritional thresholds. She will require higher-tier beast cores and spiritual seasonings."
"Then we will spend every single spirit stone in our treasury to procure them through anonymous black-market caravans," Han declared cold-bloodedly. "We will deplete our vaults if we must. We are no longer cultivating for our own ascension, Elders. We are funding the growth curve of a future cosmic deity. If she scales up, we scale up with her. If she reaches the Upper Realms, our Clear Water Sect will become the sovereign rulers of this continent."
The elders looked at each other, the paralyzing terror in their chests slowly morphing into a deep, burning, fanatical ambition. They were terrifyingly close to absolute destruction, but they were also sitting on the greatest investment shortcut in the history of the cultivation world.
Deep within the damp, dark safety of a massive ancient cedar grove, Ren sat beneath a curtain of thick ivy, her status screen reflecting off her golden-blue eyes as a new system alert flashed in bright, celebratory green.
[ Ding! Hidden World Quest Completed: Secure a Supply Chain. ]
* Evaluation: You have successfully terrified, bound, and weaponized an entire cultivation sect into becoming your personal black-market logistical infrastructure.
* Rewards Distributed: +200 System Points, 1x Mythic-Grade 'Eclipse Core Manual' (Dual-Attribute Cultivation Technique).
* Current Balance: 200 SP.
Ren let out a soft, purring huff, her phoenix crown glowing faintly in the dim forest light. "The macro setup is complete," she thought, her human intellect locking onto the new cultivation manual. "Now, let's look at the specs of this mythic technique."