"I didn’t see anything! I swear I didn’t see anything!" Louisa shrieked, her voice cracking into a high-pitched, terrified sob.

Her face completely drained of color, turning a stark, ghostly white. Without a single second of hesitation, she spun on her heel, her boots slipping frantically in the mud as she began to run blindly into the heavy mountain mist, fleeing from him as if she had just stared directly into the eyes of a primordial death god.

Ethan stood perfectly still in the middle of the barren, hollowed-out clearing. His amethyst eyes flashed with a cold, calculating sharpness as his hand instinctively twitched toward the hilt of his iron sword. "Should I silence her?" the dark thought crossed his mind for a fraction of a second. But he immediately dismissed it, a tight, frustrated frown twisting his lips. He couldn’t kill her. There was absolutely no logical way to explain her sudden disappearance or death to Mary and Roy without shattering the fragile trust they had built.

"Damn it," Ethan muttered under his breath, his fist tightening as he began to walk after her at a measured, unhurried pace.

The gluttony of his Great Amethyst Devourer constitution was a truly terrifying, double-edged sword. The moment he unleashed that abyssal hunger, the raw, ancient instincts in his blood took over so rapidly that it temporarily clouded his tactical awareness, leaving him completely blind to his immediate surroundings. It was a critical mistake; he had been so focused on refueling his empty restricted core that he hadn’t even registered her light, approaching footsteps.

A few hundred yards up the steep mountain trail, the hundred mercenary prisoners were still groaning and straining against the heavy vine ropes, slowly pulling the mountain of treasure under the watchful, disciplined gaze of Mary and Roy.

"Louisa!" Mary called out, her brows furrowing in immediate concern as her daughter came bursting through the thick fog, panting frantically, her chest heaving as she practically threw herself against her mother’s flank. Mary reached out, grabbing the young girl’s trembling shoulders. "What in the world happened to you? Why are you pale as a corpse? Did a stray beast jump out from the brush?"

"N-No! Nothing! I just... I tripped!" Louisa stammered hysterically, her entire body shaking like a leaf in a winter storm. She kept her eyes locked firmly on the dark path behind her, her mind replaying that horrific, impossible image of the giant spider carcasses dissolving into a dark, swirling purple vortex inside Ethan’s mouth.

Step. Step. Step.

The quiet crunch of boots against gravel echoed through the mist, and Ethan’s tall, imposing silhouette slowly materialized before them. His expression was completely calm, his posture relaxed, carrying absolutely no trace of the monstrous entity that had just vacuumed an entire battlefield. He didn’t say a single word; he merely locked his cold, piercing purple gaze directly onto Louisa’s eyes.

Louisa instinctively choked back a gasp, hiding her face completely behind her mother’s shoulder. A wave of absolute, paralyzing terror seized her soul. She wasn’t just afraid of his strength anymore—she was utterly terrified that if she uttered a single wrong syllable, Ethan might decide to unhinge his jaw again and devour her whole, leaving nothing behind but dry dirt.

"Ethan," Mary spoke up, looking between the two of them with a deeply puzzled expression. "Did something happen back there? Louisa looks completely out of her mind."

"Nothing happened, Sister Mary," Ethan replied smoothly, his deep baritone completely devoid of any emotion as he took up his position at the absolute rear of the caravan. "She merely returned to the clearing and got startled by the silence. We should keep moving; the sun is setting fast."

The column began to move forward again, the heavy wooden sledges creaking loudly against the stones. Ethan walked in absolute silence behind them, acting as an invisible, suffocating weight pressing down on Louisa’s spine.

"Louisa, look at me," Mary whispered sharply, pulling her daughter closer as they walked along the flank of the third cargo sledge. "Don’t give me that vague nonsense. You went back to check on him, and you return looking like you’ve seen a demon. Did he say something to you? Did he reject you?"

"No, Mother... please, just leave it alone," Louisa whispered back, her voice trembling so violently she could barely form the words. She kept her head down, her knuckles white as she clutched the fabric of her mother’s sleeve.

"What do you mean ’leave it alone’?" Mary pressed, her tone dropping into a fierce, frustrated hiss. "If you did something to anger a master of his caliber, we need to fix it immediately! Roy’s entire future and our survival depend on his favor! Speak to me, girl!"

"I don’t know anything! I didn’t see anything!" Louisa cried out in a frantic, suffocating whisper, her eyes darting nervously toward Ethan’s silent figure behind them. To avoid her mother’s relentless questioning, she deliberately began to stumble over her words, pointing vaguely toward the massive piles of silver silk. "Look... look at the bounty, Mother! We have so much wealth to sort... we need to focus on the cargo... I just want to get back to the inn..."

Mary let out a long, deeply irritated sigh, shaking her head in utter disappointment. "You are acting completely absurd, Louisa. Fine, keep your little secrets."

Mary turned her attention back toward the front lines, her eyes quickly lighting up with a fierce, greedy satisfaction as she looked at the mountains of pristine spiritual treasure they were dragging back. Distracted entirely by the imminent fortune that would secure their place in the upper districts, Mary dropped the matter, entirely unaware of the monstrous reality her daughter was currently carrying in her breaking heart.

-------------------

From this moment forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Note: These are only the ranks mentioned so far to avoid spoilers.

Body Refinement Realm

Skin Refinement / Bone Refinement / Organ Refinement

Spiritual Gathering Realm

Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation

Spiritual Core Realm

Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Spiritual Core)

Spiritual Soul Realm

Spiritual Soul Awakening / Soul Nourishing / Soul-Core Fusion

Golden Core Realm

Prime Fusion / Core Perfection / Core Destruction

Spiritual Sea Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Dao Manifestation Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Spiritual Transcendence

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??