“Grand Elder!”

A hazy phantom bled into form in the hall of Moonview Peak, like moonlight condensing from mist.

The watching disciples and elders sucked in cold breath, fear sliding under their robes like frost.

The newcomer wore white—an elder like snow on ancient stone.

He moved beyond dust, immortal in bearing, grace like luan and phoenix. His skin was pale as jade, nothing like the bronzed face Nana Toki had seen before.

His lids drooped half-shut. One hand rested on a plain wooden staff. The other stroked a goatish strand at his chin. He walked from the void, slow as a drifting cloud.

“We welcome the Grand Elder.”

Neat salutes rolled across Moonview Peak like a ringing temple bell. To the elder who had sheltered the Cloudpeak Sect a thousand years, all, Yunlan included, bowed deep.

It wasn’t only respect; it was gratitude, layered like incense smoke.

Nana Toki and Nesting Phoenix stood unmoved, curiosity glinting like lamplight as they sized up the unfathomable Grand Elder.

Unease pricked Nana’s heart. He didn’t look like last time.

She remembered the bronzed face in the inner hall. Now he wore an ageless face and crane-white hair, doubt fluttering in her chest like moths.

Had he cultivated some art to seal spring in jade and nourish the body?

Unease curdled in Nesting Phoenix. The white-clad elder felt familiar, yet the name slipped like water through fingers. A nameless feeling tightened at her throat like an invisible hand; her breath snagged like wind in reeds.

“Well? You slipped out?”

Authority surged from him, a mountain’s weight without anger.

He stood at center, staff planted like a rooted tree. One eye half-open, he looked toward Nana Toki, as if questioning the air itself.

“Mm.”

A surge of Spirit Energy pressure blew through the hall. Robes went whoosh; banners trembled like leaves. Nesting Phoenix answered with an instinctive nod.

When she returned to herself, calm drained to confusion, ink clouding clear water.

“Who are you?”

Her voice rang like a bell through Moonview Peak’s hall.

Disciples and elders stared, disbelief pooling like storm clouds.

She didn’t even know the Grand Elder? Whispers buzzed like gnats. Hadn’t he sealed this woman himself? Even Yunlan behind the elder froze for several beats, as if a page had been turned wrong.

The old records said Nesting Phoenix was his disciple. What disciple forgets her master?

The Grand Elder didn’t answer her. The hall went so silent you could hear breath and heartbeat, soft as drips in a cavern.

Every gaze on Nesting Phoenix burned with shock. The turn leapt past everyone’s expectations like a fox from brush.

“All this… was you?”

After a long beat, the Grand Elder shifted his gaze to Nana Toki, leaving her question to fade like smoke.

It was their second face-to-face; little time lay between. He glanced at her spiritual root; Spirit Energy throbbed stronger than a typical third stage of Foundation Establishment, like a river pressing rock. Her foundation ran deep.

“Grand Elder, you can’t pin that on me. I’m just a small Foundation Establishment cultivator. How could I break a barrier set by your own hand? Right?”

Nana Toki met his stare, a near-smile playing at her lips like a cat in sun.

“But if not you, who else could break my barrier?”

His eyes narrowed; a hawk’s stare seemed to pierce her, talons in shadow. “Almost no one in the sect dares go to Moonview Peak’s rear mountains. But you, Feng Luo Luo, were the first.”

“Thanks for the praise, Elder.”

The Grand Elder went speechless, thunder clouding his brow like a stormbank. The hall collectively blanked, breaths held like taut strings.

“But I’m not so full and bored I’d go kick a hornet’s nest at the rear mountain just to break your barrier.”

She shrugged, helplessness beading on her face like rain on stone. “And before this, I didn’t even know Nesting Phoenix. Freeing her gets me nothing. Why would I?”

The hall stared in silence, suspicion twitching like fish under ice.

At the side, Shrine Water’s thoughts spun like wind in bamboo: Nesting Phoenix had nearly become her bodyguard, and she still claimed no benefit.

“Then what about slaughtering fellow disciples?”

The Grand Elder tapped stone with his wooden staff; light in his eyes flashed blade-sharp. “You and Nesting Phoenix joined hands to harm your peers, and you tried to hunt the badly wounded Yiling Shen. In Cloudpeak Sect, harming kin is a capital crime. Either charge alone gives me cause to kill you.”

“Revered Grand Elder!” Shrine Water’s voice shook like a string. “Luo’er has lived on my Stream Peak for years, with little contact with others. If she acted so, she must have her reasons. Please don’t rule by anger.”

Shrine Water had served long in Cloudpeak Sect. He knew the elder’s harsh hand, and worry burned him like fire eating paper.

“Shrine Water, are you saying I’m wronging your disciple?”

The elder’s face sank. His voice thundered so loud sparks popped in Shrine Water’s vision, stars bursting like struck metal.

Spines chilled across the hall. Cold sweat ran like rain down backs.

It took reckless courage to talk back to the Grand Elder.

“I know these matters, Elder. Please don’t make it hard on my master.”

Nana Toki’s brows drew like bows; her voice stayed cool, a blade wrapped in silk.

“If you knew, why dare raise blades against your fellows!”

His gaze cut, ice on steel.

Pinned under that chill, Nana Toki stayed at ease. She rolled her shoulders and bowed, a reed bending to wind. “I wasn’t targeting my peers. On the way back, I ran into Yiling Shen’s group. Someone called me a witch and said they’d cripple me to hand me to the Sect Master. I’m not the sort to wait for the axe. So I killed them all.”

She tailored words to faces, spun truth to suit ghosts or men, like painting spring over blood.

In her heart, she still saw herself as law-abiding, neat as a courtroom scroll—at most she’d give a beating, never kill. Self-mockery flickered like a lantern in fog.

“Yiling Shen, is what Feng Luo Luo said true?”

He turned to her; chill in his eyes frosted the air. In the crowd, Yiling Shen trembled like a leaf.

Under absolute power, her Dao heart felt pale and weak, a candle in wind.

“Disciple reports, Elder: someone in our team did say that. I tried to stop them. It was useless.”

The hall went pin-drop silent. Time leaked away, heavy as sand in an hourglass. The Grand Elder’s pressure turned every breath into slow burn.

At length, he withdrew his gaze and turned toward Yunlan, the Sect Master, steps measured like a judge’s.

“Feng Luo Luo, you have a good master. But you are not a good disciple.”

“Grand Eld—”

“Say no more.”

He cut her words like a blade through thread, then turned back to them both. “Setting aside the barrier, it’s fact you broke a demonic seal and released Nesting Phoenix. Harming fellow disciples only adds to it. For your master Shrine Water’s sake—his years of duty—I’ll spare your life. Today I abolish your cultivation. From this day, you and Cloudpeak Sect sever ties, clean as a single cut.”

“Please, Grand Elder, have mercy! Luo’er acted to save herself. Abolishing her cultivation is impossible to bear!”

Shrine Water’s face went pale as paper; he dropped to his knees, pleading like rain on stone.

To abolish cultivation is to wrench out a cultivator’s spiritual root, pain like pulling bones from flesh. Even Nascent Soul experts struggle to endure; how could his disciple survive?

But the Grand Elder’s mind set like iron. Shrine Water’s pleas washed over him like waves on rock, breaking and fading.

“And Nesting Phoenix?”

Nana Toki had expected the sentence. Her face stayed blank, still as a winter lake. Resolve settled like frost; as long as Nesting Phoenix remained, embers of chance still glowed.

Guilt pricked for her master’s years of care. She would repay him later, planting spring after frost.

“Nesting Phoenix? She stays in Cloudpeak Sect. She’ll be sealed again in Moonview Peak’s rear mountain.”

Each word fell like a stone on Nana Toki’s heart. Her face darkened, gloom sinking like a valley shadow.

Damn it. Strip my cultivation and cut off my hidden quest too? This old man left no path. No heroine’s fate—just cannon fodder’s lot.

“You don’t look pleased.”

His eyes narrowed; threads of killing intent seeped from him like cold mist.

“Of course I’m not.”

She kept her face smooth and slid a hand into her sleeve, quiet as a snake under grass.

“So I’d like to negotiate one thing, Grand Elder.”

“What thing?”

His brow lifted. A bad premonition rose like a chill wind at dusk.

“I’ve decided to defect from the sect.”