Bartram mmed a palm on the table. "Brilliant! We shift from prey to predator and drag the Infinite Soul Demon Sect into our rhythm instead of theirs!"


    Even Arden bowed his head, all earlier misgivings drowned beneath reverence. In his gaze toward Jared nowy only awed submission.


    Jared watched the revtion blossom across their faces, then spoke in a calm that cut like a steel edge. "Strategy alone is never enough. We must know ourselves and know our foe. The Infinite Soul Demon Sect''s advantage is simplepact numbers and punishing strength. Yet power needs fuel. They bleed resources to keep their war engine roaring: weapons to arm disciples, elixirs to raise cultivation, spirit mines to line their coffers. They love to plunder. Very well-let us repay them in kind."


    A cold smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, promising retribution the way winter promises frost.


    Out of that smile, an audacious n crystallized in Jared''s mind.


    For the next few days, the Myriad Beast Sect moved like a newly oiled machine, every cog clicking in perfect time.


    On Jared''s instruction, Paxton dissolved his disciples into dozens of lean strike teams, each norger than a hunting pack.


    Their single mission-harassment.


    No longer tethered to fixed outposts, they slipped through the border where the Myriad Beast Mountains kiss the Blood-scar ins, ghosts married to thend.


    Day one, a squad draped themselves in shaggy pelts. When an Infinite Soul Demon Sect patrol rounded a bend, the squad struck an attack, tore through ranks, seized storage rings, and vanished before the echoes died.


    Day two, another team crept to one of the Infinite Soul Demon Sect''s makeshift camps under the cover of a moonless night.


    They did not storm the walls; they pounded drums, shattered silence with shrill spells, and bombarded wards from afar until the enemy paced circles in sleepless dread.


    Day three, scouts found a supply caravan. Rather than strike head-on, they copsed the road, rigged traps, and from a distance peppered the confusion with arrows and whirring darts-felling draft beasts first, novices second-before melting back into shadow with half the provisions. They never lingered long enough for the enemies to retaliate.


    Chaos spread across the fringe of the ins. The Infinite Soul Demon Sect members darted like


    ???


    farmhands chasing foxes, only. grasp empty at Whenever they gave chase, the raiders were already over ridge and ravine. Whenever they set an ambush, the strikes fell elsewhere, taunting and


    unpredictable.


    The demon sect members began grumbling.


    "D*mn those animals-show yourselves and fight us properly!"


    "I haven''t slept in three nights!"


    "They stole my storage ring! My freshly issued pills were inside!"


    When word reached Demon Sect headquarters, Sheldon Soulsby exploded in fury,


    yet his clenched fists met only the softness of thin air.


    The Myriad Beast Sect''s sudden


    shift had turned his hammer blows


    into strikes against cotton. He barked new orders-double patrols,


    triple entries, flood the border with


    manpower until the


    a single fly could


    cross.


    Exactly as Jared had hoped.


    While the Infinite Soul Demon Sect''s attention was fixed on the riot along its rim and


    its warriors marched outward, the fortress withiny exposed-and that was the moment Jared chose to move.


    Jared''s first destinationy deep inside the Blood-scar ins—a ce the Myriad Beast Sect''s scouts called ckme Gorge.


    ording to years of carefully stolen intelligence, the gorge hid an armory run by the Myriad Souls Demon Sect, a hellish workshop that forged cursed weapons and sinister treasures for its inner disciples.


    On this particr night, the sky offered no moon, only a restless wind that wailed across the barren ts.


    Beyond the gorge''s mouth rose a forest of violet-ck fumes, and the number of patrolling disciples had tripled since the recent raids, theft uneasytorches flickering like d fireflies Deeper within


    furnace-light feapt skyward while hammers rang in frantic rhythm, and the stench of ughter energy tangled with blistering fire-essence until the very air felt razor sharp.


    High on a crag overlooking that devil''s caldron, Jared''s silhouette melted into the


    night like a ribbon of smoke-silent, formless, almost unreal.