Survival

Three.

The night swelled with power.

Resentment churned like a living thing, thick and suffocating, coiling tighter with every breath. The ghost's presence alone twisted the air, distorting the world around him as his attack reached its peak.

Before him, the first array—Zhang's work—barely held together. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface like fractured glass, golden light flickering violently as its structure groaned beneath its overwhelming force. The formation, once a solid wall of defense, now trembled on the brink of collapse. It was resisting, but it wouldn't hold. Not for much longer.

One more moment. One final push.

Two.

The array buckled.

A deep, resonant crack split the air, sharp as a blade. The barrier flickered—its golden glow faltering, dimming.

That was it.

One.

He unleashed the attack.

A tidal wave of pure destruction surged forward.

The first array shattered.

Light burst apart, the barrier collapsing into a thousand scattered fragments. The ghost's power carved deep gashes into the earth, sweeping across the battlefield like divine punishment. The weaker disciples never had a chance— their bodies were torn apart, their existence erased before they could even scream. Blood splattered across the ground, soaking in the dirt, the scent of iron thickening the air.

Nothing will stop him now.

But—

A new light ignited.

Not one. Two.

Two more arrays materialized.

The ghost froze.

For a moment, his form flickered, shuddering like a candle in the wind. He stared, disbelief clawing at his mind as the second and third formations roared to life, sealing off the path once more.

This wasn't possible.

They weren't array masters.

He knew it. Setting up even a single formation required skill, precision—years of training. It wasn't something any ordinary cultivator could do, let alone three nobodies in the heat of battle.

Yet the barriers stood.

Then, realization struck.

These weren't real.

Copies.

The ghost's swirling rage turned ice-cold.

Copies were weak imitations—hollow reflections of true formations, lacking their full strength. Their defenses were flawed, their durability halved. A desperate trick.

And yet—

He felt no relief.

Because even a weak barrier, if it stalled him for too long, meant only one thing.

And that was losing.

The second array shattered. Energy fragments scattered into the air, the formation collapsing under the weight of his attack.

Yet, even as the cracks spread, even as the barrier crumbled, the ghost felt no relief.

It wasn't over.

His power should have carved through their last defense by now. The moment the second array shattered, his attack was meant to claim its victims. But instead, resistance still lingered in the air.

The final array remained standing.

His expression twisted.

Even though he had already identified them as mere copies, unease clawed at his chest. These disciples weren't supposed to wield arrays. Not real ones. Not even fakes of this caliber. He had witnessed their struggle before, seen their lack of control. Yet here they were, stalling him.

His attack pressed forward, colliding with the final array.

The impact sent a deep tremor through the barrier, its runes flickering violently. Unlike the first two, this one didn't crack immediately. It strained under his power, yet refused to collapse in an instant. For a fleeting moment, a thought crossed his mind—if this were a true Rank 2 array, his attack might have failed entirely.

The ghost's gaze darkened.

Even if it was only a copy, even if it lacked the full power of a true array, it was still resisting him. That fact alone unsettled him. These disciples had no right to stand against him for this long. No right to stall his victory.

The energy of his attack surged, pressing harder against the array. The barrier wailed under the pressure, fractures racing across its surface like lightning splitting the sky.

Then—

A final crack. A sharp shatter.

The last array collapsed.

Yet, the ghost's smirk barely had time to form before something else happened.

His attack—his overwhelming, all-consuming force—didn't carve through them like it should have. The moment the last array broke, his energy, already weakened by the previous collisions, finally unraveled.

The ghost's eyes widened.

The explosion of energy dispersed into the air, its momentum deadened by the impact of the array's remnants.

Gone.

His strongest attack, nullified.

A chill crawled up his spine. Even if they hadn't directly overpowered him, they had done something far worse—they had survived. And now, that meant only one thing.

This battle was no longer in his favor.

A deep, seething rage burned in his hollow chest, but beneath it, something else stirred.

Fear.

If they endured this long, the sect would be alarmed. Even if he fled, they would soon know that a ghost had lurked within the secret realm. And once they knew… the hunt would begin.

His death was no longer just a possibility. It was an inevitability.

And for the first time since the fight began, he felt fear.

….

The explosion faded.

A tense silence followed.

Then—murmurs.

Far from the battlefield, hidden within the dense undergrowth of the secret realm, a small group of disciples huddled together. None of them had seen the fight. They hadn't dared. But they heard it.

The clash of power. The shattering of formations. The earth trembling beneath forces far beyond their comprehension.

"It has to be them."

A low voice broke the silence. One of the disciples—Luo Wen—spoke with hushed urgency, his eyes darting between his companions. "Zhang, Yun, Linglong… Who else could it be?"

No one denied it.

The entire sect knew. The strongest disciples had entered the secret realm. The ones who stood at the peak. Geniuses who could shatter mountains with a wave of their hand. And now, somewhere in the depths of this realm, those very same figures were fighting.

And they—the nameless, the ordinary—could only listen.

Another explosion rippled through the air, distant yet suffocating. Even from miles away, the sheer force of it pressed against their chests, squeezing the breath from their lungs.

A younger disciple, barely fifteen, swallowed hard. "If we were there…" His voice trailed off.

If they were there, they wouldn't even survive a single attack.

None of them spoke the words, but the thought hung heavy in the air.

Another disciple—Lian Rou—exhaled sharply. "This… this is the difference between us and geniuses."

It was one thing to know the gap existed. To hear the rumors, to watch from afar as their seniors displayed impossible feats of strength. But feeling it—experiencing the sheer, suffocating weight of their power, even from a distance—was something else entirely.

"It's not worth it," another disciple muttered. "Fighting against monsters like them? It's a death sentence. We should just focus on what we came here for—gathering herbs, hunting weaker demonic beasts. Anything but that."

No one argued.

Because in the end, they weren't here to fight for glory. They weren't here to make a name for themselves.

They were here to survive.