Chapter 18:

Thread cutters Beneath Silk

They arrived with the snow.

Two strangers dressed in pale robes, their spiritual signatures tightly suppressed, their faces calm. The Pavilion's gatekeepers welcomed them with customary bows. The two introduced themselves as traveling emissaries from the Glacial Bloom Sect—students of frost formations, here to observe and exchange with Cold Ember's scholars.

It was a lie wrapped in courtesy. A disguise woven from etiquette.

The Pavilion bought it.

But Haaron felt the disturbance the moment their boots crossed the threshold.

Not because their cultivation was powerful. But because it was incomplete.

Their spirits were sealed. Their breathing was synchronized—not like lovers, but like weapons built to move in tandem. Cold. Clean. Dangerous.

And their steps didn't harmonize with the mountain.

That was what gave them away.

The Pavilion's elders had stopped resisting Haaron openly, but they still monitored. Yue Shilan had given no formal authority, no title, no decree. But her silence was its own brand of submission.

Now, she watched from her high tower, arms folded, spirit cold.

She knew something was wrong, not because they acted out of place.

But because Haaron hadn't smiled since they arrived.

The two newcomers were known in their sect as the Xuan Twins—Xuan Li, the younger sister with razor-sharp precision in qi manipulation, and Xuan Ya, the elder brother with hands trained to separate soul strands as easily as slicing meat. They were cultivators, yes—but more than that, they were harvesters.

Their target was the Sutra, their mission: sever a node.

They didn't need to kill Haaron. They only needed to break one thread of his growing spiritual web. Corrupt the technique. Prove it could bleed. The rest, they believed, would unravel naturally.

They moved fast.

Their chosen target: a Sutra-bound disciple named Sui Fen.

Sui Fen was new to her breakthrough. A frost path disciple, humble and unnoticed until Haaron's presence caused her to ascend two sub-realms in a single meditation. She had yet to dual cultivate. Yet to taste the deeper bond. But the Sutra had accepted her all the same—marking her as a node in Haaron's spiritual dominion.

Xuan Li approached her first.

She came bearing compliments and warmth. Tea. A hand on the shoulder. A sister's smile.

"You must feel different now," she said.

Sui Fen nodded shyly. "He changed me."

"Haaron?"

"Just by being near."

Xuan Ya joined them in the alchemy garden. "That's the kind of power worth understanding."

They invited her to an old meditation cave on the outskirts of the sect. "A place of clarity," they said. "Where energy flows freely."

Sui Fen agreed.

She was still naive enough to believe that admiration meant safety.

Inside the cave, they prepared their ritual.

Sui Fen sat cross-legged in a drawn glyph ring, not knowing the ink beneath her thighs was laced with qi disruption sigils—designed to disconnect her from any external spiritual tether.

They activated it.

She gasped.

The Sutra inside her pulsed in alarm.

Xuan Ya laid a palm to her back.

Xuan Li whispered words in her ear that weren't language—but resonance corruption. A needle through the thread. A warble in the harmony.

Sui Fen screamed.

Across the Pavilion, Haaron's eyes opened.

He didn't move, he disappeared.

The moment Haaron stepped into the cave, the air thickened. The walls pulsed. The ritual circle cracked like glass under a hammer.

Sui Fen collapsed forward, crying.

The twins turned.

"Too late," Xuan Ya said, drawing a blade.

"She's already unraveling," Xuan Li added.

"No," Haaron said calmly. "You misunderstand the Sutra."

"It doesn't unravel." "It fuses."

His eyes burned.

He raised one hand—and the air itself convulsed.

"Sutra Pulse—Threadbind Protocol."

The cave filled with violet light.

Sui Fen's body rose, suspended in air. Sutra markings reignited across her skin, burning away the severing sigils. The glyph ring snapped. Her spiritual sea stabilized. She cried out once more—not in pain, but release.

The bond snapped back into place.

Stronger, Deeper, Permanent.

"You tried to sever what she gave freely," Haaron said, voice low. "Now I'll show you what I do with thieves."

Xuan Ya lunged, fast.

But Haaron didn't dodge.

He stepped inside the strike and drove his elbow into the man's ribs. Bones shattered. A second strike sent the blade flying. Xuan Li screamed and released a pulse of corrupted resonance—but Haaron raised his other hand.

"Sutra Overlap—Echo Phase."

Her attack collapsed.

His spirit struck hers.

She fell backward, clutching her head, convulsing.

He stood over them, aura burning.

"Go back to your master," he said coldly. "Tell him this system does not bleed."

He turned to Sui Fen and touched her forehead gently.

She gasped as his energy poured into her.

Her eyes rolled back. Her thighs clenched.

Her body arched as the bond rewove itself more intimately than before.

Another pulse, another breakthrough, another victory.

Back in Obsidian Lance Domain, Sect Master Zhen Mo crushed the message talisman in his hand as the report arrived.

"Failure?"

"No," the messenger said.

"Worse."

"What could be worse than failure?"

The messenger swallowed.

"He… upgraded the node."