198: Chapter 198 Sword Shadows Under the Moon Startle the Night, Spy's Trail Remains Elusive

Moonlight spilled onto the bluestone slabs of the Martial Arts Platform, reflecting a halo like thin frost.

Chen Xiaodao stood in the center, a corner of his black clothes gently lifted by the night wind, his long sword slowly raised, the tip pointing toward the center of the sky.

He didn't speak; his breathing simply deepened, and with a light flick of his wrist, the blade sliced through the air, producing a clear, resonant ring.

Sword Qi rippled out like water, sweeping through the surrounding bushes and startling several night-roosting birds. They flapped their wings and flew high into the sky, their shadows passing over the shadow of the high tower where Chen Wuwang was hidden.

Chen Wuwang leaned against the railing, his left hand resting on the edge of his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye, his fingertips lightly stroking the fine patterns around the interface.

He didn't look at Chen Xiaodao; instead, he closed his right eye, quietly activating the blue light of his left eye. The scanning range extended in the direction the Sword Qi had spread.

Spiritual Qi background values, temperature gradients, faint energy residues—data streams rolled silently through his consciousness.

This kid has made quite some progress lately.

His Sword Intent was no longer as sharp and exposed as before; instead, it had a sense of being controlled and released at will.

That aloofness was still there, but it was pressed deep into his bones, hidden and subtle.

But he couldn't afford to give praise right now.

The matter of that rune in the Furnace Area was still turning in his mind.

He wasn't worried it would explode, nor was he afraid of the monitoring array being discovered—what he feared was that the opponent simply didn't care about any of that.

It was too quiet.

From the time the monitoring was set up until now, for three whole hours, there had been no abnormal signals other than routine patrols and technician handovers.

Not even a trace of extra energy fluctuation.

It was as if that person knew there was an eye there and simply walked around it, or...

Stood right under his nose, yet remained invisible to him.

Chen Xiaodao moved again.

With the move 'Fireflies Through the Forest,' his figure soared off the ground, sword light flickering like falling stars. When he landed, his steps were extremely light, making almost no sound.

His sword path became smoother and smoother; every move seemed like a conversation with the night wind and a contest with the moonlight.

Chen Wuwang's Mechanical Prosthetic Eye suddenly captured a hint of abnormality.

At the edge of the forest where Chen Xiaodao's Sword Qi had swept past, an imperceptible disturbance appeared in the Spiritual Qi background.

It wasn't a physical movement, nor was it a release of spiritual power; it was more like a resonance of a certain frequency—short, faint, lasting less than half a second, then vanishing completely.

His pupils constricted, and he immediately recalled and replayed the data fragment from a moment ago.

It came.

This was the rhythm.

Once every seventeen seconds.

It was exactly the same as the pulse frequency of the hidden signal in the furnace monitoring array.

But this time, it didn't come from the Furnace Area; it appeared at a certain point within thirty zhang of the Martial Arts Platform's perimeter.

The position was uncertain because the source of the disturbance had no fixed trajectory; it seemed to drift with the air currents, or perhaps it was attached to some living creature, changing positions at any time.

He held his breath, switching his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye to spectrum tracking mode, attempting to lock onto that abnormal waveband.

But as soon as he focused, the signal slipped away like a loach, as if it had sensed the scanning intent, instantly sinking into the background noise.

Chen Wuwang tapped his finger three times on the railing.

Tap, tap, tap.

The System interface emerged deep within his consciousness, and three heavenly secret instructions floated quietly:

[In three quarters of an hour, clouds will gather in the east; one wisp of Thunder Breath Silk can be collected]

[Chen Xiaodao is expected to have an Epiphany regarding a new Sword Intent tomorrow at the hour of Chen]

[An unregistered identity token entered the Western Corridor of the Main Domain at the third quarter of the hour of Xu]

The last entry made his eyes narrow.

It wasn't a warning, nor was it a tip about resources or a crisis, but a pure notification of an identity abnormality.

Things like this had happened before, mostly when personnel accompanying foreign merchant caravans accidentally entered a Forbidden Ground and were automatically recorded.

But combined with this eerie signal fluctuation...

He suddenly looked up, gazing at Chen Xiaodao's figure as he sheathed his sword.

The youth stood under the moon, fine sweat on his forehead, his chest rising and falling slightly, his face showing a hint of fatigue, but more of it was satisfaction.

He slid the sword back into the scabbard on his back, brushed the dust off his clothes, and turned to walk toward the corridor.

Everything was as usual.

But Chen Wuwang knew that something was different.

He slowly retracted the scanning function of his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye, the blue light fading, leaving only an ordinary eye looking into the distance.

The night wind brushed his face, carrying the chill of early autumn.

The hammering sounds from the distant workshop had long since ceased; only the occasional hum of a patrol mecha passing through the sky remained.

He looked down at his hand.

Just now, he had almost wanted to directly order the blockade of the Western Corridor area.

But he held back.

If he couldn't catch them, he couldn't move.

The opponent's ability to transmit signals without leaving a trace under surveillance meant they were either a veteran expert in counter-detection or they carried a device that could shield spiritual sense—

Regardless of which it was, acting rashly would only alert the enemy.

What was even more terrifying was that this person might have been observing them all along, perhaps even knowing which places had eyes and which paths were safe.

He thought of the bushes Chen Xiaodao's sword had swept past during his practice.

If that disturbance was truly attached to an infiltrator, then the opponent had not only entered but also dared to approach the core martial arts area, and even... traveled freely within the activity range of the clansmen.

A chill crawled up his spine.

This wasn't a simple spy infiltration. This was a provocation.

It was telling them: I've come, and you can't find me.

He started down the high tower, his footsteps falling on the metal stairs with a light echo.

Every step was steady, neither accelerating nor pausing.

When he reached the ground-level exit, he casually pressed the authorization panel on the wall, quietly raising the alert Rank of the Western Corridor area to level three, while simultaneously sending an encrypted command to the Shadow Guards headquarters:

"Strengthen mobile patrols at night, focus on checking for those staying without identity tokens, and keep movements light."

After doing this, he didn't take the main road but instead turned into a side corridor.

The light here was dim, with only a wall lamp lighting up every ten steps.

He stopped and took a thumbnail-sized chip from his sleeve; it was the backup of the monitoring Spirit Array previously installed at the furnace maintenance port.

He stared at it for two seconds, then lightly pressed it against the wall.

The chip merged into the metal, and a faint ring of light flashed and vanished.

He knew this was useless.

That person wouldn't be so foolish as to pass through the same place again.

But he needed a reference point, an anchor that could let him confirm 'whether the opponent had changed their behavior pattern.'

He stood in place, waiting.

A minute passed; there was no new data in the monitoring backend.

Two minutes, still calm.

Until the fifth minute, the terminal transmitted an extremely faint pulse feedback—from another backup array hidden inside the Medicine Workshop's ventilation duct.

Location: The mezzanine passage below the Stargazing Platform on the west side of the Main Domain.

Time: Exactly at a seventeen-second interval.

The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn't smile.

"Truly interesting," he whispered. "To be able to find blind spots and shuttle through the monitoring network, and even control the rhythm of signal release... You aren't acting alone."

Either there was an internal contact guiding the route, or their understanding of the Chen family's security layout was astonishing.

He turned and walked toward the Stargazing Platform, his pace still unhurried.

Passing a crossroad, he glimpsed several young Disciples gathered together, discussing tomorrow's Artifact Refining assessment, their laughter crisp.

The children didn't know what was happening, and they shouldn't know.

This was the very thing he was fighting so hard to protect.

Not power, not status, but this normalcy where one could still talk, practice the sword, and dream peacefully at night.

He climbed to the top level of the Stargazing Platform and stood holding the railing.

Moonlight covered the entire Main Domain; houses were scattered and roads crisscrossed like a giant web.

And he stood at the center of this web, waiting for that invisible hand to reach out again.

His Mechanical Prosthetic Eye reactivated, and layers upon layers of data streams emerged in his vision.

He no longer actively searched; instead, he let the System automatically mark all tiny abnormalities that didn't fit the routine pattern—

Every deviation in breathing frequency, every non-standard walking trajectory, every heat source point that shouldn't be lit.

He believed that as long as the opponent moved one more time, even if it was just a blink, he would be able to catch that thread.

The wind rose.

The fire had already started burning.

But for now, he couldn't light the lamp yet.