Shadow Over the Heavenly Throne-Chapter 79: Before what?

The forest wasn’t particularly dense, nor was it especially hard to traverse, but Veynessa was still irritated. Her steps glided silently across the dew-soaked moss as she moved forward with a grim expression, the morning mist curling around her like an unwelcome companion

"Third time..." she muttered, crossing her arms. "The third damn time I’ve lost them. What kind of fucked up teleportation system drops every single one of them in a different spot than me, even though we’re using the same damn network? What even is this logic?"

Her gaze swept across the trees, as if expecting the answer to be hanging somewhere between the leaves. She sighed and lifted her hand, watching the subtle tremor of Qi in the air.

"And another thing," she grumbled to herself. "Tracking. I hate it. I suck at it. This is so not my field."

"Since when does that damn White Abyss Cult have access to teleportation tech on this level...?" she murmured, narrowing her eyes. "What the hell are they even trying to do with these kids...?"

Veynessa exhaled sharply. "If I knew this would happen, I would’ve brought Kaelron."

She felt a familiar pulse of Qi—subtle, rhythmic like a heartbeat—emanating from her bracelet, identical to the one she had left on Sylphia’s wrist. It had remained dormant until now, when it suddenly shimmered, warning her of a disruption. Her senses sharpened immediately, and her face turned to stone.

The air around her thickened.

She blinked, narrowing her eyes. Her hand twitched for the briefest second as she sensed a discontinuity in the Qi connection. Something was wrong—not a sudden severance, but a strange, gradual drifting of the signal.

She looked up.

"Couldn’t help yourselves, could you?" she sneered softly.

She took a step. Then another. Her pupils dilated unnaturally, and her irises turned a cold, glassy shade.

She focused, tracing the sudden jolts of Sylphia’s aura—each shift pulling her in a different direction. Her head turned slowly south, then suddenly to the west. Moments later, her gaze swung to the east, and then—against all logic—north. Her eyes danced from point to point, as if reading invisible markings on the sky.

She frowned. These weren’t random fluctuations—they were teleportation traces. Four jumps, each in a different direction, each sharp and far-reaching. Someone had scattered the signals deliberately, as if to confuse any would-be tracker.

Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. No wonder she hadn’t been able to catch them these past few days. Not only did those cursed teleportation circles fling her to different places each time—they’d used them four times, tossing false trails in every direction to obscure the real path.

She halted. Took a deep breath. Something wasn’t right. The whole pattern—scattered signals, directional shifts, hidden tracks—was precise and too technologically advanced.

The intel they had didn’t mention anything like this. According to the reports, the White Abyss Cult operated with crude, violent methods—no finesse, no high-grade tech. Yet the traces before her said otherwise.

Her heart beat faster—not from fear, but from a gnawing sense of foreboding. Slick and oily, like something crawling beneath her skin.

She didn’t have much time.

"Shadow."

The shadow beneath her feet rippled like the surface of a dark mirror before slowly rising, taking human shape. A figure emerged from the darkness—a slender man whose face barely stood out from the gloom. His eyes were black as the void, his gaze lifeless and hollow.

He knelt before her without a word.

"Yes, my Lady?"

"Help me erase this cult from the map today."

The Shadow simply nodded, saying nothing more.

Veynessa dashed toward the strongest pulse of Qi, the one still echoing in her consciousness. The Shadow followed closely behind.

***

"Wouldn’t it be better to sell her?" the first man muttered, adjusting the bundle holding the child. "She’s cute. On the slave market, she’d fetch more than this whole job."

The second shrugged. "After yesterday’s ritual, we’re close. We finish today, then we vanish."

"But why here? This is a shithole. Not even rats bother coming out here."

The second man shook his head. "No idea. Not our place to question their motives. We follow orders. The rest doesn’t matter."

He glanced at the child, unease flickering in his eyes. "This kid... she’s the daughter of that cultivator who’s been hunting us. She should be the perfect vessel. We’ve gotta hurry before that freak senses she’s missing."

The man holding the child snorted. "Ever since we got those circles from that woman, not even he can keep up. Did you see him last time? One whiff of a teleport and he was off chasing ghosts."

They reached the final teleportation circle—etched into stone with mathematical precision, surrounded by candles of bloodwax. One knelt and whispered the incantation. The air shimmered, reality stretching thin. The runes lit with a pale glow, and shadows of melting energy coated their skin.

A flash.

And they were gone. freewebnøvel_com

The air tore like a veil, and the two men tumbled from a burst of energy onto the stone floor of a cave. Around them stretched a labyrinth of raw corridors—moisture dripped from the ceilings, and the stench of rotting flesh mixed with the metallic tang of blood.

Their boots splashed through puddles of something that wasn’t water. They passed cages—twisted bars of iron, cold and empty. Some corners held scraps of cloth, others bits of food or bone.

In one cage, a man stirred. Skin stretched tight over bone, eyes dull, hands bloodied. He let out only a low, gurgling groan—as if even pain was beyond him.

The kidnappers didn’t stop. They walked on in silence, too used to the horror to flinch.

Finally, they reached the altar.

Hundreds of wooden crosses were driven into the hard earth with near-mathematical symmetry, forming a spiral of blood. Each bore a dead child, nailed by wrists and ankles, heads drooped. Their chests were slit down the sternum—hearts ripped out and suspended above them on thin silver chains. The children’s eyes had been placed atop their heads, staring eternally. A dark fluid seeped from the ground, and the stench of death hung thick like smoke.

Even they hesitated, their breath caught in their throats as the weight of the horror truly settled in.

"Fuck..." one whispered. "I see this every day... and it still makes me want to puke."

In the center of the vast chamber, twenty robed figures sat in a circle, hunched over the ground. Their fingers—red with blood—drew intricate symbols on the stone, glowing faintly with sinister light. Whispered verses spilled from their mouths, incomprehensible yet pulsing with the rhythm of some ancient tongue.

The echoes bounced off the walls, returning warped and twisted, forming a buzzing, maddening chorus. Harsh syllables dragged like a dead language’s final breath —every voice flat, synchronized:

"Darkness before light... blood before ascension..."

"Let the heart fall silent... let the gate open..."

"Flesh for the sacrifice... soul to the abyss..."

On a raised dais, a man sat. Cloaked in black silk, his face was dead. Eyes like glass—lifeless and dull. He didn’t move, as motionless as the altar beneath him.

The men approached and knelt.

"Master... we’ve found the perfect vessel. It meets all your requirements."

The man nodded. "Begin."

He reached for the child... and froze.

"This... this is a cultivator’s child."

"Yes, but..."

His eyes widened in a heartbeat, jaw going slack. His skin tightened, as if it no longer fit his face, and his hands clenched the throne’s armrests with a crack of strained wood. His cheek muscles spasmed, and his gaze turned feral—like a beast in a snare.

"YOU IDIOTS! Every cultivator’s child has a tracking mechanism! A Tier 7 artifact is enough to pierce our defenses!"

He gritted his teeth, chest heaving with shallow breaths. He ran a trembling hand down his face.

"Maybe... maybe I’m overreacting. If it’s just some average cultivator... they shouldn’t have access to anything that advanced. Our interference field should hold."

He looked down at the child, frowning. For a moment, barely perceptible, his eyes flickered with surprise. The Qi within... was strong. Unnaturally dense for a child. The corners of his lips lifted faintly.

Maybe this would work out after all.

And yet, unease lingered.

He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. "This isn’t the child of that cultivator who appeared in the city recently... right?"

Silence. One man dropped his gaze. The other swallowed hard, but said nothing.

The master stepped back half a pace, as if the very air thickened around him.

"No..." he whispered. "You couldn’t have been that stupid..."

His face went pale. He glanced at the chanting cultists.

"Quickly. Finish the final phase of the ritual before—"

Something changed.

No word was spoken, yet the entire chamber fell still. Even the candles dimmed, their flames faltering in the presence of something... greater. A pressure settled over them—alien and oppressive.

Several cultists looked behind them instinctively. Others froze, fingers hovering mid-rune.

From a shadow that should not exist, a voice emerged.

"Before what?"

Visit freewe𝑏nov(e)l.𝗰𝐨𝐦 for the 𝑏est n𝘰vel reading experience