Elyon’s gaze sharpened upon listening to Lin Mu’s words. "Are you sure this is fine?"

Lin Mu let a faint edge of his determination be shown. "I will attempt it. I will need you to wait for me until the right moment. Stay in darkness and move as a ghost. If I call, you can make a move."

There was another small pause, then a slow, steady affirmative. "Hopefully, it never comes to it."

Lin Mu allowed a single breath of dry amusement to leave him.

Elyon knew that even if Lin Mu somehow failed, they still had more than enough backup to wreak havoc. What Lin Mu was doing was merely a ’less’ bloody method of taking out the Hidden Cave Sect.

The plan was ruthless in its simplicity. A targeted blow at the control core. A collapse of the order at the scale of the sect. It would require finesse, timing, and confidence that his spatial skill could carry him in and out.

He placed the jade slip back into his sleeve and let his ears sense the library’s faint, patient noises.

Somewhere nearby a disciple flipped a page, a small mundane sound in a place built for quiet. Lin Mu paid it little attention and continue onwards.

He moved like a shadow through the Grand Hall, each step a study in restraint. He did not walk where the light shone brightest. Instead he used the breadth of the building itself, slipping along cornices, sinking into the thin seams between stonework, phasing his presence into the quiet folds of the architecture.

The Grand Hall was rather large, and the number of people within it was quite low, which made it easier for Lin Mu to hide. Plus, the security arrays were also not made to constantly scan within the Hall itself, which meant that Lin Mu didn’t need to worry about being found out once he was inside.

His immortal sense flowed outward in a wide arc, but it was careful and gentle.

He did not let his detection ripple like a net that startled sleeping guardians. Rather he skimmed like a feather over smooth water, reading the faint movements of immortal Qi as one reads a thin script.

In a place built to endure the void and with the walls inscribed by formation masters, overt probing would have been noticed. Thus he kept his profile low, his immortal sense tuned to passive sensing instead of active probing.

Even so, the Sword Intent in his body pulsed with an added clarity.

Since the Fifth Tribulation breakthrough and the subsequent training and spar with the Grand Elder that had followed, Lin Mu’s Sword Intent had matured. It had reached a step higher in the Sword Heart Stage, and with that stage his awareness had a second layer.

Where ordinary immortal sense read strength and size, the Sword Heart read intent.

It could taste hostility on the air, sense the coiled thoughts of one prepared to strike, and pick out danger like a scent among a thousand others. That sense was subtle and absolute, and it allowed him to rank the men in the halls by temperament as well as power.

’This certainly makes it easier.’ Lin Mu thought to himself.

As he rose through the floors the number of men and women he could mark increased.

He counted carefully, so as to be cautious. On the fifteenth floor there were three elders grouped in a council, their Qi rising and falling in slow, practiced arcs. By the thirtieth floor the gatherings were more common, and by the fortieth he could sense elder after elder, each one a cluster of cultivation and experience.

Thirty elders in the hall was not an exaggeration.

They ranged from the fifth to the sixth Tribulation stage of the Immortal Realm. Some even showed signs of the Seventh Tribulation Stage, a rare but not impossible rank for a sect of this scale.

’I’ll have to watch out for them... Though at least their power is concentrated here.’ Lin Mu was already thinking of more scenarios.

Lin Mu catalogued them swiftly. If a head fell in a clash then these would be the first to answer, either to defend or to split and scatter to summon aid. Taking them out would be costly and noisy. Removing the Patriarch would be cleaner if it could be done alone.

His steps were silent as he neared the top floors. The layout here was rather elaborate and decorations luxurious.

The sixty stories of the Grand Hall were not merely symbolic. The higher floors were private, reserved for those few elders who cultivated in seclusion behind thick arrays. Lin Mu noted that the privacy here was enforced more by custom than by constant watch.

The floors near the summit were protected by arrays that absorbed and rerouted stray qi waves and fluctuations, creating pockets of cultivation space that felt like isolated chambers. They were the perfect refuge for a man who did not wish to be bothered.

The Patriarch’s quarters lay at nearly the sixtieth level, and there were no guards or disciples posted at the threshold.

Three floors around his level were empty, a buffer of silence that made the Patriarch’s seclusion unmistakable. Lin Mu felt the weight of that absence like a held breath. Such isolation could mean complacency, or it could be a trap that only triggered in a particular way.

He allowed the Sword Intent of his Sword Heart to run lightly over the empty space. It found no hidden malice, but it did detect a curious elegance to the arrays. They were not designed for quick alarms. Rather they were designed to preserve something absolutely.

He phased through the wall of an antechamber, leaving no trace of pressure on the floor. Only his eyes flickered out through the solid side of a stone wall to find the Patriarch. The man sat within a private cultivation hall, a sanctum ringed by an intricate support array.

The Patriarch’s robes were dark brown, modest except for the sect’s sigil woven into the back and collar.