The golden light was so gentle it was easy to forget it was part of a defensive line. A cultivator with fairly swift movement techniques was the first to step inside. The moment his foot slipped, his body split into three afterimages.
Thinking his ploy had succeeded, he was about to pass through a gap in the mirror light when a bronze mirror on the ceiling of the corridor suddenly chimed softly. Ding. The faint golden radiance abruptly converged. The three afterimages were like thin paper meeting fire, their edges instantly scorched.
The cultivator’s true body was gently enveloped by a beam of warm light, freezing him in place. The token at his waist sprang out with a crack and automatically recorded one failure. The cultivator’s face flushed red.
He cursed under his breath and retreated in disgrace. Sun Lingtong’s eyes shone as he watched. If this had been the old him, he would have regarded this sunlight as an enemy.
Thieves feared the light. This was the most instinctive thought among many thieving cultivators. Hiding in shadows, shrinking one’s bones, concealing one’s breath, avoiding sight, and moving through darkness—almost every thieving technique taught one how to evade light, how to become that one patch of shadow upon which light could not shine.