**Chapter 6: The Subterranean Bazaar and the Inner Sect's Wrath**
The fog rolling through the outer slums of the Green Bamboo Market was thick, greasy, and smelled of woodsmoke and copper.
Lu Chen moved through it like a phantom. The *Shadow-Breath Mud Technique* clung to his spiritual core like a suffocating blanket of wet clay, completely masking the vibrant, humming power of his newly formed Level 3 Dantian. To the world, he was invisible. But to himself, the psychological weight of what he had just done in that alleyway was a heavy, anchoring stone in his chest.
Li Wei, the mild-mannered accountant from Earth, had just snapped a man's neck with his bare hands. He had blown a hole through another man's throat.
As he navigated the twisting, sewage-filled backstreets toward the collapsed spiritual mine that housed Ghost Alley, his modern conscience violently rebelled. His hands, though washed clean of blood by the damp fog, felt permanently stained. He could still feel the sickening crunch of bone beneath his knuckles, the desperate, terrified vibration of the gang member's vocal cords right before they were severed.
*I am a murderer,* his modern mind whispered, a cold sweat breaking out beneath his mask. *I didn't use a magical system loophole this time. I looked them in the eyes and I butchered them.*
But the survivalist instincts of the original Lu Chen, forged in the crucible of a decade of starvation and abuse, rose up like a dark tide, drowning the guilt in absolute, ruthless pragmatism.
*They would have killed us,* the survivalist countered. *They were hunting for sport. If we had hesitated, our corpse would be hanging from a meat hook in the Scraping District right now as a warning. This is the Azure Cloud Continent. The strong eat the weak. We are simply refusing to be eaten.*
Lu Chen took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing the conflicting voices in his head into a grim, uneasy truce. He needed total focus. He was entering the most dangerous location in the outer market, and his Causality Shift Panel was entirely offline.
He reached the edge of the abandoned mining district. The earth here was scarred and broken, massive craters filled with stagnant, toxic water serving as testaments to the Wang Clan's ruthless, centuries-old extraction of the land's spiritual veins.
The entrance to Ghost Alley was hidden at the bottom of a particularly deep, sheer-sided ravine. Usually, the entrance was guarded by a few heavily armed mercenaries who took a cut of any transactions. Tonight, given the lockdown and the gang war, Lu Chen expected it to be heavily fortified or completely abandoned.
He crept to the edge of the ravine, lying flat on his stomach in the freezing mud, and peered over the lip.
At the bottom of the ravine, illuminated by the sickly green glow of luminescent moss, a heavy iron grate covered the entrance to the old mine shaft. Two figures stood before it. They weren't regular mercenaries; they wore the dark, armored leather of the Black Tiger Gang's elite enforcers. They held heavy, curved spiritual sabers that pulsed with faint, blood-red Qi. Both were solid Level 3 cultivators.
Boss Hei had essentially blockaded the black market, likely searching for the "Yin Demon" or trying to monopolize the underground trade while the Wang Clan locked down the surface.
Lu Chen analyzed the situation. He couldn't fight two elite Level 3s simultaneously without his panel. His *Metal-Piercing Water Bullet* was devastating, but it required a second of charge time, and against two alert opponents, the moment he fired at one, the other would decapitate him.
He couldn't fight his way in. He had to buy his way in.
He slipped the steel dagger he had looted into his boot. He kept the pouch containing the four Spirit Stones tightly secured inside his robes, but he palmed the five dull spirit fragments he had taken off the dead patrol.
He stood up, carefully rolled his shoulders to adopt the hunched, terrified posture of a desperate scavenger, and began the precarious climb down the slick, muddy walls of the ravine.
He made sure to slip slightly, dislodging a handful of pebbles that clattered loudly to the bottom.
Instantly, the two enforcers whipped around, their sabers raised, their Level 3 auras flaring with aggressive, murderous intent.
"Who's there?!" one of them barked, his eyes scanning the darkness of the ravine wall. "Show yourself or die!"
Lu Chen intentionally tumbled the last few feet, landing in the mud at the bottom with a pathetic splash. He scrambled to his knees, throwing his hands over his head, shaking violently.
"P-please! Mercy! I'm just a scavenger!" Lu Chen cried out, perfectly pitching his voice to a terrified, submissive rasp.
The enforcers relaxed slightly, their auras dimming as they scanned him. Thanks to the *Shadow-Breath Mud Technique*, they saw exactly what he wanted them to see: a pitiful, Level 1 trash cultivator reeking of mud and fear.
"A rat breaking curfew," the second enforcer sneered, lowering his saber but keeping it ready. "You have a death wish, rat? The Black Tigers own this entrance tonight. Ghost Alley is closed to trash."
"I... I found something!" Lu Chen babbled, keeping his head bowed. "Deep in the outer woods! I need to sell it! The Wang Clan patrols are everywhere, I couldn't go back to my shack! Please, sirs, I just need to get inside!"
He extended a trembling hand, opening his palm to reveal the five spirit fragments. It was garbage to a wealthy cultivator, but to a slum enforcer, it was the price of a decent meal and a jar of cheap spiritual wine.
The first enforcer stepped forward, snatching the fragments from Lu Chen's hand with a greedy smirk. He inspected them, then kicked Lu Chen in the shoulder, sending him sprawling into the mud.
"Consider this a fine for your pathetic existence," the enforcer laughed. "Ghost Alley is tense tonight, rat. If you cause trouble, they'll gut you before you can even scream. Get inside and stay out of sight."
The enforcer turned and hauled the heavy iron grate open just enough for a man to squeeze through.
Lu Chen scrambled through the gap, muttering continuous, pathetic thanks, dragging himself into the pitch-black tunnel of the old mine shaft.
As soon as he was out of sight of the guards, his posture instantly straightened. The trembling vanished, replaced by the lethal, coiled stillness of a predator. He wiped the mud from his face, his eyes adjusting to the absolute darkness as he descended deeper into the earth.
*Money talks,* Lu Chen thought, a cold smile touching his lips. *Even in the middle of a gang war, greed is the ultimate constant.*
Ghost Alley was vastly different tonight.
When Lu Chen emerged into the massive, subterranean cavern, the usual chaotic cacophony of hundreds of haggling voices was absent. The atmosphere was suffocatingly tense, heavy with paranoia and suppressed fear.
The cavern was lit only by sporadic patches of glowing moss and a few dim, smokeless spiritual fires. Instead of hundreds of stalls, there were perhaps only thirty. The merchants who had braved the curfew were the most desperate, the most dangerous, or those who simply had nowhere else to go. The patrons were entirely cloaked, moving quickly and silently, their hands hovering constantly near their weapons.
Everyone knew the surface was a powder keg. The black market was holding its breath, waiting for the explosion.
Lu Chen pulled his ragged hood low, maintaining his Level 1 facade, and began to navigate the sparse stalls.
He completely bypassed the vendors selling rusted weapons, chipped jade slips of low-tier martial arts, and questionable elixirs. He didn't need garbage. He needed a lifeline.
He searched the cavern for nearly an hour before he spotted a stall tucked away in a deep, recessed alcove near the back of the market. The stall consisted of a pristine, black velvet cloth laid over a flat rock. Sitting cross-legged behind the rock was an incredibly old man.
The man was entirely bald, his skin heavily wrinkled and covered in faded, complex runic tattoos. His eyes were completely milk-white, staring blindly into space. Despite his frail appearance, Lu Chen felt absolutely no Qi radiating from him. None. It wasn't the suppressed, muddy aura of the *Shadow-Breath*; it was a complete, terrifying void, like staring into a bottomless well.
*An expert,* Lu Chen's instincts screamed. *A true expert hiding in the slums.*
On the black velvet cloth sat only three items: a small, intricately carved wooden compass, a stack of heavily worn, yellowish parchment, and a single, dull bronze talisman.
Lu Chen approached slowly, respectfully maintaining a distance of five feet.
"Senior," Lu Chen whispered, pitching his voice low and steady, dropping the pathetic beggar act. An expert would see right through it anyway.
The blind old man did not move, but a voice echoed directly into Lu Chen's mind. It was dry, ancient, and sounded like rustling leaves.
*You reek of blood, little shadow. Fresh blood. And beneath that mud you wear, you hum with the violent resonance of a forced breakthrough. You are young, but your karma is already heavy.*
Lu Chen's heart skipped a beat, but he forced himself to remain perfectly still. The old man could see through the *Shadow-Breath Mud Technique*. He could sense the Level 3 Qi, and he could smell the murders from the alleyway.
"The world is heavy, Senior," Lu Chen replied aloud, keeping his tone carefully neutral. "I am merely trying to survive it."
A dry chuckle echoed in Lu Chen's mind. *Survival is expensive. What do you seek, little shadow?*
"Information. Direction. And defense," Lu Chen said, his eyes scanning the three items. "I need to leave the Green Bamboo Market. I need a map of the surrounding territories. And I need something that can keep me alive if a Foundation Establishment cultivator looks my way."
The blind man slowly raised a withered, tattooed hand, pointing a single, long fingernail at the stack of yellowed parchment.
*The maps are there. Hand-drawn by myself over eighty years of wandering. The Azure Cloud Continent is vast; this stack covers the entire Southern Reaches, including the territories of the three major sects and the hundred minor clans. It details the spiritual ley lines, the demonic beast zones, and the mortal kingdoms. The price is two low-grade Spirit Stones.*
Lu Chen calculated rapidly. Two stones for a map was an exorbitant, outrageous price in the outer slums. He could buy twenty pounds of spirit rice for that. But without a map, walking into the Hundred Thousand Demonic Mountains was guaranteed suicide.
"I accept the price for the map," Lu Chen said. "What of the other items?"
The ancient finger shifted to the wooden compass.
*A Ley-Line Compass. It does not point north; it points toward the densest concentrations of ambient Qi. It will guide you to hidden spirit veins, or steer you clear of massive, high-tier demonic nests. Four Spirit Stones.*
Lu Chen internally winced. He only had four stones in total. If he bought the compass, he couldn't buy the map. He couldn't afford it.
"And the talisman?" Lu Chen asked, looking at the dull bronze metal.
*The Golden Bell Talisman,* the old man's mental voice took on a slightly reverent tone. *A defensive consumable. When activated with a surge of Qi, it projects a kinetic barrier capable of withstanding a single, full-force strike from a Peak Level 5 Qi Condensation cultivator. It will shatter after one use. It is a second life in a desperate moment. Three Spirit Stones.*
Lu Chen's mind raced. He needed the map to leave. That was two stones. He had two stones left. The talisman cost three.
He was one stone short of a perfect escape package.
"Senior," Lu Chen said respectfully, "I have four low-grade stones in total. I require the map. I desperately need the talisman. I am willing to offer the four stones, plus the location of a freshly blooming patch of Ghost-Face Mushrooms in the Rotting Bone Swamp, for both."
It was a bold gamble. He was offering information as currency.
The blind man sat motionless for a long time. The silence in the alcove was absolute.
Finally, the dry voice rustled in Lu Chen's mind again. *Ghost-Face Mushrooms are a young man's game. I have no use for hallucinogens. But... I perceive a unique distortion around you, little shadow. A strange, twisted knot in the weave of causality. You are an anomaly.*
Lu Chen's blood ran cold. The old man was perceiving the lingering effects of the Causality Shift Panel.
*I will give you the map and the talisman,* the old man decided. *For your four stones. Consider the discount an investment. Anomalies either die quickly, or they burn the world down. If you survive, remember that you owe a debt to the blind cartographer of Ghost Alley.*
"I swear it, Senior," Lu Chen said immediately, not hesitating for a second. In the cultivation world, karmic debts were real and binding, but right now, surviving the week was vastly more important than a vague future promise.
He reached into his robes and placed the four faintly glowing low-grade Spirit Stones onto the velvet cloth.
The blind man waved his hand. The stones vanished into a spatial storage ring on his skeletal finger—a mark of immense, unfathomable wealth. In return, the stack of parchment and the bronze talisman floated gracefully through the air, coming to rest in Lu Chen's outstretched hands.
Lu Chen immediately secured the items within his robes. He bowed deeply, a genuine gesture of respect for a power he could not even begin to comprehend, and backed away from the alcove.
He had his map. He had a defensive trump card capable of blocking a Level 5 strike.
But he was completely broke. He had zero Spirit Stones. He couldn't even buy food for the journey.
*The Black Tiger Gang's treasury,* Lu Chen reminded himself, his resolve hardening. *It's the only way.*
He needed targeted information. He navigated away from the ancient expert's stall and headed toward the center of the cavern.
In Ghost Alley, information wasn't sold at stalls; it was traded in the shadows by "Whisperers." These were usually heavily scarred, paranoid individuals who survived by selling out both the Wang Clan and the gangs to the highest bidder.
Lu Chen found a Whisperer leaning against a stalagmite, a man missing half his nose and wearing a filthy eyepatch.
"I need to know about the Blood Iron Vault," Lu Chen murmured, leaning close, keeping his voice a low rasp. "The Black Tiger Gang's main treasury in the Scraping District. Where is it, and how is it guarded?"
The Whisperer scoffed, his one eye looking Lu Chen up and down. "You and every other desperate rat in this cavern. You look like a stiff breeze would snap you in half, and you want to rob Boss Hei? You're suicidal."
"The price," Lu Chen demanded coldly.
"Information of that tier costs a full Spirit Stone, minimum," the Whisperer sneered.
Lu Chen didn't have a Spirit Stone. But he was a transmigrated accountant who understood leverage and negotiation. And he had just killed a gang patrol.
Lu Chen stepped intimately close, his Level 3 aura suddenly flaring for a fraction of a microsecond beneath the *Shadow-Breath* shell, just enough for the Whisperer to feel a terrifying, suffocating wave of heavy Earth Qi. Simultaneously, Lu Chen drew the steel dagger he had looted and pressed the point directly against the Whisperer's liver, hidden entirely by their robes.
The Whisperer froze, his one eye widening in absolute shock. The "Level 1 trash" had just projected the murderous intent of an elite enforcer.
"I don't have a Spirit Stone," Lu Chen whispered, his voice as cold as the grave. "But I have the patrol routes of the four Black Tiger enforcers currently bleeding out in the alley above us. And I have the blade that killed them. You tell me about the vault, or I leave you here with a punctured liver and scream that you're a Wang Clan spy."
The Whisperer swallowed hard, feeling the sharp sting of the blade through his tunic. The black market code meant nothing in the face of imminent, violent death.
"O-okay! Crazy bastard," the Whisperer stammered quietly. "The Blood Iron Vault. It's beneath Boss Hei's personal compound in the center of the Scraping District. It's heavily fortified. Solid iron walls, guarded by at least six Level 4 inner-circle members at all times."
"I can't fight six Level 4s," Lu Chen said flatly. "Give me a vulnerability."
"The Array!" the Whisperer hissed urgently, sweat beading on his forehead. "The vault is protected by a Tier-2 'Crushing Gravity Array.' If you step inside without the control token, the array activates and crushes you into paste. But... the array is old. It draws power from a localized spiritual node beneath the compound. To keep it stable, the gang has to vent the excess Qi every night at exactly the third watch (around 2:00 AM). The vent is located in a drainage pipe behind the compound."
"If I block the vent?" Lu Chen asked, his mind rapidly processing the mechanics.
"If you block the vent during the purge, the Qi backlashes," the Whisperer explained rapidly. "The array will overload and short-circuit. The vault doors will forcefully open to prevent a spiritual explosion, and the heavy gravity will be disabled for at least ten minutes while the array resets. But the guards will still be there."
Lu Chen pulled the dagger back slightly. "Third watch. Behind the compound. A drainage pipe."
"Yes! I swear on my cultivation base, that's the truth! Now back off!"
Lu Chen lowered the dagger, nodding once. It was a solid lead. It was incredibly dangerous, requiring perfect timing and a distraction to deal with the guards, but it was a vulnerability he could exploit.
He turned to leave the Whisperer, intent on heading back to the surface to plan his heist.
He didn't make it three steps.
A sound like thunder detonated within the enclosed subterranean cavern.
The heavy iron grate at the top of the entrance tunnel—the grate Lu Chen had crawled through—was violently, explosively blown entirely off its hinges. The massive chunk of twisted metal flew through the air, smashing into a stalactite above the market, sending a rain of razor-sharp rock debris crashing down onto the stalls below.
Screams erupted across Ghost Alley.
A blinding, pure white light flooded into the cavern, banishing the sickly green shadows and illuminating every single cloaked figure in harsh, unforgiving detail.
"Wang Clan! Purge the rats!"
A voice, amplified to deafening levels by Qi, echoed through the cavern.
From the tunnel entrance, dozens of Wang Clan enforcers poured into the black market, clad in pristine blue armor, their spiritual swords drawn and glowing with lethal intent.
Leading the charge was Wang Lin, the Inner Sect Disciple. He was not walking; he hovered above the ground on his flying sword, holding a massive, brilliantly glowing pearl in his hand—a high-tier illumination artifact that stripped away all stealth arts based on shadows or darkness.
"The Black Tiger Gang harbors the Yin Demon!" Wang Lin declared, his face twisted in a mask of arrogant fury. "This entire den of filth is complicit! Kill anyone who resists! Detain the rest for the Mirror!"
It wasn't just a raid. It was a massacre. The Wang Clan, utterly humiliated by the assassinations of their overseer, had decided to simply violently rip the band-aid off the slums. By striking Ghost Alley, they were hitting the economic heart of the gangs and the loose cultivators simultaneously.
The black market denizens didn't surrender. These were desperate men and women, murderers, thieves, and demonic cultivators. To be detained meant death by the Soul-Measuring Mirror.
"Fight them!" a massive cultivator wielding a spiked hammer roared, charging the Wang Clan line.
Chaos descended instantly. Spells illuminated the cavern. Fireballs, wind blades, and toxic poison darts filled the air, clashing against the coordinated, disciplined shield walls of the Wang Clan enforcers. Blood sprayed across the stone floor. The screams of the dying mixed with the explosive concussions of spiritual arts.
Lu Chen stood frozen for a microscopic fraction of a second, the harsh white light from Wang Lin's pearl washing over him.
His *Shadow-Breath Mud Technique* was an Earth-attribute art, not a shadow art. The light artifact didn't dispel his disguise; he still appeared as a terrified Level 1 farmer. But in this enclosed, chaotic slaughterhouse, being Level 1 meant being collateral damage.
He couldn't fight. Even with his Level 3 strength and his *Water Bullet*, he would be instantly cut down by the sheer volume of Wang Clan enforcers or targeted by Wang Lin himself, whose aura radiated a terrifying Peak Level 6 pressure.
He checked his panel out of pure, desperate reflex.
### **Causality Shift Panel**
* **Host:** Lu Chen
* **Cultivation:** Qi Condensation Level 3
* **Marked Targets:** 0 / 3
* *Target 1:* (Cooldown: 21 hours, 30 minutes remaining.)
* *Target 2:* (Cooldown: 5 hours, 50 minutes remaining.)
* *Target 3:* (Cooldown: 6 hours, 40 minutes remaining.)
Still on cooldown. The Golden Finger was silent. He was entirely, brutally mortal.
A Wang Clan enforcer, his sword dripping with blood, spotted Lu Chen standing near the center of the cavern.
"Die, scum!" the enforcer yelled, lunging forward, executing a flawless, practiced thrust aimed directly at Lu Chen's heart.
Lu Chen didn't have time to form a *Water Bullet*. He didn't have time to pull his bronze talisman.
He relied entirely on the explosive kinetic energy of his newly forged Level 3 body. He dropped instantly into a deep crouch, letting the enforcer's glowing sword pass mere inches over his head, the heat of the Qi singeing the fabric of his hood.
Without pausing, Lu Chen drove his fist upward, burying it deep into the unprotected joint of the enforcer's armor, right beneath the armpit. He channeled a raw, concussive burst of unrefined Earth Qi into the strike.
The enforcer gasped, his arm going numb as the meridian in his shoulder shattered. He stumbled backward, his defensive posture broken.
Lu Chen didn't follow up. He didn't try to kill the man. He just needed him out of the way.
He spun on his heel and sprinted toward the back walls of the cavern, away from the main entrance where the Wang Clan was pouring in.
He remembered the layout of the old mining district from his memories. This cavern wasn't a dead end. Spiritual veins were like tree roots; they branched out. There had to be secondary extraction shafts, old ventilation tunnels, or natural fissures that the miners had abandoned.
He dodged a stray fireball that detonated against a stall, showering him in sparks. He leaped over the severed torso of a black market merchant, his boots slick with blood.
He reached the back wall, his hands frantically feeling the rough, damp stone, searching for a draft of cold air.
"Over there! A rat is fleeing!"
Wang Lin, hovering above the chaos, had spotted Lu Chen's rapid, desperate movement. The Inner Sect Disciple pointed two fingers toward Lu Chen.
A streak of pure, blinding white Sword Qi shot from Wang Lin's flying sword, cutting across the cavern at supersonic speed, aimed squarely at Lu Chen's back.
Lu Chen felt the lethal, suffocating pressure of the Level 6 attack before it even hit him. The hairs on his neck stood up, and every alarm bell in his soul screamed imminent death.
He had no choice.
He reached into his robes, grabbed the dull bronze Golden Bell Talisman he had literally just purchased, and ruthlessly crushed it in his fist while violently injecting his entire pool of Level 3 Qi into the metal.
The talisman shattered into dust.
Instantly, a massive, translucent bell made of golden, resonating spiritual energy manifested around Lu Chen's body, slamming into the cavern floor and completely encapsulating him.
A millisecond later, Wang Lin's Sword Qi struck the bell.
*BOOOOOOM!*
The impact was deafening, a shockwave that physically knocked nearby cultivators off their feet. The golden bell rang with a profound, earth-shaking toll. The pure white Sword Qi ground against the golden barrier, violently trying to pierce it, throwing off showers of blinding sparks.
The bell held. It absorbed the absolute full force of the Level 6 strike.
But as it absorbed the energy, spiderweb cracks rapidly spread across its surface. With a final, resonant *shatter*, the golden barrier exploded into a million motes of light, fading into nothingness.
Lu Chen was thrown forward by the sheer concussive force of the impact, slamming hard into the stone wall of the cavern. He coughed violently, tasting copper as his internal organs shuddered from the shockwave, but he was alive. The talisman had worked exactly as advertised. He had just burned three Spirit Stones in less than five minutes, but it had bought him his life.
Wang Lin, hovering in the air, frowned in surprise. A low-level rat in the slums possessing a high-tier defensive talisman was highly unusual.
"Interesting," Wang Lin sneered, preparing to fire a second, completely lethal strike.
But as Lu Chen hit the wall, his hands found exactly what he had been desperately searching for. A narrow, jagged vertical fissure in the rock face, barely wide enough for a human to squeeze sideways into. A strong draft of freezing, foul-smelling air blew out of it.
Before Wang Lin could unleash his second attack, Lu Chen threw himself sideways into the fissure, scraping his shoulders and tearing his robes, instantly vanishing into the absolute darkness of the earth.
Wang Lin's second Sword Qi blast hit the solid rock face where Lu Chen had been a fraction of a second prior, blowing a massive crater into the stone, sealing the fissure with tons of collapsed rubble.
Lu Chen squeezed through the claustrophobic, suffocating darkness of the fissure for what felt like hours. He was bleeding from dozens of minor scrapes, his muscles burning with exhaustion, his Qi reserves nearly depleted from activating the talisman and maintaining the *Shadow-Breath Mud Technique*.
The sounds of the massacre in Ghost Alley grew fainter, muffled by millions of tons of solid rock, until they disappeared entirely.
Eventually, the narrow fissure opened up into a larger, rusted drainage pipe that smelled heavily of raw sewage and stagnant water.
Lu Chen crawled through the slime, his modern sensibilities completely shattered, his mind focused entirely on the rhythmic, mechanical process of putting one hand in front of the other.
He didn't stop moving until he finally saw a faint, gray light filtering through a heavy iron grate ahead of him.
He pushed against the grate. It was rusted tight.
With a feral growl, drawing on the last dregs of his physical Level 3 strength, Lu Chen kicked the iron grate violently. It snapped with a loud screech, falling outward into a muddy ditch.
Lu Chen spilled out of the pipe, landing face-first in the freezing mud of the outer slums.
He rolled over onto his back, staring up at the gloomy, overcast sky of the approaching dawn. The freezing rain began to fall, washing the blood, the soot, and the sewage from his face.
He lay there for ten minutes, simply breathing, letting the rain soak him to the bone.
He had survived again. He had braved the black market, survived a raid by the inner sect, blocked a lethal strike from an elite disciple, and escaped.
He sat up slowly, his body aching in profound, fundamental ways.
He reached into his sodden robes. The stack of yellowed parchment—the map of the Azure Cloud Continent—was securely wrapped in oil-leaf, completely dry.
He had the map. He had the vulnerability of the Blood Iron Vault.
But his situation had deteriorated rapidly. Ghost Alley, the only place he could fence stolen goods or buy supplies, was destroyed or currently occupied by the Wang Clan. The Wang Clan was now actively purging the slums, meaning his identity as a simple farmer was no longer safe. If they subjected everyone to the mirror again with Wang Lin personally overseeing it, his *Shadow-Breath* might not hold up under sustained, aggressive scrutiny.
The timeline had accelerated. He couldn't wait days to plan the heist. He couldn't wait for the heat to die down.
He looked at the panel, his constant, terrifying companion.
### **Causality Shift Panel**
* **Host:** Lu Chen
* **Cultivation:** Qi Condensation Level 3
* **Marked Targets:** 0 / 3
* *Target 1:* (Cooldown: 20 hours, 15 minutes remaining.)
* *Target 2:* (Cooldown: 4 hours, 35 minutes remaining.)
* *Target 3:* (Cooldown: 5 hours, 25 minutes remaining.)
Four hours.
In four hours, he would have a target slot open again. The Golden Finger would be back online.
Lu Chen stood up in the freezing rain, his eyes turning toward the center of the Scraping District, where Boss Hei's heavily fortified compound loomed above the squalor of the slums.
The gang war was a distraction. The Wang Clan purge was a distraction.
Tonight, at the third watch, when the drainage pipe vented the excess Qi, Lu Chen was going to break into the Blood Iron Vault. He was going to strip the Black Tiger Gang of every single Spirit Stone, every artifact, and every ounce of wealth they had extorted from the slums for the past decade.
He was going to use his Level 3 cultivation to break in, and he was going to use his Causality Shift Panel to deal with anyone who got in his way.
And by dawn tomorrow, Lu Chen, the invisible human filter, would vanish from the Green Bamboo Market entirely, leaving only a trail of inexplicable, agonizing deaths in his wake.
The cautious, lying-low phase was officially over. It was time to get paid.