The eastern mountains loomed dark even against the morning sky filled with large trees as I made my way through the forest, cloaking deactivated, my cultivation deliberately suppressed to the middle stage of qi refining.
He said it was somewhat far from where he fell. I reached the location and looked around. My spiritual sense extended outward, searching for any signs of Zhang Wuhen's presence.
But there was no trace of him. Not a footprint. Not a broken branch. Not a single sign that a man bleeding from a golden core talisman had come this way at all.
"Lord," I called out. "Lord, where are you?"
Silence.
"Lord."
"You idiot." The voice came from directly behind me, sharp and angry. "Why are you shouting?"
I turned. There were large boulders behind me, as wide as a small house, rising like a hill from the forest floor. As I looked at it a section of it simply opened near one of the boulders, and Zhang Wuhen stepped out.
A concealment array built into these rocks. Clever. He had managed to do that even while being wounded.
He was shirtless. His upper body was covered in drying blood and wounds that were closing slowly, knitting shut at the pace of a man whose cultivation was burning everything it had just to keep him alive.
The remnants of his armour lay somewhere inside, I suspected. It had saved him from the worst of the talisman. Barely.
"Lord Overseer?" I called out, injecting nervousness into my voice.
"Get in here!" Zhang Wuhen's voice was rough with pain and impatience.
I stepped forward into the darkness where he was,
The interior was larger than I'd expected, carved out naturally over centuries by water erosion. And there, near the back,
A makeshift bed had been cleaved from a large flat rock. Against one wall lay his tattered armour, holes punched through it in a dozen places, the metal edges scorched and warped.
That was what had absorbed the golden core strike. That, and whatever was left of the man underneath it.
He turned to face me, "You!" Zhang Wuhen's voice was rough, pained, but still carried authority. "Did you bring the blood?"
I reached into my storage and took out three bottles of blood I had taken from the inventory earlier before coming here. "We were only able to gather this much, lord."
He limped toward me, reaching out eagerly. "Give them here. Quickly!"
This was it. The moment of truth.
As his hand extended toward the bottles, I struck.
My soul sword materialized instantly, shooting forward from my mind space like an invisible arrow. It pierced through the air between us and slammed directly into Zhang Wuhen's forehead, entering his consciousness without any physical resistance.
His eyes went wide with shock and immediate, overwhelming pain. The soul attack bypassed all his physical defenses, striking directly at his most vulnerable point.
"Ahhhhh!" He clutched his head with both hands, stumbling backward. "What... what is this?!"
I didn't give him time to recover. I stored the bottles into the inventory instantly and channelled spiritual energy into my fist, gathering every ounce of power I could muster.
My Qi Refining 7th Layer cultivation which comparable to foundation establishment mid-stage surged through my meridians, concentrating high amounts of spiritual energy in my knuckles.
This single strike had to count.
I closed the distance in an instant and drove my fist into his lower abdomen, right where his dantian was located with everything I had. The punch connected with brutal precision, my spiritual energy exploding inward at the point of impact.
Crack!
The sound it made was not pleasant.
Zhang Wuhen's eyes bulged, his mouth opening in a soundless scream as he felt his cultivation base rupture from within.
The force of my punch lifted him off his feet, sending him flying backward. He crashed into the stone wall with bone-breaking force, his body embedding several feet into the rock.
I immediately released threads of spiritual energy, wrapping them around his limbs before he became permanently embedded and dies.
Like invisible ropes, they pulled him free from the wall and slammed him down onto the cave floor.
He landed hard, groaning in agony. One hand still clutched his head where the soul attack had struck. The other moved instinctively to his abdomen, where his shattered dantian throbbed with indescribable pain.
I walked over calmly and crouched beside him, checking his condition with my spiritual sense. Yes, the dantian was completely destroyed. Fragments of his cultivation base were already dissipating into nothingness.
Zhang Wuhen, peak Foundation Establishment demon cultivator, was now just a mortal man with a stronger-than-normal body.
"You..." he gasped clutching his head, blood trickling from his mouth. "Who... what are you?"
I didn't answer. Instead, I took out a healing pill from my storage pouch and forced it into his mouth, making him swallow. His body absorbed the medicine reluctantly, enough to stabilize him and prevent immediate death from shock.
Then I sealed his acupoints with precise strikes of spiritual energy.
I closed his vocal acupoints too with a thread of spiritual energy and he went silent, his mouth slightly opening and closing with no sound coming out, his body began registering the agony of what had just been taken from him.
A cultivator's dantian was not just a reservoir of power. It was identity. Purpose. Years and decades of effort crystallized into something that could be shattered in a single second by someone stronger.
I had seen men lose their minds from it. I had seen men choose death over living past it.
He began to cry.
Not loudly. He had no voice for that now. Just tears running down his face as he lay on the stone floor of his own hiding place, the dreams he had carried bleeding out of him alongside everything else.
I watched him for a moment.
Perfect.
"Don't die on me yet," I said quietly, my voice cold. "We're not finished. Not by a long shot."
Terror filled his eyes as he realized his situation. Captured, crippled, completely at my mercy.
And I had none to give.
Then I walked over to the rock bed, lay down on it, crossed one leg over the other, and took out the second communication token for the bandit leader.
The overseer was looking at my weird actions then he saw what happened and truly felt true fear was.
Modulating my voice to match the accountant's tone again, I sent a message. "Leader! Leader, are you there?"
A moment of silence, then the bandit leader's voice came through, wary but hopeful. "Brother Lu? What's wrong? You sound urgent."
I looked at the overseer smiling with my eyes, the moment he met my gaze he tried to back down like he saw a monster but couldn't.
"Leader, don't call me that. I don't deserve your respect."
"No no, brother Lu, of course you do. Why did you call? And when are you sending the supplies?"
"Leader, something incredible has happened!" I injected excitement into my voice. "You won't believe it, but the overseer has been exposed!"
"What?! What do you mean exposed?"
"Leader." I let a small laugh into my voice, easy and conspiratorial. "Something big happened. I got news that a sect envoy was visiting the city lord's manor. So I quietly sent a letter and a bottle of blood through one of our debtors who works inside, and had him deliver it to the city lord during their meeting with the overseer."
I paused dramatically. "So guess what happened. The envoy tried to check his pulse. He retaliated. Injured the city lord, exposed his demon arts, had a great big fight with the envoy and fled to the eastern mountains seriously wounded."
"I sent one of my trusted men to follow him. I found his location. He is at his wits end."
A beat of silence. Then loud laughter, the kind that comes from the belly.
"That son of a bitch got what he deserved! He tried to kill me. Now it is his turn. Hahaha!"
"Yes! Yes!" The bandit leader was practically shouting now. "Where is he? Tell me, I'll tear that demon apart with my bare hands!"
"I can give you the exact location," I said, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "But leader, we need to strike now, while he's weak. I even acquired some Tier 2 talismans from my contacts. Between your strength and these talismans, we can finish him and gain incredible merit from the sect!"
I gave him precise directions to the cave, adding, "I'm waiting near a large boulder within a concealment formation. I'll send my man out to guide you the rest of the way once you arrive. Be careful and come quickly, leader. We can't let this opportunity slip away!"
"I'm coming right now, Brother Lu! Don't worry, that bastard Zhang Wuhen is about to pay for everything he's done!"
After I gave him the directions, settled back against the rock bed with my legs crossed, relaxed.
The connection cut off. I smiled grimly and turned back to look at Zhang Wuhen, who was like a dead body but alive his eyes were filled in terror.
He was watching me with dawning horror, his eyes following my every movement. He'd heard everything, understood everything.
"Surprised?" I asked, walking back to him. "Did you really think your little criminal network was so secure? That your subordinates were truly loyal?"
I crouched down beside him again, studying his terrified expression. "The accountant? Dead. I killed him days ago. The bandit leader? He's been working with me well not actually with me but with the dead accountant, ever since I intercepted your communications."
"And now he's coming here," I continued, "thinking he's going to kill you and claim the credit. Except..."
I stood and walked to the crude stone bed, sitting down and leaning back comfortably. "Well, you'll see soon enough. Just wait patiently, Zhang Wuhen. The show is about to begin."
Tried to plead. His mouth moved with great effort and produced nothing but strangled whimpers. I watched him struggle with it for a moment, then I took out a healing pill, crossed to where he lay, and pushed it between his lips.
"Don't die on me," I said. "You still have things left to do."
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