The scent of blood lingered faintly beneath the fragrance of wine and roasted beast meat. Crimson spread slowly beneath the banquet table like an ink painting blooming upon paper.
Luo Jin, heir of the Luo Clan, lay crumpled against the lacquered wood. A thin, clean cut split across his chest—too swift to scream, too sudden to resist. Life had left his body before his eyes could even widen in recognition.
And in the next breath, silence followed.
No clang of drawn swords. No startled cry of alarm. Just the eerie stillness of inevitability.
Lan Xue clasped her hand to her mouth, her body trembling as the heavy scent of iron reached her nostrils.
Everyone turned toward the direction from which the sword had flown.
But there was no attacker.
No assassin.
No trace of a cultivator's aura.
Only silence. Heavy, oppressive silence.
It was as though the heavens themselves had judged Luo Jin unworthy of existing.
Moments later, the inn's heavy wooden doors burst open with a bang.
"Seal the exits!" roared a guards captain as armored men poured in. Their faces twisted in confusion at the surreal scene before them.
The crowd had frozen like statues. No one dared move. Some turned pale. Others tried to piece together what they had seen. But there had been no flash of light, no clash of qi. Just a sword—cold and emotionless—descending from nowhere.
And in a shadowed corner of the upper balcony…
An empty seat.
Its occupant long gone.
Outside the city, beneath the cloak of moonlight and drifting clouds, a figure walked silently through the forest.
Kai Zheng.
robes clean. Hair unruffled. Not a single trace of blood.
His hands were tucked behind his back, posture calm as the cool breeze stirred the hem of his sleeves. Pine needles crunched beneath his boots, yet he made no effort to hasten his pace.
His expression remained composed, yet in the depths of his eyes shimmered a faint, almost imperceptible smile.
[Hero Aura Absorbed: +20]
[Villain Karma Redeemed: +30 SP]
[Blame Shift Successful – Suspected Party: Azure Cloud Sect Elder]
The mechanical voice echoed faintly in his mind.
"Heh. Predictable."
Kai's lips curved slightly.
Earlier in the evening, while the banquet buzzed with laughter and empty bravado, he had taken the time to place an ordinary sword near the edge of the upper floor.
No one had noticed.
They never did.
When the moment came, when Luo Jin arrogantly humiliated the girl before him and declared himself untouchable, Kai had acted.
He never moved.
Not a flick of his fingers.
Not a change in expression.
He simply... willed it.
And the sword answered.
Silent as a whisper, it had pierced through the air like a ray of judgment.
A kill without a trace.
A blade without a source.
He had felt it—through the connection of mind and intent. The faint resistance of bone, the splatter of hot blood, the dull collapse of a body crumpling to the floor.
That sensation lingered even now. Not on his skin, but in his thoughts. A lingering echo.
"System," Kai murmured inwardly, his voice calm. "Explain that connection. what was it?"
[The Host's spiritual consciousness established momentary resonance with the embedded sword due to high concentration and compatible affinity to Metal manipulation. This phenomenon is not an ability perse, but an advanced application of intent-based qi manipulation.]
[Approximate effective range under current cultivation: 10 meters. Success rate and lethality scale with Host's focus, emotional state, and target's vigilance.]
[Note: Such precision is rare. Most cultivators require intense training and dedicated techniques. You… did it instinctively.]
Kai's eyes narrowed slightly.
"So I made the sword obey through will alone."
[Correct. A latent trait related to your soul construct is likely involved, though its origin remains unidentified.]
The system paused for a breath, then clarified in its usual cool tone, tinged faintly with pride.
[To put it simply: You think… and it Moves.]
Kai Zheng's footsteps did not falter, but his lips parted slightly.
"…Interesting."
The night wind brushed past him, whispering through the pine needles overhead. The forest was silent but alive, shadows swaying gently beneath moonlight as if bowing to something unseen.
His thoughts, once steady, now sank into deeper stillness.
It had been his first kill.
He had played out countless scenarios in his mind before this moment. Would he feel revulsion? The raw pulse of exhilaration? Would guilt gnaw at the edges of his heart like a beast tasting blood?
And yet… there was nothing.
No tremor in his breath. No heaviness in his chest.
Only silence. Unmoving. Unshaken.
He hadn't killed for revenge. There was no debt to repay. He hadn't killed to defend anyone. Nor had he struck out of anger.
He killed... because he need SP points to upgrade his ability. his soul ability are the only thing he could rely on to win this tournament. so he need kill him to test if he gain any SP points.
The opportunity had been right there—the sword already in place, the angle just perfect, the crowd noisy and distracted. The setup was clean. He didn't need to act personally. He didn't even need to move.
He stood quietly beneath the trees on the path back to his cave, the moonlight filtering through the leaves above. The air smelled of pine and dirt, fresh from a recent breeze.
He let out a slow breath.
"In my last life, I used to imagine what it'd be like," he muttered, voice low. "To just… make someone disappear. The thought alone would've landed me in prison. So I never acted."
A short pause.
"Now? There's no law here strong enough to stop me."
He kept walking. His pace steady. No urgency.
The sect wouldn't question him. Why would they? No one saw him near the scene. And even if they dug deeper, what could they possibly find?
There had been no visible attacker. Just a sword… appearing out of nowhere. Piercing Luo Jin's Heart in front of everyone. The crowd had scattered in panic. And no one could say where the blade came from.
That was the beauty of it.
The weapon he'd used—a genuine spirit-grade sword—was something nearly impossible to obtain in the Lower Realm.
Even core disciples of powerful sects were rarely granted one. Most cultivators in the Outer Realm wouldn't even see a spirit sword in their lifetime. They were expensive, dangerous, and usually locked behind layers of restrictions.
Some say not even the current Emperor possessed one of high grade.
So when Luo Jin died by such a weapon, the assumption wasn't that someone from the crowd had done it. No. The natural guess would be: an assassin. Maybe someone from a hidden clan. A grudge that went far deeper than a public argument.
No one would consider an Outer Disciple, especially not someone like Kai, who never stood out.
Besides, no one would believe that someone could remotely control a sword like that. Not at this level. That sort of technique belonged to legends.
Even if someone noticed something strange about the sword, what could they do? Guess that someone had the ability to control not just that blade—but any metallic object within range?
Ridiculous.
He entered the mouth of the cave. The stone walls absorbed the cool night air. As always, the spirit-gathering formation was intact. The flow of Qi here was quiet and dense.
Safe.
Alone again, Kai sat on the stone platform and focused his thoughts.
The system activated immediately.