The shadowy figure leant forward and almost stepped out of the ring of smoke, "Check the latest arrivals, check any inn. Get your underlings to do that, you need to go into seclusion and breakthrough before taking anything on."
"Yes sir," the man wielding the massive battle-axe bowed deeply and restfully until the smoky ring fully dissipated.
He looked at the man he had pushed aside when he detected the missing people in the tunnels, "Go! Bring me all the people who came to town in the last three days...bring them to site C, now!"
With that he waved his hand and stormed off, grumbling to himself. Those behind him could see his shadow trembling after each step.
***
Yan and Hamar sat within the room silently, before Hamar spoke quietly, "What do we do?"
Yan ran her fingers through her hair and sighed..."By the rules of the Nine Clouds Sovereign Sect we should report the technique to the sect..."
"But in reality," he looked to the corpse of the masked man. A memory flashed by his mind and he flicked his wrist causing a lump not aura to glow into he body and destroy it entirely, turning it's laws into mana which he then let dissipate into the air.
"In reality, mess-ups happen. We accidently killed all the enemies before learning of the technique?"
Yan smiled, "Yes...how unfortunate."
***
Outside
"Get 'em!"
Outside, guards overturned the city and brought in anyone who arrived in the last few days. Men, women, children all tipped from their previous doings and forcefully brought out.
Those resisting, facing a group of trained QI masters, able to manipulate the world around them to the needs.
Pulling wooden planks together, floating weapons, warping metal around...distorting blood flow, stopping breathing...
Then after going through the street they reached Golden Lake Inn, "Come out! Wang Hao, Wang Yan!"
Hamar and Yan had already decided what to do, their powers were both hidden and there was a high likelihood that those coming to capture them wouldn't be able to detect they weren't ordinary mortals, "Let them lead the way?"
"Let them lead the way." Yan nodded and opened the door, coming out with her hands up and a scared look on her face.
Hamar came out a moment later and suppressed his smirk, "W-What did we do?" As he walked towards the officer and calmly pretended to be another scared mortal.
***
Underground, in a facility with a hundred or more captured mortals.
Hamar put his head against a wall as he felt the vibrations and used his enhanced senses to detect what was going.
In a few rooms beside where Hamar listened, a report was being made. A scrawny guard wearing another demon mask trembled as he spoke,
"Zhanfu sir, we've collected everyone who entered town in the last three days, should I commence it?"
From the other side only shallow breathing could be heard. For a moment, the reporter opened his mouth to repeat himself before he fell to the ground.
In fact, everyone in the faculty fell to the ground. The guards all grabbed their chest and dropped to one knees. The mortals all dropped to the ground as if squashed by an enormous force.
Even Hamar and Yan both felt a strong pressure eon their cultivation bases. A new cultivator!
***
Zhanfu, the man wielding the battle-axe, had broken through and formed a Spirit Stone Soul. He roared loudly as all the stones he had implanted into his body shattered and became his power base.
His skin crackled as it broke apart and fell of. Like a lizard shedding old skin, a new being removed Zhangfu's skin and entered the fray.
Bearing green rotting skin and immense strength despite visible pieces of flesh falling off. A stench of death filled the facility and the roaring stopped.
Zhangfu stared down at his green skin and laughed with such power that caused the reporter who was already on both his knees to cough blood.
"You'll do!" Zhangfu reached his hand the size of a boulder towards the reporter and under the immense pressure he didn't try to dodge.
The hand immediately crushed the man's body and brought it to his head. A mouth able to swallow the average man in moments, chomped down.
Crunch. Slurp. Gulp.
His skin lightened and it's green hue shifted. He cracked his necks and stepped out of his den, and walked towards the facility in which Hamar was.
As he walked, veins on his temples bulged. His eyes of pure black grew and within them he could see the world for what it was.
In Zhangfu's vision, the world was made of black and white, white and black eternally reversing. This was a result of the technique which had caused his transformation.
By using the Reversal Crystals as a basis, the user would gain the status of a cultivator. However in exchange they would enter a state of unprecedented paradoxes.
The living would be dead, dead be living. Strong be weak. Light be dark. Dark be light. Their vision would transform to show them the world as Yin and Yang. Each law could be seen but if everything is seen it would put a huge burden on the cultivator.
That's where another quirk of the physique happens to come into play. The cultivator can consume normal humans and be free from the curse of seeing all in Yin and Yang, their physique too would be free from some paradoxes.
Additionally, they would gain some knowledge from peering into that state, their comprehension of various laws would grow constantly.
As Zhangfu walked, his comprehension was skyrocketing and once he removed the curse for a short time he would become on par with a deca-hardened cultivator.
Yan stared at the entrance to their cell and breathed roughly. For a moment she had thoughts to run until she steeled herself and stood up.
Those around watched in shock as a person moved despite the massive pressure pushing them down. Hamar was among them as he looked Yan into her eyes, wordlessly communicating a plan.
He would stay hidden with his aura being undetectable by normal people and he would go after Zhangfu when he least expected it, capturing him easily.