The deep night over Obsidian Pass was heavy, oppressive, and utterly devoid of starlight. Thick, charcoal-colored storm clouds rolled down from the northern peaks, smothering the city in a blanket of damp, suffocating gloom. In the quiet residential neighborhood near the bamboo forest, the high stone walls of the courtyard house stood motionless, wrapped in absolute tranquility.
Inside the cozy main bedroom, the small clay hearth flickered with soft, dying amber light.
Xiao-Yue lay tucked securely beneath the thick, fleece-lined blankets, her breathing slow, rhythmic, and untroubled. Her small face was relaxed, completely free from the haunting nightmares that had plagued her sleep for years. For the first time in her life, she slept with an absolute sense of safety, knowing that the man who had pulled her from the dark abyss was sitting just beyond the paper sliding screen.
In the adjacent hall, Li-Wen sat cross-legged on a simple woven straw mat. His eyes were closed, his heavy sword resting flat across his knees. His breathing was so slow and faint that he seemed indistinguishable from a stone statue.
Suddenly, his dark eyelashes flickered open.
There was no sound—no loud crunch of dry leaves, no heavy footsteps against the flagstones, and no visible movement through the bamboo stalks outside. Yet, to a Core Formation master whose divine sense encompassed a fifty-yard radius around the courtyard, the air itself had subtly changed. Four faint, malicious presences had crossed the outer perimeter, sliding over the tall stone walls like venomous vipers.
Four men, Li-Wen evaluated silently, his dark eyes void of all emotion. Mid-tier Body Refining cultivators. Moving in a tactical formation... carrying iron hooks, silent crossbows, and paralytic incense.
They were not the blind, drunk gang thugs from the alleyways. These were the elite shadow-cleavers of the Phantom Rat Gang—the specialized hunters deployed by Boss Black-Rat to retrieve runaway assets, eliminate rival informants, and silence loose ends. Through their extensive network of street beggars and corrupt alley guards, they had spent thirty-six hours tracing the unusual purchase of a high-end child's robe and a supply of refined rice back to this isolated courtyard.
Li-Wen did not move abruptly. He slowly lifted his hand and formed a subtle, invisible isolation barrier around Xiao-Yue's bedroom. The faint, translucent seal ensured that no sound, no shockwave, and no scent of blood would penetrate her room to disturb her peaceful sleep.
Having secured the child, Li-Wen stood up. He did not draw his heavy sword. He simply stepped backward, stepping seamlessly into the deep shadows near the eastern pillar of the hall, vanishing completely from sight.
A fraction of a second later, the wooden latch of the front window yielded with a near-silent click.
Four masked figures clad in tight, grease-stained black leather slipped through the opening, dropping silently onto the wooden floorboards. Their movements were practiced and lethal. Each man held a notched iron dagger dripping with a dark, foul-smelling paralytic toxin.
"Search the back room," the lead assassin whispered in a raspy, barely audible breath, gesturing toward the paper screen. "The boss wants the girl alive—her pure spirit root is worth fifty mid-grade spirit stones to the young master of the Shadow-Moon Sect. If there's a cultivator guarding her, slit his throat while he sleeps."
"He won't be sleeping for long," a cold, ghost-like voice resonated directly behind the lead assassin's ear.
The lead assassin's heart stopped. Before his mind could even process the sudden voice, a pale, slender hand shot out from the dark air behind him and clamped around his neck.
CRACK.
With a swift, casual twist of Li-Wen's wrist, the assassin's spinal column snapped instantly. He died without letting out a single gasp, his body going limp instantly. Li-Wen caught the dead weight before it could strike the floorboard, silently lowering the corpse into the shadow without making a single sound.
The remaining three assassins froze, their eyes widening in pure, unadulterated terror as they realized their leader had vanished into thin air right before their eyes.
"Behind us—!" one of them hissed, frantically spinning around while thrusting his poisoned dagger into the gloom.
He struck nothing but empty air.
Before his blade could complete its path, Li-Wen materialized directly within his personal space. Extending two fingers wrapped in a thread of compressed, razor-sharp sword energy, Li-Wen struck the second assassin directly between the eyebrows. The destructive energy pierced straight through his skull like an invisible needle, obliterating his brain instantly. The man collapsed backward, dead before his body hit the floor.
"Monster!" the third assassin shrieked in a panicked whisper, completely abandoning his mission. He threw two smoke pellets onto the ground, unleashing a cloud of dense, black fog, and launched himself frantically toward the open window to escape.
He never made it to the sill.
Li-Wen's figure flickered through the black smoke like an unstoppable specter. His right hand reached out, catching the third assassin by his collar and smashing his face violently into the solid stone pillar, instantly shattering his skull. Simultaneously, Li-Wen's left hand shot out like an iron vice, grabbing the fourth assassin—who was trying to crawl out through the side doorway—by his throat and lifting his entire body off the ground with a single arm.
The entire ambush had lasted less than four seconds. Three elite killers lay dead on the floorboards, and the last surviving assassin hung suspended in the air, his legs kicking wildly as he clawed frantically at Li-Wen's iron grip.
Li-Wen looked up into the masked man's terrified, bloodshot eyes. His dark gaze was completely devoid of human warmth, cold enough to freeze a man's soul solid.
"Who sent you?" Li-Wen asked, his voice low, flat, and absolute.
"B-Black-Rat..." the assassin choked out, his face turning dark purple as his airway was slowly crushed. "Boss Black-Rat... in the subterranean lair beneath the Red Lotus Pleasure House... Please... spare me... I was only following orders—"
Li-Wen offered no mercy. He flexed his thumb slightly, crushing the assassin's windpipe into paste. He tossed the lifeless body onto the pile with the others, stepping over the corpses without a single second of hesitation.
Li-Wen stood in the dim hall, looking down at the four dead men.
He knew that simply killing this attack squad solved nothing. The Phantom Rat Gang was an entrenched, parasitic syndicate woven deep into the dark underbelly of Obsidian Pass. If Boss Black-Rat lived, more assassins would come. They would track Xiao-Yue, they would threaten her safety, and they would eventually alert the high-level trackers of the Sovereign Sword Sect to his exact location.
To guarantee absolute safety for the child, cutting off the branches was useless. He had to tear out the root entirely.
" tonight, the syndicate dies," Li-Wen murmured quietly to the empty room.
He retrieved a small pouch of quick-dissolving corpse-melting powder from his spatial ring, sprinkling a few grains onto the four bodies. Within seconds, a faint hiss resonated through the hall as the corpses dissolved into nothingness, leaving behind no blood, no bones, and no trace of death.
Li-Wen walked over to the paper screen of Xiao-Yue's room, listening quietly to her soft, rhythmic breathing. Satisfied that her sleep remained undisturbed, he reinforced the defensive spirit array around the perimeter of the courtyard house, ensuring that no ordinary martial artist could break through without triggering a lethal counter-blast.
Satisfied with his preparations, Li-Wen unclasped his heavy sword from his belt, slinging it across his back. He pulled his dark hood low over his face, stepped out into the howling night wind, and dissolved silently into the darkness of Obsidian Pass.
The Red Lotus Pleasure House was the most decadent, opulent, and chaotic establishment in the lower district of the city. Lit by glowing red paper lanterns and filled with the loud sounds of gambling, heavy drinking, and music, it catered to corrupt merchants, rogue cultivators, and wealthy gang leaders.
However, beneath the wooden floorboards of the main gambling hall lay a vast, sprawling subterranean bunker—the true heart of the Phantom Rat Gang's lawless empire.
Deep within the stone cavern, surrounded by heavy iron cages filled with stolen goods, stacks of gold coins, and terrified, captive street orphans, sat Boss Black-Rat. He was a repulsive, heavy-set man with a scar running across his nose, dressed in lavish silk robes that could barely contain his bulging gut. He was currently drinking hot rice wine from a silver goblet, his lap filled with stolen spirit stones.
"Where the hell are those four?!" Black-Rat growled angrily, slamming his silver goblet onto the wooden table, startling the two scar-faced guards standing beside him. "It's been two hours! It doesn't take two hours to drag a six-year-old brat out of a house and slit the throat of a lone traveler!"
"Boss, calm down," one of his lieutenants reassured him with a greasy smile. "Iron-Jaw and his squad are our best trackers. The guy guarding the girl might be a tough rogue martial artist, but once Iron-Jaw hits him with the paralytic poison, he won't even be able to scream. They'll be back with the girl before dawn—"
BOOM!
A deafening, catastrophic explosion rocked the entire underground bunker.
The massive, four-inch-thick reinforced iron door at the cavern entrance was violently blown off its heavy iron hinges. The giant metal slab shot across the cavern like a cannonball, crushing three guards standing nearby into bloody pulp before smashing into the far stone wall with a terrifying, reverberating screech.
Dust, stone debris, and screaming gang members filled the vast chamber as panic instantly erupted.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!" dozens of guards screamed at the top of their lungs, frantically drawing heavy cleavers, iron chains, and loaded crossbows as they rushed toward the ruined doorway.
Out of the thick, swirling cloud of gray dust and smoke, a single figure walked out at an unhurried, steady pace.
Li-Wen wore his dark hood low, his sharp face shadowed in gloom. His right hand rested casually on the hilt of the heavy sword slung over his shoulder, his clothes pristine, completely untouched by a single speck of dust or blood.
"Who the fuck are you?!" Boss Black-Rat roared, scrambling backward behind his heavy mahogany desk, his face pale with sudden fury and shock. "Kill him! Cut him into a thousand pieces! I'll give ten thousand silver coins to whoever brings me his head!"
Spurred by the immense reward, over forty heavily armed gang members charged at Li-Wen simultaneously, their weapons gleaming with cold, lethal intent under the red lantern light.
Li-Wen didn't even draw his blade.
He simply took a single, heavy step forward, unleashing his Core Formation aura combined with his razor-sharp, absolute sword intent in a single, devastating radial wave.
SWOOSH!
An invisible, crushing pressure swept across the subterranean cavern like an unstoppable tsunami. The sheer weight of his spiritual pressure shattered the stone floorboards into fine powder.
The forty charging gang members froze mid-stride. Before their weapons could even reach within ten feet of Li-Wen, their eyes, ears, noses, and mouths burst with crimson blood as their internal meridians, organs, and bones were completely pulverized under the oppressive weight of his aura. They collapsed straight down into the dirt like broken puppets, dying instantly in a single heartbeat.
Silence fell over the cavern—a thick, suffocating, and terrifying silence broken only by the crackle of burning lanterns.
Boss Black-Rat sat frozen behind his desk, his silver goblet slipping from his trembling fingers and clattering onto the floor. His breath hitched in his throat, his eyes bulging out of his head in sheer, absolute horror. Forty of his toughest, most ruthless killers had been wiped out in less than a single second without the intruder even unsheathing his weapon.
"You... you're a Core Formation master..." Black-Rat stammered out, his voice cracking violently as cold, panicked sweat drenched his silk robes. He fell to his knees behind the desk, banging his forehead repeatedly against the bloody floorboards. "Senior! Senior, please mercy! I didn't know! I didn't know the child belonged to a grand senior like you! Take everything! Take all the gold, the spirit stones, the land deeds! Just spare my miserable life!"
Li-Wen walked slowly toward the kneeling gang leader, his boots making a quiet, steady tap-tap-tap against the blood-stained flagstones.
He stopped right in front of the mahogany desk, looking down at the trembling, pathetic figure crawling at his feet.
"You built an empire on the blood, tears, and suffering of helpless children," Li-Wen said, his voice ringing like a heavy death bell through the quiet cavern. "You treated human lives as disposable commodities to be bought, sold, and broken for your own greed."
"I was wrong! I was a blind dog!" Black-Rat wept hysterically, reaching out to grab Li-Wen's boots. "I will disband the gang! I will leave Obsidian Pass forever! Senior, please—"
Li-Wen didn't waste another breath on words.
He extended his index finger, pointing it casually at Black-Rat's forehead. A single, needle-thin beam of golden sword-light shot from his fingertip, piercing straight through the gang leader's skull and exploding his central dantian into dust.
Black-Rat's eyes went blank instantly. His heavy, corpulent body collapsed forward, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
The infamous Phantom Rat Gang—a dark, parasitic syndicate that had terrorized the lower slums of Obsidian Pass for over two decades—had been completely erased from existence in less than ten minutes.
Li-Wen did not glance back at the corpse. He walked over to the heavy iron cages lined along the back wall, using a single flick of his fingers to shatter the heavy iron locks into pieces, setting free the dozen terrified orphans trapped inside.
"Go," Li-Wen told the weeping children calmly. "Take the gold from the table, leave this city, and never return to the slums."
Without waiting for their tearful expressions of gratitude, Li-Wen stepped over the rubble and walked toward the secret archive room behind Black-Rat's desk.
He knew that a syndicate of this scale maintained detailed intelligence records on every major faction operating within Obsidian Pass. If he wanted to know how close his pursuers were, this was where the answers lay hidden.
Li-Wen pushed open the reinforced wooden door of the archive room, his sharp eyes locking onto a stack of newly arrived, sealed leather scrolls resting on the central desk—scrolls stamped with the terrifying, bloody emblem of the Sovereign Sword Sect.
See you in next chapter.....