The battle was long over.
What remained was ruin—a grisly scene of charred wood, shattered wagons, and blood-dark soil that no rain could ever cleanse.
Li Tianyu, youngest genius of the Li Clan, lay broken in the churned earth, half-buried. His skull was split, silver-embroidered robes soaked in blood, ash, and dirt.
The face that once turned heads—graceful, noble, proud—was unrecognizable.
His hair, soaked in blood, hung in limp strands across split skin and shattered bone. Fragments of skull and brain were splattered across the churned earth, streaking the soil like rotten fruit beneath a butcher's block.
The robe's once-pristine embroidery—cranes in flight—was now drowned in clotted red, barely visible beneath the ruin.
The blade he had once wielded with pride now lay meters away, its hilt cracked, the edge chipped and dulled by a hundred desperate swings.
No glory. No final words.
Just a blood-soaked clearing in Suncrest Ridge—far from the Li Estate's marble halls. No gravestone, no elegy. Only smoke, rot, and buzzing flies.
The convoy was in ruins. Broken wagons sat like snapped ribs, goods spilled and scattered in all directions. Spirit stones, medicinal herbs, and fine silks lay strewn like discarded offerings to some twisted forest god. Torn banners bearing the Li Clan's crane-and-cloud sigil fluttered limply amid the ashes.
To the east, Captain Zhao's corpse was pinned against a tree, his own spear rammed through his chest.
His face was locked in a defiant snarl, eyes glassy, jaw clenched as if still shouting orders. One half of his halberd lay lodged in a bandit's skull; the other was frozen in his death grip.
Closer to the center, Uncle Liu's body was twisted around the rogue he had dragged down with him in a final act of resistance. His throat had been ripped open, blood crusted into black around the wound, but his grip on the broken hilt of his shattered saber remained unyielding.
Even in death, he refused to let go.
They had died like warriors.
None of the Li Clan remained.
And the victors—laughing, jeering, bloodstained vultures cloaked in rags—picked through the remnants.
"Ahahahahaha! Easy coin, boys!"
Their laughter rang out like hyenas tearing into fresh carrion. They moved through the wreckage with greedy, twitching hands—grabbing spirit stones, rare roots, gilded trinkets, anything that shimmered.
"Boss! Scroll! Looks pricey—jade-bound, maybe!"
"Then quit squealing and grab more, dumbass. Keep digging!"
Near the broken corpse of Li Tianyu, Ma Hong stood with arms folded, boots planted firm in the mud. His face curled into a sneer as he looked down.
"This was the so called Li Clan's prodigy? Fucking pathetic."
Ma Hong gave a lazy flick of his hand.
"Toss the body to the beasts. No point wasting a grave."
"Aye, boss!"
One of the men stooped to grab Li Tianyu's legs—but froze as a sharp whistle split the air.
"Boss! Over here!"
A bandit staggered out from the wreckage of a collapsed wagon, hefting a small ironbound chest against his chest. His arms trembled from the weight.
"Jackpot! Spirit stones! Shit-ton of 'em!"
The clearing erupted into chaos. Cheers. Whoops. Shouts overlapped like crashing waves.
"Open it!"
"Hurry up!"
"Gold sheen—these are top-grade!"
The scent of fortune sent them mad. Men scrambled, clawing over one another like starved dogs. Amid the frenzy, a shift went unnoticed.
A pulse.
Subtle at first. Barely there. A low hum, like the slow pluck of a distant zither string, rising from beneath the earth. The air thickened. Leaves rustled… though no wind blew.
One bandit paused, glancing toward Li Tianyu's body.
"...Did you feel tha—"
A sudden gust slammed through the glade. Cold. Unnatural. It cut through the air like a blade—sharp, metallic, deathly. Leaves recoiled. Even the smoke from the ruined wagons drew back.
All eyes snapped to one particular corpse
From Li Tianyu's broken chest, a faint silver glow began to rise—thin, ephemeral, like the final breath of a dying soul. It pulsed. Once. Then again. Slow. Rhythmic. Measured.
"…That—shit. That's soul light."
"No… look! Under the robe!"
A talisman blinked beneath the ruined robes—bloody, ancient, and pulsing like a heart. A soul-binding seal.
Ma Hong's smirk died. His face twisted in raw panic.
"—Soul-Burning Technique!? Get away from him!"
But no one moved.
They were too slow.
The silver glow surged—blinding. A high, keening ring pierced the air.
The world cracked. A high scream of light split the clearing in half.
A silver glow surged from Li Tianyu's chest.
Then came the light—white, blinding, divine—shooting skyward like a spear of judgment. The ground split. Stones shattered. Trees burst into flame.
Men screamed as they were thrown like rag dolls. Some slammed into trunks, others crushed beneath debris. Bones broke. Blood sprayed.
When the light vanished, it did so all at once.
No lingering afterglow. No residual heat.
Just dead quiet.
Even the fires that once licked the wreckage sputtered out, like snuffed candles.
Li Tianyu's body lay exactly where it had fallen—charred, bloodied, unmoving. The talisman lost it's light
No energy. No aura. Just a ruined corpse sunk deep in red-streaked mud.
No one dared approach.
They stood frozen, wide-eyed, breathless.
Ma Hong swallowed. Hard. His grip on the mace faltered, fingers twitching.
"...What the fuck was that."
No one answered.
***
Far from the ridge, atop a mist-veiled peak wrapped in ancient pines, a black-robed figure came to a silent halt.
His face lay hidden beneath a heavy hood, the robe around him flaring like wings in the icy wind. He turned his head slightly, like a beast catching the scent of fresh blood. His eyes narrowed to razor slits.
The air trembled.
A surge—foreign Qi—rushed across the land and crashed into him with an unseen weight, shaking the mountaintop to its roots.
"…That wasn't natural."
His voice, coarse and low, carried a sinister reverence—like a man marveling at a masterpiece etched in flesh and agony.
Heaven and earth froze, as if caught in fear.
Then, the world ruptured.
A deafening crack split the sky, followed by a blinding white pillar of light that tore upward, cleaving the heavens like a blade from the gods.
A second beam descended—a broad, solid column of pure power—crashing into the distant forest below. Trees vaporized. Earth cratered. The impact sent a tremor rumbling through the mountains.
"…Such purity… such power… not even a Divine realm cultivator could manifest raw essence like that."
Without another word, the black-robed figure faded into the mist, his cloak unraveling into smoke, swallowed by the mountain fog.
***
The radiance winked out in an instant—no rumble, no fading echo. Just silence.
Ma Hong stood frozen, the crooked smirk on his lips twisted halfway—caught between derision and a gnawing, instinctive dread. Around him, a few of the bandits shifted, weapons clenched tight, eyes locked on the broken corpse lying in the blood-soaked mud.
"I thought the Soul-Burning Technique was supposed to explode… not shoot a damn pillar of light."
"Could've been a protective talisman backfiring."
"Don't tell me… that brat destroyed his own dantian just to take a few of us with him?"
"Bullshit. His skull was caved in. There's no way he triggered anything—he was dead."
None dared approach. They circled the body warily, like it was some slumbering beast ready to lash out.
Moments passed. The tension thinned.
"Tch."
A mocking laugh rang out from beneath the trees, dry and sharp.
"Scared me for nothing. Thought someone actually died worth a damn," another sneered, kicking aside a blood-smeared corpse.
Laughter crept in like rot. The pressure lifted.
"Okay, quit pissing your pants and get your asses back to work," Ma Hong barked, his tone clipped, more irritated than afraid.
The bandits obeyed.
One by one, the bandits resumed their pillaging—tearing cloth, stripping pouches and rings, blades flashing in the morning gloom. Their eyes gleamed with hunger, like vermin in a pantry.
None noticed the shimmer.
A faint wisp of silver rising from the boy's chest. Gentle. Wandering. Alive.
Then everything froze.
Something shifted at the treeline. Slow. Deliberate. Not the erratic scurry of a beast, nor the frightened steps of a traveler. This was something else—measured, smooth, dangerously precise.
Heads turned.
A tall figure emerged from the forest's edge, wrapped head to toe in shadowed black. Hood drawn low. Face hidden. With each step, the air recoiled, thickening with cold, suffocating weight.
This wasn't bandit Qi. No wild bursts. No undisciplined surges.
This was old. Sharpened. Contained.
Even the trees seemed to flinch.
One bandit, sword trembling in his grasp, tried to speak. Voice cracked from fear.
"W-Who are—"
The figure tilted his head. The reply came soft, amused, and cruel—like velvet dragged across a razor's edge.
"Well, well… what do we have here?"
The bandit stammered, panic bubbling in his throat.
"Who… who—"
"Oh, please don't mind me…"
The figure's voice oozed with dark amusement as he stepped forward.
"I felt something unusual. Pure energy. Impossible density… it spiked here, then vanished. So I came to see for myself."
He paused, gaze sliding over the bodies, the scorched earth, the broken boy.
"And this is what I find?"
His gaze swept the wreckage, pausing on the body lying half-submerged in mud.
The clearing choked beneath his presence. The jeering mob stood silent now—some still holding weapons mid-lift, others frozen in place, eyes darting like prey boxed in by a predator.
Ma Hong snarled, voice forced and cracking.
"Tch… You've got some balls walking in here alone, old man."
His glance flicked from Li Tianyu's corpse to the dark figure.
"If you're here for scraps, piss off. Spirit stones are ours. You want a share, speak like—"
His throat never finished the sentence.
The cloaked figure moved.
A flick of the wrist.
A head flew. Blood sprayed in a geyser. The body collapsed, twitching once before going still.
Silence smothered the clearing.
A scream tore loose. One bandit stumbled back, sword falling from his grip. Another turned to flee—but froze mid-step. His chest imploded with a crack like splitting timber, ribs crushed inward by invisible force.
The figure advanced, steps soundless on the soaked earth. His voice—cold, laced with quiet disgust—cut through the silence like a blade of ice.
"Share?"
He stopped beside a blood-slick corpse, head tilting just slightly.
"You think the mortal realm has anything I would want?"
The air twisted. Qi thickened like smoke, clinging to skin and lungs, making every breath feel like swallowing needles.
His gaze swept the trembling bandits, locking briefly onto Ma Hong.
"You."
Ma Hong barely managed to lift his mace. His legs buckled. Then—
A twist. A pulse.
Qi within his meridians writhed and snapped.
His flesh bloated. Bones cracked.
His skull burst like a rotten gourd—blood and brain splattering across the mud.
The bandits gasped.
Their boss barely moved and he just died like that.
The figure's gaze turned back to the others. Veiled, unreadable. But the weight behind it made hearts seize and thoughts shatter.
"Rotten roots. Rusted charms. Broken dreams wrapped in jade. And you filthy little beasts squabble over table scraps and think you're kings."
He stepped forward.
"And now you look at me like I should ask?"
A bandit whimpered, stumbling back in the muck.
"You insult me."
The cloaked figure raised one hand—calm, unhurried, as if cradling the air itself. Pressure detonated outward, ringing in bone like a temple bell.
Pressure exploded outward.
Like a bell tolling in the bones.
Men dropped screaming, clutching their skulls. Some vomited. Others bled from nose and ears.
Even the trees bent inward, groaning beneath invisible weight.
Panic broke loose.
"K-K-Kill him!"
"Cut him down!"
"Don't let him—!"
Some charged.
Some fled.
The ones who ran never made it far. Their legs snapped, flesh twisting at unnatural angles.
Their cries were swallowed by the wet, gurgling rip of muscle being shredded.
The forest erupted.
The figure moved like death itself. Arms flew. Skulls burst. Screams ended before they could rise.
This wasn't a battle.
It was a massacre.
***
Eventually, the forest went quiet.
The last bandit's skull collapsed under the boot, leaving a sticky crater of ruin behind. His corpse joined the rest—crushed, broken, and forgotten.
The cloaked figure stood still, surveying the carnage. Ash drifted through the air like snow. His eyes swept the scene—broken wagons, shattered crates, torn banners, and at last… the body.
He stared at Li Tianyu's corpse.
"Hmmm… in the end, what was that energy? Such purity. Such violent, raw density… but so fleeting. Almost like—"
Then he stopped.
A faint light flickered from the corpse—not a flare, but a pulse, silver bleeding into crimson. It brightened unnaturally, pulsing once… twice… then gone.
Then the body moved.
The mangled wreck that had once been Li Tianyu twitched.
Fingers twitched. Chest rose. Then his skull began to reshape—bone cracking, flesh bubbling, blood hissing.
The scent of scorched marrow filled the air. Bones realigned with wet pops, like porcelain being reassembled in reverse. A low, pulsing hum echoed from somewhere deep within him—unnatural, steady, not of this world.
One eye opened, red and raw.
It was like watching clay reshape beneath invisible hands.
Carved bone cracked outward, pushing itself into alignment. Splinters of the skull clicked and slid back beneath the skin. Torn flesh bubbled and stretched, fusing with wet, squelching sounds. One blood-clotted eye socket sealed shut—then opened again, red and raw but seeing.
His shattered jaw snapped back into place with a wet, brutal crack.
A black scab formed across the center of his forehead… then peeled away as pink, fresh skin grew beneath it.
The figure's eyes narrowed.
The broken boy—blood-matted, gore-caked—sat upright, arms trembling like a newborn deer.
He had seen countless things. Men devoured alive by corrupted spirits. Daoists turned inside out by cursed talismans. Cultivators explode mid-breakthrough.
But this?
A corpse regrowing its skull like a lizard's tail?
That was new.
"Oh my…"
His voice curled into something dark and amused.
"You're alive."
He stepped closer, boots squelching in the mud.
"Impressive.. Those wounds are already sealing. Regeneration like this shouldn't exist below the Divine Realm. Curious indeed."
Li Tianyu blinked, eyes glazed, lips split, caked with dried blood. He looked at the carnage, the bodies, the cloaked man... and then down at his own shaking hands.
Then, with a raw, guttural rasp, he managed:
"…the fuck…?"