The lanky student's face was an agonizing shade of bruised purple. Suspended entirely off the ground, he stared into Yoriichi's crimson eyes and saw absolutely nothing. There was no rage to reason with, no hesitation to exploit—only the terrifying, bottomless stillness of a predator waiting for its prey to stop twitching.
"I... I..." the student stuttered weakly, a thin line of saliva slipping from his mouth as Yoriichi loosened his grip just enough to allow a ragged breath. "I... inflicted... the dagger with... Itch-Corrosion Herb..."
A collective gasp echoed from the Xiao Clan girls behind Yoriichi.
"To... to let her suffer more," the student confessed, tears of genuine panic streaming down his face. "But... we didn't... didn't mean to kill her... just... just a lesson for rejecting Senior Bai Shan's authority!"
Yoriichi's eyes widened by a microscopic fraction.
'Itch-Corrosion Herb,' Yoriichi noted internally. It was a highly irritating biological agent common in the lower markets. It didn't inflict lethal damage, but it seeped into a fresh wound, causing excruciating, burning itchiness that could distract and torment a cultivator for few days.
He glanced back at Xiao Mei. Her face was pale, and her teeth were gritted hard her jaw trembled. She had been desperately holding back her whimpers of pain this entire time just to maintain the clan's pride in front of the enemy.
However, looking at the wound now, Yoriichi realized why the effect hadn't caused her to collapse entirely. When he had placed his fingers near the cut a minute ago, his Dou Qi had passively purged a significant portion of the foreign, venomous Qi lingering in the capillaries.
Yoriichi turned his gaze back to the dangling student. He suddenly opened his hand, entirely loosening his grip.
Thud.
The lanky student crashed heavily onto the cobblestones, clutching his bruised throat, violently coughing and gasping for the sweet night air.
Yoriichi looked up, his crimson eyes sweeping over the remaining eleven students of the elite faction. The oppressive, mountain-like weight of his aura bore down on them, pinning their boots to the plaza floor.
"Hand over your spatial rings," Yoriichi commanded, his voice a flat, emotionless rumble. "Or you will not leave this plaza in one piece."
The group of pristine, white-robed youths froze. The sheer audacity of the demand shocked them. They were Bai Shan's elite followers; they usually did the extorting.
"You... you can't be serious!" the student who had snickered earlier barked, trying to muster his courage. "Do you know who we work for? If you rob us—"
Swish.
Yoriichi didn't even draw his katana. He simply stepped forward, his speed entirely defying their kinetic vision, and threw a straight punch directly at the protesting student's face.
But his fist never connected.
Yoriichi stopped his knuckles a microscopic inch from the bridge of the boy's nose. However, the sheer, explosive kinetic shockwave of the halted strike violently ruptured the air.
BAM!
The invisible wall of displaced air slammed into the student. He shrieked in terror, violently thrown off his feet by the wind pressure alone. He tumbled backward, rolling uncontrollably across the cobblestones before crashing in a tangled, groaning heap near a fruit stall.
The remaining ten students flinched violently, their faces draining of all color. They realized instantly that this was not a bluff. If this absolute monster could generate a concussive shockwave just by stopping his fist, he could undoubtedly blow their heads off without a second thought if he actually made contact. Their reputation and elite standing meant absolutely nothing to him.
Panic seized them.
"Take it! Just take it!" one of the Dou Shi students yelled, frantically pulling his silver ring from his finger and tossing it onto the cobblestones.
The others quickly followed suit, scrambling to shed their spatial rings as if they burned their flesh. A pile of silver and jade jewelry clattered onto the stone at Yoriichi's feet.
"Can... can we go now?" the leader asked, his voice shaking.
Yoriichi didn't respond. He simply looked at the unconscious student in the fruit stall. Two of the panicked youths hastily ran over, grabbed their friend by the arms, and began dragging him away.
As they turned and frantically sprinted down the market street, desperate to put as much distance between themselves and the red-haired demon as possible, Yoriichi's voice followed them into the dark.
"Remember," Yoriichi said, his voice echoing clearly despite their distance. "There will be absolutely no mercy the next time you pull these pathetic tricks. Run."
They didn't need to be told twice. They vanished around the corner, fleeing into the night.
Yoriichi casually crouched down and scooped up the eleven spatial rings. He stood up, turning his gaze to the massive, silent crowd of academy students who had gathered to watch the spectacle.
"The drama is finished," Yoriichi stated calmly, adjusting the parcels of silk he was holding in his other arm. "What amusement is there in spectating an empty plaza? Disperse."
The sheer, suppressing weight of his presence was too much. The crowd, realizing the show was over and not wanting to draw the ire of the 'Demon Swordsman', quickly broke apart. Within seconds, the plaza was mostly empty, save for a few merchants nervously reorganizing their stalls.
Yoriichi turned back to the girls. He extended his hand, offering the handful of confiscated spatial rings to Xiao Mei.
"Take these," Yoriichi said mildly.
Xiao Mei's eyes widened, looking at the small fortune resting in his calloused palm. Even for elite outer sect students, eleven fully stocked spatial rings were a massive windfall of gold, pills, and potential Dou Skills.
"Xiao Ning, this... this is too much," Xiao Mei stammered, shaking her head rapidly, though her friends behind her were looking at the rings with wide, eager eyes. "I can't take all of this. You fought them off. You should at least take half."
Yoriichi sighed softly, a faint trace of weariness in his eyes.