Outside the city walls, Nanyao's dust and noise began to fade into a muffled hum behind her. Su Min felt a deep, uncomplicated sense of satisfaction as the open road stretched before her. She had spent every last tael of that hundred-plus silver in one go. It was a cathartic release of pent-up indulgence after years of austere, frugal living in the mountains. Blowing through what would have been a lifetime's fortune for most people in a single afternoon left her feeling light and unburdened. A strange exhilaration bubbled in her chest, as if a weight she hadn't realized she was carrying had finally been lifted.
"Money scattered will return again," she mused, whispering the old, pragmatic saying from her past life. Wealth was just a tool, and she had used it well.
For her now, with her needs so simple and her power growing, wealth wasn't a priority. It was a means to an end, and that end had been efficiently achieved. She hadn't splurged mindlessly on useless trinkets or gaudy silks. Her purchases were practical and strategic. She had stocked up on durable, plain clothing and non-perishable food like hardtack and salted meats. She even bought a wide variety of spices and seasonings to make her solitary meals more palatable.
The system-gifted robes from her starter pack were wonderfully practical. She could toss them into her spatial ring caked in mud and blood, and they would emerge moments later perfectly clean. They smelled faintly of fresh air and sunshine. The fabric even adjusted to her height and figure automatically, ensuring a constant, perfect fit. Once, in a moment of idle whimsy, she wondered if the ring's creator had been some lecherous old sage with very particular tastes who designed robes that would always flatter the wearer.
She had also bought various daily necessities. Strong thread, fine needles, a new whetstone, and, most importantly, a small but well-made ceremonial bronze cauldron now sat within her ring. It would be perfect as a starter alchemy furnace. Before this, she had been using a crude, hand-formed clay pot. That vessel was inefficient, prone to cracking, and laborious to maintain.
This new bronze cauldron featured better heat distribution and stability. It would serve her well until she reached the Qi Refining stage and could handle more volatile energies. After that, once more advanced artifact blueprints unlocked in her manual, she could gather rare materials to craft a proper, dedicated spiritual furnace.
"Everything is stored safely in the ring, and no one didn't notice a thing," she thought. A quiet satisfaction warmed her. She had been careful to make her purchases from multiple vendors to avoid raising eyebrows.
Glancing discreetly at the simple, unadorned ring on her finger, she remained cautious. She had never seen anything like it in this world. Spatial treasures seemed to be a concept from her game reality alone. The various gourds and clay jars displayed in her bamboo hut were mostly for show. They formed a stage set to maintain a plausible cover for any visitors who might wonder where she kept her supplies.
"Once I'm farther from the city and out of sight of the walls, I can channel spiritual energy to my legs and speed up my pace. No need to walk this whole way. Hm?"
Just as she prepared to gather her qi to accelerate into a ground-eating run, the fine hairs on her neck prickled. Her brow twitched. Back in the city, she had felt a faint, nagging sensation as if someone was watching her, but she had dismissed it.
She thought her plain disguise and neutral demeanor were sufficient camouflage in the busy streets. Now, outside the walls and away from the crowds, that same unsettling, prickling gaze persisted. It felt focused and intent. Instantly, a cold, sharp thread of killing intent coiled in her chest. Her body tensed, muscles coiling for a fight.
"Dog Emperor's men?" she thought. Her expression turned to ice. "Have they finally tracked me here? Persistent bastards."
Before she could react further, a rustling sound rose from the dense brush by the roadside. A sudden, clumsy clamor followed. A group of ragged, filthy figures emerged, spreading out to block the path ahead. They wielded an assortment of rusted cleavers, chipped knives, and sharpened sticks. Their eyes were hollow with hunger, but they burned with a desperate avarice.
"..."
Su Min's lips twitched in a mix of profound annoyance and dark amusement. She had been mentally prepared for a serious, life-or-death fight against skilled imperial agents or perhaps another cultivator. She was ready to unleash her full power and leave no survivors to report her location. Yet, what appeared before her were merely a few pathetic, low-level human traffickers and road bandits. Their malnourished frames could barely hold their weapons steady.
"Sorry, little lady," the leader said. He flashed a wicked, gap-toothed grin as his voice emerged as a rough croak. "Times are hard. We are a bit short on cash these days. Selling a fine, healthy piece of goods like you off to the mines or a brothel should keep us fed for a good half a year. Don't make this difficult."
"Let's see if you even live long enough to spend that money," Su Min retorted. Her voice was flat and chilly as a winter stream, devoid of any fear.
"!!!"
Hearing her icy, contemptuous response, the leader's face darkened with rage. All pretense of negotiation vanished. Roaring a guttural curse, he charged forward. He brandished his rusty blade in a wild, unskilled swing, his bloodshot eyes gleaming with pure, unadulterated viciousness.
Even before he reached her, Su Min caught a whiff of a stomach-turning stench that rolled off him in waves. It was not just the odor of unwashed bodies and filth, but a deeper, fouler smell.
"Taking advantage of the frozen river in winter to escape south from the famine," she deduced. Her gaze sharpened as she assessed them in an instant. "Looks like they have eaten more than a few people along the way to survive." Cannibalism was an open secret in times of extreme famine, and the aura of death clung to them like a second skin.
"You—" the leader only managed half a sentence. The final threat died in his throat before the world spun violently around him. The sky and earth traded places.
In his final, blurry moments of consciousness, he saw a headless body, still clutching a rusty cleaver, collapse to the ground in a graceless heap. The last thing he registered was the stunned terror on his comrades' faces.
"Is that my body?"
That was his last, fleeting, disconnected thought.
Gulp...
The slower bandits behind him froze in shock. Their jaws hung slack, and their eyes went wide with disbelief and dawning, primal terror. They had seen it clearly, yet their minds struggled to process the reality. An almost weightless shadow had flashed past, followed by a silvery gleam in the sunlight. Their leader's head was simply gone, severed from his shoulders with a clean, impossible finality.
"G-Ghost!" one stammered. He pointed a trembling finger at Su Min, who stood unmoved. Her blade was already clean. "In broad daylight, a ghost?!"
Instantly, the survivors were thrown back to the visceral horrors they had witnessed in the abandoned graveyards during their desperate flight from the north. Back then, it had been the same. A ghostly shadow had appeared out of the mist, silent and swift, and one of their strongest, loudest comrades was dead in an instant. His life had been extinguished without a sound.
Not only that, but the ghost had picked up the fresh corpse. With a horrifying, casual strength, it had drunkenly sucked out the blood like a man draining a wineskin, discarding the desiccated husk afterward. If dawn hadn't been so near and they hadn't fled fast enough, scrambling over each other in blind panic, none of them would have survived. Since that day, they had refused to venture out after dark, huddling together for meager protection. But now, even under the bright, unforgiving midday sun, the same horror had found them.
"No spooky stories today," Su Min's voice cut through their panic. It was cold and absolute, shattering their superstitious delusions. "None of you are getting away."
She didn't care what they thought they had seen in the past or what horrors they had endured. People who had already thrown away their last shred of humanity to prey on the weak were better off gone from this world. Those who had likely committed the ultimate taboo to survive didn't deserve her pity.
Eliminating them was a mercy to any future victims they would have undoubtedly claimed. In a flash, her figure moved again. She was a blur of controlled, lethal motion. One by one, the rest of the thugs fell to the ground. Their pathetic threats were silenced forever, and their rusted weapons clattered uselessly on the dirt.
"Let's just toss them into the forest nearby," she decided. She looked down at the small, growing pile of bodies without a shred of emotion. "The wolves and wild dogs will make short work of them within a day. Saves me the trouble of digging."
This was one of the main mountain passes leading to her home, so leaving corpses here in the open was not ideal, even if travelers were few. She casually dragged them one by one to a nearby, shadowy ravine overgrown with thorns. Their lightness was a testament to their starvation.
The strong, metallic scent of fresh blood would soon draw countless carnivores from miles around. In this chaotic era, a few more deaths among vagabonds and bandits were nothing unusual. They were a mere statistic. No one would care enough to investigate.
"This world, it's safer to stay deep in the mountains after all," she concluded. A grim finality hardened her tone. The frontier between civilization and wilderness was where the true monsters lurked, and they weren't always supernatural.
Dusting off her hands as if she had just taken out the trash, Su Min quickly left the scene. Her pace was brisk. The world was unstable now, and she knew from her game knowledge that it would only get worse as the barriers between realms began thinning. That Demon Queen pulling the strings in the capital was a foe with unimaginably high cultivation. She wasn't someone Su Min could hope to confront or even survive meeting at her current level.
Moreover, she still lacked any real mastery of dedicated, large-scale slaughter techniques. The Minor Sword Control was for precision, not carnage. For now, it was far wiser to avoid unnecessary risks and continue laying low, growing stronger in secret. However—
"Ugh."
Just as she arrived back at her secluded bamboo hut, the familiar walls a welcome sight, a sudden, sharp wave of dizziness and heat hit her. She staggered against the doorframe, her vision swimming with flashes of crimson. She almost fell to one knee as a strange, thrilling fire simmered in her veins. It was a whisper of power that was both alluring and alarming.
"It isn't enough. I still need more. Is this the nascent insight of the Path of Slaughter? Those few thugs weren't sufficient to fully trigger it." The feeling was tantalizingly close to a breakthrough, yet just out of reach, like an itch she couldn't scratch.
Touching her slightly warm, flushed cheek, Su Min wasn't alarmed. The sensation felt familiar, an echo of the process she had experienced when she previously comprehended the Wood Fire Transformation Art and the Minor Sword Control Art.
Her Heavenly Dao Insight worked by observing the laws of heaven through the passage of time and action, gaining enlightenment through intense, focused experience and emotion. This path could grant not only martial skills but also unique, esoteric powers tied to her actions and nature.
Clearly, the act of killing, of decisively ending lives, had just now triggered the preliminary conditions for comprehending the Path of Slaughter. But the scale and intensity of the incident—a handful of worthless bandits—was not enough for a full, proper breakthrough. It was just a taste.
"No rush," she told herself. She steadied her breathing and pushed the dizzying sensation down. "There will be more suitable opportunities later." She knew this with a cold certainty. This world would provide ample fuel for such a path.
After some quiet reflection, sitting on the steps of her hut, Su Min settled her mind. Since she had already started down this path and felt its call in her blood, there was no reason to turn back now. However, she needed to tread very, very carefully. She recalled a particular, dangerous game mechanic related to this path: Blood Frenzy.
In the game, achieving the Blood Frenzy state required indiscriminate, mass slaughter to stack a hidden killing intent meter. The effect dramatically boosted cultivation speed and granted special, devastating attack properties. But the ultimate, game-changing downside was the progressive, permanent loss of the character's rationality. Eventually, the player would lose control, turning the character into a mindless killing machine.
In the game, that didn't matter much in the end, since the player's consciousness still ultimately controlled the character's actions from a safe distance. But here, in this real world where she was the character, losing control of her own mind, her memories, and her very self to a blind rage could be a fatal, irreversible mistake. It was a trap for the power-hungry.
"Kill to protect life. Cut through karmic ties and true evils, not through innocent people," she reaffirmed her principle aloud. The words were a vow to the silent mountains. "Only this way can I wield this power and still remain myself. The blade is a tool, not the master."
Calming herself, she moved inside to brew a pot of strong, bitter awakening tea to clear the last of the dizziness from her head. Yet before she could even pour the hot water into the cup, the sound of hurried, frantic footsteps, the slap of bare feet on hard earth, echoed from the path outside her hut, followed by a breathless, terrified shout that shattered her hard-won peace.
"Milady! Honored Healer! The chieftain sent me! He has an urgent, terrible matter to ask for your help! Please, you must come!"