A violent gale tore across the sky, parting the low-hanging mountain clouds like a severed curtain.
Screaming through the atmosphere at breakneck speed, Fourth Elder Wang Gu was a streak of relentless destruction. His face was a mask of rigid, murderous intent, his long silver hair whipping wildly behind him as his heavy silk robes snapped against the high-altitude winds. Beneath his boots, a gleaming, silver-tempered flying sword hissed, propelled by the violent, unbridled currents of his Foundation Establishment Qi.
He gave no thought to conserving his spiritual energy, nor did he care about the agonizing strain on his meridians. Every second wasted brought his grandson one step closer to death.
Wang Gu lowered his bloodshot eyes to his leather-gloved palm. The re-forged, blood-bound jade pendant vibrated violently against his skin, pulsing with a deep, rhythmic hum. A sharp, crimson needle of light projected from the artifact, pointing like an unshakeable compass toward the jagged, uncharted borders of the Mamaya region forest.
The tracking signal grew stronger. The other half was close.
"Zhi'er..." Wang Gu growled through grit teeth, his grip tightening around the hilt of his spare blade as his flying sword accelerated, carving a clean vacuum trail through the morning mist. "Hold on. Whoever dared lay a finger on you... I will eradicate their entire lineage from the face of this earth."
Suddenly, his expression darkened into apocalyptic fury.
The jade pendant in his palm began to fracture. Fine, spiderweb cracks split across its surface as the blood-tracking matrix decayed. The crimson signal flickered, rapidly dying out.
Driven to sheer desperation, Wang Gu unleashed the full, unbridled pressure of his Foundation Establishment cultivation base. The explosive wave of spiritual energy ballooned outward, blanketing a landmass three hundred and fifty kilometers in radius. The crushing aura smothered the mortal villages below and crashed directly into the forbidden forest, forcing a localized, supernatural storm into existence.
Crackling thunder struck the earth in rapid succession. The sky turned ink-black, plunging the domain into an unnatural twilight as though a world-ending calamity were descending upon the mortal realm.
He thrust his spiritual sense outward. A wave of Qi, thick enough to be visible to the naked eye, swept across the terrain in a massive scanning wave. His mind mapped everything instantaneously: terrified villagers scrambling for cover, wild beasts scattering in frenzy, swelling rivers, and the dark canopy of the forbidden woods. Every detail imprinted directly into his consciousness.
He snapped his eyes open. His pupils burned with a volatile mix of crimson and azure light, like a primordial beast awakened to bloodlust.
He lunged forward in a straight line, accelerating to a velocity that shattered the air behind him in a deafening sonic thunderclap.
Fifteen kilometers vanished in three seconds.
A pillar of pure, condensed heavenly thunder struck the earth. The shockwave sent forks of blue and red lightning tearing through the clearing, instantly vaporizing ten of the outer mercenaries into ash and leaving scorched, smoking craters where they had stood.
From the center of the blast, Wang Gu emerged. His silk robes billowed against the tempest, his eyes burning with lethal intent.
The instant his boots struck the scorched earth, his full Foundation Establishment aura rolled outward like a tidal wave. The sheer weight of his presence pinned the remaining mercenaries to the ground, cracking the bedrock beneath their bellies. He had reached the pendant just before its signal withered completely.
He took a single step, and the ground beneath his heel shattered. He took another, and a jagged bolt of thunder struck an adjacent tree.
"You dare touch my grandson... then prepare to be slaughtered!"
His roar traveled with physical kinetic force, slamming into Tao and Ren like a heavy iron hammer to the chest.
Both Netherworld Sect cultivators vomited thick, crimson blood as they were thrown backward. The physical shock snapped their concentration, instantly breaking the ritual. Deprived of their Qi control, the three-layered extraction array dissolved into nothingness, forcing Wang Zhi's floating blood essence to surge back into his body where it belonged.
Nearby, the three bandit bosses froze in absolute terror, their limbs trembling under the suffocating weight. What is this?! Is this the true power of Foundation Establishment?!
Cold sweat poured down the scarred, blind leader's face. His hands shook so violently he could barely hold his dagger. A single word echoed through his mind: Retreat!
Suddenly, a raspy, disembodied voice cut through their panic via sound-transmission talismans: "Kill that old man! If you destroy him, I will grant you a Spirit-Stage Talisman worth one million spirit stones!"
The two other bandit bosses gasped. A million spirit stones and a premium talisman was a fortune capable of buying an entire city.
"He can't possibly kill all of us if we swarm him together," the boss wearing the dagger necklace transmitted frantically, his eyes darting wildly. "We just need an opening!"
"How can we win against this pressure?!" the second boss, wearing the artifact eyeloop, countered through his chattering teeth. "It feels like a mountain is crushing my spine!"
Sensing his subordinates wavering, the blind bandit leader swallowed his fear and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Senior!"
Wang Gu's murderous gaze locked onto him, shifting the brunt of his crushing pressure onto the blind leader's shoulders.
"AHHH!" The leader was slammed to his knees, the stone beneath his kneecaps splintering. "S-Senior! If you release your pressure, you will kill your own grandson first!"
Wang Gu froze.
"The boy is extremely weak!" the blind leader gasped, fighting for air under the crushing weight. "His body is shattered from the extraction ritual! Crushing us with your aura will cause his fragile frame to burst! His death will be on your own hands!"
"You dare?!" Wang Gu growled, his voice laced with venom.
Yet as his eyes swept past the mercenaries and landed on the frail, bleeding form of Wang Zhi, cold reality settled in. The old elder wished for nothing more than to grind these vermin into paste with his spiritual aura, but he could not take the risk. If his aura flared any further, the residual shockwave would shatter his grandson's unsealed Dantian beyond repair.
With a harsh, metallic hiss, Wang Gu drew his primary spiritual sword from its scabbard. Cold, murderous light reflected off the steel. If he could not crush them with his aura, he would paint the forest red with his own hands.
He took the bait, the blind bandit leader thought, a dark satisfaction rising through his panic.
Exchanging a rapid, knowing look with his two fellow bosses, a cruel smirk spread across his scarred face. They had successfully weaponized the boy's frailty. With a sharp whistle, the blind leader signaled the twenty mercenaries pinned to the earth.
"Up, you useless dogs!" he barked.
With the crushing weight of the elder's spatial aura lifted, the twenty men scrambled backward. In practiced unison, each reached into his gear, uncorked a small jade bottle, and swallowed low-grade vitality pills. The medicinal force reignited their sluggish Qi and mended their bruised muscles.
The boss with the heavy dagger necklace stepped forward, his eyes burning with avarice at the thought of the million-stone bounty. "Attack him all at once! Slaughter this old bastard!"
The mercenaries hesitated, their legs still trembling from the residual fear of a Foundation Establishment master. They looked at the elder's gleaming sword and swallowed hard.
"Fear not!" the blind leader shouted, his voice echoing through the dark trees. "He cannot use his spiritual pressure without destroying his grandson's Dantian! He is forced to rely on physical blade skills alone! Charge!"
Realizing the elder's deadliest tool was sealed, the mercenaries' hesitation vanished, replaced by wild bloodlust.
They separated into a practiced pincer movement: ten dashed to the right, ten to the left, while the three bandit bosses anchored the center.
"Kill him!" the blind leader roared, pointing his dripping dagger forward.
The twenty men unleashed their Qi, springing from both flanks simultaneously. They closed in like a snapping jaw, blades raised to cleave the old man apart. For a fraction of a second, the forest went dead silent as cold steel neared his neck.
Then, Wang Gu vanished.
There was no sound, no burst of light, and no displaced air. He simply ceased to exist in the center of their trap.
Before the attackers could process his disappearance, Wang Gu materialized directly behind the ten men on the right flank. To his heightened perception, the Early Qi Gathering fighters were frozen mid-air, their leap attacks unfolding in absolute slow motion.
Wang Gu didn't even assume a combat stance. Keeping his left hand tucked casually behind his back beneath his flowing silk robes, he flicked his right wrist in a single, fluid arc.
He cut them down.
One by one, his steel parted flesh and bone as he walked past them. Fountains of hot crimson blood erupted into the mist, staining the autumn leaves red. By the time the tenth man felt cold steel severing his ribs, Wang Gu had already vanished from the right flank.
FWOOSH.
He reappeared on the left.
Due to their higher cultivation, the three bandit bosses barely managed to catch the streak of his movement across the battlefield. Yet even with their refined vision, they could not track his blade. To them, the left-flank mercenaries looked like statues stuck in tar.
Wang Gu casually swept his spiritual sword in a clean circle. The blade emitted no roar; it shone with a pristine, blinding radiance and let out a soft, razor-sharp whisper as it carved through the remaining ten men. Necks were severed, torsos split, and iron weapons shattered into useless shards.
Then, reality snapped back into motion.
The howling wind returned, and Wang Gu stood still. He materialized directly in front of the three bandit bosses, his boots completely unspotted by the blood of the twenty men collapsing into the dirt behind him.
The three leaders stared at him, their eyes wide with unadulterated horror. Twenty battle-hardened mercenaries had been wiped out in the literal blink of an eye.
Sensing the deathly proximity of the elder's blade, the three bosses kicked off the ground in a panic, leaping backward to put distance between themselves and the monster.
H-How... what kind of speed is this?! the blind leader thought, his heart hammering violently against his ribs as cold sweat drenched his neck. Even without his spiritual pressure... he is still a god of death!