Ding!
[Emergency Mission Triggered: The Blindside.]
[Quest Description: "Ye Chenxue is enough to handle the threat." However, fate has other plans. While Ye Chenxue handles the threat, there exists a blindside. You’re being hunted. While the main bandit force is engaging the front of the convoy, a secondary stealth group of forty seasoned assassins is currently closing in from the dense forest to the rear. Their objective is to breach the rear carriages, eliminate you, and slaughter the passengers as cover up while the guards are distracted.]
[Mission Objective: Slip out undetected by the guards, intercept the secondary group, and eliminate the threat before they reach the carriages.]
[Time Limit: 20 Minutes.]
Lu Feng’s jaw tightened. ’Sent to eliminate me? Why would that bastard send forty assassins after me?!’
As if that wasn’t enough, the system was telling him to fight them alone in twenty minutes. ’Face off against an entire group of assassins? By myself? Someone who literally just woke up as a cultivator today?’ He was about to mentally curse the system and look for a way to refuse the absurd demand, but then his eyes drifted down to the final line of glowing text.
[Mission Reward: 1,000x Ice-Blooded Blossom Pills.]
Lu Feng’s breath caught in his throat. His internal complaints vanished into thin air, replaced by a sudden, fierce determination.
The Ice-Blooded Blossom Pill was a very expensive, mid-tier cultivation pill specifically tailored for cultivators possessing cold-attribute spiritual seas. However , Lu Feng didn’t know all of that yet. All he knew was that from the name, it would be of great benefit to Ye Chenxue and that was all the motivation he needed.
It was the exact type of dense, pure medicine Ye Chenxue needed to feed her newly evolved Heavenly Frozen Sea Dantian.
A thousand of them? That was probably enough to forcefully rocket her from the second level of the Blood Condensation Stage straight toward the absolute peak of the realm within a matter of weeks.
For her growth—for the ultimate return on his prime investment—he couldn’t say no.
Forty assassins? They were nothing. They wouldn’t dare stop his path to strength. To the pinnacle of power. Even before he finished gathering his thoughts, he was already moving.
"Young Master, what are you doing?" Han Lin whispered in a panic as she saw Lu Feng suddenly stand up, his hand reaching for the sturdy dagger tucked into his belt.
"Stay here and keep the door locked from the inside," Lu Feng commanded, his deep voice carrying an absolute, hypnotic weight that instantly quieted her protests. "No matter what sounds you hear outside, do not look out the window."
Before the terrified couple or Han Lin could say another word, Lu Feng moved with a new kind of speed he hadn’t possessed yesterday and didn’t even know he could possess. His physical capacity, enhanced by the raw, cosmic power of the Primordial Chaos Bead, allowed him to move like a shadow. He unlatched the small, secondary ventilation door at the very back of the large carriage—a hatch meant for checking luggage.
With a silent, swift movement, he squeezed his frame through the opening, dropping lightly into the dark, cold dirt beneath the carriage structure. The chaos at the front of the convoy was deafening—the screams of dying men, the clashing of iron, and the sudden, freezing blasts of Ye Chenxue’s unleashed Qi keeping everyone’s attention glued to the forefront where the battle was taking place.
No one noticed the young master with his two colored eyes slipping quietly into the dense, black foliage of the southern forest, heading straight toward the hidden danger creeping up towards them from behind.
The cold night wind whistled through the high canopy of the southern forest, rustling the heavy leaves. Lu Feng advanced into the darkness, his steps light and silent.
Now that he was moving through the forest, the first thing he noticed was the staggering transformation of his senses. Even though it was late at night and only a thin crescent moon hung in the sky, shedding minimal light, the darkness didn’t obstruct him at all. He could see the rough texture of the tree bark, the veins on the leaves, and the uneven terrain ahead with absolute, crystal clarity.
As he closed the distance, his ears twitched. He began to hear the faint scuffle of boots against the dirt. At first, he assumed the intruders were only a few meters away, but after slipping behind a thick trunk to gauge the sound, his hyper-attuned senses adjusted. The closest footsteps were actually around fifteen meters away, slowly and cautiously drawing closer.
He needed a plan. He had to figure out how best to deal with a force of this size before they noticed his position and swarmed him.
Suddenly, the footsteps stopped. The leader of the group raised his hand, halting his men. He seemed to have faintly sensed an unfamiliar presence in the area.
"Come out," the leader called out, his voice a low, raspy hiss that cut through the quiet woods. "I know someone is there."
Lu Feng remained perfectly silent, pressing his back harder against the tree.
Seeing no movement, the leader gestured coldly to three of his men, pointing toward Lu Feng’s general location.
As the three figures detached from the main group, an idea flashed through Lu Feng’s mind. He quickly unbuttoned his outer robe, slipping it off his shoulders, and hung it carefully on a low-hanging branch.
It was a simple decoy, meant to draw the attention of the three scouts the moment they breached the brush. He was hoping to finish all three of them before they had a chance to cry out or signal the others, though internally, he had no idea if he could actually pull it off. He had never fought for his life before.
Actually, he had never even fought before.
He moved into the deep shadows a few paces away and waited.
Fortunately, as he focused his awareness, he realized the playing field wasn’t entirely stacked against him. These assassins were mostly mundane humans, relying on stealth and numbers. Only their leader was a true cultivator. Lu Feng could clearly sense a thick, fluctuating trace of Qi radiating from the man’s direction, which made it incredibly easy to track his position.
However, the sheer density of that aura also told Lu Feng that the leader was genuinely powerful—far beyond a normal man. Probably not as powerful as Ye Chenxue but still very powerful.
Lu Feng didn’t even know what he was doing, fighting such an opponent just hours after only coming to possess a Dantian hours ago.
A soft rustle of leaves announced the arrival of the three scouts. They crept into the clearing, weapons raised, but their attention was instantly stolen by the dark shape of the robe hanging from the branch.
Before they could even process the trick, Lu Feng moved.
He burst from the undergrowth like a predator. His daggers the one he’d purchased back at Silver Jade City, flashed in the moonlight, sinking cleanly into the throat of the first assassin. The blade cut through flesh and muscle with terrifying ease, and Lu Feng slit the throat in one fluid, brutal motion.
The ease of the kill was more surprising to Lu Feng than it was to the dying man. For a split second, his mind froze. A numb shock washed over him as the realization hit him—he had just taken a human life without a single shred of hesitation. ’What the fuck?’