The flat, unbothered response landed like a physical blow against Feng’s fragile confidence. He had expected fear, or at the very least hesitation.
He had expected the mere mention of Gorath’s name to send this monster scrambling for the exits, the way it made every single outer disciple and half the inner circle flinch on instinct.
Instead, the stranger’s dark eyes remained completely calm, faintly amused even, as if Feng had just told him the weather might turn cloudy in three days rather than promising the wrath of one of the strongest cultivators in the region.
"He’ll kill you!" Feng said again, though the conviction in his voice had already begun to crack. "He’s a mid Foundation Establishment expert. You don’t stand a chance!"
"That’s what you think? Pft," Kahn scoffed.
He didn’t offer any further explanation, didn’t bother arguing the point or boasting about his own growing strength. There was no need to convince a dead man of anything.
The complete absence of fear in the stranger’s response did something dangerous to the four disciples standing before him.
It stripped away the last fragile illusion that invoking their sect leader’s name might actually save them.
This left only two paths for them, which were either to turn and flee in disgrace, likely to be executed themselves for cowardice and failure upon Gorath’s eventual return, or fight now and die with loyalty.
Feng’s face contorted with terror and grim, desperate resolve. He glanced sideways at his companions, finding the same helpless resignation mirrored in each of their pale, sweat-slicked faces.
"Kill him," Feng finally screamed, his voice cracking on the final word. "All of us together, now!"
All of them surged forward as one, their swords raised, desperate technique auras flaring weakly to life around their bodies.
Some summoned angry phantom bulls on their fists, launching them towards Kahn with a grunt.
The bulls flew through the air at rapid speed, bellowing angrily as they closed in on Kahn.
Kahn easily dodged them though, causing the phantom bulls to slam into the walls around, breaking them like paper.
Kahn was like a blur, crossing the distance to the nearest attacker, a stocky man already forming another set of phantom bulls on his fists.
However, before the man even fully registered Kahn’s presence in front of him, the latter already swung his blade at his neck.
Kahn’s Blood Fang flashed once, opening a shallow line across the boy’s exposed throat.
The wound wasn’t deep enough to kill instantly, but the moment the cursed steel kissed flesh, the bleeding refused to stop, gushing freely despite the man’s panicked attempt to clamp a hand over the wound.
He staggered backward, choking on his own blood, and collapsed to his knees within seconds.
Kahn didn’t wait to watch him fall. He pivoted immediately, ducking beneath a wild phantom bull launched by another inner disciple, before driving his elbow hard into the man’s ribs.
He felt bone crack beneath the blow, a sharp, satisfying crunch that folded the disciple entirely in half.
Kahn finished him with a single, brutal downward strike of his second blade, ending the fight before it had truly begun.
The remaining disciples with their phantom bull auras hesitated for a second too long, clearly shaken by how effortlessly their comrades had just been cut down.
That single hesitation was more than enough time for Kahn to close the gap entirely.
He caught the first bull-aura disciple’s wrist mid-swing, snapping it backward with a sickening crack before driving his knee into the man’s stomach hard enough to lift him briefly off the ground.
As the man doubled over, gasping, Kahn’s blade found his throat, slicing through his neck like it was made of tofu.
The last one, Feng, backed away rapidly, his sword shaking violently in his grip as he watched his fellow inner disciple drop like chickens in a span of seconds.
The sight was very unusual to him. They were all at the Qi condensation, so how come one was able to kill all the others like they were merely chickens?
His phantom bull flickered weakly around his trembling frame, the silhouette itself seeming to share in its master’s terror.
"Please," Feng stammered, his earlier bravado completely gone, replaced by raw, naked desperation. "I have a family. I have—"
"So did I," Kahn said quietly, cutting him off entirely.
The words carried none of the mockery or cold amusement he had shown earlier toward Ter. They came out flat, heavy, weighted with four years of grief that had never once been allowed the mercy of an apology.
Feng’s mouth opened to plead further, but nothing came out. Kahn closed the final distance between them in the space of a single blink, and it was over before the man could even think.
Kahn slashed through his neck, cleaving his head right off it.
Blood sprayed out of the sliced neck like a geyser, and Feng’s lifeless body soon dropped to the ground.
Silence fell heavily over the corridor once again, broken only by the faint, dripping sound of blood pooling across the stone floor.
Kahn stood motionless in the center of the carnage, his chest rising and falling slowly, evenly, entirely unbothered by the bodies scattered around his feet.
A small trickle of the stolen Qi still hummed faintly through his veins, the lingering aftereffect of his cursed blades feeding on the wounds they had opened.
He turned his head slightly, his gaze sweeping past Yao’s unconscious, blood-drained form slumped near the far wall, and the woman still crumpled where she had landed earlier. Neither of them stirred.
The only person left standing in the entire hallway, aside from Kahn himself, was Ter.
The inner disciple remained frozen against the doorway of the medic room, his shattered wrist forgotten entirely, his eyes wide and unblinking as he stared at the scene before him.
His face had drained of every last drop of color, leaving him looking almost as pale and lifeless as the corpses littering the floor.
He had watched four of his fellow disciples invoke the name of their sect master, a name that was supposed to inspire terror throughout the region, and watched that name accomplish absolutely nothing.
Kahn wiped his blades clean against the sleeve of his tattered clothing, the crimson veins running through the steel pulsing faintly as they absorbed the last remnants of blood, before sheathing them once more at his hips.
He turned his attention fully toward Ter, his dark eyes cold and calculating as he considered his next move.
Three days.
That was how much time he had before the sect leader returned to find his sect in ruins, and his inner disciples slaughtered in the hallways of his own compound.
"Three days," Kahn murmured, almost to himself, his mind already beginning to calculate everything that needed to happen before that final hour arrived.
He looked back at Ter, who flinched violently under the sudden weight of his attention, his knees threatening to buckle beneath him entirely.
"You’re going to help me whether you like it or not." Kahn said, his voice leaving no room for refusal.