The spatial distortion vanished as abruptly as it had hit him.
Ye Chen landed lightly on his feet, his worn cloth shoes sinking into thick, damp moss.
The air inside the Hidden Cloud Valley was suffocatingly dense—saturated with ancient spiritual energy and the sharp, coppery scent of rotting vegetation.
Towering trees with emerald-colored leaves stretched into the sky.
Their thick canopy blocked out most of the sunlight, leaving the valley floor trapped in a perpetual, eerie twilight.
Ye Chen didn’t move from his position immediately.
He stood perfectly still, his eyes closed, expanding his refined soul awareness into the surroundings.
Within a five-mile radius, he could feel the chaotic pulses of space.
The teleportation portal was unstable, intentionally scattering the disciples across different sectors of the valley to avoid immediate infighting.
Good.
This meant he had time to move before the pests found him.
His gaze locked toward the north, where a faint, freezing mist was rising above the tree line.
The Glacial Spirit Spring.
A cold spark ignited in his eyes.
The main branch thought the Crimson Spirit Fruits were the finest treasure here, completely blind to the natural spring that could forge a cultivator’s meridians.
Before he could take a single step forward, a sharp rustling sound echoed from the thick brush to his right.
The leaves parted, and a beast the size of a wild boar emerged.
It had the body of a wolf, but jagged, rock-like scales covered its hide instead of fur.
Its eyes burned with a vicious crimson light, and its fangs dripped with acidic saliva that hissed as it touched the grass.
A First-Tier Spirit Beast—the Iron-Scale Wolf.
To a normal outer disciple at the First Layer of Qi Condensation, encountering this beast alone was a death sentence.
Its scales were immune to ordinary steel, and its speed was lethal.
The beast let out a low, guttural growl.
Its hind legs tensed before it launched itself through the air like a catapult, jaws wide open, aimed directly at Ye Chen’s throat.
Ye Chen didn’t draw his sword.
He didn’t even shift his stance.
As the beast reached the apex of its leap, inches away from his face, Ye Chen’s right hand shot forward like a flash of lightning.
Instead, he channeled the silver Qi from his dantian into his palm, forming a dense, spinning vortex of energy—the Vortex Disruption Palm, a fundamental defensive stance from his past life.
He struck the beast not on its armored head, but directly on the soft, unprotected joint beneath its left shoulder blade.
Boom.
The controlled burst of silver Qi exploded inside the beast’s body, completely bypassing its external scales.
The shockwave shattered the wolf’s internal organs instantly.
The heavy beast lost all its forward momentum, crashing limply into the dirt at Ye Chen’s feet, its crimson eyes fading into a dull, lifeless grey.
Ye Chen casually pulled a small hunting knife from his belt.
He sliced the beast’s chest open and retrieved a small, pea-sized glowing green marble—a low-grade Beast Core.
It was a meager resource, but to the outer sect registry, it was worth five contribution points.
“A clean strike,” a cold, mocking voice drifted down from the branches of a massive pine tree above him.
Ye Chen didn’t look up.
He calmly wiped the wolf’s blood off his knife using a leaf.
Two figures leaped down from the tree, landing ten paces away.
They didn’t wear the robes of the Lin Clan.
Instead, they were dressed in ragged, dark leather armor, their faces covered in gruesome scars.
These were rogue cultivators—the ruthless bandits who lived in the wilderness by robbing and killing sect disciples.
Both of them radiated the spiritual pressure of the Second Layer of the Qi Condensation realm.
“The Lin Clan young master wasn’t lying,” the taller bandit said, drawing a curved scimitar that coated the air with a faint, poisonous green aura.
“He said a trash with a basic iron sword would be wandering around here. He paid us ten middle-grade spirit stones to bring him your head.”
The second bandit chuckled, spinning a heavy spiked chain.
“Too bad the boy doesn’t even know how to run. Kid, blame your own stupidity for offending someone you shouldn’t have.”
Ye Chen finally raised his eyes.
He looked at the two men with a profound calmness that felt entirely unnatural.
To a Sovereign who had executed heavenly demons, these two minor bandits were less than ants.
“Lin Hao paid you ten spirit stones?” Ye Chen asked softly.
His hand slowly reached down to grip the hilt of his basic iron sword.
“My life is worth more than the entire Lin Clan combined.”
The silver Qi within his veins suddenly began to flow backward.
A chilling vacuum erupted around him, causing the surrounding grass to wither instantly.
“Die, arrogant brat!”
The two bandits rushed forward simultaneously.
The scimitar cut a lethal horizontal arc while the spiked chain flew toward Ye Chen’s legs, locking him in a pincer attack.
Clang.
The sound of Ye Chen’s iron sword leaving its sheath was almost completely silent.
The Shadow-Sunder Slash erupted in the dim light of the valley.
There was no flash of steel, no sound of rushing wind, and no reflection.
To the bandits, the world simply blurred for a single, terrifying millisecond.
Slash.
The tall bandit froze mid-stride.
His curved scimitar slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the stones.
A thin, crimson line appeared across his throat, widening rapidly until a fountain of blood sprayed into the air.
His body collapsed forward, his head rolling into the dirt.
The second bandit shrieked in absolute horror.
He stopped his advance so abruptly that he tripped over his own chain.
He looked at his dead companion, then up at Ye Chen, who stood perfectly still, his iron blade entirely clean of blood.
“A demon… you are a demon!” the remaining bandit screamed.
His legs shook so violently he couldn’t stand.
He frantically reached into his tunic, pulling out his own teleportation talisman to escape.
“You are too slow,” Ye Chen whispered.
Before the bandit could channel his Qi to burn the paper, Ye Chen stepped forward, his blade flashing in a downward strike.
The bandit’s right hand flew into the air, still clutching the unactivated talisman.
A second later, the tip of Ye Chen’s sword pierced directly through his heart.
The second body fell limp, staining the green moss a deep, dark crimson.
Ye Chen calmly sheathed his sword with a crisp click.
He knelt down, searched the bodies of the two rogue cultivators, and took their storage pouches—finding twelve low-grade spirit stones and a few maps of the valley.
“Ten spirit stones to buy my life,” Ye Chen looked toward the northern path, his eyes turning colder than the winter frost.
“Lin Hao… you have just signed the execution order for your entire faction.”