Chapter 171 – Eve of Destruction

1/2/25 A/N: Apologies for not being very responsive lately. I went on a two week road trip to visit family and friends, but I'm back now. Regarding this chapter, the next little mini-arc is a lot darker than the rest of the story. I'm not a big fan of dark, but I think this part of the story warranted it. My desire is to return to the normal tone as soon as I can. Would really welcome comments through this period letting me know if you like or hate what is happening.

Yang Xiu fell behind the rampart after being shoved, the blades missing her completely. Not that it mattered. Not that anything mattered.

Their opponent was simply too strong. He could fly, and given how the voice moved around, he was fast. Much faster than her or her arrows. And flying meant that he was probably Golden Core.

From her experience with Master, Golden Core meant power farther above her than she was above the Qi Gathering cultivators that surrounded her. As they stood no chance against her in the true fight, she surely had even worse odds against the man in the air terrorizing them.

And if being a realm higher than her wasn’t enough, he was invisible. She couldn’t see him with her eyes or even perceive him with her spiritual sense. There was literally no way for her to land an attack. All the strength she’d worked so hard to acquire was worthless.

The only saving grace was that the brother and Kang Lin were still on their mission away from the village. They should be safe from the enemy.

Even though fighting back was pointless, Yang Xiu would not give up. Even if all she did was distract the enemy for one more attack, that was one attack where the rest of the village wasn’t being destroyed, one more moment that gave Master time to finish off whoever he was fighting and hopefully save everyone else.

She stood, nocking and loosing arrow after arrow with quick, smooth motions. Not that she had any real idea where the cultivator was. Honestly, it felt like she would have had the same chance to hit if she would have been able to see him. That was to say none.

“You’ve got spirit,” the voice said. “I’ll give you that. Too bad you’re just so young and weak. Too bad for you, anyway.”

At least the mocking gave her a direction to shoot her arrows.

If she somehow survived the day, she vowed to herself that she would become even more diligent in growing her power. No one should be so much more powerful than her other than Master.

“You will probably kill me,” Yang Xiu said. “Maybe even everyone in the entire village. But you won’t kill Master. Whatever sect or family or organization you hold dear, he will destroy. I will be avenged.”

The voice laughed. “I’m the weakest of the three of us, child. The other two have surely already killed your so-called master.”

It was Yang Xiu’s turn to laugh. “Mister, you have no idea who you’re messing with, do you? You think Master is a normal Golden Core cultivator, don’t you? Someone barely worth your time, right? You couldn’t be more wrong.” She sighed. “I just wish I’d be alive to see you find out how wrong you are.”

“Enough stalling,” the voice said. “Time for you to die.”

More blades appeared. They dotted the sky like rain. There had to be a hundred of them, if not two hundred or even more.

All shot with the power of a Golden Core cultivator.

Well, it had been a nice run. She was glad she’d met Master and got to become a cultivator. Her life had been short but satisfying. She had no regrets.

Yang Xiu stood tall, waiting for the blades to slice into her.

###

Benton Quickstepped onto the alure right next to Yang Xiu. He’d heard her bantering with the Jade Chameleon cultivator, and he was filled with such pride for her that his heart almost burst.

She was so brave and diligent, and she had so much confidence in him.

Since arriving in the cultivator world, there hadn’t been a single instant where he felt undeserving of the way others looked up to him. Hadn’t been. That moment was the first.

Benton had been a father. The trust that little kids have in their parents was on a whole different level. When he threw a child into the air, and they screamed with joy because there was no danger. Daddy would catch them.

Of course, it wasn’t like the threw them all that high. Evelyn was watching, after all.

Still, he was used to trust, to absolute confidence. Until they became teenagers.

He shuddered.

The teenagers of the sect, in contrast, trusted him just like his children had. Up until that day, he hadn’t realized just how deep their faith in him ran. He would do everything in his power to prove them right.

An application of his Gravity technique caused all the blades, those that weren’t purely illusionary, to plummet straight to the ground.

“I’m hurt, Yang Xiu, that you thought it would take me longer than that to kill two measly Golden Core cultivators.”

“Well, I assumed they were invisible, Master. Maybe that would take you a little longer?”

“No. I just did this.”

Benton used his new Illusion Illumination technique like a flashlight and shone the beam into the sky, soon revealing the gray-robed man riding a flying sword.

The Jade Chameleon Sect cultivator looked terrified. “You’re lying. You couldn’t have killed them that quickly.” He glanced back in the direction of the previous battle. “They’ll be along in any second, I’m sure.”

“Believe me, they will not be along. Ever. In fact, let me demonstrate my abilities for you. I started by doing this.”

Luckily, the man wasn’t directly over the wall and was, in fact, several scores of yards outside the village. With his position pinpointed and there being no friendly people or structures in range, it was an easy matter for Benton to apply his Gravity technique directly to his opponent.

The man’s flying sword sank near the treetops before he was able to get it back under some semblance of control.

Benton nocked an arrow. “Then I—”

“Master!” Yang Xiu shouted.

He’d noticed that she hopped down off the allure to land inside the wall but hadn’t thought much about it.

“It’s Ye Zan!” she yelled. “Quick!”

The nice thing about mastering a technique was that the expertise granted by the System allowed him to do convenient things like keeping his Gravity technique active while doing other things, so the enemy Golden Core cultivator remained immobilized while Benton went to check on the problem.

Honestly, he wasn’t expecting any issue that a Major Healing Pill couldn’t resolve. Though maybe he should have been. Zou Tian and Yang Xiu both had the life saving measures. If that was all that was required, they would have already taken care of it.

Of course, maybe they were trying to save using the pill since Benton’s Healing technique could do the same thing for less cost.

When he finally saw Ye Zan, though, he knew that wasn’t the reason.

The boy’s body was riddled with wounds. Five of the blades were still sticking out of him, and two more had obviously hit him. One in the neck. He was nearly decapitated.

One of the blades protruded from his forehead. Another from his chest.

Benton immediately tried pouring healing into the boy’s body, but nothing happened. The qi refused to do anything.

He poured more but still nothing. No matter how much he sent into the body, nothing happened.

Why wasn’t it working? Why?

Benton stood stooped over the body, his hand on its shoulder as he tried to force qi into it. He felt a hand touch his shoulder.

“He died saving me, Master,” Yang Xiu said.

It was over. The boy was dead. There was nothing Benton could do to bring him back.

Ye Zan was a good kid and a very capable guard captain. His last act had been one of doing his duty, protecting the sect. He hadn’t deserved to die.

“He will be remembered,” Benton said. “He will be avenged.”

A Quickstep brought Benton to the air in front of the enemy cultivator. “Your life is forfeit. Nothing can change that. Answer carefully, as your response might mean the lives of all the members of your sect are also forfeit.”

The man had the audacity to sneer at him. “You think you can—”

The most powerful lightning bolt that Benton had ever conjured, charged with one million qi, struck the man.

The bolt quickly overwhelmed his qi shield and left him shaking for several seconds as gigawatts of electricity coursed through his body. Anyone not as tough as a Golden Core cultivator would have been killed instantly.

“Silence,” Benton said. “Do not speak unless answering a question.”

Not that the man could talk. He was barely conscious after the lightning strike.

Benton had to wait a few moments for the scum to regain his wits. “Were you warned not to attack the sect and the village?”

“What?”

“I sent word that I would be greatly angered if any of my sect members or the villagers came to harm. You harmed one of my people. Were. You. Warned?”

“Y-yes.”

Benton frowned. They were warned and deliberately attacked innocents anyway. That was not okay. In a might makes right world, the only way for him to protect his people was to prove both that he was too powerful to mess with and that he would go nuclear if provoked.

Fine. The Jade Chameleon Sect wanted nuclear? He’d show them nuclear.

Benton had been spending qi like it was going out of style, but he still had nearly three million left. He channeled two and a half million of that into a single lightning bolt. The strike was blinding, and the clap was deafening.

He didn’t care. All that mattered was that the man die in the most horrific way possible.

Benton grinned as the man did the electrocution dance. The smell of cooked meat emanated from his body.

It wasn’t enough, though. There was no amount of pain that could ever possibly be enough. But torturing the lackey wouldn’t bring Ye Zan back.

Nothing could do that.

Incredibly, the scum still breathed. Barely. But he was already healing.

Golden Core cultivators were notoriously hard to kill.

The electricity had done so much damage that all the man’s qi was being used in an attempt to repair his body, meaning his qi shield was no longer active. Benton tossed a small metal sphere at the man’s head, and when it hit, a small burst of qi made the entirety of his brain cavity disappear.

It left his face recognizable, though. Somewhat. If one used their imagination.

Benton stored the corpse in his spatial ring, not even bothering to loot it except for the flying sword. He quickly bought and mastered a technique for using the device and picked up the other two corpses on his way out from the village.

He had a sect to destroy.