Chương 110: For Once, Not Enemies (1/3)

But just as Shi Yan was about to leave, transferring his weight to pivot toward the shadowed, bone-paved alleyway—his heel already lifting from the compacted ash, the subtle shift in his center of gravity preparing to carry him into the fog—a distinct, impossible shift occurred in the ambient air pressure.

The change was minute but undeniable: a compression wave, as though something massive had displaced the thick, sulfurous atmosphere without disturbing a single mote of drifting bone dust. The hairs along the back of his neck prickled beneath the leather padding of his collar.

Hmmm? His instincts flared.

He didn't even make it three steps toward the first exit route before a figure materialized out of the heavy fog, stepping directly into his blind spot and blocking his path. The mist peeled away from her form like water sliding off oiled leather, revealing her silhouette in stages—shoulders first, then torso, then the predatory stillness of her stance.

Fast. And aiming right for the angle I can't see, he evaluated. The shift from his relaxed, wary demeanor into a state of maximum alert happened instantly, his entire nervous system snapping taut like a bowstring drawn to full extension.

His eyes, which had been fixed on the empty fog a fraction of a second prior—tracking nothing but swirling green-lit vapor and the faint glow of distant corpse-lanterns—froze as his [Acoustic-Blood Tracker] picked up a sudden, isolated rhythm cutting through the oppressive silence.

A heartbeat.

Fifty beats a minute. Nice and steady.

It was slow, controlled, and profoundly rhythmic—distinct from the chaotic, terrified fluttering of the rogue cultivators he'd seen earlier, whose pulses had hammered like war drums against their ribs. This was the cadence of someone whose autonomic system had been trained into submission through years of lethal discipline. More dangerously, that heartbeat had simply not been there a moment ago.

There was no sound of footsteps approaching from a distance, no wet squelch of boots disturbing the shallow pools of condensed miasma. No displacement of the toxic, sulfur-laced puddles that dotted the plaza's edge, their surfaces remaining perfectly still as polished obsidian. It was as if this entity had folded itself out of the very mist that choked the Ghost Market, stepping from one breath to the next without occupying the space between.

A professional? His eyes narrowed behind the dark iron of his Iron-Yaksha mask, the cold metal pressing against his cheekbones as the muscles of his face tightened.

Without breaking stride, without allowing his shoulders to tense or his hips to drop—tells that would broadcast his intent to strike like a banner raised before battle—his right hand blurred.

God, I love this new inventory trick, he thought, a fleeting moment of satisfaction cutting through his combat focus as the bio-locked spatial pouch resting at his hip recognized his unique physical pulse and body heat. The spatial anomaly binding the internal pocket dimension dilated instantly to accommodate his violent draw speed, responding perfectly to his Daoless biology—no cultivation required, only the raw biometric signature of his transmigrated flesh.

There was no metallic sching of a sword sliding from a scabbard, no warning rasp of steel against leather. There was only the sudden, heavy displacement of air as the massive, hundred-and-fifty-pound Demonic Heavy Saber bypassed physical space and appeared directly in his right hand, reality shuddering slightly as the weapon punched through the dimensional barrier.

The immediate introduction of such dense mass into the physical world created a localized vacuum, pulling the green-lit fog swirling inward around the dark steel in spiraling eddies. Wisps of vapor clung to the weapon's surface, condensing into droplets that ran down the length of the blade like cold sweat.

He halted abruptly, his boots grinding into the bone-ash floor with a sharp crunch that sent pale powder scattering across the obsidian beneath. His body was angled perfectly, minimizing his target profile while maximizing his leverage—left shoulder drawn back, right arm extended, spine aligned to channel force from his planted rear foot straight through to the saber's edge.

One hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight, but it handles like a charm, he gauged, feeling the balance. The massive slab of black iron and fused demonic bone rested effortlessly in his one-handed grip, supported purely by his [55 Might] and heavily reinforced skeletal structure. The weapon's center of gravity sat precisely three inches forward of the guard, allowing him to control the enormous mass with wrist adjustments alone.

Through the low hum of his [Acoustic-Blood Tracker] and the heightened visual acuity granted by his [55 Physique], Shi Yan rapidly processed the incoming biometric data of the shadow before it fully stepped into the light. His enhanced senses parsed the minute details with mechanical efficiency—the subtle flex of tendons beneath clothing, the rhythm of controlled breathing, the distribution of weight across both feet.

Light on the feet. Center of gravity is low, he noted, picking apart her stance piece by piece as though dismantling a clockwork mechanism.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. The skeletal frame registering in his mind was narrow at the shoulders and slightly wider at the hips—the typical build of a female cultivator who prioritized agility and evasion over raw physical dominance. Furthermore, as the entity exhaled, the mist pluming from its nose matched the lung capacity and pitch resonance of a human female, the vapor streaming out in a controlled plume that dissipated slowly in the frigid air.

Then the sickly green light of the corpse-lanterns illuminated her features, the wan glow painting her skin in shades of jade and shadow.

She stood up from her crouch, having deliberately maintained a low profile during her approach to avoid the immediate, instinctive decapitation arc of Shi Yan's potential swing. Her movements were fluid and unhurried, rising with the controlled grace of someone who knew exactly how much space existed between herself and the edge of his weapon's effective range.

She was clad in weather-worn, hardened leather that bore the subtle scorch marks and acid burns of a veteran who lived in hostile environments. The armor was dark brown, nearly black in places where caustic substances had eaten through the outer layer and been reinforced with crude patching. The surface was mottled with discoloration—pale streaks where corrosive ghost-essence had been splashed and wiped away, darker burn marks where flame talismans had detonated too close.

A dark, functional cloak was draped over her shoulders to obscure her exact arm movements, the heavy fabric hanging in deep folds that concealed the precise positioning of her limbs. The cloak's hem was frayed and singed, its edges tattered from countless encounters. A heavy, tightly wrapped broadsword rested along the diagonal line of her back, the hilt jutting over her left shoulder within easy reach—yet she made no move toward it.

Crucially, her hands were empty. They were held loosely at her waist, palms turned slightly outward, fingers relaxed and spread just enough to show she held no concealed talismans. The positioning was deliberate, kept far from the hilt of her broadsword and the spatial pouches strapped to her belt—the universal, unspoken language for I am not initiating hostility.

As the fog thinned further, trailing away in lazy spirals, the pale, jagged scar running sharply across her jawline became starkly visible against the sickly green light of the surrounding lanterns. It was the kind of wound left by a blade infused with hostile Qi, something that had refused to heal cleanly despite spiritual medicine. The tissue was raised and twisted, pulling the corner of her mouth slightly downward in a permanent expression of grim determination.

The scar traced from her left ear down to the center of her chin, bisecting her face with brutal honesty.

Human? Ghost? Shi Yan's eyes narrowed further beneath the iron grilles of his mask, his pupils contracting as he focused intently on the subtle rise and fall of her chest. His right arm remained locked like a coiled spring, holding the Demonic Heavy Saber motionless in a perfect guard position—blade angled at forty-five degrees, edge aligned toward her center mass, weight distributed to allow instant adjustment in any direction.

In this market, the presence of a heartbeat didn't guarantee humanity. There were entities here that stole mortal organs to masquerade as the living—ghost-puppets that wore stolen hearts like badges of authenticity, their borrowed pulses beating in hollow chests while their true nature remained cold and ravenous.

"You crossed the wrong line," Shi Yan rumbled, his voice cutting through the oppressive silence. His words, filtered through the thick iron and boar-hide cavity of his half-mask, emerged as a cold, mechanical rasp—devoid of inflection, fear, or hesitation. The sound was inhuman, stripped of warmth, processed into something that resembled speech only in structure.

"Three breaths. Explain yourself, or I put you down."

He did not shout. He did not project his killing intent into the air like an arrogant sect disciple trying to establish dominance, flooding the atmosphere with spiritual pressure to cow his opponent into submission.

His threat was delivered with the casual, certain tone of a professional executing a checklist—the same tone he might use to confirm ammunition count or verify target elimination. It was a statement of operational procedure, not a boast.

He was giving her a momentary window strictly because an uncalculated murder in the center of the Ghost Market might draw unwanted attention from entities far more dangerous than a single Tier-2 cultivator. Blood spilled carelessly had a way of summoning things that fed on violence.

In short, there was no way a normal cultivator—one who had avoided confrontation this much in the special, secret spatial realm of the Ghost Market—would calmly wait and block his path without cause or provocation.

She did not flinch, nor did she reach back to draw her blade in a panic, fingers scrambling for the hilt in desperate self-preservation. Instead, she looked directly into the dark, empty slits of his Iron-Yaksha mask, meeting the void where his eyes should be with unflinching composure.

Her gaze drifted only for a fraction of a second to evaluate the oversized slab of iron and monster bone hovering five feet from her throat, calculating angles and strike zones with the practiced ease of someone who had stared down worse.

"An interesting cultivator I have met," the woman said, her voice steady, low, and perfectly measured, lacking the erratic pitch of someone whose adrenaline had overridden their logic. Each word was enunciated clearly, without tremor or hesitation.

"A young master, or should I say fellow daoist?" The formal address rolled off her tongue with subtle irony, as though she recognized the absurdity of courteous titles in a market built on bone and greed.

"There are many more things that can be said, but first…."

Before Shi Yan could process her bizarre, highly classified observation—the calculated choice of words suggesting she saw something in him that others had missed—the pale blue interface of his System violently interrupted his field of vision, text scrolling across his retinas in harsh angular script.

[Entity Recognized: Independent Yin-Hunter Cultivator] [Cultivation Resonance: Tier-2 Mid (Roaring Hearth Realm)] [Threat to Current Vessel: LETHAL (Caution Advised)] [Estimated Yield: ~14, 500 Dao Embers] Tier-2 Mid. Roaring Hearth Realm. But able to avoid my detection?

To reach that stage, a cultivator's internal Dantian had to burn like a literal furnace, generating immense ambient heat and elemental output that radiated outward like a living bonfire. Their bodies should have blazed with spiritual warmth, visible to enhanced senses as rippling distortions in the air. Yet his tracking senses picked up an unnatural, biting cold bleeding off her leather armor instead—a frigid aura that wrapped around her like a second skin, suppressing her heat signature to near-absolute zero.

But there was one more key phrase, floating at the top of the blue window like a banner.

A Yin-Hunter…

The System would not bestow such a title without reason, its classifications ruthlessly precise. Comparing the floating blue words before his eyes with the piercing chill seeping from her leather armor, he began assembling the pieces.

Even the former owner of this body—a lowly outer sect drudge with a pitiful cultivation base and barely functional meridians—had understood the most basic meaning of "Yin." Throughout the sects, Yin was known as the frigid, baleful force of graves, wandering ghosts, and noxious miasma. It was the energy of endings and stillness, of corpses cooling beneath winter soil and souls trapped between realms. Yin cultivation was the domain of necromancers, exorcists, and those who walked the boundary between life and death.

When Shi Yan joined the meaning of "Yin" with the title "Hunter," the path of her methods became clear in an instant, snapping into focus like a rifle scope finding its mark.

An exorcist. She either hunts ghosts or specializes in using Yin-Qi. But obviously it's not that simple.

She was not one who fought by meeting strength with strength, nor would she seek to crush him head-on with blazing arts or violent force, he judged, his gaze resting on the cold air coiling about her boots like living serpents. Wisps of frost clung to the leather, spreading in delicate crystalline patterns across the surface. She would first turn the very battlefield into a domain of frost, sapping heat and vitality from her opponents until they moved like insects trapped in amber.

In addition, there was the possibility she could use either charm or poison—subtle weapons favored by those who understood that the fastest kill was often the one delivered without the target's awareness.

Such a person would excel at hunting spirits, piercing miasma, and most likely cultivated arts of cold Qi that restrained, eroded, or crippled her foes.