Chương 126: When Arrows Turn to Dust (2/3)

Instead of offering a lengthy exposition on ambient resonance, Shi Yan reached into his bio-locked spatial pouch, his scarred fingers passing through the shimmering barrier without resistance. He drew forth a standard, silver-tasseled jian—one of the finely crafted orthodox swords he had looted from the Cloud-Mirror disciples in the Black-Ash Marsh.

The blade emerged clean and cold, its polished surface catching what little gray light filtered through the canopy, the silver tassels hanging limp and heavy with accumulated moisture from the oppressive fog.

He simply grasped it by the blade, his calloused palm wrapping around the razor-sharp edge without hesitation. The steel bit into his skin, drawing thin lines of crimson that welled slowly in the freezing air, but his expression behind the Yaksha mask remained utterly unchanged. He pulled his arm back in a smooth, mechanical motion—shoulders rotating, core twisting, weight shifting to his rear foot—and hurled it like a ballistic javelin into the dense fog ahead.

Driven by his peak [55 Might], the blade tore through the mist faster than a mortal eye could track, the silver tassels streaming behind like a comet's tail, the air splitting with a sharp whistle that cut through the valley's oppressive silence.

CLANG.

A sharp, metallic shriek of steel rebounding off something harder than iron rang out, the sound piercing and crystalline, echoing off the packed pine trunks and reverberating through the bone-chilling mist. The noise fractured the unnatural stillness like shattering glass.

It was followed instantly by a deafening, earth-shaking roar—a primordial bellow of pure rage that seemed to originate from the very bowels of the underworld itself, so deep and resonant that it rattled the marrow in their bones and sent loose droplets cascading from the overhead branches.

For a fraction of a second, the fog parted violently as if cleaved by an invisible blade. The dense gray curtain tore open like rotting silk, revealing the terrifying silhouette of a colossal, hunched creature with jagged bone-plates protruding from its spine like serrated mountain peaks. Each plate glistened with a sickly, translucent sheen, reflecting the fog's pallor.

The beast thrashed with explosive fury, its massive limbs gouging deep furrows into the muddy earth, sending up sprays of foul-smelling sludge mixed with sulfurous vapor. The ground trembled beneath the violence of its rage, roots snapping audibly like brittle bones. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the heavy gray miasma swallowed its shape once more, the fog rolling back in thick, suffocating waves that moved with unnatural sluggishness, as if possessing weight and intent of its own.

Ye Bing stared at him in sheer disbelief, her sharp pupils widening fractionally despite herself. Her usual frosty composure—maintained through countless life-and-death battles—fractured visibly. Her scarred brows drew together, the old wounds pulling taut across her forehead. The moisture clinging to her skin made the pale scars stand out even more starkly against her flesh.

To throw away a jian weapon without a trace of Qi or sword intent, effectively using it as a crude stone to rouse a territorial monster, defied all cultivation logic she had ever known. It violated the sacred principles taught to even the lowest outer disciples. A cultivator's blade was an extension of their soul, a vessel for their intent—not a common projectile to be wasted on provoking death.

What a crude man, but what made her shocked was…

"Have you lost your mind?" she hissed, her voice low and sharp as a drawn dagger. Her knuckles turned bone-white on her scabbard, the scarred fingers pressing so hard against the lacquered wood that faint creaking sounds emerged. Her entire body coiled tighter, thighs tensing, weight dropping lower as she braced for an immediate, blind counterattack from the fog.

Her breathing quickened despite her attempts to control it, each exhalation emerging as thick white vapor that hung in the air for several heartbeats before dissipating.

"You just throw away a jian to provoke a Furnace-Core beast without setting any trap arrays? We hold no advantage of terrain here! Should it charge at this moment, you would not even be able to discern the flow of its Qi, much less defend yourself!" Her words came rapid-fire, each syllable clipped with suppressed fury and genuine incomprehension. The veins at her temples stood out more prominently, pulsing visibly as her heart rate spiked with adrenaline and disbelief.

"I'm a body cultivator. I have its mass, and I established it bleeds," Shi Yan replied casually, his voice entirely devoid of panic or inflection. The words emerged flat and matter-of-fact through the carved mouth of his Yaksha mask, muffled slightly by the cold iron frame but carrying clearly in the dead air.

His stance remained utterly relaxed—weight distributed evenly, shoulders loose, hands hanging naturally at his sides. There was no combat readiness in his posture, no tension coiling through his massive frame. He stood as if discussing the weather, not facing a territorial demonic beast capable of tearing him limb from limb. The frost on his mask's edges had thickened slightly, tiny crystalline formations spreading like delicate fingers across the dark surface.

"I told you it was perfectly camouflaged. You could not sense it because you were looking for a disruption in the Dao. But look at how the fog reacted when it raged."

Ye Bing forced her racing pulse to calm, drawing on decades of battlefield discipline. She consciously slowed her breathing, chest movements becoming almost imperceptible once more. Her eyes—sharp and calculating despite the lingering shock—darted back to the swirling mist where the beast had vanished, studying the way the gray curtain moved. The fog eddied in slow, hypnotic patterns, tendrils curling and uncurling like the fingers of drowning corpses reaching upward through murky water.

She played the brief memory of its thrashing silhouette backward in her mind with the practiced precision of a veteran warrior analyzing a duel. This man, Daoist Shi, was right.

When the massive creature had moved in its rage, the gray miasma hadn't been repelled by bestial Qi or spiritual suppression—phenomena she would have detected instantly through her extended Spiritual Sense. It had merely folded over the beast naturally, like water closing over a submerged stone, the creature's Yin-energy merging with the environment without causing a single ripple in the Heavenly laws. There had been no displacement, no spiritual vacuum, no disturbance whatsoever in the fabric of the Dao.

The beast existed within the fog as seamlessly as a fish swimming through river water.

Ye Bing sharply drew a breath, the cold air burning her throat and lungs like swallowed ice. The realization dawned on her like a blade settling against her neck—sharp, intimate, and utterly undeniable. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Its blood and breath… they are indistinguishable from the mist," Ye Bing murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. The words carried a note of reluctant admiration mixed with visceral unease. Her scarred fingers loosened fractionally on the scabbard, though her grip remained ready.

"Nnnn, It breathes the fog. It bleeds the cold," Shi Yan confirmed, the sound emerging as a low grunt of acknowledgment. He didn't need to explain the complexities of Daoist camouflage; he only needed her to understand the battlefield parameters. His head remained oriented forward, attention fixed on the gray wall ahead where massive shapes occasionally shifted just beyond the threshold of visibility.

Based on his understanding coupled with the original host's memories, Spiritual Sense relied on detecting dissonance.

A fire beast walking through a snowy plain was a glaring anomaly in the Dao—its blazing Yang essence would scream against the frozen Yin surroundings like a beacon visible for miles. A cultivator channeling their Qi to strike created a vacuum of displaced energy, a momentary wound in the natural flow that any competent practitioner could sense.

But if a beast was fundamentally born of the anomaly—if its very soul resonated at the exact same dark frequency as the corrupted sea of fog around it—then her Spiritual Sense was rendered utterly useless. It was like trying to find a shadow cast at midnight, or detect a single drop of poison dissolved perfectly in an ocean of venom.

Ye Bing looked at him, a complicated feeling flashing in her gaze—part grudging respect, part lingering suspicion, part something she couldn't quite name. Her jaw worked silently for a moment as if chewing on words she refused to speak. Then she eased her broadsword a single inch from its sheath with painstaking slowness, the movement so controlled that the friction of the metal produced no sound whatsoever. The blade whispered free with the barest sigh, revealing a hand's width of impossibly cold steel.

A faint, freezing mist began to curl around the exposed steel immediately, tendrils of pale vapor spiraling off the blade's surface like smoke from dry ice. Her Cold-Moon Bone-Sealing Art naturally stirred in response to her rising killing intent, the ambient Yin-Qi of the corrupted valley answering her will without conscious effort. The temperature around her dropped noticeably, her exhalations becoming even thicker, hanging in the air like frozen clouds.

Tiny crystals of frost began forming on the moisture clinging to her sleeve near the blade.

It was a ruthless cultivation external art, designed not for elegant sparring between cultivators, but for swift execution on the battlefield. The art held no beauty, no philosophical refinement—only brutal efficiency.

The external art drew upon the heavy Yin-Qi of the earth, using it to invade an opponent's meridians upon a single crossing of blades, chilling their blood and freezing their protective Qi into brittle frost from within. Victims often didn't realize they were dying until their limbs stopped responding, their internal organs crystallizing into useless ice even as they tried to channel cultivation base for defense.

"I shall circle the flank and seal its lower joints with ice," Ye Bing stated, her voice regaining its usual clipped, tactical tone. Her eyes tracked the fog's movement, already calculating angles of approach and strike zones.

"A beast of this bulk relies on momentum. Once its movement is crippled by my frost, strike for its throat while it is blinded."

"No," Shi Yan said simply.

He turned his head slightly, his imposing Yaksha mask locking her in place with its eyeless stare. The carved features—frozen in an expression of demonic fury—seemed even more unsettling in the gray light filtering through the mist. Frost glittered along the mask's edges like a crown of tiny diamonds.

"Hold your position. Do not interfere."

To order me to stand aside before a territorial Furnace-Core beast? Are you the emperor? Ye Bing's hand paused on the hilt of her sword, her entire body going rigid with suppressed indignation. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, the scarred flesh around them crinkling. The temperature of the mist curling from her blade dropped even further, responding to her spike of anger.

But then, looking at his eyes—visible through the mask's openings, utterly calm and unblinking, holding neither arrogance nor recklessness but only cold calculation—she was silent.

Is his Dao heart simply consumed by madness? Ye Bing thought, struggling to reconcile his previous caution on the trail with this sudden recklessness. Her mind raced through possibilities, none of them satisfying. He must be joking. This is a Furnace-Core realm demonic beast, different compared to human cultivators. Their physical bodies are forged through consuming spiritual treasures and bathing in elemental essence. Even a body cultivator at Foundation-Cracking would struggle alone.

Or does his flesh-forging path demand the tempering of unbroken, solitary slaughter? Some ancient body cultivation manuals did contain such requirements—facing death alone to shatter one's limits, refining the physical vessel through absolute mortal terror.

Yet once again, the unshakable certainty in Shi Yan's bearing, the terrifying, mechanical calm in his posture—shoulders relaxed, breathing steady, no tremor in his massive frame—caused her feet to remain rooted exactly where they stood. Something in his absolute stillness spoke of experience beyond her comprehension, of battles fought in ways she couldn't fathom. She kept her hand on her hilt, watching him with predatory intensity, every muscle coiled and ready despite her outward compliance.

"Fine." The word emerged clipped and cold, carrying layers of unspoken threat. She would not intervene, but she would not let him die pointlessly if his vanity proved fatal. Her blade remained one inch free of its scabbard, frost continuing to pour from the exposed steel in ghostly cascades.

Unlike what Ye Bing assumed, Shi Yan possessed no vanity or desire to polish some esoteric 'martial heart.' His logic was far more grounded, rooted in pure tactical mathematics.

If we take it together and her ice lands the final hit, there's a real chance the System registers it as her kill, Shi Yan thought, his eyes fixed on the translucent notification hovering steadily above the beast's last known position in his UI—[Estimated Yield: ~12, 500 Dao Embers] glowing in faint amber characters only he could perceive. I can't risk losing that payout. I need every single Ember to afford my next upgrade before we hit that Cloud-Mirror blockade. The numbers were clear.

His current stockpile plus this bounty would barely cover the stat increases he needed to survive what was coming.

Furthermore, Ye Bing was his artillery for the main perimeter breach—the high-damage dealer with ranged spiritual attacks and area denial capabilities through her ice techniques.

Wasting her Qi on a random encounter halfway to the objective is just bad planning, he reasoned, keeping his hand away from his weapon for the moment. The tactical manual he'd memorized in his previous life was clear on resource management during infiltration operations. She needs to be at one hundred percent for the gate. I can handle the trash mobs. This was a standard elite encounter, well within his capabilities if he played it correctly.

And besides the economy of the fight, there was a physical reality she had overlooked in her haste to assist.

"It is a beast forged by pure Yin, and your blade walks the same path," Shi Yan added flatly, his voice carrying the patient tone of someone explaining basic tactics to a rookie.

"Your attack will be half as effective against flesh already accustomed to the absolute cold. Preserve your Qi for the upcoming Cloud-Mirror Sect array. We will need it." The logic was ironclad. Elemental resistance was a fundamental principle even in this world's cultivation system. Throwing ice at a creature born of primordial cold was tactically wasteful.

Ye Bing just nodded, a single sharp dip of her chin. Though she secretly eyed him through her peripheral vision, feeling he had hidden intentions beyond what he spoke. His words made sense, but the way he said them—too practical, too calculated, lacking the spiritual philosophy that should underpin such decisions—felt wrong somehow. Like watching a puppet master manipulate strings she couldn't quite see.

Shi Yan didn't bother to look at her anymore. She was a non-factor now, removed from the equation.

He stepped forward with deliberate purpose, leaving the relative safety and concealment of the ridge where they'd halted. His heavy, armored boots crushed the dry pine needles scattered across the muddy ground beneath them with sharp, deliberate cracks that echoed loudly through the humid, dead air—sharp reports like breaking fingers that carried far through the fog-choked valley.

Each footfall was placed with intentional force, driving down through the slick mud until it struck the harder bedrock beneath, sending vibrations rippling outward. He was intentionally breaking noise discipline, broadcasting his position like a challenge.

Within the fog ahead, the nauseating sound of flesh being torn apart—wet ripping punctuated by the crunch of bone being splintered and marrow being sucked from shattered joints—abruptly ceased.

Silence crashed down like a falling blade.

The massive shadow stopped moving. Even the fog seemed to still, the lazy eddies freezing in place as if the world itself held its breath. Then a deep, thunderous growl rolled through the earth itself, vibrating upward through the wet mud and into the soles of Shi Yan's boots. The sound bypassed his ears entirely, resonating directly through his skeleton—a subsonic rumble felt in the chest cavity and skull rather than heard.

It was dense with sudden, savage bloodlust, thick with territorial fury and predatory hunger. The bass frequencies made his teeth ache and caused ripples to spread across the surface of the muddy puddles around his feet.

The predator had realized another predator had confidently entered its feeding grounds.

And it was absolutely furious.