Quinlan rose.
He felt different.
Every movement flowed without friction, as if the world itself had stopped resisting him. His blood hummed with fire, and his Qi, now bolstered by all twelve core meridians, coursed through him like a rapid stream.
From a promising cultivator...
He recalled Feng Jiai’s words with a small smile on his face. "Opening all twelve core meridians before stepping into Core Formation was something only monsters did. Only freakish prodigies even try to open all twelve. Monsters in human skin."
Quinlan exhaled again. The air steamed from his lips.
He stepped past the sea of corpses with embers crackling in the wake of his footfalls and made his way toward the enemy camp’s inner sections.
The prison cages were empty.
All that remained were the discarded bindings and a few footprints leading out into the trees.
"...Feng Jiai. That cheeky little gremlin girl."
’Thanks,’ he thought, knowing she did it for him. To ease his burdens.
Then one of the women looked back.
"D-demon!!"
"He’s still alive!"
The group stumbled back in terror, clutching makeshift weapons such as sticks, a broken chain, a soup ladle... A soup ladle.
Feng Jiai turned, narrowed her eyes, and let out a very small but very loud huff.
He raised a brow. "I was busy. Evolving."
"Sounds kinda tasty," he chuckled, earning himself a bonk on the arm since she couldn’t reach his head.
Another nodded quickly. "He’s not a demon. He’s a man who makes the demons afraid of him."
The group hesitated.
Feng Jiai then looked back at Quinlan and muttered under her breath just loud enough for him to hear, "Could you at least try to smile, Stupid Uncle?"
It made three of the women faint on the spot.
"...Great. Perfect. Thank you," Feng Jiai muttered flatly, rubbing her temples as the third woman keeled over in a swoon.
The scent of scorched leather and iron still lingered when they stepped back into the bandit camp. Corpses dotted the field, cooling under the rising sun, and the looted wagons stood as reminders of the profession Quinlan’s prey decided to follow. ŕάŊồＢΕȘ
Inside: silver pieces, a few crumpled promissory notes, food rations, and...
Fourteen jade slivers tucked in a leather pouch, marked with the stylized mountain symbol of lìng tokens. The very currency used by high-tier martial artists.
He tucked them away wordlessly and rose.
"Nothing out of the ordinary, I suppose. Commoner coin, preserved food, and cheap armor. Nothing of worth to a cultivator."
That was when Quinlan approached the rescued women.
One of the older women swallowed and spoke with her voice trembling. "No... they came in the night. Killed our husbands. Our sons. Burned the rice stores. Took us and our daughters."
And then, from within the group, a tiny voice broke.
A little girl, barely six, stood frozen with tears brimming in her wide, shell-shocked eyes. "He was only four. They kicked him... over and over..."
She broke.
The mothers rushed to soothe her, instinctively neglecting their own pain to soothe hers. But before they could, Quinlan knelt.