A few seconds later, the young man finally moved.
"I—I’m goin’ to pisssss—don’... don’ drink all the wine!" the man mumbled, swaying unsteadily as he staggered away toward a shadowy corner of the outpost.
Like a whisper in the wind, he crept after him, keeping low, glaive in hand, eyes focused.
His movements were precise.
The man barely noticed. He stood there, relieving himself with a half-lidded, drunken expression, humming some out-of-tune sect hymn.
Han Yu raised a hand.
The almost invisible spiritual spike shot forth, stabbing into the man’s soul.
His body froze mid-action, eyes wide—but dulled by drink and the numbing effect of the technique. Before the man could even groan, Han Yu was behind him.
The glaive pierced straight through his heart from the back.
The man twitched once, then slumped. Blood soaked through his robe, but he couldn’t even scream.
Han Yu caught him before he hit the ground, his arms straining as he dragged the limp corpse into a shadowed corner behind a stone crate. His breath came fast, not from guilt or hesitation, but from the physical exhaustion of fighting on burned legs and blistered hands.
Back at the outpost, the other two were still drinking.
"Where’s Jun Li? He’s been gone a while," one of them slurred.
"Maybe he fell into the shitter," the other laughed.
Sooner or later, they’d get suspicious.
One of them—broad-shouldered and slightly older—grumbled and rose unsteadily to his feet. "Tch... probably pissed himself unconscious again. I’ll go check."
Han Yu sank deeper into the darkness, pressing himself flat behind a jut of stone. The man rounded the outpost’s edge, walking into the gloom with a frown on his face.
Han Yu didn’t give him a chance to call out.
The man stiffened, eyes blinking as confusion overtook his alcohol-clouded thoughts.
Han Yu struck, slamming the glaive into the man’s chest, twisting it upward into his lungs. The disciple’s body convulsed—but he didn’t scream. His breath choked off with a gurgle. Han Yu tried to catch him, but his strength faltered at the last second.
The body dropped with a dull, wet thud.
"...San Lin? You alright?" came the voice of the last disciple.
Han Yu cursed internally.
Footsteps approached, cautious now. The last one wasn’t drunk enough to be blind.
Han Yu retreated slightly, deeper into the shadows behind a broken boulder, only his eyes visible through the dark—burnt red, gleaming with silent fury.
The last disciple, the Peak Qi Refining one, stepped around the corner.
He saw the body. He froze.
And then he saw Han Yu’s eyes in the dark.
Red. Swollen. Bloodshot. Burning with rage and pain.
The man’s breath caught.
From his chest, Han Yu saw it—wisps of violet fear leaking out, invisible to all cultivators. To a soul cultivator, it was like watching smoke rise from a fire.
Eight Emotions Energy: Fear.
Han Yu ignored the temptation to absorb it right away.
This wasn’t the time. The energy wisps would float over to him anyways.
He surged forward with unnatural speed, gritting his teeth through the pain. His legs burned with every step, his cracked blistered soles raw and bleeding.
But he moved like a killing wind.
The man tried to retreat, fear making his limbs sluggish. He opened his mouth to shout—
Han Yu’s glaive pierced straight through his skull, driving into his brain like a spike of vengeance.
The man’s body jerked violently, then went limp—his head slumped forward onto the shaft of the glaive as Han Yu propped him upright against the rock. Blood spilled over Han Yu’s face and robes, warm and sticky, mixing with the soot and dried sweat.
He just stood there, face spattered, chest heaving, eyes wide with the final traces of fury.
He exhaled—long and slow.
Then, carefully, he let the body slide off the glaive and slump to the ground with the others.
Three dead. Quick. Not Clean. But Brutal.
Han Yu looked at his hands, at the weapon soaked in blood, and muttered under his breath.
"Not proud of this... but I’m not dying today." He knew this was no peacful sect, nor homely town.
This was the reality of the cultivation world, of JIANGHU!
It was the rule of the jungle, the strongest survived, while the fierce thrived!
It was kill or be killed, and he was certainly not going to be the latter.
He moved quickly, dragging the last two bodies behind the outpost’s crates. There was no time to search them for valuables—not yet. First, he had to get clear, make sure no one else was nearby.
No alarms had been raised. The night was still silent. The scent of blood was masked by the ever-present sulfur in the air.
Han Yu melted into the shadows again, ears sharp, soul sense flaring softly.
Once Han Yu was certain no one else lingered nearby, he slowly emerged from the shadows and approached the corpses. His breath was still heavy, each inhale scraping against the pain in his lungs, but he pushed it aside.
Survival didn’t wait for comfort.
He crouched beside the first body and rifled through his belongings. A small, worn pouch hung at the man’s side—not a spatial pouch, just ordinary cloth. He snatched it and moved on to the next.
In total, he retrieved three pouches from the fallen disciples. He quickly opened them and sorted through the contents. A few qi restoration pills in jade bottles. A handful of spirit stones—nine in all. Several odds and ends: a bronze mirror charm, a flint striker, some dried meat, and the telltale Mist Eye Sect identity tokens.
Han Yu pocketed the pills, the stones, and the tokens without hesitation.
The weapons, while serviceable, were standard iron-forged swords.
Spirit weapons sure, but too heavy to carry on top of everything else.
He left them behind without a second glance.