Chapter 24 South

Chapter 24 South
"I am the man who collected your father's final debt," Ye Chen replied.
​The young woman shrank back against the splintered wooden bars of the holding pen. She stared at his blood soaked tunic and his cold dead eyes. She trembled violently in the freezing mud.
​Ye Chen dropped to one knee. He ignored the dead Enforcers bleeding out in the yard behind him. He reached into his silver spatial ring.
​He pulled out a sealed porcelain vial. It contained high tier healing pills looted from the dead Enforcer Captain. He popped the cork and poured a smooth green pill into his palm. It radiated a faint minty aroma.
​He pressed the medicine into her dirty hands.
​"Your father died begging for your life," Ye Chen said. His voice was steady and devoid of malice. "He fought a losing battle so you could breathe. You will live to honor his sacrifice. Swallow the pill."
​She placed the green pill on her tongue and swallowed hard. Tears cut clean tracks down her soot stained face. She coughed a wet rattling cough. Thick black phlegm spotted the mud near her knees.
​"I have nowhere to go," she whispered. "The sect burned my home. They took everything."
​Ye Chen looked at her frail frame. He saw the same hopeless despair he had carried in the spirit beast stables for three years. Su Rou had stolen his future just as the sect had stolen her home.
​"From tonight onward you are my sister," Ye Chen declared. "My name is Ye Chen. I will carry your burden."
​He stood up and faced the dozens of captive mortals shivering in the nearby cages. The Azure Cloud Sect was a spreading cancer devouring the region.
​Ye Chen reached back into his spatial ring. He pulled out five heavy leather pouches. They were filled with the Talents he took from the underground auctioneer.
​He tossed the heavy bags into the mud at the feet of the starving prisoners. The leather split open. Bright silver coins spilled into the muck. The mortals stared at the sudden wealth in shock. They had never seen raw silver in their lives.
​"Take the coin and run," Ye Chen commanded the crowd. "Scatter into the Capital. Buy passage out of the city before the sun rises."
​The prisoners hesitated for a single breath.
​"The sect reinforcements will arrive before dawn," Ye Chen warned them. "They will burn this camp to the ground to hide their crimes. Move."
​The prisoners scrambled out of the cages. They scooped the silver into their torn pockets and fled into the dark pine forest. They ran toward the distant city lights.
​Ye Chen placed his hand on the young girl's shoulder. "We must leave the mountain."
​They retreated deep into the dark woods. The glow of the logging camp torches faded behind the thick tree trunks.
​Ye Chen stopped walking near a shallow creek. The adrenaline finally left his bloodstream. A sharp blinding pain shot straight up his right arm.
​He leaned heavily against an oak tree. He inspected his hand in the dim moonlight.
​Catching the heavy spiked mace carried a price. Executing the Chaos Bone Shattering Fist with bare knuckles amplified the damage. His right hand bore deep hairline fractures across every joint.
​His shoulder muscles were torn from the recoil.
​He closed his eyes and braced for a long agonizing recovery process. He expected to spend weeks nursing the broken bones in a hidden cave.
​The Iron Bone Vajra Skill activated without a conscious command.
​A deep numbing itch spread inside his marrow. The strange sensation radiated from his chest directly to his shattered knuckles.
​His golden Chaos Qi flooded the fractures. The dense iron bone knit together in mere seconds. The torn muscle fibers fused into thick cords of resilient tissue.
​Ye Chen felt his internal energy reserves drop significantly. His body rapidly consumed raw Qi to fuel the superhuman healing. The process drained a third of his Dantian to fix the arm.
​He opened his eyes and flexed his right hand. The pain was gone. The hairline fractures were sealed shut.
​He realized the true value of the premium body tempering art. He did not need a sect physician. He did not need to hoard expensive alchemy pills or beg for charity.
​His body was a self repairing fortress. He could sustain injuries and heal directly on the battlefield.
​Ye Chen sat on a mossy stone. The young girl rested against a nearby tree trunk. The green pill eased her ragged breathing. Her chest rose and fell in a calm steady rhythm.
​He replayed the fight with the Enforcer Captain in his mind. He analyzed every strike and parry.
​His execution of the Chaos Bone Shattering Fist was lethal. It bypassed the heavy steel armor and ruptured the Captain's heart. The technique itself lacked no destructive power.
​He found a glaring flaw in his arsenal. He had to shatter his own weapon to create the fatal opening.
​The Captain relied on heavy Earth Qi. The elemental magic manipulated gravity and made the spiked mace weigh thousands of pounds.
​Ye Chen parried the blows with cheap mortal iron. The rusted sword lacked the power to repel elemental weight. Standard metal will always fail against Qi infused elites.
​He visualized Su Rou's Spirit Condensation attack from the arena. Her crescent blade would melt cheap iron on contact. He could not walk into the Ascension Tournament holding brittle scrap metal.
​He needed a weapon forged from premium spiritual materials. The deep earth metals used by Inner Sect elites could withstand elemental energy.
​If he could not find a spiritual weapon he needed another path. He must find and upgrade a martial art that turned his bare hands into indestructible weapons. He needed flesh that could break premium steel without fracturing.
​The sky in the east turned a pale bruised purple. The sun began to rise over the Azure Cloud Sect mountain peaks.
​Ye Chen summoned the blue System interface. The digital text glowed faintly in the morning light.
​The Nine Hells Devouring Art sat at the bottom of his active roster. The status read Uninitiated.
​He stared at the cursed skill. He required 1000 System Points to force the upgrade. He currently possessed sixty points.
​The math was brutal and simple. He needed to hunt. He needed to extract the Qi from high level cultivators to feed his System.
​He turned his back on the towering mountain of the Azure Cloud Sect. He looked toward the jagged crimson horizon in the far south.
​The dropout Bai Yun had described the location well. The Blood Crag Valley awaited him.
​It was a lawless city carved into a red stone canyon. The sun baked the canyon walls the color of dried blood. The righteous sects dumped their worst criminals and exiled murderers there. It was a haven for rogue martial artists who slaughtered for copper coins.
​Bounties meant nothing in the valley. It was a kill or be killed ecosystem.
​It was the ultimate farming ground. He could butcher the worst predators in the region and harvest their lives for points. He would face no moral dilemma executing men who preyed on the weak.
​He had three months before Su Rou held her Ascension Tournament. He would spend that time bathing in the blood of the valley. He would return to the sect as a god of death.
​Ye Chen stood up. He held his hand out to his new sister.
​"What is your name?," Ye Chen asked softly.
​"Zhang Ling," the girl whispered. She took his calloused hand.
Ye Chen signaled to Bai Yun who was hiding. Bai Yun walked up to them
“This is Zhang Ling, she is now my sister. Take care of her in my absence” Ye Chen informed
“Yes Master” Bai Yun who had witnessed Ye Chen's might trembled and changed the way he address him
​"I walk south now Zhang Ling," Ye Chen said.