Chapter 25 Arrival
Chapter 25 Arrival
"Flesh is not steel."
Ye Chen spoke the harsh truth to the empty mountain forest. He leaped across a wide rushing stream. His heavy boots landed softly on the muddy opposite bank.
He traveled alone toward the southern bloodlands. He had handed Zhang Ling over to Bai Yun hours ago. The dropout swore to hide the sick girl in the Capital safehouses.
He needed true destructive power. He needed a weapon forged from deep earth spiritual metals. Or he needed an evasion art that made him untouchable.
He reached into his silver spatial ring. He pulled out a blood stained parchment scroll. He had looted it from the dead Captain's chest pocket.
The title read Phantom Shadow Step. It was a premium movement art reserved for elite Enforcers.
Ye Chen unrolled the parchment while sprinting through the dense pines. He memorized the complex Qi pathways detailed in crude black ink.
The maxed Swift Wind Steps had already rewired his fast twitch muscles. His foundation was prime for adaptation.
He channeled his golden Chaos Qi into his legs. He forced the energy through the new pathways on the run.
\[Skill Registered. Phantom Shadow Step is Uninitiated.\]
The blue interface chimed in his vision.
"System," Ye Chen commanded aloud. "Upgrade Phantom Shadow Step to Level One."
\[Deducting ten System Points.\]
A sudden cooling energy rushed through his calves and thighs. His boots blurred. The sound of his heavy footsteps vanished from the dry forest floor.
He moved like a silent ghost through the morning mist. He possessed fifty System Points remaining. He needed far more.
The sun climbed high into the sky. Ye Chen reached the main dirt road leading south.
The heavy stench of copper hit his nose a mile down the trail.
He slowed his pace. He drew the broken leather hilt of his ruined sword and held it ready.
A destroyed merchant caravan blocked the road ahead. Three large wooden wagons lay overturned in the dry dirt.
Ye Chen inspected the wreckage. The attack lacked all the normal signs of a bandit raid.
Expensive bolts of blue silk spilled onto the road. Heavy lockboxes filled with silver coins sat wide open and untouched. Thieves did not leave silver in the dirt.
"Bandits did not do this," Ye Chen whispered to the quiet road.
He walked over to the bodies. Five armed merchant guards lay sprawled around the lead wagon. Their steel swords remained sheathed at their hips. They had not fought back.
Their throats were torn open. Their skin was pale white. They were drained of blood.
Ye Chen knelt beside the caravan leader. He forced the dead man's heavy head upward.
The merchant's jaw was locked into a rigid smiling grimace. His lips stretched wide over his teeth. Dark black blood stained his gums.
It was the exact ghoul smile from the dead servant boy. It matched the infected Capital thieves from the previous night.
Elder Wang's operation was broken. The Demonic corruption was no longer a contained secret experiment in the Myriad Beast Forest.
It was a plague. It was mutating and spreading rapidly across the mortal territories. The horror was escalating into a regional crisis.
Ye Chen dropped the dead merchant back into the dirt. He did not care if the sect burned. But the plague would eventually threaten his own hunt.
The landscape shifted dramatically by late afternoon. The green pines gave way to dry cracked earth.
Towering crimson cliffs pierced the sky. The red stone looked like dried blood baked by the hot sun. This was the infamous entrance to Blood Crag Valley.
A loud commotion broke the silence of the gorge.
Five heavily armed rogue cultivators sprinted frantically out of the canyon. They abandoned their supply packs. They dropped their weapons in the dirt.
Their faces were pale with raw terror.
Ye Chen stepped into the center of the narrow pass. He blocked their escape route.
"Move out of the way," the lead rogue screamed. He drew a jagged hunting knife from his boot.
"Stop right there," Ye Chen ordered.
The rogues charged him. Ye Chen did not flinch. He channeled a fraction of his Chaos Qi. He released a heavy oppressive martial aura.
“Better run for your life” One of the said
"What is happening in the valley?," Ye Chen demanded.
"Turn back now," the lead rogue choked out. Sweat poured down his dirty face. "Everyone in the outer ring is dead."
"Who killed them?" Ye Chen asked. He loosened the pressure slightly so the man could speak.
"Nobody killed them," a second rogue sobbed. He clutched his own chest in panic. "They killed themselves."
Ye Chen narrowed his eyes. "Explain your words."
"A riot started near the fighting pits," the lead rogue whispered. "A dark fog rolled out of the lower canyon. Men just stopped fighting each other."
The rogue swallowed hard. His eyes darted back toward the dark gorge.
"They dropped their swords. They started tearing their own throats out with their bare hands. And they smiled while they bled."
Ye Chen recognized the symptoms immediately. The mutated demonic energy had reached the lawless city.
"Did you see any Azure Cloud Enforcers in the fog?" Ye Chen questioned them.
"We saw nothing but blood and smiles," the lead rogue declared. He scrambled to his feet. "We are leaving for the Capital. Entering that canyon is guaranteed suicide. The devil himself is walking those streets."
"Run then," Ye Chen said. He stepped aside.
"You are a dead man if you walk in there," the second rogue warned him.
The five men sprinted past him. They did not look back once. They disappeared down the dirt road leading north.
Ye Chen stood alone at the entrance of the towering crimson gorge. The wind howled through the red rocks. It sounded like dying men.
He summoned his System interface.
\[Nine Hells Devouring Art: Uninitiated.\]
The requirement glared at him in bright blue text. One thousand System Points.
He needed that upgrade before the Ascension Tournament. Su Rou was waiting for him in three months. She possessed the full backing of the Inner Sect and a stolen Spiritual Bone.
He could not defeat her with low tier Outer force arts. He needed the destructive force of the Nine Hells.
The fleeing rogues saw an unstoppable apocalypse. They saw mass suicide and certain death.
Ye Chen saw a goldmine.
The demonic energy was no longer just corrupting beasts into strong monsters. It was infecting men and driving them to tear out their own throats. It was killing them rapidly.
Dead men yielded System Points. An entire city of infected dying murderers was a massive farm waiting to be harvested.
The corrupted Qi fueled his Chaos Body Tempering Art. The toxic fog the rogues described would only feed his internal furnace. He was immune to the madness.
He gripped the broken leather hilt of his ruined sword. He did not feel fear. He felt deep hunger.
Ye Chen crossed the boundary line. He stepped confidently into the dark shadows of Blood Crag Valley.