"They're here."
Aboard the Aureate Summit Sect's spirit boat, three pairs of eyes turned simultaneously toward the massive vessel that had been shadowing them for days.
It was accelerating now.
Yan squinted at the approaching ship.
"The Ji Clan?"
She recognized the name. Anyone involved in alchemy did. The Ji Clan was known for the Fireheart Pill, a reliable mid-tier cultivation aid. They had a reputation for spending freely and keeping good relations with independent cultivators.
Which made this even stranger.
"Why would they come after us?" she muttered, more to herself than anyone else.
Qingxue's eyes narrowed slightly. "That doesn't matter right now. What matters is that they're here, and they're closing in fast."
Quan's hands moved across the control formations as he forced the spirit boat into a steep descent.
"Hold on!"
Spiritual arrays flared as it plunged toward the ground below. It hit hard, the force of the fall barely contained as it slammed down and skidded to a stop.
He threw open the door. "Alexei! Get Mengyao and Changgui to safety!"
Alexei grabbed an armful of obsidian blocks and moved without hesitation. He had been preparing for this ever since Qingxue warned him they were being followed. The only issue had been the boat. For some reason, he couldn't place a crafting table on a moving spirit vessel.
But on solid ground, that problem disappeared.
He started building.
Obsidian blocks rose one after another under his hands, forming walls. In seconds, a solid shelter took shape. It was large enough to fit several people inside. Once it was complete, he placed a lamp within, letting light fill the interior, then turned to Mengyao and Changgui.
Both of them looked pale.
That was fair. An attack from a clan wasn't something low-realm cultivators could survive through luck alone.
"Go inside."
They didn't argue. The two scrambled into the shelter, and he sealed the entrance behind them with another layer of obsidian. He stepped back, giving the structure a quick look.
It was solid, with no obvious weak points. Even a Nascent Soul cultivator would need time to break through it.
"Alexei," Qingxue said as she appeared beside him. "You should get inside too. The three of us can handle this."
Alexei glanced at the distant Ji Clan vessel. It had already slowed, hovering in the air as it closed the remaining distance.
Then he shook his head.
"I'm staying."
Yan and Quan both turned to look at him.
"You're staying?" Quan asked, clearly convinced he'd misheard. "Do you even understand what's coming?"
"I do," Alexei said calmly. "And I won't get in your way. But I can still help."
Before anyone could respond, he reached into his inventory and began equipping his armor.
Qingxue's gaze dropped to the armor, then rose back to his face.
"…You're serious."
"I am."
For a moment, she said nothing. Then she exhaled softly, the tension in her shoulders easing just a fraction.
"…Fine," she said at last. "But don't take unnecessary risks."
Quan looked between them. "You're letting him do this?"
"He'll be fine," Qingxue replied, her gaze already returning to the approaching ship. "Just focus on what's ahead."
Yan's lips curved slightly, though her eyes remained sharp. "Try not to die, alright?"
"I'll do my best," Alexei said.
He pulled out his crafting table and got to work, assembling wooden boats as quickly as his hands could move. The boats were his contingency.
He had just finished his tenth boat when the world suddenly flared bright and hot.
BOOM!
A pillar of fire erupted beneath their spirit boat, swallowing it whole. There was no time for it to burn. The vessel simply vanished, reduced to ash in an instant.
"What the..."
He stared, momentarily stunned, as items began raining down from the sky.
The chests had been destroyed, and everything inside them was now scattered across the ground.
"BLYAT!"
Panic surged for a split second before logic caught up. His items couldn't be destroyed by ordinary fire. They would be fine. The chests themselves, though, were gone. They hadn't been placed as proper blocks, only set down on the boat.
Beside him, Quan looked ready to snap. "They destroyed our spirit boat. They actually destroyed our spirit boat..."
"That was expensive," Yan said, her tone oddly calm.
Alexei glanced at her and immediately understood. She wasn't angry. She was already calculating how much damage to return.
The Ji Clan vessel came to a stop less than a thousand meters away, hovering in the air. The hatches opened, and cultivators began pouring out.
Five figures flew straight toward them while the rest scattered in all directions.
The lead cultivator raised his hand. His fingers moved in a complex sequence, forming hand seals faster than Alexei could follow.
Spiritual energy surged.
The ground beneath them began to glow as lines of light spread outward.
"Get back!" Qingxue recognized what the enemy was doing and shouted.
Alexei threw himself to the side just as the formation activated. Pillars of elemental energy erupted from the ground. Fire, water, earth, metal, and wood surged upward, each anchored to a point on the massive five-element diagram beneath them.
The Grand Offering spread his qi to its limit. His eyes narrowed slightly before he lowered his hand.
"Oh. Nascent Soul realm… if I am reading your spiritual pressure correctly."
His gaze shifted to Qingxue.
"And you… Dharma Aspect."
So much for the element of surprise.
The old cultivator's lips curled into a thin smile. "You are stronger than expected. But the Ji Clan does not enter battle unprepared. Activate the Celestial Binding Array."
All the Spirit Condensation cultivators moved into position, forming a circle around the battlefield. Each pulled out an identical jade talisman and crushed it at the same time. A dome of energy snapped into place, sealing the entire area.
Alexei felt his spiritual energy turned sluggish, weighed down as if he were moving underwater.
"This is why I don't like formation specialists," Yan muttered as her expression darkened.
The Grand Offering made a small gesture, and the second elderly cultivator moved to the opposite side, flanking Qingxue.
"I will handle the Dharma Aspect cultivator. You three deal with the Nascent Soul pair. Spirit Condensation teams, maintain the suppression array and prepare for secondary measures."
Both senior cultivators pulled out small jade bottles and drank the contents.
Their spiritual pressure surged outward. The air itself seemed to thicken, pressing down on everything in the area.
Alexei's breath hitched. For a moment, it felt like something was gripping his chest, forcing the air out of his lungs. His instincts flared, his body tensing as he struggled against the sudden weight.
Then his qi stirred, pushing back.
This was the Ji Clan, they wouldn't come to a fight without pharmaceutical advantages.
Qingxue's sword appeared in her hand, frost already forming along its edge. "Quan, Yan. Don't hold back."
Quan's massive war hammer materialized, its head as large as a person's torso. Spiritual energy rippled along his arms, hardening his skin until it took on a crystalline sheen.
Beside him, Yan snapped her jade fan open. Flames danced along its surface, and the temperature around her rose at once.
The Grand Offering smiled. "Commendable. But ultimately futile..."
Qingxue crossed fifty meters in the time it took him to blink, her sword already descending toward his head.
The cultivator's hands blurred through another set of seals.
A wall of stone surged up from the ground. Qingxue's blade sliced straight through it, but the brief delay was enough. He retreated, already preparing his next technique.
At the same time, the Second Offering struck from the side, his hands blazing with golden light.
Qingxue twisted in midair and redirected her sword to intercept. The collision of spiritual energy sent shockwaves rippling across the battlefield, shattering the ground beneath them.
---
The scarred middle-aged cultivator moved first. He rushed toward Yan while forming seals with both hands, and blue fire poured out in front of him, twisting into a serpent nearly twenty meters long and as thick as a tree trunk.
Yan answered with a sweep of her fan. Her flames rolled forward in a broad wave and crashed into the serpent head-on.
For a second, the two fires strained against each other. Then Yan's flames swallowed the serpent from head to tail, devouring the energy inside it and swelling larger before they suddenly compressed into a single burning lance.
The scarred cultivator's face changed. He tried to retreat and raised a barrier at the same time, but the lance reached him before he could fully defend himself. It punched through the barrier, tore through his robes, and burst out through his shoulder.
He screamed as the force drove him back several steps.
While Yan forced him back, Quan walked straight into the path of the two early Nascent Soul cultivators. His hammer rested on his shoulder, and his tone was almost bored.
"Come on, then."
He swung once, and a shockwave tore across the floor. Cracks spread through the ground within ten meters, forcing the cultivator with elaborate hair ornaments to jump over the attack and form a seal in midair.
Roots erupted from the floor the instant he landed. They wrapped around Quan's legs, arms, and torso, tightening around him like iron chains.
Quan flexed, and the roots snapped apart, spraying splinters across the ground.
By then, a metallic gray layer had already covered his skin.
"I'm a body cultivator. You'll need to hit a lot harder than that."
The hammer came down before the other man could answer. He barely threw himself aside in time, and the head of the weapon missed him by only a few centimeters before smashing into the ground.
The impact carved out a crater five meters deep.
The second cultivator seized that opening and attacked Quan from behind. Water gathered into a thin, pressurized blade and cut across his back.
The blade bounced off his skin without leaving a mark.
Quan turned his head and looked at him.
"I told you, you'll need to hit harder."
The Grand Offering's face tightened as he watched the exchange. His people weren't holding the line at all.
"Formation teams, deploy the Crimson Cage Matrix!"
Twenty more cultivators moved at the same time, spreading out around Yan and Quan before closing the space between them. By the time Yan noticed what they were doing, the square had already formed.
The cultivators dropped their hands to the ground together. Dark red flames rose from each side and connected above them, sealing Yan and Quan inside a burning cube. Five cultivators stood at each corner, feeding qi into the walls to keep the structure from breaking.
The air inside began to ripple. A thin purple haze spread through the enclosed space, and Yan and Quan both staggered as the poison entered their bodies. They tried to steady themselves, but their movements were already getting slower.
"The walls are maintained by the people at the corners," the Grand Offering said, still keeping Qingxue occupied. "The poison is made from Purple Heart Nightshade and refined for cultivators. In about ten minutes, your companions won't be conscious anymore. After that, the rest is simple."
Qingxue's spiritual pressure surged. "Let them out."
"Why would I?" The Grand Offering formed another seal and kept pressing her back. "You can't break away from us. If you go to them, we'll kill you before you reach the formation. If you stay here, the poison does the work for us."
Alexei had heard what he needed.
Yan and Quan were trapped inside a formation maintained by twenty Spirit Condensation cultivators. The array was suppressing spiritual energy, so they couldn't force their way out from the inside. He could feel the same pressure pushing down on his own qi, but the people holding the cube didn't seem affected by it.
He didn't know why, and he didn't have time to find out. Qi wasn't the only thing he had.
He reached into his inventory and pulled out his bow. The trident would take too long to charge, and every second counted now.
He drew and released.
The arrow pierced one cultivator straight through the chest. The man froze with his hand still pressed to the ground, then looked down just as fire burst out from the wound. His spiritual defenses flared, but they couldn't contain it. The flames crawled across his chest and up his throat, and he collapsed before the others fully understood what had happened.
The cultivator beside him reacted first. He rushed over, wrapped his hand in qi, and grabbed the arrow to pull it free.
The fire jumped to him as soon as his fingers closed around it.
"What is this?"
Alexei's second arrow hit him in the forehead before he could back away. Fire burst out again, and he fell beside the first cultivator. With two people down at the same corner, the cube around Yan and Quan shuddered and briefly lost its shape.
Only then did the rest of the formation holders turn toward Alexei.
"Stop him!"
Several cultivators broke formation and rushed Alexei at the same time. One of the others stayed behind, raised his hand, and tried to pull the bow away with telekinesis.
The bow didn't move. His brow tightened as he put more force into it, but the weapon stayed in Alexei's grip without so much as a tremor. Two more cultivators joined in, and with the three of them pulling together, they finally tore it free and sent it shooting back toward them.
One of them reached out to catch it. The instant his hand touched the bow, the weight dragged his arm down and nearly pulled the rest of his body with it. His face twisted in shock, and he let go before he lost his balance completely.
The bow struck the ground with a heavy crash.
Alexei had already turned his attention elsewhere. He pulled a stone block from his inventory and threw it at the nearest cultivator, hitting him with such force that the man was knocked straight to the ground. Bone cracked under the impact, and blood spilled from his mouth.
Before the others could recover, Alexei threw another block, then followed with a third. The remaining Spirit Condensation cultivators kept rushing him, but their formation was already broken, and each step brought them through a messier path than before.
Alexei built into that chaos. Obsidian walls rose in front of him, stacking into a three-block-high U-shape that wouldn't hold for long but did force the attackers into narrower routes. It gave him fewer angles to watch and made their movements easier to predict.
The first cultivator rounded the corner with fire qi burning around his hands, only to take a stone block to the head before he could get close. He dropped immediately, and two more rushed in from the opposite side before the body had even settled.
Alexei stacked blocks beneath his feet and lifted himself above their reach, then sent stone blocks crashing down from above. One cultivator dodged aside in time, but the other took a 2,800-kilogram block to the shoulder and was hurled off his feet, spinning through the air.
---
Inside the Crimson Cage Matrix, Quan had already dropped to one knee.
Yan was still on her feet, but only because fire cultivators naturally resisted poison better than most. The purple mist had already started to slow her down. Her breathing was heavier than before, and the flames around her flickered each time the poison pressed closer.
Quan raised his head and met her eyes through the haze.
"I'm going to use it."
Yan understood what he meant, and the color drained slightly from her face. "Are you insane? With your current condition, you can't control that."
"Protect yourself."
His voice didn't leave any room for argument. Yan clenched her teeth, swallowed what she had been about to say, and pushed through the poison with flames wrapped around her body. She made it to the corner where two barrier walls met and reinforced the fire around herself before lowering her stance.
Quan rose unsteadily. The hammer in his hand dissolved into strands of spiritual energy and vanished, leaving both of his hands free. His fingers moved into a series of seals, and the ground under him cracked before the first seal was even complete.
The fractures spread fast. They cut across the floor of the matrix and ran outward for several hundred meters, splitting stone, packed soil, and the roots buried beneath it. Then the broken ground began to lift.
At first, it was only loose rocks and clumps of earth. Then larger pieces tore free, followed by slabs as large as small houses. Everything rushed toward him, pulled in by a force that treated weight like an afterthought.
He stood at the center of it all with his arms spread open. The earth crashed together around him, each new wave pressing harder against the last. Stone shattered, soil compacted, and the mass around him grew into a dense sphere that kept swelling with every second.
The Crimson Cage Matrix had been designed to imprison its targets and stop outside techniques from interfering. It could hold people in, cut them off, and suppress anything that tried to enter from beyond the barrier. But it hadn't been designed for a technique that tore the ground apart from inside the formation itself.
For four seconds, the barrier held against the pressure. After that, the walls of the matrix shattered.
Crimson flames scattered across the air as the formation collapsed. The operators maintaining it were caught off guard. Several were ripped off their feet and dragged toward the growing sphere, screaming as the pull swallowed the distance between them and the crushing earth.
Quan lost consciousness before the technique ended, but by then, it didn't need him awake. The force had already built up too much momentum. It kept pulling, compressing, and expanding until the sphere passed fifty meters, then sixty, then seventy.
Only when Quan's qi ran dry did the pull break.
The sphere couldn't hold its shape without the compression. All the pressure trapped inside it released at once, and thousands of tons of earth blasted outward in every direction.
Boulders the size of wagons tore through the sky. Smaller fragments flew even faster, filling the air with shrapnel that cut through anything too slow to move away.
The Ji Clan's spirit vessel hovered about a kilometer from the matrix, but even that distance didn't put it out of danger. Several rocks slammed into its barrier and sent the vessel lurching sideways. The shield held, but alarms still erupted across the deck as crew members grabbed railings, shouted orders, and fought to bring it back under control.
Not all of the Spirit Condensation cultivators outside the formation managed to escape. Some reacted quickly and pulled back, but others were struck by the flying debris before they could get clear. Their protective qi shattered under the impact, and their bodies were sent tumbling through the air with broken bones.
The Grand Offering was still fighting Qingxue when a large chunk of stone hit him in the head.
His defensive formations cracked under the impact, and he was driven forward several steps before he caught himself.
Alexei had taken cover behind his obsidian walls, so the blast didn't reach him directly. Smaller fragments struck the barriers and shattered against them, leaving the walls intact.
By the time the dust thinned, the battlefield looked nothing like it had before. The ground was torn open in several places, broken stone was scattered everywhere, and the remaining cultivators were either injured, disoriented, or trying to regroup.
Yan was one of the few who came through it cleanly. Her flames had burned away most of the debris before it reached her, and once she spotted the place where Quan had fallen, she flew straight over and started clearing the rubble off him.
The Grand Offering pushed himself upright, blood running down his forehead as he looked over the ruined battlefield. His face grew colder when he saw the state of his people.
"New..."
Qingxue was already in front of him before he could finish speaking.
Her sword came down without pause.
The Grand Offering reacted fast. He shifted his stance, raised his hand, and wrapped his palm in fire qi before striking the flat of the blade to force it off course.
The sword moved, but the frost on it spread onto his hand the instant he touched it.
He frowned as the cold cut through his qi and bit into his skin. Qingxue didn't give him the chance to pull back. She stepped in with the motion of the sword and kicked him hard in the side of the head.
He was thrown backward across the broken ground.
The Second Offering rushed in before Qingxue could continue. His attack came from the side, aimed to cut off her path, but her figure blurred as the strike passed through her.
It was only an afterimage.
By the time he realized that, Qingxue was behind him.
A barrier talisman activated just before her strike reached him. The blow hit the barrier, but the force still launched him across the battlefield. He crashed into the ground several meters away, the talisman breaking apart as it absorbed the impact. Even then, he kept sliding across the stone before coming to a stop.
The Grand Offering got back to his feet as the remaining cultivators gathered around him. They formed a defensive line, but no one moved carelessly now.
"That was terrifying. You're under the full force of the suppression, but your qi is still this strong."
He started forming another set of seals.
Alexei stepped out from behind the barrier with his hands raised where everyone could see them.
"Wait."
The Grand Offering paused and turned his eyes toward Alexei.
"I was wondering when you would speak."
"You've already lost more than half your forces, and you're still tied down by someone at the Dharma Aspect realm." Alexei glanced toward Qingxue, who stood nearby without any change in expression. "Even if you win, which you won't, the losses won't be worth it."
The Grand Offering looked between them, then gave Alexei a faintly amused look. "And what are you suggesting? Surrender?"
"No. A trade." Alexei stepped forward. "Let my people go, and I'll go with you peacefully. You get what you came for, and you can study me however you like."
The Grand Offering's gaze stayed on Alexei for a while, as if he was checking whether the offer was a trap, but in the end, greed won out over caution.
"That's acceptable. However, I'll need insurance."
"Name it."
"Your companions will stay sealed in a dormant formation until we're safely away. Once we've confirmed your cooperation, they'll be released. If you try anything, they die."
Alexei kept his expression steady while his mind moved through the situation.
The Grand Offering was lying. As soon as Alexei was restrained, he would have no reason to keep the others alive. He would kill them, search the wreckage, and take whatever looked useful.
That was a decision someone in his position would make.
Alexei could work with that, because he hadn't told the truth either.
"I need to collect a few personal items first. Is that acceptable?"
The Grand Offering waved him on. "Be quick."
Alexei walked to the broken remains of the spirit boat and picked up a small wooden boat from the wreckage, turning it over in his hand so the Grand Offering could see it.
"What is that?"
"Just a boat I made." Alexei held it up with one hand. "I could teach you how to make them."
The Grand Offering looked at it with suspicion. "Why would I want to learn how to make a toy boat?"
"Because it's pretty? And they're good for..."
He stopped in front of the Grand Offering and set it down at his feet.
The boat became full-sized as soon as it touched the floor, and the Grand Offering dropped inside before he could step back.
"What... what did you..."
Alexei was already moving before the sentence finished. More boats appeared in his hands one after another, and he threw them toward the Second Offering and the remaining early Nascent Soul cultivators.
The first became full-sized at the Second Offering's feet before he could move. The next trapped an injured Nascent Soul fighter who reacted too late. The last missed its target, but Qingxue had already taken advantage of the opening.
She crossed the distance before the remaining enemies could regain control of the situation. Her sword moved cleanly, without any wasted motion, and the cultivators who were still free lost the ability to fight before they could launch a counterattack.
----------
[POV: Ji Huan, before the detonation]
Huan leaned against the railing of the Ji Clan vessel while a servant massaged his shoulders, his eyes fixed on the battle below.
He had always liked watching this part unfold. The enemy would struggle, resist, and convince themselves they still had a chance, only to realize too late that the outcome had been decided from the start.
"How long do you think this will take?"
Qiaozhu, one of his attendants, smiled. "With both the Grand Offering and the Second Offering sent out, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes, young master."
"Even that sounds too long," the other attendant, Qiaolan, said. "Once the Grand Offering makes a move, fights usually end quickly. I'd give it a few seconds."
Huan laughed and pulled her closer. "You've been paying attention. A few seconds sounds right. Maybe less, if they're smart..."
The ship suddenly lurched to one side, throwing his words off.
He stumbled and caught the railing before he could fall. "What happened?"
The crewman at the helm shouted, "Debris impact! Multiple hits on the starboard barrier!"
Huan frowned and looked toward the side of the vessel. The barrier was still holding. Its surface rippled as it absorbed the impacts, so he didn't think much of it.
Only after several seconds did he notice four streaks of frost energy rising from the battlefield below.
At first, he didn't take them seriously. The barrier around the Ji Clan vessel could withstand attacks from several Nascent Soul cultivators at once. Sword qi like that shouldn't have been able to get through.
"Young master, step back," one of his guards said, moving to shield him.
Huan waved him off. "The barrier can..."
A crack split through the air.
The first streak tore straight through the barrier. The other three struck right after it, shattering the protective light around the vessel and scattering fragments of spiritual energy across the sky.
One of the streaks passed so close to Huan's head that frost scraped across his skin.
Then the ship dropped.
The deck vanished from under his balance as the vessel tilted sharply and began falling out of the sky. Huan's heart slammed against his ribs. Around him, crew members and attendants were shouting over one another, and someone yelled for everyone to abandon the ship.
Huan drew his sword on instinct and forced spiritual energy into a basic flight technique. He jumped with the others as the vessel fell behind him, and after several unsteady seconds, he managed to stop himself in midair.
His hands hadn't stopped shaking. The screams, the wind, the broken barrier, and the falling ship all felt too sharp, as if his senses couldn't decide which danger to focus on first. When he looked down at the battlefield, the scene below was so different from what he expected that he couldn't make sense of it.
Below him, the Grand Offering sat in one of the small wooden boats, staring ahead like he had already given up. The Second Offering wasn't much better. He was in another boat nearby, clutching his abdomen where his qi sea should've been, his aura falling apart so quickly that even Huan could see it from above.
Of the three early Nascent Soul elders, one was already dead, while the other two were burning in golden-white flames and barely holding on.
Huan stared at them, his mind stuck on the same question.
How had it turned into this so quickly?
One of the burning elders lost control and crashed into a boat below. Huan's gaze followed him down, and that was when he saw the veiled woman coming toward them.
His guards rushed around him, trying to form a barrier before she arrived.
"Fall back!" another Ji Clan cultivator shouted. "We can't stop her!"
A thin flash of cold light cut through the air before the warning could do any good.
The four guards dropped at the same time, their qi seas shattered before their barrier could fully form.
Huan felt the cold reach him next. Spiritual energy flooded into his meridians and locked his body in place, freezing him so completely that even breathing became difficult.
The veiled woman flew past him. She had already turned toward the Ji Clan members scattering across the sky.
Then Huan fell.
The ground rushed up beneath him while his body refused to move, and the only thought left in his mind was, What is happening?
He slammed into the ground so hard the air burst from his lungs, and pain tore through him before he could even cry out.
----------
The entire battle had lasted maybe two minutes.
Alexei stood beside his obsidian shelter, watching the aftermath. Four elderly cultivators sat slumped in wooden boats, as if they had just been told their entire lives had meant nothing.
Which, considering Qingxue had shattered their cultivation, wasn't far from the truth.
The Grand Offering, who Alexei assumed was their leader based on how the others had deferred to him earlier, looked the worst. His once-expensive robes were torn to pieces, his face pale and drained of color. As he watched, the man seemed to age in real time. His features withered, his skin sagged, and his hair faded from grey to a lifeless white.
The same thing was happening to the other three, just more slowly.
"Is that normal?" he asked, glancing at Yan.
"Mental collapse," she said, her eyes still fixed on the fallen cultivators. "When everything is taken at once, the mind cannot endure it. Without cultivation to sustain the body, age catches up immediately."
"That's horrifying."
One of the boats shifted slightly as its occupant moved. The Grand Offering was muttering to himself, too quiet to make out, but there was something unsteady in the sound.
"I knew it... I knew it would end like this... warned them... narrow-minded fool... brought ruin..."
The man's cloudy eyes suddenly focused, and he let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. "Serves you right! All of you! This is fate! This is..."
He convulsed, blood spraying from his mouth. His spiritual presence flickered and began to fade.
"Shit," Alexei muttered as he realized what was happening. "He's dying."
The man had pushed himself into some kind of rage-fueled breakdown, and his already fragile body was giving out. If he died like this, Alexei wouldn't get the experience. That defeated the whole purpose of keeping them alive in the first place.
There was no time to draw his bow or charge the trident. The man would be dead in seconds.
Acting on instinct, he grabbed the first thing within reach, the Spirit Essence Gourd Yan had bought at the market, and hurled it at the dying cultivator's head.
THUNK.
The gourd struck his forehead, bounced off, and dropped to the ground.
The Grand Offering's eyes widened, bulging as his body suddenly went limp.
At the same time, his spiritual presence vanished.
Then a stream of glowing green-yellow orbs burst out of the corpse, spilling into the air.
Alexei let out a breath.
That had been closer than he would have liked. If the Grand Offering had died even two seconds earlier, before he could get the gourd to his head, all that experience would have been wasted.
Yan had mentioned the old man was peak Nascent Soul. The amount of experience a cultivator at that level could drop was significant.
As he stepped closer, the experience orbs began drifting toward him. One by one, they picked up speed until they were rushing in from every direction.
They swarmed around him, dozens at first, then hundreds, before streaming into his body in a steady flow.
[Level 129]
[Level 130]
[Level 131]
The notifications kept appearing, faster and faster, until he could no longer keep track.
Then, just as suddenly, it stopped.
[Level 197]
The last of the glowing orbs faded into his chest.
He bent down and picked up the Spirit Essence Gourd from where it had fallen, gave it a quick wipe with his sleeve, and tucked it into his inventory. Then he turned his attention to the three remaining elderly cultivators still sitting in their wooden boats.
They were barely conscious. Their eyes were unfocused, staring at nothing. Whatever fight they had left in them had died along with the Grand Offering.
He drew his trident. There was no point dragging this out when they were already as good as dead.
He closed the distance and struck three times before they could react. Each thrust landed cleanly, and three more bursts of experience orbs scattered across the ground.
[Level 238]
He pulled the Verdant Wood Alchemy Furnace from his inventory and tried to interact with it.
But nothing happened.
Still not enough experience. He had suspected as much, but it was worth confirming.
He put the furnace away and waited.
About seven or eight minutes later, Qingxue landed silently beside him, her sword already dismissed. There wasn't a speck of blood on her robes. She looked as composed as ever.
"It's done. You can let Mengyao and Changgui out now."
Alexei blinked. "Already? I thought it would take longer to track everyone down."
"They scattered, but not far. Most of them were injured. It didn't take long."
He pulled out his diamond pickaxe and walked over to the obsidian shelter. It took him about thirty seconds to break through, longer than he would have liked. Obsidian was meant to resist everything, even his own tools.
Clink.
The opening exposed Mengyao and Changgui inside.
The boy let out a breath. "Is it over?"
"It's over," Alexei said.
Mengyao stepped out and looked around at the scattered bodies.
"The Ji Clan were a second-rate family, weren't they?"
"I think so. Why?"
"Just thinking." Her gaze lingered on the wreckage for a moment longer before she shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
She watched the aftermath with a strange sense of detachment.
In her first life, the Ji Clan had lost Ji Huan. It caused some disturbance in the cultivation world, but nothing too serious. The clan recovered quickly. About thirty years later, their Grand Offering broke through to the Dharma Aspect realm, and after that, the Ji Clan rose rapidly. Within a decade, they became a major force in the Eastern Territories.
Even by the time of her death, they had still been influential.
But that future was gone now.
The Grand Offering was dead. The Second Offering was dead. Most of their elites were dead. From what she had seen, even their spirit vessel had been completely destroyed.
The Ji Clan of this timeline wouldn't recover from this. They were finished.
She wondered, briefly, if the clan elders back at their home base had any idea what was about to hit them. If they knew, would they have done anything differently? Would they have tried to stop Huan from pursuing whatever grudge had brought him here?
Probably not. In her experience, most cultivators only learned after it was too late.
Fate was strange like that.
---
Qingxue led Alexei through the scattered battlefield, checking for survivors.
There weren't many. Most of the Spirit Condensation cultivators had either died in the initial fighting or been caught by Quan's gravitational technique. The few who had managed to escape the immediate area hadn't gotten far before she caught up with them.
Alexei followed behind, finishing off anyone still breathing and collecting the experience. It felt cold. But these people had come here to kill him and everyone he knew. He wasn't about to lose sleep over it.
They were moving through a section of forest that had been flattened by debris when he spotted movement ahead.
Someone was crawling through the dirt, their arms and legs struggling for grip as they dragged themselves forward.
Huan had landed badly when he fell from the ship, and it showed. One of his legs was bent at an unnatural angle, and his left arm hung at his side. Blood streaked his face from a gash across his forehead.
But he was alive, and he was still trying to escape.
Alexei stopped walking. Qingxue paused beside him.
Huan must have heard them. He twisted his head around. For a moment, he just stared. Then something in his expression shifted.
"It's you?"
"Surprised?" he gasped. "Wait, Alexei, I can make this worth your while. My clan has resources. Whatever you want. Just let me go. Please..."
Alexei didn't respond. He stood there, trident already in hand.
"I'm serious!" Huan's voice rose. "Do you even know who I am? What my clan can do? If you kill me, they'll hunt you down. They won't stop. But if you let me go, I can make sure..."
Alexei threw the trident.
"Rest in peace. I don't have time to listen to this."
The weapon had been charging the entire time Huan was talking. The trident tore straight through Huan's chest and into the ground, pinning him in place.
His eyes widened, and his mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but no words came.
The light faded from his eyes, and his body went still.
Alexei stepped forward and caught the returning trident.
[Level 239]
He glanced at Qingxue.
They continued clearing the area. By the time they regrouped with Yan, Quan, who had recovered after eating a golden apple, and the others at the wreckage of the Ji Clan vessel, Alexei had reached Level 250.
The furnace still showed no signs of being ready for assimilation.
But that was fine. There were still several storage rings he hadn't opened yet, and according to Yan, the spirit vessel itself should have a substantial reserve of spirit stones somewhere inside.
A few more levels shouldn't be too difficult.
"Found it!" Yan's voice called out from somewhere inside the wreckage. "Alexei, over here!"
He followed the sound, climbing through a gap that had been sliced open by Qingxue's sword qi during the battle. The interior of the vessel was surprisingly intact.
Yan was standing beside a massive hollow sphere made of dark metal, its surface covered in intricate formation patterns. Many of them were still glowing faintly, powered by residual spiritual energy.
And inside the sphere, piled nearly to the top, were spirit stones.
"This is the Spirit Storage," Yan explained, seeing his expression. "It's what powers the entire vessel. Most of the stones have already been consumed during their journey, but there's still a decent amount left."
Alexei pulled out his diamond pickaxe and got to work.
[Low-Grade Spirit Stone x6]
[Low-Grade Spirit Stone x7]
[Low-Grade Spirit Stone x4]
The notifications kept coming as he worked. In total, the Fortune III effect had generated an extra sixteen stacks of low-grade stones beyond what should have been there.
His inventory couldn't hold all of it. He had to pull out his crafting table and start converting them into higher grades just to make space.
When the conversion was done, he had gained 115 additional mid-grade spirit stones, bringing his total to 494.
He broke down one of his mid-grade spirit stone torches and used the resulting stone to bring the count to 495. Exactly enough to craft 55 high-grade spirit stones.
His experience level went up by exactly one.
[Level 251]
He climbed back out of the metal sphere, then paused. An idea occurred to him.
He placed his hand on the surface of the sphere and focused. "Deconstruct."
Nothing happened.
After a moment, he switched approaches and started mining it instead.
The metal was dense. Each section took longer to break than stone or wood, but his diamond pickaxe handled it without much trouble. With every strike, chunks of dark metal broke free and were pulled into his inventory.
[Crude Black Iron x1]
[Crude Black Iron x1]
[Crude Black Iron x1]
Fifteen minutes of steady work later, he had completely dismantled the sphere. In total, he had obtained 257 pieces of crude black iron.
Unfortunately, the Fortune enchantment didn't trigger. But he was still satisfied.
Crude black iron could be smelted into proper black iron back at the sect. That material was useful for all kinds of crafting projects.
He stepped out of the wreckage and flew back to the others on his sword.
Quan was standing on his flying sword with Changgui balanced behind him. The younger disciple's legs were still shaking slightly.
Alexei couldn't really blame him. Changgui had grown up in a relatively peaceful cultivator city. He had probably never seen death before today, let alone a battlefield that looked like this.
Then Changgui's gaze shifted to Mengyao, who was standing calmly on Yan's sword, looking completely unbothered by everything that had just happened.
Something in his expression changed.
"I can't fall behind," Changgui muttered, so quietly Alexei almost didn't hear it.
Quan, standing in front of him, definitely heard. The older cultivator's lips curved into a small, approving smile.
"Fear is natural. Letting it control you is not. You're learning."
Changgui straightened slightly, his grip on the sword loosening just a fraction.
A few minutes later, they regrouped, everyone accounted for and mostly uninjured. Yan did a quick check for hidden wounds or signs of poison. Qingxue confirmed that all hostiles had been dealt with and that no reinforcements were on the way.
They stayed at the crash site for another hour, picking through the wreckage for anything useful. Alexei gathered a few more spirit stones from what remained.
"We should head back," Qingxue said. "It's been a long day."
No one disagreed.
They mounted their swords and took off.
As they flew, Alexei glanced back one last time at the remains of the Ji Clan vessel.
The whole attack had come down to greed. They wanted something he had, and they were willing to kill for it. In a way, it wasn't surprising. This was the cultivation world. People killed for resources all the time. Even so, that didn't make it feel any less strange to have just taken part in something that felt like a small massacre.
He looked forward again and pushed the thought aside.
This was his life now. He might as well get used to it.