Chapter Five: Harvest of Shadows and the Grave of the Greedy
Beneath the skeletal trees of the Bonewood Forest, three cultivators stood frozen, staring at the boy who had stepped out of the darkness. An unnatural silence pressed down on the clearing, broken only by the whisper of gray wind threading through bone-white branches. Their leader—a burly man named Zhang, a scar running from brow to jaw—tightened his grip around the hilt of his broad sword.
"So it's you… Fang Li?" Zhang asked, his voice balancing greed and caution. "You look like a corpse dragged straight out of a morgue. I don't know how you wiped out the Han Clan, but your luck ends here."
Fang Li did not answer. To him, Zhang and his companions were nothing more than masses of raw energy, moving figures drained of color. His ashen eyes traced the faint, luminous threads of Ash Essence coursing through their bodies, flowing through sinew and bone with pitiless regularity.
[Target analysis complete…]
[Target (Zhang): Cauldron Ignition Realm – Fourth Grade. Weapon: Ash-Iron Sword.]
[Targets (B, C): Cauldron Ignition Realm – Second Grade. Talent: Low.]
[System Advisory: Do not waste time on dialogue. Your body is bleeding from the leopard wound. Consume them before collapse.]
"Kill him—but keep the head intact for the bounty!" Zhang roared, fury laced with fear.
The other two cultivators lunged from either side, their blades flashing with a cold gray sheen. Having lost all sense of touch, Fang Li relied entirely on sight and calculation. He felt neither the weight of his body nor the chill of the air, moving with an inhuman lightness—like a phantom unbound by gravity.
The first cultivator closed in, thrusting straight for Fang Li's chest. Fang Li did not retreat. He stepped forward, allowing the blade to sink into his left shoulder.
"I got him!" the man shouted in triumph—only to freeze when Fang Li didn't flinch, didn't scream, didn't even blink.
Devoid of pain, Fang Li turned his body into a trap. He seized the blade with his bare hand as black threads spilled from his palm, coiling around the metal and racing up to the attacker's wrist.
"Integrative… absorption," Fang Li whispered.
[Extracting essence from target (B)…]
[Skill detected: 'Swift Wind Steps.' Integrate?]
"Yes," Fang Li thought coldly.
In mere seconds, the cultivator withered before his companions' eyes—skin collapsing onto bone before the husk crumpled lifelessly to the ground. At the same time, surges of energy flooded Fang Li's body, reconstructing the torn flesh of his shoulder in an instant.
"What kind of monster are you?!" the second cultivator screamed, stumbling backward.
Too late.
Fang Li had already integrated Swift Wind Steps. He vanished—and reappeared behind the man faster than the eye could track, one hand settling atop his skull.
Crack!
The blow did more than shatter bone. The system tore out the man's Spirit Marrow directly. He was dead before his mind could process what had happened.
Only Zhang remained, breathing raggedly, his sword trembling in his grasp.
"You… you're using demonic arts!" Zhang shouted hoarsely. "If the great clans learn of you, they won't let you live!"
"The great clans?" Fang Li echoed, advancing as black smoke rose from his wounds, knitting together in grotesque fashion. "They're the reason I stand here. They stole my future. I'm merely collecting my debts—from this world, piece by piece."
With a desperate roar, Zhang charged, swinging his massive blade in a technique known as Rock-Cleaving Slash, pouring all his power into the strike.
[Warning: High-energy attack detected.]
[Suggestion: Fuse 'Leopard Scales' with 'Plunder Energy' to form 'Rubble Guard.']
[Cost: Loss of olfactory sense for one week.]
"Take it," Fang Li replied calmly. "I have no need to smell death."
Zhang's sword slammed into Fang Li's arm—only to ring out like metal striking stone. The blade shattered into fragments, scattering across the ground. Zhang stared in disbelief at the ruined hilt in his hand.
Fang Li seized him by the throat and lifted him into the air. "Fourth Grade… Your essence will make excellent fuel for my next breakthrough."
"Please… I'll give you everything… I have a map to—" Zhang never finished.
Fang Li had no interest in bargaining.
The system surged to full power.
[Major Plunder Operation in progress…]
[Fusing essence of 3 cultivators + residual energy of previous beast.]
[Result: Realm breakthrough imminent!]
An explosion thundered inside Fang Li's cauldron. Black energy condensed to terrifying density as his bones groaned, reforged as though in a smith's furnace.
[Congratulations! Host has advanced to: Cauldron Ignition Realm – Fifth Grade.]
[New shop feature unlocked: 'Random Fusion Chest.']
[Item acquired: 'Rogue Mercenaries' Hideout Map' from Zhang's corpse.]
Fang Li stood amid three desiccated bodies. He felt no joy. No pain. He could no longer smell the blood saturating the air. The world before his eyes was silent—black and white, devoid of scent or warmth.
"System," Fang Li said, gazing at his stronger, crueler hands, "where is the next hideout?"
[Five kilometers north. A gathering of outlaw cultivators. An ideal hunting ground for a 'Predator' like you.]
"Excellent." Fang Li wiped the blood from his face with indifferent calm. "Cruelty is the only language this gray world understands—and I intend to speak it fluently."
He moved north, leaving behind the Bonewood Forest—now bearing a new name in its depths:
the birthplace of the Cursed Integrator.