The night over Pine Creek Town descended in absolute, ink-black solitude. A dense, damp mountain fog rolled down from the northern ridges, blanketing the cobblestone streets, wooden rooftops, and quiet alleyways in a chilly mist. By midnight, even the night watchmen's lanterns were reduced to faint, orange specks glowing in the gloom.
Inside Medicine Harmony Hall, the heavy wooden doors were barred securely from the inside. Old Doctor Song-Jiang and young Xiao-Lian, utterly exhausted from the intense emotional rollercoaster of the daytime challenge, were fast asleep in the ground-floor quarters. Their steady, peaceful breathing echoed softly through the quiet wooden building.
Upstairs, in the small, simple attic room, Li-Wen sat cross-legged on a thin woven straw mat.
A single oil lamp flickered dimly on a low wooden stool near the open window, casting long, soft shadows across the whitewashed walls. Li-Wen's hands rested comfortably on his knees, his eyes closed in deep, silent meditation.
Inside his body, the ancient energy of the Void Sovereign Technique circulated with absolute, flawless precision. The golden-purple resonance of the Abyssal Bone Rune on his spine and the dual-element thermal-ice vibration of the Ignis-Frost Astral Rune on his chest bone expanded and contracted like the subtle breathing of a sleeping primordial beast. His Fourth-Stage Ki ocean was solidifying rapidly, pushing his foundational control toward a state of complete, unshakeable perfection.
Suddenly, Li-Wen's long eyelashes twitched ever so slightly.
He didn't open his eyes, nor did his calm breathing alter by a single micro-fraction.
Through his vast, ancient Divine Sense, which extended fifty paces into the surrounding night mist, Li-Wen felt a faint, almost nonexistent disturbance in the air currents near the rear courtyard roof.
Rustle...
It was a sound lighter than a dry leaf hitting the grass—a sound that not even a sharp-eared mountain hunter or a Sixth-Stage martial scholar could have detected.
"A Fifth-Stage assassin trained in shadow-concealment techniques," Li-Wen analyzed silently, his heart as calm and still as a frozen abyss. "His heartbeat is suppressed to once every ten seconds, his breath is sealed inside his diaphragm, and his body weight is dispersed across the roof tiles using wind-feather steps. For a common border town, he is indeed a formidable, lethal phantom."
A faint, cold smile flickered across Li-Wen's mind.
"Regrettably... he has chosen the wrong target to hunt."
Outside the attic window, perched silently on the narrow wooden ledge like a giant, venomous bat, was Shadow-Blade.
Clad in pitch-black leather armor that absorbed the faint moonlight, Shadow-Blade's cold, lifeless eyes stared through the thin cracks of the wooden window shutter. At his right hip hung his signature curved assassination dagger, its dark steel blade coated with a lethal, black-market snake venom capable of rotting human organs within three heartbeats.
For over fifteen years, Shadow-Blade had served as the Lin Merchant House's most terrifying weapon in the dark. He had assassinated rival merchants, murdered corrupt officials in their sleep, and silenced entire families without leaving a single trace of evidence behind.
To him, tonight's mission was a laughably simple task.
Young Master Lin-Tian had ordered the complete, silent erasure of the young scholar "Ah-Wen." The order was simple: slit the boy's throat, retrieve the emerald-green core root extracted during the daytime challenge, and vanish into the night fog.
"An eighteen-year-old assistant who relies on clever medical tricks..." Shadow-Blade thought, his breath completely silent behind his black cloth mask. "You made a fatal mistake by humiliating the Lin family in public, brat. In your next life, learn to keep your head low."
With terrifying, practiced agility, Shadow-Blade pulled a slender silver wire from his belt. He slid the wire through the window crack, gently lifting the wooden latch from the inside without making a single sound.
CLICK...
The wooden shutter slid open by three inches.
In a fraction of a second, Shadow-Blade dissolved into a black streak, slipping through the window like a shadow flowing through a keyhole, landing silently on the wooden floorboards of the attic!
His dark leather boots touched the wood without causing even a microscopic creak.
Shadow-Blade instantly drew his poison-coated dagger. His eyes locked onto the figure sitting cross-legged on the straw mat near the flickering oil lamp.
The blue-robed youth was still sitting with his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling peacefully, completely unaware that a cold-blooded killer stood less than five paces away from him.
"Die in your sleep, fool," Shadow-Blade sneered mentally.
He lunged forward!
His Fifth-Stage Ki flared inside his legs, accelerating his body to a terrifying speed. The poison-coated dagger transformed into a silent, lethal black beam of light, aiming directly for the center of Li-Wen's throat!
It was a strike meant to kill instantly—no screams, no blood splatter, no struggle!
The black blade reached within three inches of Li-Wen's neck—
STOP!
Shadow-Blade's eyes suddenly bulged to the size of saucers behind his black mask!
His body came to an abrupt, violent halt in mid-air, right above Li-Wen's lap!
The sharp, poison-coated steel tip of his dagger was completely frozen three inches from Li-Wen's skin, held firmly between two slender, unarmored fingers!
Li-Wen had raised his right hand with a speed so unimaginably fast that it defied the very laws of physical reality. To Shadow-Blade's perception, Li-Wen hadn't even moved—his two fingers were simply already there, clamping down on the poison blade like a vice made of divine mountain iron!
"WHAT?!" Shadow-Blade gasped in sheer, unadulterated horror, his heart violently hammering against his ribs!
He tried frantically to pull the dagger back, unleashing all his Fifth-Stage Ki into his arm. His muscles bulged, his leather armor strained under the pressure, and sweat instantly soaked his back. But the dagger remained completely, terrifyingly immobile! It felt as though his blade was embedded deep inside the core of an ancient, indestructible world-tree!
"Is this the best speed a Fifth-Stage assassin from the Lin Merchant House can offer?"
A quiet, smooth voice echoed inside the dark room.
Li-Wen slowly opened his eyes.
The moment Li-Wen's eyes opened, Shadow-Blade felt as if his soul was instantly plucked out of his body and thrown into an endless, boundless cosmic void!
Deep within Li-Wen's dark pupils, there was no fear, no surprise, and no panic. Instead, two terrifying, ancient runes flared with subtle, divine luminescence—a volcanic crimson flame in his right eye, and a freezing arctic blue light in his left eye!
A domain of absolute, suffocating gravitational pressure erupted silently inside the small room!
BOOM!
The heavy air pressure instantly shattered Shadow-Blade's internal Ki barrier into microscopic dust! Shadow-Blade felt as if a giant, invisible dragon hand had reached down from the heavens, pinning him down onto his knees in front of Li-Wen!
CRACK!
Shadow-Blade's knees slammed violently against the wooden floorboards, but because Li-Wen's gravitational domain completely sealed the sonic vibrations, not a single sound escaped into the rest of the building!
"GUH!" Shadow-Blade coughed up a pool of dark blood behind his mask, his body trembling uncontrollably under the terrifying pressure. His eyes were wide with pure, boundless, primal terror!
Monster! This was not an eighteen-year-old scholar! This was a terrifying, primordial monster hiding beneath human skin!
"Who... who are you?!" Shadow-Blade managed to squeeze out a raspy, terrified whisper, his throat feeling as if it were being crushed by iron bands. "You... you aren't a physician's assistant!"
Li-Wen looked down at the trembling assassin kneeling before him, his expression cold, serene, and utterly detached, like a god looking down at a dying ant.
"A dead man has no need to know my true name," Li-Wen spoke quietly.
Li-Wen's two fingers twitched slightly against the dagger blade.
SNAP!
The high-grade dark steel dagger shattered into a dozen flying metal shards!
Before Shadow-Blade could even scream, Li-Wen casually caught one of the broken metal fragments with his forefinger and lightly flicked it forward.
SWISH!
The razor-sharp metal shard pierced straight through Shadow-Blade's throat, severing his vocal cords and spinal column in a fraction of a millisecond!
Shadow-Blade's eyes widened in final, unexploded terror. His breathing stopped instantly. The dark poison on his own dagger fragment coursed through his neck, sealing his life forever.
Li-Wen gently caught Shadow-Blade's limp body before it could hit the floorboards, placing it down without making a single sound.
The entire assassination attempt—from Shadow-Blade entering the window to his complete death—had taken less than twenty seconds. The oil lamp on the stool continued to flicker softly, its yellow flame unbothered by the silent execution.
Li-Wen stood up slowly, adjusting his cotton sleeves. He stood over the corpse of the Lin family's top assassin, his eyes deep and contemplative.
"Lin-Tian thought sending a Fifth-Stage assassin would solve his embarrassment," Li-Wen thought, his voice smooth and cold. "If I simply destroy this corpse or throw it into the river, the Lin family will only send more assassins, higher-stage experts, and endless annoyances to disrupt Doctor Song's peace."
A razor-sharp, chilling glint flared deep within Li-Wen's golden pupils.
"To stop a hound from barking, you do not beat its tail. You break its spirit so thoroughly that it trembles at the mere thought of your shadow."
Li-Wen reached down, lifting Shadow-Blade's lifeless body with one hand as effortlessly as if he were carrying a feather. He pulled a clean black cloth cloak over his shoulders, stepped out through the open attic window, and vanished into the thick, dark midnight fog of Pine Creek Town.
The Lin Manor was the grandest, most heavily guarded fortress in the entire Green River Region. Surrounded by high stone walls, guarded by dozens of armed patrol guards, and protected by vicious war hounds, the manor was considered an impenetrable stronghold.
In the most luxurious master courtyard of the manor, inside a vast, richly decorated bedroom, Young Master Lin-Tian was sleeping soundly under silk blankets.
On a nearby table lay his silk fan and a half-empty bottle of expensive wine. In Lin-Tian's mind, Shadow-Blade had undoubtedly completed the contract by now. By tomorrow morning, he would own Medicine Harmony Hall, and that arrogant scholar "Ah-Wen" would be dragged before him in chains to begin his thirty years of slave labor.
SOUGH...
A sudden, unusually cold mountain wind blew through the master courtyard, causing the heavy velvet curtains near Lin-Tian's bed to rustle softly.
The temperature inside the room plummeted drastically, freezing the wine inside the glass bottle on the table!
Lin-Tian shivered in his sleep, his eyelids fluttering as he felt an intense, bone-chilling cold settle over his skin.
"Ugh... servant... close the window..." Lin-Tian mumbled drowsily, rubbing his groggy eyes as he sat up in bed.
He reached out to pull his silk blanket tighter around his shoulders—
Suddenly, Lin-Tian's hand froze mid-air.
His groggy eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing horror!
Sitting directly on the wooden chair right at the foot of his bed, illuminated by the pale, sickly moonlight filtering through the open window, was a corpse!
It was Shadow-Blade!
The top assassin of the Lin family was sitting completely upright in the chair, clad in his dark leather armor. His eyes were wide open, staring lifelessly directly into Lin-Tian's face! His neck was pierced by a single, dark steel dagger shard, but not a single drop of blood had spilled onto the carpet—his entire body had been frozen into a solid, pristine block of dark blue arctic ice!
And right in front of Shadow-Blade's frozen lap, carved deeply into the solid mahogany table using sheer, razor-sharp finger Qi, were four large words in English:
CROSS THE BOUNDARY, DIE.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH—!"
A blood-curdling, hysterical shriek of pure, unadulterated terror tore from Lin-Tian's throat, echoing wildly across the entire Lin Manor!
Lin-Tian tumbled backward off his bed in sheer panic, kicking his blankets away, his face turning deathly pale, his heart beating so fast it felt on the verge of exploding!
How?! HOW?!
Shadow-Blade had been sent to kill a humble scholar! Yet, his frozen corpse had been brought past dozens of elite guards, past war hounds, through locked courtyard gates, and placed directly inside Lin-Tian's private bedroom without a single person noticing!
If the person who brought this corpse wanted Lin-Tian dead, Lin-Tian's head would have been severed ten times over while he was sleeping!
"GUARDS! GUARDS! SAVE ME! GUARDS!" Lin-Tian screamed frantically, crawling backward into the dark corner of his room, weeping tears of utter, spirit-crushing horror, his whole body shaking like a leaf in a hurricane!
The heavy bedroom doors crashed open as dozens of armed guards and martial captains rushed inside, swords drawn, torchlights illuminating the room.
When the martial captains saw the frozen corpse of Shadow-Blade sitting in the chair and read the four deeply carved words on the mahogany table, their faces turned as white as paper! A wave of profound, terrifying dread washed over every single person in the room!
They realized in an instant that the person behind Medicine Harmony Hall was not a helpless target, but an absolute, terrifying entity who walked in the dark like an untouchable god of death!
Meanwhile, three miles away, on the quiet mountain ridge overlooking the panicked, noisy Lin Manor.
Li-Wen stood calmly on a high granite rock, his black cloak fluttering gently in the cool morning breeze. He watched the torchlights flickering frantically inside the Lin Manor, his face completely tranquil and unbothered.
"Now, the Lin family will be far too terrified to ever lay a finger on Medicine Harmony Hall or Doctor Song again," Li-Wen thought smoothly, a faint, cold smile curving his lips.
He turned back toward the dark forest trail leading north.
"My foundation in the Green River Region is set. The low-profile life here has stabilized my Fourth-Stage Ki and refined my three celestial runes to perfection."
Li-Wen looked up toward the distant, stormy northern sky, where the silhouette of Azure Mist City lay waiting beyond the mountains.
"The three-week deadline for the Wu Clan's Family Assessment is drawing near," Li-Wen murmured, his eyes flashing with a radiant, golden-purple divine light that pierced through the darkness. "It is time to return and settle the old debts.
See you in next chapter.....