High above in the boundless sky, the heavens themselves seemed to be tearing. Four figures clashed with such ferocity that the very fabric of the atmosphere felt as though it were being shredded.
Wherever their silhouettes flickered, destruction followed in a wake of jagged spiritual energy. For miles around, the geography of the Sky Moon forest had been violently redesigned.
What was once a lush, vibrant forest was now a scorched catastrophe. Massive craters, some deep enough to reveal the bedrock, pockmarked the earth like open wounds. The spiritual beasts that had been too slow to flee lay dead, their forms crushed by the sheer pressure of Golden Core combatants.
In the center of this aerial devastation, a man clad in heavy military armor found himself cornered. His breathing was a ragged, wet sound, and every few seconds, he coughed up a mouthful of thick, black blood.
This was Ning Wang, the Marshal of the Canglan Kingdom. The blackness of his blood was a grim omen; it meant he had been poisoned. The daggers held by his opponents were coated in a lethal toxin that was currently eating its way through his meridians. His spiritual Qi, usually a ocean, was now a dried-up well. He had been fighting for hours, holding back the tide with sheer willpower.
Surrounding him were three figures draped in obsidian-black robes. Their faces were concealed by masks, leaving only cold, predatory eyes visible. One of them, the leader, possessed a cultivation at the peak of the Golden Core Realm—matching Ning Wang's own peak state. The other two were late-stage Golden Core cultivators, powerful enough to topple smaller clans on their own.
One of the black-robed men let out a chilling laugh that echoed across the empty sky. "Hahaha! Marshal Ning Wang, I truly have to praise you for your bravery. You have fought exceptionally well despite being so heavily outnumbered. Your reputation as the pillar of Canglan is not for show. But... it is time to finish this."
Ning Wang coughed again, the black ichor staining his chin. He looked at them through blurred vision, his voice raspy and strained. "Who sent you? Was it Prime Minister Wu Feng?"
Ning Wang was not just a soldier; he was the highest-ranking military official in the Canglan Kingdom, one of the hundreds of vassal kingdoms under the vast Great Xia Dynasty. In the hierarchy of Canglan, his position was second only to King Lu. However, the royal court was a nest of vipers.
Prime Minister Wu Feng, the King's chief strategist, had long been at odds with the Marshal. King Lu favoured Ning Wang's blunt loyalty over Wu Feng's manipulative schemes, and that jealousy had finally manifested in this assassination attempt.
Wu Feng had clearly spent a fortune to hire these professional killers.
"It doesn't matter who sent us," another assassin replied coldly. "A dying person shouldn't think so much about the world of the living. It only makes the transition more painful."
With a sharp gesture from the leader, the air shifted.
Then—they vanished.
The trio utilized Shadow Steps, a high-level movement technique. Three afterimages flickered across the void, their positions collapsing and reforming in perfect, lethal synchronization. There was no sound. There was no warning. There was only a terrifying distortion in the air, like reality skipping frames.
They appeared behind Ning Wang simultaneously from three different directions.
"Poison Slash."
The words weren't shouted; they were whispered like a prayer for the dead. Three arcs of dark-green light tore through the sky. Each blade carried a concentrated venom that corroded the very air it passed through, leaving streaks of visible decay hanging in the void.
Ning Wang's eyes sharpened with the desperation of a cornered lion. "If I am going to die today, then I will at least take one of you with me to the yellow springs!"
There was no hesitation. His grip tightened around his heavy saber. What little spiritual Qi remained in his body was summoned recklessly—violently—dragging every last drop from his dantian and forcing it into a single point.
He held nothing back. There was no reserve, no thought for tomorrow.
"Thousand Slash Saber Strike!"
The moment he moved, the sky seemed to break. His saber erupted forward, not as a single swing, but as a torrential storm of steel. Hundreds—thousands—of overlapping blade shadows burst outward, screaming through the air to meet the incoming poison arcs.
Clang—clang—CLANG!
The collisions rang out like continuous peals of thunder. The first assassin's strike shattered under the weight of the Marshal's desperation. The second arc was split apart mid-air, its toxic essence scattering into harmless fragments.
The third—
Ning Wang twisted his torso with a guttural roar, forcing the absolute last of his vitality into a final, sweeping swing.
BOOM!
The impact sent a physical shockwave cascading downward. The earth below caved in further, another massive crater forming as the sheer pressure of the deflected blow crushed the remaining trees into splinters.
The third strike was deflected, but the cost was absolute.
For a moment, silence returned to the heavens. The assassins reappeared, sliding back through the air as they stabilized their positions, their robes fluttering in the dying wind.
And Ning Wang… stopped.
The heavy saber in his hand trembled once, then twice. The storm of blade shadows vanished as quickly as it had appeared. His body froze mid-air for a heartbeat, his eyes glazing over as his consciousness flickered. Then, he dropped.
Like a bird with clipped wings, he fell. The sky did not catch him. The wind did not slow his descent. He crashed into the ruined, dusty earth below with a dull, heavy thud. A cloud of suffocating debris rose around his prone form.
His spiritual Qi was gone. His body was a hollow shell, poisoned and broken.
Above, the three assassins drifted downward slowly. They had to admit, even in their cold-bloodedness, that the Marshal's strength was not an exaggeration. He truly deserved his title.
...
As the dust began to settle around the new crater, two figures were moving leisurely through the wasteland. Mu Chen walked with his hands in his pockets, his expression one of mild curiosity, while the small, purplish-black mink known as Xiao Diao sat perched on his shoulder.
They came to a halt as they saw a man fall from the heavens and land directly in their path. Mu Chen stopped and looked down at the armoured figure lying in the dirt. Ning Wang's body was twitching—a sign that he was still clinging to life—but the black veins creeping up his neck suggested he wouldn't be breathing for much longer. He certainly didn't look like he had the energy to hold a conversation.
Mu Chen didn't seem particularly bothered by the carnage. He tilted his head back, looking up at the three masked figures descending from the sky.
"Hey, you guys," Mu Chen called out, his voice clear and casual. "Can you let me know which direction is the nearest Imperial City?"
The assassins paused, hovering a few meters above the ground. They looked down, surprised to see a young boy and a strange little beast standing in the middle of a battlefield.
They exchanged quick, silent glances. Their profession demanded absolute secrecy. They knew what had to be done: two would kill the boy and the beast to ensure no evidence remained, while the third would finish off the dying Ning Wang.
But before they struck, the leader decided to play along for a second, a cruel glint in his eyes. He landed a few paces away. "Little guy, the nearest kingdom is the Xiao Imperial City. Is that where you want to go?"
Mu Chen paused, thinking for a moment. He didn't actually have a fixed destination in mind. However, as he was about to reply, he saw the three assassins shifting their weight, their muscles coiling for a strike.
Being cautious was the second nature of an assassin. They didn't just attack; they tried to divert the enemy's mind first, striking swiftly the moment a target was distracted.
The peak Golden Core leader blurred, moving toward the fallen Ning Wang to deliver the final strike. Simultaneously, the other two late-stage Golden Core killers shot toward Mu Chen like black streaks of lightning, their daggers humming with Ghostly Steps.
Xiao Diao, sitting on Mu Chen's shoulder, saw right through their scheme. He let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "It looks like I finally got some prey to play with after all this time!"
The mink didn't even look at the two coming for Mu Chen; he knew they were already dead men walking. Instead, Xiao Diao launched himself toward the leader. The assassin had a cultivation similar to his, and for the Heavenly Demon Mink, this was the perfect opportunity to flex his muscles after being dormant for a thousand years.
The two assassins reached Mu Chen in the blink of an eye. Cruel smiles were hidden beneath their masks; they were certain they had succeeded. But then, they came to a dead halt.
It wasn't that they chose to stop. It was as if the very space around them had suddenly turned into solid diamond. Their momentum vanished, and they were pinned in mid-air, unable to move even a finger.
Before they could even comprehend the nature of the power holding them, all they heard was a soft, weary sigh from the boy. Then, before reality caught up to their senses, their bodies were bisected diagonally into two perfect halves.
Four pieces of meat fell to the ground with a series of wet plops. Blood showered the dry earth like a sudden, crimson fountain. Mu Chen hadn't even taken his hands out of his pockets.
The last assassin, the leader, had just exchanged his first move with Xiao Diao when he heard the sound of his comrades falling. He turned his head and instantly lost his wits. His heart hammered against his ribs, and his body began to tremble uncontrollably.
"How... how is this possible?" the man stammered, his voice high with terror. "Who are you?"
He had killed hundreds of enemies in his career. He had seen every type of death imaginable. But he had never met anyone who made him feel this kind of primordial dread—a power which he could not comprehend.
"You messed with the wrong guy," Xiao Diao hissed.
Before the assassin could even raise his dagger, a purplish-black blur bypassed his defenses. A strong, furred hand gripped his throat with the strength of a mountain, while a set of razor-sharp claws pierced his stomach. With a brutal tug, Xiao Diao's claw pulled out a shimmering, golden sphere—the man's Golden Core.
Without a second thought, the mink tossed the core into his mouth and devoured it.
"Refreshing!" Xiao Diao let out a hearty, satisfied smile, licking a drop of blood from his whisker. "It feels so good to have a real meal after so long."
He then turned back toward Mu Chen, who was already walking toward the dying Ning Wang.
The Marshal's eyes were wide with bewilderment. He was still trying to process the fact that the three invincible killers who had hunted him were now nothing but scrap meat on the ground. He watched the boy approach, his mind unable to bridge the gap between Mu Chen's appearance and the slaughter he had just witnessed.
Xiao Diao hopped back onto Mu Chen's shoulder. "Looks like this one is about to kick the bucket too," the mink noted, looking at Ning Wang's graying skin.
Mu Chen didn't reply. He simply reached out and waved a finger casually in the air.
As if obeying a command from a god, every drop of black, toxic poison was violently pulled out of Ning Wang's pores. The venom gathered into a dark orb in the air before Mu Chen flicked it away, where it dissolved into nothingness.
Ning Wang, who had been seconds away from death, suddenly felt the breath of life return to his lungs. The agonizing burning in his meridians vanished. His gray complexion turned a healthy, rosy pink within seconds. He gasped, sitting up abruptly as his strength flooded back into his limbs.
"Senior... thank you for sparing my life," Ning Wang spoke in a trembling, awe-filled voice. He moved to kneel, his armor clanking. "May I ask which hidden Senior has graced me with your presence?"
Mu Chen didn't answer the title. He just looked at him. "My name is Mu Chen. Now, tell me again—which is the nearest Imperial City?"
"Canglan Imperial City," Ning Wang replied instantly.
The Marshal had never heard the name Mu Chen before, but he immediately assumed the boy was some ancient, hidden expert who had mastered the art of retaining a youthful appearance. In the cultivation world, one could never judge a person's age or power by their face.
Mu Chen paused, his expression turning slightly annoyed. He remembered what the assassins had said earlier. "Xiao Imperial City? Those guys were liars. They really did deserve to die."
Xiao Diao hopped closer to Ning Wang and chuckled. "Looks like you're a lucky one, kid."
Ning Wang nodded fervently. He knew that if Mu Chen hadn't wandered into this specific patch of wasteland, he would be a corpse right now.
"If Senior... is headed to Canglan City, then please, allow me to be your host," Ning Wang said urgently. "I am the Marshal of the Canglan military. I would be honored to provide you with whatever you need."
Mu Chen thought about it for a moment. Having a local guide who knew where the good food was sounded a lot better than wandering aimlessly. "Okay, that's better. And don't call me Senior. It makes me feel like an old monster."
Ning Wang found it odd, but he wasn't about to argue with a boy who could bisect experts with a sigh. "Then... I shall call you Young Master."
Mu Chen nodded. "That's better. You recover your Qi. I'm going to rest for a bit."
Mu Chen turned and walked toward a shattered, blackened splinter of wood that had once been a tree. As he approached, he didn't even stop. He simply walked past it, and the wood began to twist and grow.
In a matter of seconds, the splinter rearranged its molecules, growing into a lush, tall, vibrant green tree—the only living thing standing in a wasteland of miles.
Ning Wang stared at the tree, his heart nearly stopping. Today, he was learning that he had seen very little of the world. Healing poison was one thing, but reversing the entropy of a dead tree was something else entirely. Nothing about this boy followed the rules of nature.
Mu Chen jumped onto a thick branch of the newly grown tree, pulled out a stack of buns his mother had made, and started eating contentedly.
Xiao Diao scratched his chin with his tiny claws and looked down at the stunned Ning Wang. "Don't think too much, kid. Just recover yourself."
The mink then joined Mu Chen on the branch. A man and a beast sat in the shade of a magical tree, enjoying their lunch, while a bewildered Marshal tried to piece his shattered worldview back together while recovering.