"Eh? Somebody is breaking through? At this time?"
An old man walked toward the sounds of clashing spells and furious shouts inside the jungle. His attire didn't fit in with the surroundings. With a form-fitting black robe that flashed all sorts of gleaming medals and a bowl-shaped hat on his head, his body flickered across the woods chaotically, approaching the massive, roiling mass of qi ahead at the speed of lightning bolts.
Strangely enough, nobody noticed his appearance amidst the battle. By watching his approach toward the center of the countless spells, one could only perceive a completely uninterrupted and unhurried gait. The spells never hit him despite the chaos.
Reaching the center of the battle, the old man finally saw a gravely injured young fellow constantly blinking in and out of sight to avoid the spells and attacks flung at him, as well as fighting back occasionally in desperation.
What attracted the old man's attention was the burst of qi pulsing around the youth periodically. Even though the young man's body sported dozens of wounds and his meridians appeared nearly empty, he could still use spells somehow.
But that also came with a heavy price. With each spell he used, his condition worsened and his meridians took some light damage. If this went on, he'd suffer from permanent qi deviation and harm his own cultivation base heavily.
There was a twinkling light inside the pupils of the old man who patiently observed him fight. He finally let out a sigh after seeing the young fellow suffer another serious wound from trying to avoid a spell.
"Oh well, I'll give your sect master some face and help you out, youngster," the old man muttered to himself and turned to look at the cultivators attacking the young fellow beside him incessantly.
"Their minds were affected by the corrupt parts of the Abomination...What a pity. All of these children are pretty talented for a territory so barren."
The old man shook the sleeves of his robe and walked toward the nearest frenzied cultivator and formed fists with both of his hands. Then he lightly punched her temples from both sides.
There were no fluctuations of qi fuelling his punches. The strength behind the fists was negligible for even a regular mortal. But the moment the fists made contact with her temples, she crumpled and fell down on the ground, unconscious.
The other cultivators noticed her sudden fall, but they didn't seem to care about her in the slightest as they continued to assault their target. The old man shook his head regretfully and repeated his actions. One by one, the eight other cultivators fell unconscious, much to the confusion of the young fellow they had been fighting.
Nine bodies lay on the spell-razed ground. The old man gave them one final look of pity before walking toward the huffing young man. This time, a thread of qi finally appeared around his fingers as he stood over him and poked his chest.
The thread of qi drilled into his meridians and sped up the healing process of the damaged parts on its way. Blinking his eyes in a daze, the young man looked at the empty air in front of him and staggered away with a terrified look on his face, running as fast as he could.
"Mhmm, that should make the breakthrough successful for now. If nothing untoward happens, he will be able to avoid the qi deviation as well after a period of professional care. it’s none of my business anymore," the old man said as he turned around and walked toward the portal where the Abomination struggled against its restraints.
.......... .............. ..........
Han Xuhan opened his eyes. For a few seconds, his thoughts were full of nonsensical chaos. Slowly moving his neck around and blinking rapidly to adjust his eyesight in the dark, he sat up and looked around.
He was sitting beside a small fire, his surroundings unfamiliar. There were two others sitting around the fire, Mu Ran and Yuen Zhou, whose gaze had concentrated on him upon noticing his movements.
"Looking at the sky, I should have been unconscious for more than ten hours. How far did I get before collapsing?"
"You got out of the woods and ran for a mile or so before your power sources ran out. Then your law fragment started feeding off your own body and... you can see what that led to," Yuen Zhou answered, gesturing at him to look down at himself.
Han Xuhan had already noticed the unnatural weakness laced with the movement of his limbs. Prompted by her gesture, he opened his robe and looked down.
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His ribs were sticking out and his stomach sported a concave shape. His heartbeat also seemed slower than normal. Most of the prominent muscles in his arms and legs seemed to have shrunk.
He looked like someone whose country had been afflicted with a lengthy period of famine.
"Where are we right now?"
"Near the Pine town area. How do you feel by the way? Are you sure you can handle the walk back?" She replied while her hands fiddled with a sack. After a few seconds, she took out a crispy piece of meat and handed it to him.
"I'm fine. The affected muscles feel a bit weak, but that's it for now." Han Xuhan took a bite of the half-burnt meat and hid the grimace that followed with the taste.
Food was food. He wasn’t going to complain about the taste in his current condition.
As he forcefully wolfed it down, the subtle, tense atmosphere among them got more and more pronounced. Finally, Mu Ran decided to break the ice.
"Exactly what did you do back then, Xuhan? How did things...come to this?"
Han Xuhan chomped on the soft parts of the bone inside the piece of meat while gathering his thoughts.
"Back at that time after you two entered the third stage, I sent Zhanxian out carrying a letter I wrote to a nonexistent acquaintance waiting outside the portal. Since I wasn’t sure if the land of laws really was safe for me, that was just another safety precaution. You could say it was a last resort of sorts. If I didn’t manage to escape the land of laws in time in case some sort of disaster struck, those guys would have helped me teleport away while being under the illusion that they were summoning Zhanxian's master, Shen Kai."
"How did you know that they would wait for Shen Kai outside?" Mu Ran asked in puzzlement.
"Because I singlehandedly destroyed their chances to acquire a 'super awesome inheritance', at least that's what I told them before I kicked them out. I mean, think about it... Some random asshat deprives you of something you deeply yearn for, that too in a very degrading manner. What would you do to avenge such humiliation if you had the chance?
If you know where that asshat is, you are definitely going to try and take your revenge as long as you’re confident of success. And with all of them being kicked out together, how long would it take for them to form an alliance against their common enemy?
Even if they didn’t wait for me outside the portal, how far could they have gone with such a shiny piece of treasure as the land of laws in front of their eyes? At least a few greedy ones would have stayed back even in the worst case. Zhanxian could easily find them and pretend to have met them accidentally.
And if this didn't work out either, then Zhanxian would have gone straight to our sect to ask for help."
It took Mu Ran a while to digest his words. While he gazed at the cackling campfire, Yuen Zhou decided to voice her doubt.
"Don't tell me you planned that all from the start..."
Han Xuhan laughed derisively and spat out the remnant chewy bone from his mouth.
"Of course not. How the hell would I know that the inheritance ground was really a trap from the start? I was just trying to fuck around with Shen Kai's name. Like I explained to Qian Yun back in there, I simply found the nature of the testing ground rather suspicious and took some small precautions before the last stage using whatever I could. Moreover, the main reason why I was so suspicious about the whole thing wasn’t even those clues or my overactive imagination. Are you telling me you believed the bullshit logical deductions I fed Qian Yun at that time to buy time for Zhanxian? Hahaha..."
Seeing his amused laughter, Mu Ran and Yuen Zhou exchanged a confused look between themselves.
"Those were lies? " Mu Ran asked in disbelief.
"Of course... not. Well, half and half, actually. " Han Xuhan clutched his stomach to relieve the painful sensation that had broke out while he was laughing wildly. His muscles had become really, really weak. Even though that law fragment had saved his life, Han Xuhan vowed to never use it anytime soon.
"The thing is, while I did imagine the scenario where we would all fall into a deadly trap, that really was just something I came up with while trying to think of the worst-case scenarios. I mean, right now, I can ignore all sorts of logic and imagine that a thunder from the sky is going to fall on my head and kill me since the celestial seem to hate me so much. But would I bother to take precautions against that in this dry weather? No!"
"Then... why would you go out of your way to set up all those safety measures?"
Han Xuhan deviously smiled. Finally, it was time to rebuild the cracks that had formed in the outstanding mutually beneficial relationship with the protagonist...
"It was because of YOU, boss! "
Pointing at a dumfounded Mu Ran, Xuhan radiated the 'perfect underling' energy that he had been painstakingly perfecting in front of his mirror since the day he had accepted his 'job'.
"What?" Mu Ran was so stunned that he couldn't even ask the question. So Yuen Zhou asked in his stead.
"Well, you too, martial sister. But the main reason is boss!"
Proudly nodding in a way an underling should while facing the protagonist, Han Xuhan began to explain.
"Boss, do you remember? Even before entering the land of laws, you kept saying how dangerous it might be, and you were practically being forced to go in, that you didn’t want me to accompany you due to the danger factor?
Even inside the inheritance ground, you tried to warn me multiple times. During those moments, this underling understood your struggle and the conflicts raging in your large-as-ocean heart. So I wondered...
"What level of threat does it have to be to make my boss, who can subdue the strongest of our opponents singlehandedly, worry so much?
What sort of danger can make my boss feel such threat?
How wary must my boss be of the danger factor to go so far as to tell me to abandon him and run away despite my unwavering loyalty?
"Moreover, It's not just boss but martial sister Zhou as well! She warned me seriously before entering the third test too. And thinking about it all...I realized that perhaps I was just a frog in a well, unable to see the bigger picture due to my lack of vision. But I trusted your vision, boss!
"So I decided to pay heed to your warning and created an emergency escape route for us!"