A dozen or so young men began walking towards us.

[Hey guys! I like what you’ve done with the place. Could I speak to your designer?]

I gave the ruins a quick scan to see if there were any left hiding. There weren’t. Everyone came out to greet us. How kind of them.

What wasn’t so kind was when one of them fired a spell at me. It was some sort of bubbly sphere of energy that I just barely managed to avoid. It’s not that it would hurt me, but I really wanted to keep my clothes intact at least once. It was a dream of mine.

In retaliation for the attempted wardrobe assassination, I formed a massive Ice Age Lance between my hands and hurled it back at him. Empowered by my Qi, it disappeared from view and a split-second later pierced the guy and exploded into a thousand icy shards.

He was dead instantly. Chunks of frozen flesh rained down on the village like snowflakes and covered the ground in a slippery pink layer. The rest of them pulled out their swords and attacked with a roar.

[Chill guys, we are just here to talk.] I smiled. Then my eyes turned white and with a twitch, I cut down two of them running at us. They died before they even knew what happened, a peaceful death.

Just kidding! They were screaming on the ground in pure agony as their intestines and blood spilled to the floor.

[Kill them all! No mercy!] I shouted as I tried to stop a sword. The blade, glowing white from Spirit Qi, pierced my hand, yet I pushed further, until my fingers dug into the flesh of the swordsman’s own hand, locking us together.

“Aaaah! Let go!” He shouted and tried to punch me. His fist landed on my face, yet it wasn’t even strong enough to knock away my bloodthirsty grin. I punched back, my own fist breaking his stance and knocking out some teeth.

“Are you sure?! We should keep a few of them to question! We need answers!” Shadow shouted from behind as he battled against two opponents barehanded. They were all in the Golden Core Realm, but they were weaker. So much weaker that even he could take on multiple opponents at once.

I saw him kick one of them in the gut and then steal his sword and stab the other guy with it. He was a good fighter, but being good wasn’t enough. Also, his words annoyed me.

I rolled my eyes. I could just kill everyone and I would know everything there was to know from these thugs, but I guess I still had to keep certain things a secret. Memory Harvest was a powerful ability that only I had. There, of course, existed spells that did similar things, searching the Soul and such, but mine was better.

[Fine! Keep one, kill the rest!] I shouted back. A compromise. We would eventually kill all of them anyway. I could play pretend for a bit.

“Dieeeee!” My opponent, clearly not agreeing with the sentiment, roared, blood flying out of his mouth, and tried to stab me in the neck with a dagger. Well, not try, he did it. It was kind of my fault to let Shadow distract me.

My opponent celebrated, as it was clearly displayed on his face, until I crushed his other hand and slowly pulled out the dagger. Blood slowly slipped back into the wound as it closed itself and I observed the blade up close.

For being Rogue Cultivators, those guys had some quality weapons. All Spirit Blades.

I looked back at the guy and noticed he was preparing some kind of suicide attack. The bastard was trying to destroy my clothes!

[Oh, you son of a-!] I headbutted him so hard he lost consciousness and his magic unraveled dangerously. Twisted blasts of Qi burst out of his chest and carved their way through him in every direction. I kicked him away and just barely avoided a golden barbed tentacle swiping at my midsection.

I didn’t even have time to think what the hell he was doing when another came running at me with a similar technique of the sword. The blade glowed white from the energy the Spirit Stone in the handle provided, and could most certainly cut me.

I slowed down my perception of time with Century in a Blink, and moved to the side, grabbing the guy by the back of his neck. I then ran and smashed him, face first, into a nearby building that was somehow still standing.

Let’s not mention how the normal stones reacted, suffice it to say the wall was no more. As the guy was buried beneath the pile of rubble, I noticed corpses haphazardly stacked in the corner. From the look of things, they belonged to the villagers. However, among them, there were also Cultivators. Cultivators I didn’t recognize. They certainly weren’t ours or of the enemy. At least they had differing clothes, unlike the uniform attire those we were fighting wore.

[Wait… Something doesn’t smell right.] And I wasn’t talking about the corpses.

I scanned the place again and noticed a tiny spark in the pile of bodies. I dug through it and found a man who was basically already dead. He was just barely holding onto life, but as I examined him I winced at the damage.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Apart from having most of his bones crushed and his body cut to pieces, someone also cut out his Dantian and destroyed his internal organs. He could die at any moment. And after examining his Soul up close, I realized that was probably for the best. It was ruined. It was so brutally shattered that Vilya’s wound seemed like a papercut in comparison. He had no hope of ever Cultivating again, even if I healed his body.

I actually wondered if his identity remained, with all that damage. Maybe, but my guess was not.

I placed my hand on his forehead and pushed a finger through his skull, destroying his brain. His life was snuffed out, and his Soul was immediately absorbed into mine. I took a moment to look through his memories and quickly found what I was looking for. My blood began to boil.

[Oh, you bloody bastards!]

I stood up and found the guy I used to smash the wall. I saw him slowly trying to crawl away and stomped on his back. I felt his bones snap under my foot and he screamed.

[Had fun messing with us, eh? You especially enjoyed killing these poor folks, huh? Piece of shit!]

I lifted him up and tore a storage pouch off his body and then threw him back on the ground and stomped on his head. It popped like a ripe melon and he died.

His Soul gushed out of his body and was immediately absorbed.

My eyes went wide in realization as I read through his recent memories. [It’s a trap.]

[It’s a fucking trap!] I burst out of the room and saw Shadow just barely holding off against four attackers while Darkness struggled against three. Vilya was further away in the back, hiding inside her personal barrier while two guys were banging on it. I was missing another person.

“A what?”

[I said it’s a trap! All of it!] I roared at Shadow and a Sun Ray burst out of my eyes, killing the two bastards that went after my stuff. I mean Vilya.

[The Rogue Cultivators are all dead, same as the villagers! These guys are from the Brilliant Sword Sect!]

“You are kidding!” Shadow’s eyes also went wide and in shock, he made a mistake, taking a cut to his upper thigh. “Argh! Bastard!”

He summoned his bat avatar and unfurled its wings. “Lunar Blades of the Crescent Moon!” His wings glowed and when he swiped them forward, two crescent moon blades flew from them, forming the shape of an X, and struck the guy that cut him, splitting him into four large chunks.

Almost immediately after the man died, a sword crashed from the sky amid a thundering boom and obliterated the place where Darkness stood. The three attacking her jumped away just a second earlier, allowing her to take the full brunt of the attack.

“Darkness!” Shadow roared and repeated his attacks twice in quick succession at his remaining attackers, draining significant chunks of his energy. He then swiped his wings and flew to her place, and with a wave of his hand pushed away the dust and smoke. What was left was a charred crater of molten stone, with a silvery longsword stuck into the stone in the middle.

“No…” He fell on his knees as his avatar flickered out of existence. Chunks of flesh were strewn at the edges of the crater, and Darknes’ broken sword lay at either side of the glowing silver weapon.

“Well, well, well…” We heard a deep, jolly voice from afar.

I took that moment of distraction to kill another two Cultivators and took their swords and loot. I then quickly made my way to Vilya and collected the weapons there as well. In my mind, no matter what happened I would at least be able to escape, and I was not leaving empty-handed. Just in case worst came to worst, I took a fistful of Spirit Stones I just collected and went over my options.

“What- What’s happening?” Vilya asked in a trembling voice.

[Sssh. Take your talisman out and be ready to break it. Let’s hope it still works.]

She gulped but did as she was told, and held the talisman in her trembling hands. The barrier was still active, but I was not holding much hope of it being able to protect her from what was to come. And that’s when we saw it.

A Cultivator, slowly floating in the air, his hands behind his back, and flying swords following behind him, approached. I knew that guy. He was the original owner of the Soul Breaker.

“What do we have here? Hmm? Oh, it’s you…” He opened his eyes wide in surprise and then grinned. The bastard recognized me too, unfortunately.

“After Sicario died, I expected to see an Elder carrying my sword, but to see you…” He chuckled. I knew he did it even though I didn’t hear it.

“Ah, but to find the one the Sect was looking for, here of all places… So we were right. Myriad Beast Sect was responsible for it after all. Haha! Oh, some people will be so happy to see you. I’m so lucky!”

He appeared happy, but that was because he thought he had everything under control. And he was right.

I wanted to curse his mother and his previous ten generations. This bastard organized the trap less than two days ago. Just after we left the Sect. He must have been tracking the Soul Breaker and after realizing it left the Sect, gathered a few disciples as a distraction for a trap.

Based on the direction we traveled, they quickly realized our target, even more so after seeing the Rogue Cultivators in the village. And after disposing of them they took their place, waiting.

The Elder just left to wander around when we came. That’s why he was a few minutes late. He didn’t look too bothered about losing some people though. Probably because they weren’t the best quality candidates, as we have already found out.

The silver blade stuck in stone freed itself from the crater and flew up back at him.

“Now, about my other sword...”

I felt a pull from my side and the Soul Breaker tried to escape my storage pouch. I nearly spat out blood, so surprised I was. How could a sword try to escape from a timeless prison?!

I flashed my Aura and covered the pouch with it. The struggle stopped but I wasn’t happy. That was a Spirit Realm Elder from the Brilliant Sword Sect. Elder De Danw.

“Ah? An ant trying to resist? Heh… Alright then, I’ll humor you.” He amplified his voice and gave his orders. “That guy is mine, kill the rest. Ten Spirit Stones for whoever gets the first kill.”

The Disciples of the Brilliant Sword Sect, who were previously waiting patiently at a distance for the Elder to finish his speech, rushed back into the fray with renewed vigor. I mentally frowned and readied myself to kill them all when Shadow’s entire body took on an eerie blue glow. The color of the moon.

He pointed his sword into the sky defiantly as his Aura rose and his eyes carried nothing but rage. The tip of the blade pointed at Elder De as he roared his final words.

“You bastard! I’ll kill you! Lunar Light of the Converging Silverstorm Beam!”

Welp… He finally lost it.