It was the most evil plant he had ever seen. Horror film directors would be jumping in joy if they saw it right now. Suddenly, Jun was very conscious of how similar he was to those chunks of meat. Being turned into a raisin wasn’t a very appealing prospect. If there was one consolation, it was that the plant didn’t have a stream of consciousness. Intelligent beings were simply rejected by the storage ring.

Once again, he made his way to the abandoned alley. It was painted in blood and littered with scraps of meat—no rational person would ever enter this place willingly. It was perfect for some shady activities. After making sure no one was watching, Jun leapt onto the rooftop and dangled the paw with the ring off the edge.

‘I may be a dog, but I’m not stupid. Nor am I a horror movie character. The roots are going to attack me the second I take this thing out.’

The risk of injury was still high while using this method, but he figured touching the petals would be a better choice than touching the flesh-eating roots or the wicked sharp thorns.

The storage ring flashed, and the hideous abomination appeared underneath his paw. As the plant began to fall, the entire thing turned to face him, letting out an ungodly shriek. Numerous roots shot into the sky like spears. They were fast, but Jun was faster. He dove off the building, reaching out towards the petals, and as his paws touched the flower, the plant vanished into his pouch, leaving behind no trace of its existence.

“Worse than defusing a bomb,” he shouted, “gracefully” landing on the ground. His head met stone in a direct collision. Nothing could be more graceful than that.

With that done, he returned to his room, curling up on the soft bed. He stretched his little legs and yawned. Everything that needed to be done was done. The witch was dead, and the loot was divided in secret. Drowsiness was slowly taking hold of his mind. In just a bit, he would either have the worst or the best sleep of his life.

He shot one more glance towards the ever-hateful painting, and, for once, found a bit of affection for it.

“You know what, Human Emperor? I think I get you,” he mumbled, half delirious.

“Look. We killed a piece of trash. Humanity as a whole is now slightly better because of our actions.”

Jun didn’t know where he was going with this. He just had to get his emotions out.

“Her death freed us. Her storage ring made us rich. Chen Hao will cultivate her techniques and become a star that illuminates the night. I shall ascend using the bones of the creature she acquired. The secrets of bloodlines are in my grasp, ready to be deciphered,” he said, already imagining the future.

“Just as her death will improve our lives, the death of all those animals paved the way for humanity. In a world previously dominated by Divine Beasts, you carved out a path for a race under you. Now, civilization prospers, and innocent little dogs like me can sleep in peace and safety.”

“I get it now. It’s just like one of those bullshit enlightenments. Through Death, Life.”

“I like the sound of that,” he chuckled, closing his eyes.

He dreamt, but not of today’s events or the Human Emperor’s victory. Instead, he saw a strange story play itself out before his eyes. A man was running through the woods, arrows sticking out of his shoulder. He desperately glanced back, awaiting his pursuers, but they wisely hung back, stalking him from the shadows. Minutes turned to hours, and before long, the bleeding turned out to be too much for him. The man collapsed on the ground, his blood soaking into the dirt. Eventually, the hunters found him and stripped him of his belongings, leaving his naked body to rot away. They were the first to gain from his death.

Days passed. While still fresh, the body fed wild beasts and birds of the forest. Then, the insects got to him, burrowing through his body, creating hundreds of their own. Weeks later, the body decomposed, becoming one with the soil. Years and years from now, the spot where he died would flourish, and where there was once nothing, a beautiful flower would bloom.

From his death, life arose.

Jun woke up sometime in the evening, having spent god-knows how many hours sleeping. He rubbed his eyes, feeling at his sore body.

‘What a weird ass dream,” he thought, but before he could stand up from his bed, he suddenly discovered something “extra” in his mind.

It was difficult to put into words—the sensation was too strange for Jun to describe. In a deep pocket of his consciousness, someone had added a lever. Except, it wasn’t a lever, and it didn’t have any shape. It was a metaphysical crystallisation of an abstract concept which could be activated by using qi. It was also a shard of light in a sea of darkness, a puzzle piece amidst millions. A sort of truth—a rule, a law that made up the world. That and much more. Just thinking about how it possibly worked made him want to bash his head against the wall.

“This is way too unscientific,” he muttered, trying to frame the thing in a cage of rationality. The more he thought, the worse his head hurt. Before long, he was writhing on the floor, his eyes rolling back.

“It’s a lever. If I push it using qi, an ability comes out. That’s it,” he gasped, giving up on understanding the specifics. The pain immediately faded.

When Jun framed it that way, it was actually pretty neat. Curious about what it did, he stood up and pushed the lever, feeling half of his qi just vanish. Then, he got the vague sense that there wasn’t enough “death” in the room for anything to happen.

“Hey! At least give me the qi back! The damn vending machine took my money and didn’t even give me a soda!” he shouted, searching for something to kick. That usually worked with those stubborn machines.

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After grumbling for a few more minutes, Jun tossed the ability to the back of his mind. Instead, he took in the room around him, noticing how the entire bed was covered in blood. Looking at the reflection in the mirror, he saw a red dog staring back at him.

“You know, I like this new look. The streets will know me as Crimson Wolf,” he tried to menacingly laugh. It did not work.

When he remembered yesterday’s events, the smile vanished from his face. For some reason, he thought he should be much sadder about killing a person. They always said that guilt drove murderers insane. Where were the chaotic dreams about falling into a swamp and not being able to climb out?

‘Good riddance,’ was all that he had to say.

Making his way downstairs, he found the inn unchanged. The regular patrons glanced at his fur with newfound respect.

“A toast for the kid and the dog,” he heard more than once. Wild rumours and stories were being told of the previous night’s events. Surprisingly, they were both painted in a positive light.

In the kitchen, Chen Hao was propped up against the wall, still covered in the damn worms. They had changed from white to black during the night. Despite the strange scene, Liu Wei was preparing meals like usual, and He Ming was still serving dishes and alcohol.

No one bothered to talk to a dog, thus Jun lay next to the boy, occasionally heading into the basement to sneakily munch on the crocodile’s bone. His mastery over the Bone Essence Art meant that he could control how much of the essence he absorbed. Good thing, too, since he would have instantly blown up if he absorbed everything. This one bone would last him weeks, if not months.

It took four more hours for Chen Hao to wake up, and he did so with a terrible scream. Anyone would if they were covered in hundreds of worms. Even worse, they began to burst one by one, covering him in bug guts and a horrid stench. He immediately ran outside and conjured a ball of water, washing himself over and over again. Once he was done with that, Jun sauntered over, which prompted another session of washing to get all the blood out.

“Bleh. Who am I going to intimidate looking like this?” he sulked, shaking off the water straight into Chen Hao’s face. They dried themselves by standing next to a small fire the boy summoned. Jun couldn’t help but envy the simple but convenient cultivator techniques.

When they came back to the kitchen, He Ming was waiting, leaning against a stone counter.. He confidently nodded his head as he looked Chen Hao up and down.

“Well?”

“What?”

“How did the murder go? I want the full story. Stop staring like a damn chicken and sit down.”

The usually stoic and cynical boy was smiling now, looking like an excitable kid. He pulled out the snake dagger and mimicked stabbing motions as he listened to the riveting tale. Chen Hao was a good storyteller owing to years of practice in telling stories to children in the village. Even Jun began to nod along as he listened to the tense assassination and their escape.

“Well, without any concealment techniques, hoping to kill her instantly was a daydream. We already knew that. A cultivator’s sixth sense is too potent,” He Ming analysed after the tale was over.

“Pausing to talk with her was a smart move, but the problem lay in her cultivation technique. The Inner Furnace Art isn’t widely spread around, and the fact that it could resist poisons is news to me. With that many stab wounds and so much dust breathed in, any regular cultivator would have already been dead.”

Jun nodded along. Looking back at it, her body had been fighting off the poison very effectively.

“The problem lay in you running to the trapped alley. It was made to poison her in case both the dagger and the dust failed and slow her down.”

“Instead, you should have run to the lake. As long as you went sufficiently close to it, the fight would have been stopped by some Foundation Establishment elder. After all, you are an official disciple, and she is not. They would’ve let her die to poison as long as you properly explained yourself. “

“I thought the elders didn’t take sides in disciple conflicts?”

“The difference in your statuses is too great. You haven’t experienced what the sect is like for a white-robed disciple further up the lake. In some places, it’s worse than hell. Even worse, you are a young, promising talent with a dual spirit root, and she is some old hag. The elders wouldn’t kill her directly since it goes against the sect rules, but it’s no problem to hold her there until she dies of her injuries.”

Chen Hao sat deep in thought. Most likely, he was shocked by the ruthlessness of it all. The “upper” sect was supposed to be proper and righteous, and the “lower” sect held all the thieves and beggars. That just made sense.

“Moving on. The rest was fine. Letting her lower her guard was clever, but you should’ve kept more of your moves hidden. It’s difficult to say whether you would have survived if not for your dog there,” He Ming said, pointing at Jun.

“Who? Me? I’m just a dumb dog. La la la,” he barked, pretending to be innocent.

“I had no idea he could do that,” Chen Hao said, picking him up. Jun put on his best puppy dog eyes. Such a cute dog couldn’t have committed that violent murder.

“Don’t be fooled. Magical beasts are stronger than cultivators of the same stage. Your dog is also incredibly smart. He purposely timed his attack with your ability. Almost as if he anticipated it...” He Ming stared straight into Jun’s eyes, seeing past the innocent facade.

“No way! It was just a coincidence. I was just really excited about a... stick I saw in the distance.”

“He’s always been really smart. I guess his awakening only made him smarter.”

Fortunately, they glossed over the topic. It was not bad to reveal his intelligence a bit, but being overlooked was better than someone discovering that a dog ran an entire formation business. If that happened, they would be tying his body to the pyre and burning him as if it were the medieval times again.

“Well then, now that you've achieved your revenge, what are you going to do about the Jin family?” He Ming asked, a faint smile on his face.

Chen Hao visibly paled.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you think that you could just kill someone under the Jin family’s protection? They’re going to hunt you down in revenge. In fact, they came to the inn when you were unconscious, demanding that we hand you over.”

Chen Hao slumped down in his chair, nervously biting his nails. His mind was running at a thousand thoughts per second.

“Hah!” He Ming suddenly laughed, pointing at his face. “Look at how worried you are. Come on. You are smarter than this. Think logically for a second.”

The boy glanced up, still biting his lips. He searched for the answer in the kitchen, but none came to him.

“You’re still here, aren’t you? Why did they ask us to hand you over? Couldn’t they just barge into a random inn and take you?” He Ming slowly said, watching how Chen Hao’s eyes lit up.

“Now, you always have the right to choose. This freedom is what you murdered for, so no one here is going to take it away. So, tell me.

“Are you going to join the Lu family?”