Chapter 213 – Pioneering the South, Cutting Through the Chaos - Part 3

Eventually, Li Yuan steered the conversation back. “This trip is different from the others. I’m bringing you for actual combat. You’ve grown up. You’ll face battles sooner or later.”

He then explained his main goal, scouting and pioneering. He needed to see for himself whether the south would be a viable place to relocate.

The first step was to find a

guide

, though anyone they found wouldn’t be an obedient hired hand. Such people had their own plans and secrets; some might even harbor ill intentions.

“So you want me to go to that settlement and persuade them to cooperate?” Tang Nian asked.

Li Yuan nodded. “They’ve got a lot of demonic beasts penned up there. If we push them too far and they decide to release everything, maybe it won’t hurt us directly, but it could wreak havoc on the nearby settlements.”

Tang Nian propped a hand under her chin, then her eyes gleamed. “We poison them.”

“Do you actually have poison on you?” Li Yuan asked.

A slight blush spread across her cheeks. She raised her chin proudly. “I studied at the Orange Blossom Sect, remember? Of course I brought plenty of poisons.”

With a quick mental command, the puppet Tang Qiu opened his large iron chest, taking out rows of colorful vials and jars filled with all manner of poisons.

“When do I leave?” she asked with a yawn.

Li Yuan’s tone shifted. “There’s one sixth rank martial artist who’s a little weaker than your puppet. Then there are three at seventh rank, six at eighth rank, and a handful at ninth. Not a single ordinary person among them. They keep a lot of demonic beasts too—no sixth rank, but plenty of seventh, eighth, and ninth.

“They mostly use bows, arrows, and hunting knives. Their water source is a stream just southwest of the settlement, close enough that any disturbance would be heard. And remember, a sixth rank martial artist’s senses are extremely sharp. Plus, there’s a chance this isn’t their main base. Others may arrive to help.”

Tang Nian closed her eyes, pondering for a moment. Then she waved a hand dismissively. “All right, Pops. I’ll handle it.”

She jumped from the carriage, Tang Qiu following behind with the iron chest strapped to his back. After walking a short distance, she glanced over her shoulder, confirming Li Yuan wasn’t coming along. Taking a deep breath, she clenched her fists to steel herself.

Tang Nian’s plan was straightforward. They were outnumbered, but she couldn’t let the hunters grow desperate enough to release the demonic beasts. Poison was her best option, and the water supply was the perfect place. As a self-proclaimed

poison enthusiast

, she carried colorless and odorless toxins that would knock out everyone at or below seventh rank. Then her puppet Tang Qiu could fight the sixth rank on more even footing.

She only needed to make sure no one spotted her, and that the poison wouldn’t be lethal. They needed these hunters alive for Li Yuan’s investigation to continue. She had briefly considered crafting new puppets on-site, but it was too risky. A simpler plan meant fewer complications. She would slip in, poison the water, then face the sixth rank one-on-one.

Waiting until nightfall, on this a moonless, windy night...she instructed Tang Qiu to set down the chest and took only the necessary poisons with her, creeping toward the settlement under the cover of darkness. At seventh rank herself, plus a reliable sixth rank puppet, sneaking in wasn’t too difficult. Tang Qiu used his left arm like a saddle so Tang Nian could sit securely as he moved around, easily dodging the low-level patrols.

Soon, they reached the first of the large water vats. Tang Qiu opened his palm, revealing a hidden compartment that pushed out a small vial. Tang Nian tried to look nonchalant, but she was quietly tense, watching with bated breath as the vial neared the vat’s rim. She was seconds from pouring the contents when—

“I’d suggest you stop.”

A low voice from behind made her jump. Tang Qiu spun around at once, revealing a man dressed in animal hides. By the light of a nearby fire pit, Tang Nian could see him clearly.

“How did you spot me?” she demanded.

The fur-clad man stared at her and then at Tang Qiu, his eyes widening.

“Wait... a sixth rank puppet?” he exclaimed. Then, in a perplexed tone, “You must be pretty wealthy. Why would someone like you come after a tiny place like ours?”

Being found out rattled her, but as he spoke, Tang Nian’s mind whirred with a new idea. A sixth rank puppet was so expensive it usually belonged to an influential family. So she cleared her throat and tilted her chin up with feigned arrogance. “Hmph, I’m just out here on a training trip. Now tell me, how exactly did you see through me?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You really think I wouldn’t notice? Look, if you’re from a major power, we don’t want trouble. Why not name whatever you’re after and just take it? Consider it a favor, nobody gets hurt.”

Tang Nian stared at him in silence, then glanced around to confirm no one else was closing in. Feeling a bit relieved, she slipped down from Tang Qiu’s arm but stayed close, not daring to move away.

The fur-clad man turned and spoke genially, “I’m Gongshan Jun. Let me show you around this settlement so you can pick out whatever monsters catch your eye. Take whichever ones you want.”

He led the way while Tang Nian followed, thinking hard about how to proceed. The small vial of colorless, odorless poison still sat in Tang Qiu’s palm, waiting for the right moment to be poured into a nearby water vat.

They hadn’t gone far when, at a turn in the path, they passed another large vat. Tang Nian signaled Tang Qiu to slip the poison into it. But the moment Tang Qiu moved, Gongshan Jun whipped around as if he had eyes in the back of his head. In a flash, he lunged at Tang Nian with outstretched hand.

This particular spot was hidden away. No one would have come here by accident. Training trip? That was obviously just a cover story. Gongshan Jun hadn’t attacked immediately because he’d been waiting for a chance to catch the girl off guard with minimal risk. Now that he saw an opening, he took it.

Tang Qiu was focused on the act of poisoning the vat, and Tang Nian’s attention was also on the poison. They were both just a beat too slow. And in the world they inhabited, a single beat could mean victory or defeat.

Tang Nian went pale. A fierce gust whipped her short hair back; her mind went blank, eyes suddenly brimming with panic.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Roughly ten miles away, Li Yuan had been leaning against an old tree near his carriage, drinking casually. But now he was already gripping a blood-red bow. In his left hand, the bow itself seemed to drip with liquid crimson, almost engulfing his fingers. With his right, he tossed a string of small stones into the air.

He drew the bow and fired the first stone. Immediately, the second fell into place, then the third...dozens of them in quick succession. None of the stones ever hit the ground.

When he finished, Li Yuan lowered his bow and stooped to pick up more stones.

Back at the settlement, Gongshan Jun was on the verge of success when he suddenly sensed a massive force hurtling in from behind...like a meteor plummeting from the sky, streaking across the night. The roar and shockwave tore through the air, making everything impossible to see or evade.

He let out a furious bellow, blood surging madly. Normally, with no way to dodge, he would have channeled his shadow blood into an ancestral seal and absorbed the impact, then used the ancestral seal’s healing to escape. But with a sixth rank puppet standing at his back, he wouldn’t have time to recover from the blow.

“Arrrggh!” Gongshan Jun unleashed his full strength, his surging blood energy seemingly blasting the wind back in all directions, colliding head-on with the incoming strike.

BOOM!

A deafening impact shook the air, and he was sent flying in an arc, spitting great clouds of blood before hitting the ground.

By the time he landed, Tang Nian had regained her wits; she commanded Tang Qiu to press him down.

Simultaneously, everyone else in the settlement—seventh, eighth, and ninth rank—fell under the same barrage. They lay sprawled about, injured but not dead, peering upward in terror at the sky. They had no idea what had struck them or where such power came from.

Silence descended. The night wind was cold as ever.

Li Yuan maintained his bow stance for another half-hour, wary of any reinforcements. When none appeared, he tucked the Ghost Bow away, climbed into his carriage, and flicked the reins with a crisp

Hyah!

The horse clopped forward at a steady pace toward the settlement.

When he arrived, he found Tang Nian standing there, head bowed. “Godfather...I’m sorry.”

Li Yuan gave her a reassuring smile. “You did just fine.”

He turned and looked at Gongshan Jun with a troubled expression. The human-skin manacles only worked on those seventh rank or lower. Gongshan Jun was sixth rank, too strong to be restrained by them.

Sensing Li Yuan’s dilemma, the quick-witted Gongshan Jun, despite his severe wounds and inability to heal with shadow blood just yet, immediately prostrated himself. “I, Gongshan Jun, am willing to serve you, my lord!”

Li Yuan merely nodded and left him under Tang Qiu’s watch. He then sought out the second-strongest person in the settlement, a burly man with 225–260 floating above his head. Without saying a word, Li Yuan fastened the manacles on him.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

A few days later, Gongshan Jun pointed out a narrow road leading into the mountains. He spoke with utmost respect, “My lord, if you continue ahead, there’s a secluded village. I believe that’s the place you’re looking for.”

Li Yuan glanced sidelong at the burly man shackled in manacles. That man shook his head. Li Yuan patted Gongshan Jun on the shoulder. “All right. Let’s hope for your sake you’re telling the truth.”

Gongshan Jun opened his mouth to protest, “I’d never dare lie to y—!”

But before he could finish, there was a sudden flash of steel. Li Yuan’s blade cut this sixth rank demon hunter clean in two, droplets of hot blood scattering in the sunlight like a cruel, crimson mist.

Li Yuan gave the blade a shake, spattering the ground in red.