The silence in the tiny cottage was absolute, a thick, suffocating blanket of dread. The only sound was the metallic drip, drip, drip of blood from Gu Xuan's cheap iron sword onto the wooden floor.
Zhang Wei stared, his mind refusing to process what it had just seen.
Two peak Qi Condensation disciples, his loyal enforcers, dead in seconds. Slaughtered.
Not by a Foundation Establishment expert in a flash of power, but by a "Level 5" ghost in a series of "accidents" that were so precise, so lethally perfect, they defied all logic.
His arrogance, built on a foundation of family name and a recent, unstable breakthrough, evaporated.
All that was left was a raw, primal terror. His instincts, the ones that had allowed a bully like him to survive, were screaming at him. This was not a rat. This was not a dog. This was a monster wearing a rat's skin.
"Senior Brother Zhang!" Gu Xuan cried, his voice trembling, shattering the silence. "They... they attacked me! They tried to kill me! It was self-defense! An accident! I didn't mean to!"
"Accident?" Zhang Wei's voice cracked, a hysterical edge entering it. He finally understood.
This was a setup. He had been played. Su Linyue had been playing him. This rat was her hidden enforcer. "You... you're a monster!"
He had to get out. He had to tell his grandfather. This thing had to be exposed, to be hunted down by the Sect Elders!
But as he took a step back, he saw the look in Gu Xuan's eyes. The feigned terror was gone. The plain, mediocre face was the same, but the eyes... the eyes were endless, cold, and utterly devoid of mercy. He wasn't going to be allowed to leave.
The lie was his only way out. He couldn't let this rat live to tell the tale. With a roar of rage and terror, Zhang Wei unleashed his full cultivation.
A wave of hot, fiery Qi flooded the cottage, making the walls groan. "Raging Sun Slash!"
His sword blazed with a red-hot light as he lunged, aiming to incinerate Gu Xuan and the entire cottage with him, to erase every trace of this nightmare.
This was his most powerful technique, the art of a true Foundation Establishment expert.
Gu Xuan didn't move. He just watched the attack come. The Veil of Mortal Dust remained active. His face remained plain. But his intent changed.
The "terrified" archivist vanished. In his place stood a predator.
As Zhang Wei's blade descended, Gu Xuan's cheap iron sword, now coated in a thin, silvery mist, rose to meet it.
It was Su Linyue's "Silver Ice" sword art, and it was his perfect, cold, Foundation Establishment power that fueled it.
CLANG!
Fire met ice. Zhang Wei's "Raging Sun" was chaotic, unstable, and all-offense. Gu Xuan's "Silver Ice" was precise, controlled, and all-defense.
The cheap iron sword didn't just block; it negated. The clash wasn't a loud explosion. It was a hiss. The sound of fire being extinguished.
A layer of rime, born from Gu Xuan's pure, harmonized Yin, instantly spread up Zhang Wei's blade, extinguishing his fire and numbing his hand to the bone.
Zhang Wei stared in absolute terror. His technique... his Foundation Establishment power... it was weaker.
It was pathetically, hopelessly weaker. This Level 5 ghost, this thing, was stronger than him.
"My turn," Gu Xuan said. His voice was no longer trembling. It was as cold and flat as a tombstone.
His "clumsy" movements were gone. He flowed. He executed the "Moon-Chasing Step" again, not as a stumble, but as a flicker of motion, appearing instantly at Zhang Wei's side.
Before Zhang Wei could even turn, Gu Xuan's sword had flashed—a silver arc that sliced through the tendons of his sword arm.
"AAAAGH!" Zhang Wei screamed, his sword clattering to the floor.
Gu Xuan kicked the back of his knee, forcing him to the ground. He placed the tip of his bloody sword against Zhang Wei's throat.
Zhang Wei was sobbing now, his arrogance dissolved into pure, pathetic terror. "No... please... don't! My grandfather! He's Elder Zhang! He'll kill you! He'll kill Su Linyue! He'll kill everyone! You don't know who you're messing with!"
Gu Xuan's face, still plain, still mediocre, was illuminated by the moonlight. He leaned in close.
"I know," he whispered. "I'm counting on it."
He drew the blade across Zhang Wei's throat.
The gurgling sound faded, and silence returned to the cottage. Gu Xuan stood over the three bodies, his chest rising and falling in a calm, steady rhythm.
The mask of the terrified archivist was gone, replaced by the cold, calculating focus of the true Gu Xuan.
He looked down at his iron sword, now dripping with the blood of a Foundation Establishment expert. He then looked at his own hands.
His mind was racing, replaying the fight, the feel of it. The "First Frost" parry. The "Moon-Chasing Step." The "Silver Ice" art.
He had never practiced them. He had only read their basic descriptions in the sect's common manuals.
But his body... his body had executed them with the flawless, innate mastery of a grandmaster.
It was Su Linyue's mastery.
A new, terrifying, and ecstatic hypothesis was forming.
He closed his eyes. He thought of Bai Xiaofei. He felt the echo of her "Volatile Yang Spark" thrumming in his core, now perfectly balanced by Su Linyue's Yin.
He focused... and a new, strange set of instincts surfaced.
He looked at the blood pooling on the floor. Where Su Linyue's talent gave him a physical instinct—how to move, how to strike—this new one was analytical.
He felt a sudden, clinical urge to examine the blood. He could almost... see its composition.
He could feel the chaotic, unstable traces of Zhang Wei's flawed cultivation, the faint resonance of the pills he had taken to break through.
He felt an innate, instinctive knowledge of how to refine it.
He opened his eyes, his heart hammering with a realization that was far more profound than any cultivation breakthrough.
He moved to his small, hidden stash of alchemical supplies—a tiny cauldron and a few basic herbs he'd kept for making simple healing salves.
He picked up a stalk of "Green-tail" grass. Before, brewing a simple "Qi Replenishing" potion was a difficult, clumsy process for him.
Now, he looked at the herb and just... knew.
His fingers moved with a speed and precision that was not his own.
He crushed the herb, separated the essence, and activated his Qi, his new balanced Qi.
He fed the flame, his other hand adding a drop of water. The process, once a struggle, was now as simple and intuitive as breathing.
He felt the energy of the herb, not as a "thing," but as a series of components he could break down, analyze, and recombine. It was Bai Xiaofei's talent.
A simple, perfect, Rank 1 "Qi Replenishing" pill, shimmering with a faint light, was formed in less than a minute.
Gu Xuan stared at the pill in his palm, his mind reeling.
"It doesn't just share power," he whispered to the empty, bloody room. "It absorbs talent."
A new, terrifying door had just opened. The Primal Chaos Union Scripture was not just a cultivation art. It was an art of plunder.
"The more intimate... the deeper the bond... the more I can take." A cold, bright light shone in his eyes.
He now had a sword art he had never trained and an alchemical skill he had never learned.
He looked at the three bodies on his floor. First, he had a mess to clean up. Then, he had a war to plan.