The wind in the spirit-withered gully carried no sound, as if the very air was holding its breath. Four sets of eyes, sharp with greed and violence, were locked onto Han Li. The pretence was gone, stripped away as cleanly as flesh from bone. This was the first, unvarnished truth of the world beyond the veil: trust was a currency only the powerful could afford to spend.
The Tier 8 fatty took another earth-shaking step forward, his smile a gash of yellowed teeth. "Well, little herb? The toll."
Han Li's hand, hovering near his spatial pouch, didn't move. His gaze swept over them again—the brutish anchor, the cunning strategist, the traitorous guide, the trembling youth. A cold, crystalline clarity settled over him. This was not like the demon in the cottage, a battle for survival against an overwhelming foe. This was a calculation. An equation of threat and efficiency.
"A lesson, you said," Han Li repeated, his voice now devoid of any warmth, flat as a polished stone. "Let me teach you one in return: never dig for ginseng in a tiger's den."
Before the words fully left his mouth, he moved.
He didn't reach for a weapon. He became the weapon. The restraint on his cultivation shattered.
The spiritual pressure in the gully twisted. The faint, golden haze seemed to recoil from Han Li as his true aura erupted—not the brittle Tier 5 signature he'd projected, but the dense, humming, perfected potency of Tier 9, Peak Body Refinement. It was the difference between a campfire and a forge.
The fox-faced man's eyes bulged. "Wha—? He's hiding his—!"
Han Li was already past Feng Xiao, a blur of azure. His target was not the strongest, but the smartest. The Tier 6 strategist was the brain; remove him first.
The man shrieked, a talisman flashing in his hand—a low-grade Flame Wall charm. A sheet of fire erupted between them. Han Li didn't slow. He poured Qi into his right arm, his skin taking on a faint, metallic sheen—a basic Body Hardening technique, but executed with Tier 9 foundation. He punched through the mystical flames. They parted around his fist like water, singeing his sleeve but not his skin. His fist connected with the fox-faced man's chest.
Crunch.
It wasn't the sound of breaking ribs. It was the sound of a chest cavity collapsing. The man flew back, hitting the gully wall with a wet thud and sliding down, lifeless before he reached the ground.
Two seconds had passed.
The fatty roared, a sound of rage and sudden, dawning fear. His Tier 8 aura flared, earth-brown and heavy. He wasn't fast, but he was a landslide—a massive, spiritual-enhanced palm strike sweeping toward Han Li's head, capable of shattering boulders.
Han Li didn't meet force with force. He used precision. As the enormous hand descended, he dropped low, his leg snapping out in a vicious sweep aimed not at the fatty's tree-trunk legs, but at the back of his supporting ankle's Achilles tendon. It was a mortal martial technique, but infused with Tier 9 Qi and speed.
Snap!
The fatty bellowed in agony, his balance obliterated. He stumbled forward. Han Li was already rising, spinning inside the man's guard. His fingers, stiff as iron spikes, drove into a precise cluster of nerves at the base of the fatty's skull—another physician's knowledge turned lethal.
The roar cut off. The mountainous body stiffened, twitched violently, and then crashed face-first into the rocky ground, shaking the earth. He lay still, eyes open and vacant.
Four seconds.
Feng Xiao stood frozen, his notched sword half-raised, his face a mask of pure, bloodless terror. The reality had inverted. The prey was the predator. The trap was a coffin—for his comrades.
The Tier 4 youth simply dropped his dagger, a wet stain spreading on his trousers, his entire body trembling.
Han Li turned slowly. He didn't even look at the two bodies. His gaze settled on Feng Xiao. There was no anger in it, no gloating. Only a terrible, impersonal assessment.
"You… you monster!" Feng Xiao screeched, backing up, his sword shaking. "You lied!"
"The first lie was yours," Han Li said, taking a step forward. His azure robe was smudged with soot from the flame wall, but he was utterly unharmed. "You spoke of the Gathering as a place of opportunity. You were right. My opportunity begins with cleaning up the trash on the road."
Feng Xiao screamed, a high-pitched sound of desperation, and lunged. His sword technique was a crude, thrusting stab—the "Piercing River" style, common among low-level rogue cultivators. It was fast, for Tier 5.
To Han Li, it was a child waving a stick. He didn't bother deflecting. He sidestepped the point by a hair's breadth, his left hand snapping out to clamp around Feng Xiao's sword wrist. He squeezed.
Crack.
Feng Xiao's scream turned into a shriek as the bones in his wrist shattered. The sword fell. Han Li's right hand shot out, fingers closing around the man's throat, lifting him until his toes scraped the ground.
"Please… mercy… I'll… guide you…" Feng Xiao gagged, tears of pain and terror mixing on his face.
"Your guidance is no longer a favor," Han Li said, his voice still that chilling monotone. "It is a condition of your continued breathing." He looked over at the petrified youth, who was hyperventilating. "You. The boy."
The youth flinched as if whipped. "Y-y-yes, senior! P-please don't kill me! I just… I just carried things!"
"Pick up his sword," Han Li ordered, nodding at Feng Xiao's dropped blade.
With trembling hands, the youth did so.
"Your senior brother Feng needs motivation to guide me truthfully and without further… creativity," Han Li said. "You will walk behind him. If he deviates from the fastest path to Seven Peaks City, if he tries to signal anyone, if his pace slows without cause… you will plunge that sword into his back. Do you understand?"
The youth's face was green. He looked at Feng Xiao's pleading, hate-filled eyes, then at Han Li's impassive ones. He nodded frantically. "Y-yes, senior! I understand!"
Han Li released Feng Xiao, who collapsed to his knees, clutching his ruined wrist and coughing. "Get up," Han Li said. "Your value now is your legs and your knowledge of the path. Do not make me reconsider."
He then walked to the two corpses. With efficient, emotionless motions, he retrieved their spatial pouches—cheap things holding a handful of low-grade spirit stones, some coarse healing powders, and the fox-faced man's unused talismans. He tossed the pouches to the quivering youth. "Carry these. Your first share of the 'toll.'"
He then walked to the center of the gully, ignoring the whimpers of the broken guide and the terrified boy. He raised a hand. A small, perfectly controlled sphere of flame—his Fireball Technique—ignited above his palm. With a flick, he sent two orbs arcing through the air. They landed on the corpses, not exploding, but burning with a fierce, concentrated heat that reduced them to ash and fused bone in minutes. A clean, final erasure.
He turned back to the two living bandits. Feng Xiao had stumbled to his feet, cradling his wrist, his earlier arrogance replaced by raw, cowering hatred. The youth held the sword pointed shakily at Feng Xiao's back.
"The Golden Valley," Han Li said. "Now. A normal walking pace. You have until nightfall to prove your usefulness."
Without another word, he gestured forward. Feng Xiao, with a last terrified glance at the ashes of his comrades, began to limp down the gully toward the southern pass, the shimmering golden mist now looking less like promise and more like a funeral shroud. The youth followed, sword tip wavering but held ready.
Han Li fell into step behind them, a silent warden. The first lesson of the immortal path was complete. He had been tested in the first forge of this new world—not of flame and metal, but of betrayal and brutality. He had not been broken. He had been hardened.
And as they moved, high above in the endless blue, a shadow passed over the sun. A massive slab of mountain, dotted with figures in blue and silver, flew with impossible speed toward the same destination. The true powers of the world were converging. Han Li had merely cleared the gutter on the road to meet them.