The gale atop the martial arena whipped against the disciples' faces, forcing them to squint.
"Yo, isn't this the little beggar Lin Yuan dragged back?" An outer-hall disciple, Wang Zilong, ground a heavy bag of Marrow-Cleansing Pills into the mud. He twisted the toe of his boot with a cruel smirk. "Want these pills? Sure. Kneel, lick them clean, and give us a few good barks. If I'm in a good mood, I might spare you a few more scraps."
"Don't provoke her. Haven't you heard? The Guardian Saint Beast submitted to her," a disciple from Wang Zilong's hometown whispered warily.
"Hahaha! Don't tell me you'll end up like Zhao Hu—dying of bad luck the moment you meet her," someone shouted from the back. "They say Zhao Hu hit a time fissure and dissolved into sand. This little beggar carries a curse!"
"Pah! Her?" Wang Zilong spat toward Jiang Li in disdain. "Look at her. A few kicks and she'll be kneeling, calling me Grandpa."
The surrounding disciples erupted in mockery and greed. In a predatory den like the Xuan Ying Sect, weakness was the ultimate sin.
Jiang Li kept her head down, her tangled hair obscuring her face. Only she knew that the Blood Lotus mark on her fingertip was burning with an incredible heat. It felt like an invisible thread tethering her to that sickly monk. Through it, she could sense Cang Yaochen's current exhaustion—his aura was as thin as a sheet of paper, ready to tear at any moment.
"Useless... truly useless," Jiang Li cursed under her breath. It was unclear whether she was cursing the monk's precarious state or the irritating sensation of being bound to him.
"What did you say? Speak up!" Filled with malice, Wang Zilong reached out to grab Jiang Li's hair.
THUD!
A dull, heavy impact. No one saw how it happened, but Wang Zilong—two hundred pounds of solid muscle—was sent reeling back three steps by a hidden force. The fabric over his chest split open instantly.
"You're looking for death!" Shamed in front of the crowd, Wang Zilong exploded in rage. He let out a roar as the Life-Wheel inside him spun frantically. The pressure of the Severance Realm descended like a physical wall, crashing down upon Jiang Li.
Jiang Li gritted her teeth, her bones creaking under the heavy weight. She stared defiantly at the muddy ground, refusing to kneel. At her wrist, the little Suanni arched its back, its purple eyes glowing with a murderous light.
Just as Wang Zilong gathered his Pure Qi for a final, crushing blow, a slow, rhythmic, and somewhat fragile set of footsteps echoed from the entrance of the arena.
Sha... Sha...
The sound was faint, yet it possessed a strange cadence, as if every step landed perfectly between the heartbeats of the crowd. Under the influence of those footsteps, the suffocating pressure of the Severance Realm leaked away like a punctured balloon.
The crowd turned in shock.
Cang Yaochen appeared, wearing his tattered, old monastic robes. His face was so pale it was almost translucent, and beads of cold sweat hung on his brow. He walked with painful slowness, his frail frame looking as though a stiff mountain breeze might knock him over. To everyone's eyes, his aura was merely at the lowest Light-Condensing Realm—weak as a flickering candle.
"Monk, why are you injured?" Jiang Li wiped the blood from her lip. Her voice was harsh and cold, but her feet instinctively shifted half a step closer to his side.
Cang Yaochen didn't look at her. He only stared at the crushed pills in the mud, a trace of unspeakable sorrow etched between his brows.
"Who did this?" His voice was hoarse, yet it held a terrifying, airless stillness.
"I did. What of it?" Seeing that the newcomer was just a servant monk with no aura, Wang Zilong regained his bravado. "A useless baldy dares to put on airs here?"
With a sneer, Wang Zilong lashed out, sending a gale of Pure Qi straight at Cang Yaochen's face like a steel blade.
Cang Yaochen moved.
He didn't dodge. He simply extended a single finger.
The finger was trembling slightly, but the moment it touched the oncoming, violent Pure Qi, the air across the entire arena fell into a ghostly silence.
In that split second, an image of the ten million shattered Life-Wheels from the previous night flashed through his mind. If the Path of Mercy is useful, why does the Turbid Qi of this world never disperse? Why is the world not proud of compassion, but instead proud of crushing the weak?
"Disperse."
A single word, like the toll of a morning bell.
Pfft—
Wang Zilong's all-out strike met its nemesis. It disintegrated into nothingness instantly. Furthermore, a cold, invisible force followed the air back into his meridians, locking the very pivot of his Life-Wheel with terrifying precision.
Click.
Wang Zilong let out a muffled groan. His body went limp as if his bones had been removed, and he collapsed into the mud. To his horror, he found that his Severance Realm cultivation could not offer even a shred of resistance against this sickly monk.
The onlookers were stunned. The way they looked at Cang Yaochen changed instantly—it wasn't the mockery reserved for the weak, but a bone-chilling dread.
Cang Yaochen leaned over, ignoring the mud, and picked up the stained bag of medicine. He gently brushed off the dust as if handling a priceless treasure.
"Li'er, let us go." He pressed the bag into Jiang Li's hand. His tone was as calm as if he had just swept away a piece of trash.
Jiang Li tightened her grip on the damp, cold medicine. Looking at his sickly yet unnervingly calm demeanor, her heart felt a strange, sharp prick—like a tiny itch, yet laced with an unnameable ache. She lowered her head to hide the flicker in her eyes and muttered, "I will repay you one day."
Cang Yaochen didn't speak. He only gave a gentle smile, turned, and walked away from the arena, step by step, against the wind.
Lin Yuan, standing atop the bell tower, had witnessed it all. He looked at the retreating back of the frail monk, and then at the heap of "mud" that was Wang Zilong. Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine.
"So... cultivation realms are really just a cloak he chooses to wear at whim in this mortal world."
Lin Yuan knew that from this day forward, the stagnant waters of the Xuan Ying Sect had been thoroughly stirred by a single finger of this monk.