Chapter 41: Innocents Shall Be Saved

The last bandit collapsed into the mud, clutching his shattered ribs and groaning in agony.

The clearing fell dead silent, save for the crackle of burning wood and the pained whimpers of thirty thugs writhing in the dirt.

Shen Qingxue stood in the center of the carnage, her chest heaving heavily. Sweat plastered several dark strands of hair across her pale, bruised forehead, and her torn sleeves were stained with streaks of her own blood.

I chuckled, nudging my stallion forward. Leading her mount behind me, I trotted down the slope and into the smoky clearing.

"Clean control, excellent use of environmental hazards, and zero corpses," I praised, casually tossing her a clean linen rag from my saddlebag. "You adapted to multiple angles far faster than I expected, Qingxue. Truly exceptional work."

Qingxue caught the rag, wiping the blood from her sword before sheathing it with a soft click. Hearing my praise, the terrifying, lethal chill around her melted instantly, her dark eyes lighting up with genuine, radiant joy.

"Thank you, Master," she said with a smile, breathing a bit raggedly. "Disciple didn’t dare forget your command."

Just then, the canvas curtain of the second burning wagon was pushed aside.

A plump, middle-aged merchant dressed in scorched, soot-stained silks stumbled out, trembling violently. He looked at the field of groaning bandits, then at Qingxue and me, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief.

He practically threw himself onto his knees before our horses, pressing his forehead into the dusty road.

"Thank you, Immortal Heroes! Thank you for saving this humble merchant’s life!" he cried out, his voice shaking with wet, dramatic sobs. "If not for the young fairy’s righteous sword, my entire caravan would have been plundered clean! My family back in the city would have starved in the streets."

Scrambling upright, he frantically reached into his greasy robes and pulled out five heavy, glistening gold coins, holding them up with both trembling hands toward me.

"I know that to grand immortals like you, mortal gold is no different from common pebbles," the merchant pleaded earnestly. "But this is every speck of wealth this humble one has on hand. Please, accept it as a meager token of my eternal gratitude."

Standing beside her horse, Shen Qingxue looked at the groveling man and smiled softly. "There is no need for gold, merchant. It is the duty of those who wield strength to protect the innocent."

I sat in my saddle, staring down at the kneeling man.

A quiet, amused chuckle slipped past my lips.

I reached down and plucked the five heavy gold coins right out of his palms, casually rolling them across my knuckles before tossing them into my pouch.

"My disciple is entirely correct," I said with a warm smile, looking down at Qingxue. "Protecting the innocent is a noble endeavor. And that is why you should do it right now."

Shen Qingxue blinked, tilting her head in complete bewilderment. "Master... didn’t I just finish doing that?"

"Did you?"

I turned my gaze back down toward the plump merchant. The warm, easygoing smile on my face didn’t vanish, but my voice dropped into an icy, bone-chilling register that carried the crushing, suffocating weight of an executioner’s blade.

"Listen to me carefully, little merchant," I said softly, my Golden Core spiritual pressure narrowing into a razor-sharp needle aimed directly at his forehead. "If you don’t start speaking the truth in the next three breaths, I am going to shatter every single bone in your body, starting from your toes and working all the way up to your skull."

Plop.

The plump merchant went entirely limp. His knees gave out, his face turning the color of bleached paper, cold sweat cascading down his jowls like rain. The suffocating killing intent in my voice was so terrifying that his bladder nearly betrayed him on the spot.

"I—I’ll talk! Don’t kill me! I’ll tell you everything, Immortal Master!" he shrieked, collapsing into the mud.

"Pathetic waste of breath."

A cold, mocking voice cut through the smoke.

From the shadows of the third carriage, the one with reinforced steel bars hidden beneath heavy oiled canvas, the curtains slowly parted.

A tall, broad-shouldered middle-aged man walked out onto the wooden carriage tongue. He wore a set of dark, leather-scaled armor, holding a heavy iron spear that hummed with a faint, crackling grey mist. He glanced down at the blubbering merchant with an expression of disgust, spitting a mouthful of phlegm into the dirt.

"A cowardly dog who loses his spine the moment a little pressure is applied," the man scoffed.

He stepped off the carriage, his cold, arrogant gaze sweeping across the thirty defeated bandits before locking straight onto me. He pointed the gleaming iron tip of his spear toward my chest, his lips curling into a sneer.

"Boy, you’ve got some decent eyes on you to smell a setup," the spearman said, his aura flaring outward with aggressive, suffocating force. "If you know what’s good for you, take your little wench, turn around, and scram. Stick your nose any further into my business, and you won’t live to see the sunset."

Shen Qingxue stood completely frozen beside her mount, her jaw slightly slack, her mind entirely blank as she tried to comprehend what she was looking at. A merchant caravan carrying armed cultivators? Bandits staging an ambush?

I didn’t blink. I didn’t even draw a breath.

"Qingxue," I said calmly, looking down at her baffled face with an easy smile. "Watch closely. This is another very important lesson."

Before the sound of my voice had even finished echoing through the clearing-

SHIFT.

My figure vanished from the saddle.

There was no burst of wind, no sound of rushing air, and no visual afterimage. One millisecond I was sitting on my horse, and in the next, I materialized directly beside the armored spearman, standing within his absolute blind spot.

The man’s eyes didn’t even have the chance to widen.

I didn’t draw my sword. Raising my right hand, I formed a simple, casual blade with my fingers, channeling a microscopic, paper-thin edge of Late-Stage Golden Core qi along my palm.

SWISH.

A swift, horizontal chop swept across his throat.

It was so fast, so clean, that the sound of severed flesh was drowned out by the crackling fire.

My hand retracted smoothly into my white sleeve, pristine, untouched, and without a single speck of blood on my skin.