Chapter 67: Conspiracy

One after another, they emerged from the darkness until exactly one hundred Shadow Soldiers stood around the crater.

They formed a perfect circle, shoulder to shoulder, completely sealing the basin. There was no gap left for anyone to escape.

"What the hell is that?!" the cult leader shouted.

He stumbled backward as the shadow blades he had unleashed slammed into the nearest Shadow Soldier’s barrier and shattered harmlessly against it.

"Forbidden necromancy?! Summoning arts?! That’s impossible! There aren’t any corpse-cores in this sector!"

Lucian didn’t bother answering.

"Execute."

His voice was calm.

The moment the command left his mouth, all one hundred Shadow Soldiers moved.

There was no hesitation.

No confusion.

They divided into four groups and advanced from different directions, moving with frightening coordination.

The first unit charged forward.

Their frost-covered executioner blades crashed against the cultists’ corrupted Energy barriers, sending shockwaves through the battlefield.

The combined pressure of the soldiers was overwhelming. Each one possessed the strength of a peak Martial Warrior Stage 9, and together, their attacks became a force the cultists could barely withstand.

CRACK!

The cult leader’s defensive barrier split down the middle.

Twenty frost-covered blades struck it almost simultaneously, forcing him backward.

He coughed violently and spat out a mouthful of dark blood. His knees nearly gave out beneath him.

"Retreat!"

His voice trembled with panic.

"Break through the southern side! Get us out of here!"

At this point, he had completely abandoned the ritual.

Capturing Evelyn no longer mattered.

Neither did the altar.

All he wanted was to survive.

He swung his iron cleaver with everything he had, sending a violent slash toward the wall of Shadow Soldiers.

BOOM!

The attack struck.

The Shadow Soldiers didn’t even move.

The cult leader’s expression turned pale.

It was useless.

These creatures didn’t fight like ordinary warriors.

There was no anger in their movements. No fear. No hesitation.

They simply followed Lucian’s command.

One cultist tried to escape toward the left.

Three Shadow Soldiers moved at once.

One blade blocked his arm.

Another cut toward his leg.

The third was already positioned at his throat.

The cultist barely managed to raise his weapon before the three blades came crashing down.

CLANG!

He was forced back.

Before he could recover, another group of Shadow Soldiers closed in from behind.

The battlefield had become a slaughterhouse.

And at the center of it all, Lucian simply stood there and watched.

Within thirty seconds, two of the weaker cult assassins were pinned against the stone floor.

Their corrupted Energy drained rapidly as black mist curled around their bodies, twisting around their limbs like living serpents.

"Shadow Devour."

Lucian raised his left hand and slowly curled his fingers inward.

The moment he did, the black mist across the battlefield grew thicker.

The dark energy radiating from the dying cultists began tearing itself away from their bodies. Their forbidden cultivation power was pulled into the ground and swallowed by the Shadow Domain.

One after another, the energy was absorbed into the cores of the hundred Shadow Soldiers.

The cultists didn’t simply die.

Their cultivation bases were being stripped away.

Their bodies rapidly weakened, their skin turning pale and brittle as the life force within them was consumed by the darkness.

Within seconds, several of them collapsed into dry, lifeless husks.

The entire battlefield fell strangely quiet.

At the center of the blood-runes, the cult leader dropped to his knees.

His boar mask had cracked straight down the middle, exposing part of his bloodied face.

He struggled to breathe, each breath coming out as a terrified gasp.

Then he looked up.

Through the broken red eyeholes of his mask, his gaze met Lucian’s.

Lucian was walking toward him.

Slowly.

Calmly.

As if there wasn’t a battlefield covered in corpses around him.

"Who... what are you...?" the cult leader choked out.

Blood ran from his nose and ears.

"You aren’t a student..."

His voice trembled.

"You’re... you’re a monster wearing human skin..."

Lucian stopped a few feet in front of him.

His silver-tinged eyes remained cold and emotionless.

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he slowly raised his right hand.

A thin, razor-sharp strand of spatial power appeared around his fingertips, twisting lazily through the air.

The cult leader’s pupils shrank.

Lucian’s fingers twitched.

He was about to deliver the final strike.

Then he suddenly stopped.

His expression changed slightly.

Lucian’s silver eyes shifted upward, piercing through the purple mist and the dense canopy above the ravine.

His spatial perception stretched far beyond the battlefield.

Several miles to the north, something had caught his attention.

Even through the basin’s dense spatial isolation array, he could sense it.

A faint ripple.

Almost impossible to detect.

Almost.

Lucian narrowed his eyes.

It wasn’t a normal Energy fluctuation.

It was a high-frequency telepathic signal, carefully encoded and traveling toward the deeper regions of Zone 3.

Someone was sending a message.

And whoever had sent it wasn’t nearby.

It wasn’t a random scout signal.

It was a confirmation receipt.

"Pawns..." Lucian murmured, his expression darkening slightly.

The five cultists who had infiltrated Black Snake Ravine, prepared the Blood-Shackle Array, and attempted to trap Evelyn had never been acting on their own.

Everything had been too precise.

The timing of the ambush, the placement of the array, even the way they had targeted Evelyn. None of it felt like the work of some rogue cult cell acting independently.

Someone had been giving them orders.

Someone with authority far above these five.

And that person was likely hiding somewhere deep within the academy’s core sectors, or perhaps even behind one of the shadow syndicates operating beyond its walls.

SHING!

Lucian flicked his wrist.

The spatial blade flashed across the air before the cult leader could say another word.

His head separated cleanly from his body.

The corpse collapsed into the muddy ground.

A moment later, the hundred Shadow Soldiers began to disappear.

Their bodies dissolved into black mist before sinking back into the ground, vanishing into the dark stone as if they had never existed.

The boiling darkness gradually faded.

The Hollow Basin fell silent.

Behind Lucian, the blood-red chains binding Evelyn flickered violently.

The Blood-Shackle Array struggled for a few final seconds before its remaining energy finally collapsed.

CRACK!

The crimson chains shattered into countless red sparks.

Evelyn stood completely still.

Her fingers had gone numb.

The rapier slipped from her hand and struck the stone with a soft metallic clang.

She barely noticed.

Her entire attention was fixed on Lucian.

For the past year, she had known him as a talented but seemingly fragile commoner scholar.

Someone she had always believed needed her protection.

But the person standing in front of her now was nothing like that man.

The calm expression.

The overwhelming strength.

The hundred soldiers that had appeared from the shadows.

And the terrifying ease with which he had slaughtered the cultists.

None of it made sense.

"Lucian..."

Her voice finally escaped, barely louder than a whisper.

She didn’t know what question to ask first.

There were simply too many.

Lucian turned toward her.

The terrifying aura that had surrounded him moments ago vanished almost instantly.

His cold eyes softened.

The ruthless predator from the battlefield was gone.

Once again, he looked like the calm, gentle Lucian she knew.

He walked over and carefully took her injured right hand.

His fingers were surprisingly gentle as he looked at the blood covering her palm.

"Let’s get you out of here, Wifey."

A faint smile appeared on his face.

"The air around here is getting a little crowded."