Through 003's vision, Mo Fan watched the absurd scene playing out at the village entrance from afar.
The black-robed Daoist who called himself "Venerable Miasma Dust"—faced with a crowd of mortals kowtowing frantically in the mud—made no move to subdue the monster.
Instead, he swept his horsetail whisk with evident satisfaction and struck a pose of sorrowful, benevolent compassion.
"Good people, you have been frightened. This one arrived a step too late—you have suffered."
He raised his left hand gently. A soft current of spiritual force lifted several of the nearest mortals to their feet. His voice carried a tone of practiced, hypocritically solemn grief.
"With this one present, that wretched beast shall be reduced to ash. Linshui Village shall have its peace."
Only after soothing the villagers—who now regarded him as a living deity—did the black-robed Daoist slowly turn his head.
He looked at the massive white-boned beast in the distance—the one that had stuttered slightly under his "sonic pressure"—and a thin, extremely contemptuous coldness flickered through his eyes.
In his assessment, this was nothing but a mindless, low-tier dead object.
He had overlooked one critically fatal, common-sense error in that assumption.
This was not a simple demon beast. This was a skeletal monster summoned by a Necromancer.
For a skeleton under a Necromancer's remote control, without an explicit "Stop" command from its master, any external sound or oppressive aura was worth precisely nothing.
Keep working.
Within 003's hollow eye sockets, the gaze representing Mo Fan carried not a flicker of reaction. If anything, there was a faint trace of amusement.
Crack.
The massive frame didn't hesitate for even half a second.
That thick white foreleg—which had hung in mid-air and stuttered for just an instant under the spiritual pressure—didn't retract.
It came down with pure, violently brutal physical force. Like a mountain collapsing.
BOOM!
A deafening crash erupted from the rear of Linshui Village.
The perfectly maintained ancestral hall crumpled like a fragile papier-mâché toy under 003's pile-driver blow!
Heavy roof beams snapped. Gray tiles flew in every direction. The offering table inside, loaded with spirit tablets, was directly smashed to splinters.
And that core tablet placed at the very top—the one with "Venerable Miasma Dust" written in blood-red cinnabar—was caught directly under 003's heavy bone foot.
Crack.
The tablet that symbolized majesty and divine authority was ground into unrecognizable scraps of rotted wood!
A mushroom cloud of dust billowed upward.
"..."
The atmosphere of solemn compassion at the village entrance died instantly.
The "unfathomable" worldly expert expression on the black-robed Daoist's face was shattered, as if someone had walked up and viciously slapped him across the face!
"YOU INSOLENT WRETCH!!!"
His complexion cycled from white to green to purple. Every feature on his face twisted with absolute fury.
His painstakingly cultivated shrine—the one people knelt before and worshipped—had been stomped to powder right in front of his eyes!
"Damned beast, I will strip your bones and boil your fat!"
He let out a shriek of pure, flustered rage.
The spiritual force that had been flowing steadily around him erupted like boiling water.
His entire body became a pitch-black blur, carrying berserk killing intent, and he came tearing across the rubble toward 003 at full speed.
Good timing. Let me check your stats.
Mo Fan felt no panic at the rapidly approaching afterimage.
He focused completely. In the instant the man's cultivation fully released—his spiritual aura laid bare—Mo Fan drove [ Death Vision ] through 003's soul-flame eyes to its absolute limit.
In the grayish-white field of vision, the black-robed Daoist's life silhouette grew sharper and sharper.
And what Mo Fan saw sent a cold spike of dread straight through him.
What in the hell is this situation?!
In Death Vision's feedback, this "Venerable Miasma Dust" wasn't presenting the stable, readable aura of a normal cultivator.
The spiritual fluctuations inside him were incredibly bizarre—a tangled mess of threads, completely impossible to accurately read!
The red light representing his cultivation flickered erratically. Surged. Dropped.
At its lowest, his presence barely held at late Qi Condensation—frail as a critically injured old man on his last breath.
But when that red light violently spiked to its peak...
The oppressive pressure hit Mo Fan's perception like something tangible!
Peak... Foundation Establishment?!
Mo Fan's pupils contracted sharply. His breath caught for half a beat.
Although that peak state only lasted for a brief instant before plummeting again, that bona fide peak Foundation Establishment pressure was absolutely not fake!
The same tier as Luo Yu, that high-and-mighty direct disciple!
Damn it, what exactly is going on here.
Mo Fan's brain spun into endless bewilderment.
But no matter how hollow he is. If he can burst out even one second of peak Foundation Establishment combat power—
I have absolutely zero possibility of winning!
Should he pull out?
Facing an opponent who far exceeded the upper limit of his response capabilities, and whose intel was extremely unclear, Mo Fan felt genuinely uncertain.
Although 003 is precious, a top-tier skeleton frame I just painstakingly assembled from scratch...
An extremely pained struggle flashed through Mo Fan's eyes.
Am I really going to have to flee in a panic?
He watched the black-robed Daoist in the vision, closing the distance to 003 with every passing second.
Mo Fan, situated in the side courtyard, drew a slow breath.
He began carefully reeling in the vast mental force he had projected onto 003, preparing to sever the [ Forced Override ] at any moment.
If this old man truly was peak Foundation Establishment, he could only resort to this worst-case scenario:
Let 003 buy time while he took the opportunity to evacuate.
He would let 003 continue its rampage in the village relying on a demon beast's base killing instinct, using its final value to pull all the aggro of that Foundation Establishment old monster.
And while the chaos peaked, his own main body would use this moment to take Mo Yan, slip out from the blind spot of the side courtyard, and bail!
He was still weighing it, still hesitating—
When suddenly. Right here in the side courtyard.
An extremely abrupt, faint sound broke the silence.
Mo Fan's hearing—sharper than anyone at his tier had any right to be—snagged it immediately.
It wasn't the rustling of wind blowing through leaves. Nor the sound of a rat scurrying across the eaves.
A person's breathing.
Deliberately suppressed. But still perceptible—heavy, ragged, unmistakably human.
Bzzt.
Mo Fan froze mid-motion. His eyes snapped open and locked dead onto the wooden door of his room.
Someone was outside the door?!
Who? Fang Tong? Or Wu Feng and San Niang?!
Did they... wake up?!