"Pfft—cough cough cough!"
The mouthful of tea Mo Fan and A-Song had just drunk sprayed out of them both at exactly the same moment, in perfect unison...
The instant they heard those words.
The two of them choked and coughed. Mo Fan, especially, went wide-eyed and hurriedly asked:
"Old Lü, don't drag out your words like that—you scared us half to death."
"But how's the menial-labor district going to just up and vanish, all of a sudden, when everything was perfectly fine?"
Old Lü was startled by the two boys' violent reaction and shot them an annoyed glance.
He lightly tapped his pipe against the sole of his shoe, packed in a fresh pinch of tobacco, and spoke with a note of helplessness and world-weariness:
"Sigh, the two of you are lofty Inner Sect disciples now. When you're not cultivating on the Main Peak, you're in closed-door seclusion—so naturally you've no idea of the wretched business that's cropped up lately down here at the bottom of the Outer Sect."
He took a couple of puffs on his dry-tobacco pipe and exhaled a mouthful of grayish-white smoke, his gaze gradually turning grave:
"This menial-labor district of ours was built right up against the mountain in the first place—awfully close to the back mountain. But for all these years, the outer edge of the back mountain has always been peaceful."
"Demon beasts rarely came out to wander, and at most they'd be some Qi Condensation types."
"Usually those wild beasts got taken by the disciples to sharpen their skills on, and for us mortals who go into the mountain to gather herbs and chop firewood, so long as we didn't venture too deep, we've always been safe and sound."
At this point, Old Lü's brow knotted tightly together, and he lowered his voice to the barest murmur:
"But just recently—I don't know how it happened—the back mountain went and boiled over like a pot cracking open! All of a sudden, a whole swarm of extremely ferocious demon beasts came bursting out from the depths!"
"Those demon beasts have gone as if mad, wounding people again and again. It's not just us mortals who've suffered—I hear even several disciple patrol squads that went in got scattered by the beast pack, with quite a few of them badly hurt!"
Hearing this, Mo Fan's gaze condensed slightly, sensing the gravity of the matter.
"If there are demon beasts wounding people—even wounding Outer Sect disciples—does the Sect really do nothing about it?" A-Song couldn't help but cut in.
"Do something? Do what?"
Old Lü gave a bitter laugh and shook his head.
"There may be a lot of demon beasts, but they're only stirring up trouble on the outer fringe—it hasn't yet built into the kind of beast tide that could threaten the Sect's foundations."
"A disaster of this level is nowhere near enough to alarm the Inner Sect immortal elders into coming down the mountain to deal with it."
"The Main Peak's meaning is crystal clear: this is the Outer Sect's affair—let the Outer Sect fend for itself and sort it out on its own."
Old Lü heaved a sigh, his gaze sweeping a full circle around this shabby little courtyard so full of memories.
"When the Outer Sect Chief Steward saw how things stood, he knew those Outer Sect disciples couldn't clear it all out anytime soon."
"So, to preserve the lives of us mortal menial workers, he issued a strict order—for now, to relocate every household in these few villages near the back mountain out toward the outer edge."
"As for whether we'll get to move back afterward, or when we can move back... this old man doesn't know either."
"We're most likely setting off first thing tomorrow morning."
The night wind blew through the old locust tree, raising a rustling sound.
Old Lü lifted his head, looked at the cold, clear full moon in the night sky, took a deep drag on his pipe...
And his tone carried an inexpressible sorrow and reluctance:
"Sigh, I really can't bear to leave. Lived here my whole life. I always figured I'd get to be buried nice and peaceful in this bit of earth—as they say, it's hard to leave one's native soil..."
"And who knows, once we've moved off somewhere else, whether that moon up above will still be as round as the one here."
Old Lü puffed on his pipe, his hunched silhouette looking especially forlorn in the moonlight.
Mo Fan and A-Song listened quietly. Neither made a sound to disturb the old man's musings.
Across the fire, the two brothers exchanged a glance with perfect understanding.
Just one glance—no words of communication needed at all—and the two brothers had already grasped the thought in each other's heart.
If we can't even protect Old Lü's one remaining attachment—this patch of native soil that shelters him from wind and rain—then what meaning is there in this so-called cultivation of ours in the cultivation world?
Move? Move my ass!
But so as not to worry Old Lü, neither of them made a peep.
They simply kept the old man company chatting idly for a while, just as they always did...
Then quietly returned to their own rooms to sleep—as if nothing at all had happened.
Deep in the night.
All was silent, and the entire menial-labor district had sunk into slumber.
Creeak— Creeak—
Two exceedingly faint sounds of doors opening rose, almost at the very same moment, from the wing rooms on either side of the little courtyard.
Mo Fan pushed open his door—and ran squarely into A-Song, who was just then stepping out of the room opposite.
The two of them looked at the other's get-up, and both couldn't help but grin in the darkness.
"Going?" Mo Fan cocked an eyebrow.
"Going." A-Song nodded firmly.
Two figures, like phantoms, tapped down on their toes and lightly vaulted over the courtyard wall without alarming a soul...
Then raced straight toward the night-shrouded back mountain.
With the two of them at their present combat strength—
One a Tier-2 Necromancer with an unfathomable foundation and astonishing body-cultivation.
The other a heaven's-chosen prodigy bearing a High-Grade Wood Spirit Root and deeply versed in the Sect Master's true teachings.
So long as they didn't run into a Golden Core demon beast, these two brothers could probably withdraw from anything unscathed.
A short while later.
The two of them had already made their familiar, well-trodden way into the dense forest of the back mountain.
The environment here was, for Mo Fan, familiar to the point of absurdity.
He could even, in the darkness along the way, pick out with pinpoint accuracy that hidden hollow in the tree where he'd first stashed Unit 001.
But as their steps carried them deeper, a scent obviously different from usual gradually began to permeate the air.
It was a scent of danger—an eerie, uncanny scent.
"Big Brother Xiaoqi, something's moving."
A-Song suddenly halted, gripping the longsword in his hand...
His gaze blazing as it fixed on a thicket of shrubs to the right.
Mo Fan said nothing, merely clasped his hands behind his back with utter composure and stood where he was.
Rustle, rustle...
The thicket shook violently once, and then—
A demon beast, its body as huge as a half-grown calf, lay crouched in the shadows with the utmost stealth...
Coiled into a pouncing, killing stance, poised to burst forth.
Mo Fan fixed his gaze on it, and the corner of his mouth couldn't help but curl into a strange smile.
"Oho, an old acquaintance."
It was a [ Demon-Eye Rabbit ].
By all rights, a demon beast at the bottom of the food chain like this should top out at Mid-Stage Qi Condensation.
But this Demon-Eye Rabbit was not only preposterously large—the spiritual-power fluctuations radiating off it were faintly closing in on Foundation Establishment, having reached the level of [ Peak Qi Condensation ].
Stranger still, its eyes, already red to begin with, were now blood-crimson as though dripping gore...
Carrying a savagery so extreme it had utterly lost all reason.
Squee—!
The Demon-Eye Rabbit lurking in the shadows did not choose to go straight into a physical brawl.
It glared fixedly at Mo Fan, and from those blood-red eyes, there abruptly erupted a burst of uncanny crimson light!
Mental attack!
This had once been the deadly killing move that made things utterly miserable for Mo Fan back when he was still a rookie!
However. Today was not like the days of old.
Faced with this invisible ripple of mental force— Mo Fan didn't so much as dodge. He simply stood there quietly, without even blinking an eye.
Hummm...
The mental attack slammed with brutal force into Mo Fan's brain.
And then... there was no "and then."
After all, with Mo Fan's present soul intensity, this mental attack striking him felt only like being ever so faintly bitten by a mosquito on the scalp—it didn't leave behind even a hint of an itch.
"That's it?"
Without so much as employing his physical body, relying purely on that colossal soul intensity...
He traced the path of the incoming mental attack and—following its example, doing as it had done—launched a counterstrike right back along the same route!
Pfft—!
From within the thicket came an abrupt, extremely muffled bursting sound, as though something inside had exploded.
Mo Fan strolled leisurely forward and parted the shrubs.
There lay that Peak Qi Condensation Demon-Eye Rabbit, blood now streaming from all seven orifices...
Flipped stiffly onto its back on the ground, all four limbs still twitching unconsciously.
There wasn't a single wound on its exterior, but its brain had been rattled into a pulpy mush—completely brain-dead.
"Big Brother Xiaoqi..."
A-Song, following behind, watched with a face full of bewilderment. He put away his longsword and leaned in curiously.
"How'd you know there was a rabbit in there? Just now I only sensed it hiding inside—I didn't even get the chance to make a move, and it up and died stone-dead on its own. How?"
Mo Fan brushed off his sleeve and said blandly, with an air of profound inscrutability:
"Maybe this is what you'd call 'guarding the stump, awaiting the rabbit.' This rabbit's eyesight isn't too good—it went and rammed itself headfirst into a rock and killed itself."
A-Song: "..."
A-Song scratched his head, muttering furiously in his heart: Guard the pig (zhū), bring the rabbit? Where's the pig? Why's Big Brother Qi started spouting these dialects I can't understand again...
However, this lighthearted little interlude didn't last long.
As the two of them continued pushing toward the depths of the back mountain...
The demon beasts they encountered along the way grew higher and higher in rank, and the figures of Foundation Establishment demon beasts began to appear with increasing frequency.
When they arrived at that abandoned logging area where Mo Fan used to spend the most time, the sight before their eyes left both of them rather astonished.
On that open patch of ground that should have been piled with lumber...
There were, at this moment, three terrifying demon beasts squatting all at once, each radiating the pressure of [ Foundation Establishment ].
And, without exception, all three of these demon beasts had eyes blood-crimson as gore, their whole bodies steeped in that reason-less, savage aura.
Roar—!
Sensing the scent of strangers, the three Foundation Establishment beasts let out a deafening roar in unison...
Turning into three afterimages that came pouncing and slaughtering madly toward the two of them in a triangular formation!
"I've got this!"
A-Song gave a clear shout. Far from fear, his eyes instead blazed with a roaring will to fight.
He strode out in a single step, the vast true essence of his Mid-Stage Foundation Establishment cultivation thundering into motion.
His two hands pinched out a mysterious mudra before his chest with lightning speed.
"Life ever-flowing, ten thousand trees as soldiers!"
At A-Song's mudra, the withered wood and towering ancient trees all around—once lifeless and still—seemed to spring to life in an instant!
Countless streams of dense, visible Wood-attribute spiritual energy were forcibly, domineeringly drawn out of the surrounding plants...
And in mid-air, in an instant, transformed into hundreds upon thousands of sharp flying needles, each flickering with a piercing cyan glow!
"Go!"
A-Song swept his sword-fingers, and that sky full of cyan flying needles poured down like a violent rain of blades...
Blotting out the heavens as it deluged toward two of the demon beasts!
Standing off to the side, Mo Fan watched this scene, and a flicker of brilliant, dazzling wonder couldn't help but cross his eyes, as he silently marveled to himself.
You had to understand—A-Song was only Mid-Stage Foundation Establishment...
Yet this casting method of his could exquisitely mobilize the spiritual energy of the surrounding environment as his primary means of attack, thereby minimizing his own consumption of true essence to the greatest possible degree!
This was clearly an extremely high-tier technique of spiritual-energy application!
This closed-door disciple really does have some skills.
Just as Mo Fan was marveling, the third Foundation Establishment demon beast had already charged up in front of him, trailing a gust of bloody wind.
"Since you've made progress too, then I can't fall behind, can I."
Mo Fan employed no death qi, nor did he summon any skeletons.
He merely tilted his neck slightly, limbering up his sinews and joints...
Then thrust out a fist and met the demon beast—its bloody maw gaping wide—head-on, advancing rather than retreating!
BOOM——!!!
An extremely muffled sound of flesh colliding with flesh exploded!
Without even using any fancy techniques, relying purely on the raw strength of his physical body...
A single, utterly unreserved straight punch smashed brutally, head-on, into that demon beast's skull!
The demon beast didn't even get the chance to let out a scream. Its huge body, like a kite with its string cut...
It was sent flying backward more than a dozen meters by the terrifying physical kinetic energy of that one punch...
Plowing a deep furrow into the ground, bones snapped and tendons severed, dead on the spot!
Clean. Crisp. A total curb-stomp.
In less than the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, this area that struck terror into the hearts of every Outer Sect disciple had been swept spotlessly clean by these two brothers.
The two didn't rest, but continued to weave swiftly through the dense forest, scouting.
But after a good half-night of sweeping and clearing...
The two of them stood on a ridge with a commanding view, looking down over the whole terrain of the back mountain, and both their brows locked tightly together.
"Big Brother Xiaoqi, something's off here."
A-Song pointed toward several directions in the distance and analyzed:
"I just observed carefully—these crazed demon beasts are spread out extremely unevenly."
"The closer you get toward the Main Peak and the Inner Sect core areas, the fewer Foundation Establishment demon beasts there are—you could even say they're completely absent."
"But..."
A-Song's finger turned to point toward a corner deep within the mountains.
"The closer you get toward that direction, the stronger the demon beasts' cultivation, the denser their numbers, and the thicker that savage aura grows!"
Mo Fan followed the direction of A-Song's finger—and his pupils abruptly constricted.
He knew that direction all too well.
That was the starting point he could never, in this life, forget no matter what—the [ Abandoned Sword Cliff ]!
Gazing in that direction...
Mo Fan's heartbeat quickened uncontrollably.
Don't tell me...
The source of this upheaval on the back mountain...
Is right at the foot of the very cliff I first crossed over to this world beneath?!