Pure euphoria washed over me. Watching the puddles of blood and the severed head of my enemy didn't make me sick—it fired me up. It was intoxicating, a jolt of raw life, as if the mountain of my past misfortunes had been crushed right along with that human-shaped monster.
But as the high faded, a chilling thought hit me: if it wasn't for the Spidey I'd summoned, my journey would've ended right here. The realization of how close I came to biting the dust made my gut wrench in a twisted agony, turning my blood to ice.
A few minutes later, I was busy helping the captives—poor souls the demonic practitioner had turned into literal slaves. With a flick of my wrist, I pulled recovery elixirs from my spatial ring and passed them out. Their resilience was insane. Under the elixir's effects, wounds closed up in real-time.
Emaciated bodies regained their strength, and while lost limbs couldn't just regrow, mangled noses and gouged eyes began to knit back together perfectly.
Meanwhile, my creepy companion had vanished. Snatching up the limp body of the fallen cultivator, Spiders-Man disappeared into the forest canopy, a blur of motion swinging through the branches on his webs. I knew the drill: soon, there wouldn't even be a splinter of bone left. Thousands of spiders would digest the guy completely, and the Swarm would return recharged and overflowing with energy.
"Excuse me..." a low voice rasped behind me.
I turned to see one of the survivors. Despite his tattered look, he was draped in high-end silks, with a master-crafted blade hanging at his hip.
A man in his fifties with a silver badge on his shoulder—the sect emblem. Its color marked him as an Elder. His deep, rumbling bass probably used to make high-ranking city officials tremble, but right now, it was laced with pure submission and a hidden streak of terror.
I got it. In the world of cultivation, might is the only right. My "buggy" partner had just put on a masterclass in overwhelming power, speed, and predatory instincts. Even if I looked like a regular Joe, being the handler of a monster like that earned me some serious respect.
"I'm listening," I said shortly.
"You're heading for the City of Gray Knights, aren't you?" the Elder started cautiously. "It's the nearest Tier-2 stronghold; it should still be standing. If you don't mind, we'd like to tag along. Traveling in a group is safer for everyone, and we could..."
"The name's Lin," I cut him off. "And my associate... just call him Spiders-Man. It's his callsign. I need to run your proposal by him. If he's down, I'm down. I think we can make this work—as long as you guys pull your weight and don't become dead weight."
Soon, Spiders-Man dropped from the trees without a sound. The body was gone—only a looted ring and a pile of the dead man's clothes remained. Stepping away from the resting group, I did a slick hand-off, tucking the ring into a hidden pocket of my oversized sleeve while stashing the gear in my own spatial storage. Every time I used it, it blew my mind: an entire pocket dimension crammed into a tiny object. Absolute peak magic.
"Yo, bro," I said, nodding toward the cultivators. "These guys want to hit the city with us. I think they'll be useful. They know the woods, they can help us dodge unnecessary scraps or nasty beast territories. Plus, getting through the city gates will be a lot smoother with them—we won't stick out like a sore thumb."
I kept the rest to myself. If my memory served me right, my butler once mentioned my old man used to be tight with one of the ministers in that city. That connection would be a cheat code for getting past the guards. Besides, my siblings might be there... if any of them were still walking this earth.
"We believe taking them is an unnecessary risk," the creature replied. Its voice had a strange, almost mechanical edge. "We do not know their true motives or what they seek in the shadow of their submission. However..." He paused.
"We position ourselves as heroes, and a hero's duty is to protect the weak. We concede that their know ledge of these lands will indeed benefit us."
The silence hung heavy for a second before he continued:
"We felt a strange energy. It did not vanish with the enemy's death; it kept circulating inside the cooling corpse, as if obeying a hidden rhythm. We desire to know more about the nature of these 'cultivators.'"
I nodded, rolling with his curiosity. "Alright... in this world, 'cultivators' are those who've awakened and tamed the inner flow of Qi. Existence is basically dualistic," I held up two fingers. "Body and Soul. The Body is just a mortal vessel, a container. The Soul is the battery for Qi."
I gestured to the surrounding forest.
"Qi is the primal energy that flows through everything—living things, nature, even abstract concepts. The Soul can hoard it, but only a few have bodies rigged to project that power outward. Those who can? Those are the cultivators. Their techniques are just ways to give raw energy specific 'flavors': fire, ice, the sharpness of metal, or the weight of the earth."
I waited for Spidey to process that before moving on.
"A cultivator's power grows through direct interaction with the world. Battles, grueling research, long travels, wars, schemes, and conquests—that's all fuel. As long as a cultivator keeps grinding toward their goal, their Soul fills with Qi. Once they hit the cap, they trigger a qualitative leap—an Evolution. They move to a new plane of existence. No one really knows how many steps are on this infinite ladder. The ones we wrecked today were First and Second Evolution
practitioners. The guy you ended was at the peak of Tier 2, just a heartbeat away from Tier 3."
Spidey went dead still. His mind seemed to turn into a supercomputer, crunching massive amounts of data. Suddenly, he spoke again, his voice chillingly clear, stripped of its usual distorted rattle:
"We have begun to understand ourselves better. We are realizing the boundaries of our own 'Self.' Our thoughts have gained crystalline clarity... the Swarm's instincts have grown quiet. We believe the cause of this transformation lies within the Qi."
For a moment, I was lost in thought, my mind racing. My brain was like a magic scoreboard, flickering through dozens of theories: how and why the hell was Spidey's consciousness changing so fast? I was building logic chains, linking his weird biology to the laws of this world.
"I've got a few theories on why this is happening," I finally said, locking eyes with his unmoving lenses. "I think you're ready for my take on it."
Spidey's body froze, becoming eerily calm. All the extra twitching of his limbs stopped. The vibration that usually hummed off his armor died down completely. He became a perfect statue, focused entirely on my words.
"Speak," he replied, his voice sounding monolithic and deep. "We are listening."
×××××××××××
"Alright, we've made a call. We're moving to the city with you. I trust this collab will be a win-win for everyone," I said, making sure every word carried weight.
I extended an open palm toward the Elder. This wasn't just a peace offering; it was a low-key vibe check. If his ego was bigger than his survival instinct and he felt "too good" to shake hands with a mere mortal, he'd fail the test. A partner like that would definitely stab us in the back the moment things got dicey, and that would be a total disaster.
The Elder hesitated for a heartbeat, staring at my hand.
"The White Fox Sect is deeply grateful to you, Lord Lin," he finally said, bowing his head in respect. "We won't be a burden, and we hope for a fair, mutually beneficial journey."
The Elder was smart enough to keep his pride in check and gave my hand a firm shake. Of course, it helped that Spiders-Man was standing right behind me, arms crossed, boring into the cultivator with his unblinking lenses. Spidey was definitely the biggest "argument" in this piece of diplomacy.
"Good deal," I gave a short smirk, breaking the tension. "Alright then... let's fly."