The moment the black iron command medallion, etched with that familiar silver centipede, appeared, the air within the Wind and Cloud Inn seemed to be sucked entirely away. The suffocating tension of a multi-sided standoff was instantly replaced by a deathly silence—a silence far more terrifying than the howling roar of a tempest.
To those who shed blood and lived on the edge of a blade in Qing Province, that command medallion possessed a deterrent force far greater than any divine weapon or magical artifact.
It was the absolute symbol of the Black Dragon Stronghold.
The complexions of the Three Fiends of Black Wind, those three ferocious hunters, underwent a drastic transformation. The greed and savagery in their eyes vanished without a trace, replaced by extreme horror and visceral panic. They were not fools. If they offended the Blue Water Sect, they could still rely on the backing of their own factions to survive. But to offend the Black Dragon Stronghold? That was actively courting death! All three men involuntarily took a step back, the ghost-head sabers in their hands trembling violently.
The duo from the Blue Water Sect also blanched. The man's brows furrowed deeply, his eyes brimming with intense wariness. As for the beautiful woman, the ice-cold sneer on her lips had completely frozen over, replaced by a visage of immense complexity. Though they had their sect backing them, they had absolutely no desire to provoke a nest of Plague Gods renowned for their utter madness and vengefulness like the Black Dragon Stronghold, all for a piece of spirit wood whose authenticity was still unknown.
Yet, the one who was the most deeply shaken was none other than the grey-cloaked assassin.
The killing intent condensing around his body suddenly plunged into chaos. He no longer looked at Tran Kien; instead, his gaze was locked dead onto the command medallion, and then onto the injured man sprawled on the ground. A horrifying thought flashed through his mind like a bolt of lightning.
A trap! This was a trap!
This entire sequence of events—from the injured man fleeing into the inn clutching the Fire Crow Wood, to the impeccably timed arrival of both the Three Fiends of Black Wind and the Blue Water Sect—it was all far too coincidental. This was no random scramble for a treasure. This was a net that had been cast long in advance. And the ultimate prey of this trap... was him!
"Ha... haha..." The injured man on the ground suddenly burst into laughter. His voice was incredibly feeble, yet it dripped with unbridled mockery and madness. Propping himself up with immense difficulty, blood continuously spilled from the corners of his mouth. "Are you surprised, Shadow Sparrow? You thought you were the hunter, but little did you know, the moment you accepted the mission to assassinate our Young Master, you had already become the prey."
Shadow Sparrow! The grey-cloaked assassin, one of the apex killers of the "Shadowless Pavilion," infamous throughout the lands for his ghostly movement techniques and lethal, one-strike assassinations.
"Young Master?" Shadow Sparrow growled, his icy gaze sweeping across everyone present. "Who exactly is your Young Master?"
"You have no need to know," the injured man sneered viciously. "You only need to know that today, this little inn shall be your grave!"
As his words fell, he abruptly summoned the very last dregs of his strength to bite down on a pill hidden within his teeth. Instantaneously, a plume of pitch-black, noxious poison gas spewed from his mouth, rapidly billowing out to engulf the entire inn.
"Poison! Everyone, fall back!" the woman from the Blue Water Sect shrieked. She frantically tore a piece of fabric from her robes to cover her nose and mouth, simultaneously grabbing her senior brother to violently retreat.
The Three Fiends of Black Wind were equally terrified, hastily circulating their cultivation bases to resist the encroaching miasma.
But it was too late. This poison gas was unbelievably overbearing; not only did it corrode flesh and blood, but it also possessed the terrifying ability to stagnate spiritual energy. The ordinary guests of the inn barely had time to let out a miserable shriek before collapsing to the floor, their bodies convulsing as their skin rapidly turned a necrotic black. Even cultivators like the Three Fiends felt a wave of dizzying vertigo wash over them, the spiritual energy within their meridians feeling as though it had been frozen solid.
The only person largely unaffected was none other than Tran Kien.
The very moment he had noticed the injured man's abnormal movements, he had immediately driven his Primordial Chaos Qi, using it to envelop his entire body. This aura, utterly pure and righteously orthodox, seemed to be the absolute nemesis of all evil poisons. Whenever the black miasma brushed against the thin layer of Qi protecting him, it was violently repelled, completely unable to invade his body.
However, Tran Kien had no intention of staying. He knew that this was a death match, a deadly game of chess between the Black Dragon Stronghold and the Shadowless Pavilion. He was merely a bystander who had been inadvertently swept into the vortex. Right now, this was his golden opportunity to escape.
While everyone else was thrown into sheer chaos by the poison gas, Tran Kien did not hesitate for a fraction of a second. His figure moved like a hunting leopard—not retreating, but charging straight ahead toward a window on the side wall of the inn!
"Trying to run?!"
A chilling roar echoed out. Shadow Sparrow, though somewhat hindered by the poison gas, possessed a cultivation base ostensibly far higher than anyone else present. He had rapidly stabilized himself, and his very first target was neither the Three Fiends nor the Blue Water Sect duo. It was Tran Kien, the one person he felt the greatest sense of threat from!
A grey blur shot forward with terrifying velocity, the pitch-black dagger in his hand carving a deadly arc of light that squarely blocked Tran Kien's path of retreat.
Simultaneously, outside the inn, hidden within the torrential sheet of white rain, dozens of dark figures clad in the attire of the Black Dragon Stronghold had silently materialized. They had completely cordoned off the entire inn. An inescapable heavenly net had been cast.
Tran Kien knew that his path of retreat had been utterly severed.
"If you leave me no path to life," he murmured, his eyes terrifyingly tranquil. "Then let us all be buried here together!"
He no longer concealed his strength. The Primordial Chaos Qi within his body erupted with the force of a volcano. Yet, he did not launch an attack at Shadow Sparrow. Instead, he spun around and threw a devastating punch directly at the main load-bearing pillar in the center of the inn.
Into this punch, he poured every single ounce of his bodily strength!
BOOM!!!
An earth-shattering explosion rocked the air. The ebony pillar, as hard as tempered steel, snapped cleanly in half beneath the absolute, full-powered might of Tran Kien's fist!
The entire structural integrity of the two-story inn instantly lost its foundational support. The roof, the second-floor floorboards, the crossbeams... everything began to shudder violently before plummeting downward!
"He's insane! That brat is completely insane!" "Get out, now!"
Everyone shrieked in unadulterated terror, madly scrambling toward the exit. But waiting outside was the ironclad encirclement of the Black Dragon Stronghold. Above them was the collapsing inn.
Tran Kien paid no heed to the others. The split second the pillar shattered, he borrowed the recoil force, his body shooting backward like a leaf caught in a gale, hurtling straight toward the rotting wooden wall of the rear kitchen.
CRASH!
Using his fleshly body, which had been tempered to be as tough as iron, he pulverized the wooden wall and blasted out into the torrential rain.
He did not flee into the depths of the forest; rather, he shot directly toward the official public road.
A dead-end chessboard. A move of absolute madness. Yet, within that extreme, suffocating chaos, he had forcefully carved out his one and only path to survival.
Behind him, the Wind and Cloud Inn completely caved in with a horrifying roar, burying every last grudge, every insidious scheme, and all the unfortunate souls who had failed to escape, deep within the rubble and the freezing, merciless rain.