Aftermath

The man stared at him with wide-open eyes, full of fear and unwillingness.

The sight of him dying with his eyes open made the leader of the den feel his scalp tingle.

His heart pounded relentlessly as he glanced towards the others.

Dead men.

Still, dead men.

The subordinates who had been sleeping soundly outside his room had all met their demise, not a single soul surviving.

Their bodies lay strewn haphazardly across the ground, dark crimson pools of blood congealing beneath them, shimmering with an eerie luster in the dim moonlight.

The manner of their deaths was gruesome, yet eerily uniform.

He couldn’t help but ponder to himself what formidable and practiced methods could achieve such a feat.

Each wound resembled a meticulously carved masterpiece, yet they were so brutal as to send shivers down his spine.

“Impossible! This is utterly impossible!”

The Den Leader rose to his feet, his steps faltering as he muttered incessantly to himself.

“How could orthodox cultivators strike with such ruthless resolve, leaving no trace of life or room for mercy, their every attack aimed directly at vital points, ensuring death?”

A myriad of thoughts flashed through his mind.

Suddenly, a terrifying conjecture surfaced in his heart.

“Could this be…”

Abruptly, the Den Leader disregarded the lives of others, frantically trampling over the still-warm corpses, the sensation beneath his feet sickening him to the core.

The primal urge to survive consumed his every rational thought.

He sprinted towards a hidden secret door at the back.

The secret door represented his last vestige of hope.

Just as he reached the secret door, before he could even register a flicker of joy, the expression on his face froze instantly.

Indeed, as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, he keenly sensed someone approaching from behind.

That person was drawing near at an excruciatingly slow pace, each step seeming to fall in sync with his own pounding heart.

He also knew precisely what the person behind him intended to do.

They must be here to assassinate him!

“Damn it, why won’t this door open?”

The Den Leader deliberately shouted, feigning extreme nervousness to make the person behind him lower their guard.

In reality, his hands weren’t fumbling with the door, but secretly tightening their grip on the Profound Iron Blade he held.

The Profound Iron Blade was heavy and substantial, its weight in his hands offering a sliver of security.

Once the person behind him was within three steps, the Den Leader whirled around abruptly.

His Profound Iron Sword, whistling through the air, cleaved horizontally towards the figure behind him.

This single strike, imbued with his entire strength and desperate will to survive, was undeniably lethal, striking the opponent’s neck.

“What? How… how could it be you?”

Upon seeing the person he had struck, the Den Leader initially felt a surge of triumph, believing he had successfully repelled his foe.

However, a closer look in the moonlight left him utterly stunned.

“Big Brother, why… why did you strike me?”

“It’s me…”

The subordinate, who had been struck, revealed a face contorted with terror and dread, desperately clutching at his neck.

Blood gushed forth like a breached dam, an unstoppable torrent.

The subordinate’s eyes were wide with horror, tears mingled with blood streaming incessantly.

The previously silent and tranquil environment finally gained a touch of human presence.

“No, this isn’t right…”

The Den Leader gazed at the gruesome scene before him, utterly bewildered, his mouth spewing an endless stream of denials.

“I didn’t mean to kill you! It’s not like that! This wasn’t my intention! It has nothing to do with me!”

Despite being a practitioner of the Demic Path, with countless lives on his hands, he now displayed the cowardice and fear of someone committing their first murder.

His mind plunged into a brief chaos, his hands trembling, causing the Profound Iron Blade he held to waver.

Even so, his primal instinct for survival remained sharp, and he swung his blade once more towards his back.

This time, he again struck someone’s neck.

Yet, just like before, this person was also one of his subordinates.

That person screamed, clutching their neck, before finally collapsing into a pool of blood.

“Bastards!” the Den Leader roared in fury. “You cowards, how dare you not show yourselves and face me in a duel?”

His voice echoed through the night sky, yet received no reply.

He wildly hacked and slashed at his surroundings, his blade cleaving through the air with furious swishes.

The surroundings remained eerily calm and tranquil, an unmoving silence akin to the dead stillness before a storm.

It felt as if pairs of eyes were secretly watching him from the darkness, yet when he turned to look, there was nothing but emptiness.

Just as the Den Leader’s shouts dwindled into exhaustion, a dark shadow flashed past him like lightning from behind.

His relaxed nerves instantly tensed once more; he spun around abruptly, ready to unleash a cleaving strike, but his opponent proved swifter.

A cold glint, swift as lightning, shot directly towards him, growing larger and larger until it pierced his eye!

“Ah!!!”

The Den Leader let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Though only one eye had been pierced, the sudden, agonizing pain and terror of its loss made him feel as if he had been robbed of sight entirely.

His body swayed, nearly sending him to the ground, as one hand clamped tightly over his injured eye, blood gushing profusely between his fingers.

The figure in the shadows withdrew the cold gleam of their dagger.

Faintly, the warm blood on the blade was visible, shimmering with an eerie red glow under the dim moonlight.

This was not the end.

The shadow, dagger firmly in hand, prepared to aim for the man’s neck.

The shadow’s dagger was both swift and precise; just as it was about to pierce the opponent’s neck, their wrist was suddenly seized.

It was none other than the Den Leader, his other hand still clamped over his injured eye.

“Well, well, young one, you possess some skill!”

“You’re merely a mid-stage Qi Condensation cultivator, yet you managed to wound one of my eyes through a sneak attack. You certainly have some capability!”

“However, are you not underestimating my Foundation Establishment strength?”

The Den Leader scoffed coldly, increasing the force in his grip, attempting to crush the other party’s wrist.

“Since I have you in my grasp, today shall be your dying day!”

The Den Leader was seething with rage.

When the other party had made their move, he had deduced, based on the strength of their grip, that they were at most a Qi Condensation cultivator.

The Den Leader shook the blood from his eye.

One of his eyes was already ruined, but it mattered little, for he still had the other to see.

He blinked his unharmed left eye, and under the dim moonlight, he discerned a slender figure shrouded in shadow.

The person was clad entirely in black, wearing a mask that revealed only a pair of sharply curved, intensely piercing eyes.

He had seen those eyes before.

In that instant, a bone-chilling terror seized his heart…