Chương 23: Too Late to Kneel (1/3)

He threw a few slow, testing punches at the air, his dead eyes carefully monitoring the strain on his heart and lungs.

His fist cut through the damp air with controlled precision, knuckles rotating at the terminus of each strike with the mechanical efficiency of drilled muscle memory. The slight whistle of displaced air was barely audible beneath the endless hiss of rain against clay tiles. The caloric drain was incredibly minor—like walking with a slightly weighted rucksack, a familiar sensation that brought no discomfort whatsoever.

Thanks to his immense [39 Physique], his body produced heat like a furnace anyway. Even now, faint warmth radiated from his skin despite the frigid air pressing in from all sides, his breath misting only slightly where a normal man's would fog thick and white.

He could easily maintain this biological camouflage for days, provided he ate enough to fuel the calorie burn.

His shoulder rolled backward, testing the muscle tension across his upper back. The newly formed cluster near his sternum pulsed with that same low, rhythmic warmth—a second heartbeat woven into his cardiovascular network.

It wouldn't drop unless he consciously relaxed the muscle group or physically passed out from absolute exhaustion.

Perfect.

Now, reaching back to verify that the heavy weight of the Mutated Boss Core was still pressed securely against his spine beneath the straw cloak—his fingers brushing the rough, uneven surface of the concealed object through the coarse fabric—it's time to find a high-end market and get paid.

...

The freezing rain of the Outer Wards hammered against the sagging wooden eaves of the inn with relentless fury.

Each drop struck the clay tiles overhead with a sharp patter, merging into a constant hiss that drowned out all but the loudest sounds of the street below. Rivulets of water streamed from the edges of the roof, carving channels through the grime-slicked wood and pooling in the uneven cobblestones.

Shi Yan stepped out onto the muddy street, his wide-brimmed bamboo hat pulled low, its woven surface already darkening with moisture. His heavy straw cloak hung from his shoulders like a sodden pelt, dripping with cold water that traced down the coarse fibers and pattered against his boots. The weight of it pressed against his back, but he moved without hesitation, his gait steady and unhurried.

The air rippled slightly around his shoulders, projecting the undeniable Qi-signature of a cultivator in the early Ash-Marrow realm—the Cinder-Blood stage.

The faint distortion moved with him like invisible smoke, carried on the warmth bleeding from his pores. It shimmered just enough to catch the eye of anyone spiritually attuned, a telltale heat haze that marked him as something far more dangerous than the common rabble drowning in the slums.

The effect on the mortal populace was instantaneous.

Earlier, the desperate, rushing crowds had shoved past him, treating him as just another invisible obstacle in the slums—another faceless body to be ignored, elbowed aside, stepped over if he fell.

Now, a haggard water merchant rushing down the alley took one look at the faint, shimmering heat haze rolling off Shi Yan's shoulders and violently threw himself into the mud to clear the path.

The man's bamboo carrying pole clattered against the cobblestones with a sharp crack, buckets sloshing dirty water across the stones in wide, chaotic arcs. His face pressed into the filth, head bowed low, trembling. Rainwater streamed over the back of his skull, plastering his thin gray hair to his scalp. His shoulders hunched inward as though trying to make himself smaller, less visible, less offensive.

Wow... is that exaggerated?

Shi Yan's eye sneaked toward the haggard water merchant who had just thrown himself into the mud. Rain pounded the man's back, soaking through his threadbare tunic until the fabric clung to the ridge of his spine. The merchant didn't dare look up. His fingers dug into the muck, knuckles white beneath the grime.

It was a bit much. Is this how cultivators feel when walking through the mortal world?

Then came a group of street urchins, scrambling backward against a brick wall, their bare feet slipping in the runoff. Mud splattered up their calves as they pressed themselves flat against the crumbling masonry, eyes wide and glassy with terror. They averted their gazes, faces pale beneath the dirt smeared across their cheeks. One boy, no older than eight, had his hands pressed so hard against the wall that his fingertips were bone-white.

Shi Yan's eyes blinked once, slow and deliberate, the motion almost reptilian in its coldness.

Ah... I almost forgot this world... is a world ruled by the demonic and the cutthroat. Mortals possessed an acute, evolutionary instinct for survival: never stand in the path of a Cultivator.

Shi Yan didn't pause to acknowledge them. His eyes—flat, narrow, unblinking—simply tracked the path ahead, scanning the flow of bodies, the angles of alleys, the position of shadowed doorways. His boots splashed through shallow puddles without breaking stride, each step measured and deliberate.

Well then. The camouflage is fully operational. Now it's time to find a high-end market and get paid.

In his hidden pocket rested considerable wealth: the Abyssal Overseer's Mutated Core. A Tier-1 Peak monster. An Obsidian-Frame cultivation boss drop. The weight of it pressed against his ribs through the layered fabric, a constant reminder of value and danger intertwined.

At first, he'd thought of finding a quiet, shady back-alley fence to offload the goods quickly.

But after sifting through the original host's fragmented memories of Skycloud City's economy—images of cramped apothecary dens reeking of sulfur and dried blood, of hooded figures weighing spirit stones with greasy fingers—Shi Yan quickly discarded the idea.

If I take a Mutated Boss Core to a low-level black market apothecary, they won't have the liquid capital to pay me its true value in spirit stones.

He sidestepped a flooded gutter, boots splashing through shallow runoff that reeked of human waste and rotting vegetation. The water was dark, nearly black, flecked with unidentifiable debris. Worse, they'll assume a Cinder-Blood weakling stole it. They won't buy it; they'll simply trigger a killing array and slit my throat for it.

He needed an institution bound by its own rigid greed and reputation.

Which means... the center of all of it...

He needed the Silk & Ash Chamber of Commerce.

Based on the host's memories, the Chamber was ruthlessly neutral. They didn't care about sect politics, origin, or morality.

They cared exclusively about profit. Gold flowed through their hands like water through a sieve, and their reputation was built on two pillars: absolute discretion and absolute fairness in valuation. To cheat a client was to poison the well. To break contract was to invite annihilation from powers far above the Outer Wards.

Furthermore, taking the core to their local branch—the Vermilion Pavilion—served a dual tactical purpose.

I'm not just looking for a one-time purchase. Shi Yan's brow furrowed slightly, the harsh lines of his face deepening.

He began massaging his temple with two fingers, the pressure firm and methodical, adjusting the bamboo hat with his free hand as he walked. Water dripped from the brim, trailing down the side of his jaw.

The problem is, my Daoless vessel requires a constant influx of [Dao Embers]. I need a reliable, high-yield supply chain of hostile targets.

He came to a sudden stop as he entered a crowded area, the press of bodies forcing him to slow.

The street widened here, choked with foot traffic. Merchants hauled carts piled with salted fish and wilted greens. Laborers bent beneath heavy loads, their faces obscured by rain and exhaustion. A pair of sullen guards leaned against a wall beneath a sagging awning, their rusted spears propped lazily against their shoulders. They glanced at Shi Yan's shimmering aura, then immediately looked away, their postures stiffening.

His gaze swept across the flow of traffic, cataloging threats, exits, blind spots.

Based on the host's memories, this Pavilion maintained the largest bounty board for rogue cultivators in the district.

His finger stopped tapping against his temple. If I sell the core for funding, and I take a contract for fuel... a mutual symbiosis for me and the Pavilion in the long term.

He resumed walking, his boots cutting through the crowd with the same controlled precision as his earlier punches. Bodies parted before him without conscious thought, survival instinct guiding them aside.

Thus now...

...

Three blocks later, the oppressive squalor of the Outer Wards suddenly gave way to towering wealth.

The Vermilion Pavilion sprawled across the district like a palace descended from the heavens—an opulent five-story pagoda fashioned from pristine blood-red ironwood that gleamed even beneath the curtain of rain.

The transition was jarring, almost violent in its abruptness. One moment, Shi Yan was surrounded by crumbling brick and rotting thatch; the next, he stood before a structure that radiated power and permanence. The ironwood's grain was so fine it appeared almost polished, each timber perfectly fitted to the next without visible seam or nail.

Intricate carvings of coiling dragons and phoenixes adorned the support beams, their eyes inlaid with chips of jade that caught the dim light and reflected it in eerie, intelligent glints. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Amid the crumbling misery of the Outer Wards, its magnificence felt almost unreal.

Beneath the sweeping curved eaves, spirit-forged formation arrays glimmered with soft crimson light, sustaining an immense invisible barrier that turned aside the freezing rain before a single drop could touch the pavilion grounds. The barrier hummed faintly, a low vibration that pressed against Shi Yan's skin like the thrum of a distant war drum. Raindrops struck the unseen surface and evaporated instantly, hissing into steam that rose in delicate wisps before dissipating into the cold air.

Inside the perimeter, the air was warm, dry, and thick with the intoxicating scent of expensive lotus incense, roasting meats, and sharp, fiery spirit wine.

The contrast hit him like stepping through a curtain—cold vanished, replaced by a humid, perfumed heat that clung to his skin. His damp clothing stopped dripping immediately, the moisture wicking away as though drawn by unseen hands. The scent of mildew and decay that had clung to him since entering the Outer Wards was buried beneath layers of sandalwood, cinnamon, and something floral he couldn't identify—something sweet and cloying that made his nose twitch.

Two colossal stone guardian lions flanked the heavy bronze doors, their eyes glowing with jade light as they tracked every person walking up the marble steps.

Each lion stood twice the height of a man, carved from seamless blocks of gray granite veined with silver. Their musculature was rendered with obsessive detail—every tendon, every ridge of bone beneath stone flesh visible and anatomically perfect. Their manes flowed in frozen waves, each strand of stone hair as thick as a man's wrist. The jade eyes swiveled slowly, following movement with unnerving precision. They didn't blink. They didn't breathe. But they watched.

Shi Yan felt the weight of their gaze follow him as he ascended. The lions didn't move, but the light in their eyes pulsed once, slow and deliberate—a warning, or perhaps an acknowledgment.

He crossed the threshold, his wet boots stepping onto immaculate hardwood floors polished to a mirror sheen. The sound of his footfalls was swallowed by the noise inside—a cacophony of voices, laughter, and the constant clatter of ceramic and metal.

So this is the pavilion, huh? Majestic and aesthetic as I thought.

He nodded once, his eyes sweeping across the whole public floor of the Pavilion with the same systematic scan he'd used in the street—threat assessment, resource identification, exit routes.

It was a thriving, chaotic hub of violence and commerce. Hundreds of rogue cultivators and sect dropouts crowded around heavy mahogany tables scarred with blade marks and burn scars.

The air hummed with the aggressive flare of dozens of clashing auras—some hot and acrid, smelling of sulfur and charred flesh; others cold and metallic, carrying the tang of drawn blood and oiled steel; a few that smelled faintly of rot and grave soil, the signature of demonic cultivation methods. The pressure of so many spiritual signatures pressing against one another created a palpable tension, like standing in a room where everyone had a knife half-drawn.

Weapons of every shape—from barbed meteor hammers wrapped in spiked chains to slender, cursed rapiers etched with characters that seemed to writhe when viewed directly—leaned casually against chairs as men and women boasted over steaming bowls of wine.

Voices layered over one another in a constant roar: laughter harsh and forced, argument sharp and venomous, the clink of ceramic cups, the scrape of chair legs against wood, the wet slap of meat being torn from bone. A woman with a scar bisecting her left eye slammed her fist on a table, sending cups flying. A thin man in gray robes cackled, his teeth filed to points. Somewhere in the back, a fight had already started—the dull thud of fist against flesh audible even over the din.

Shi Yan ignored the noise, instead his eyes scanning the layout with tactical precision.

Located at the back of the massive hall was the Bounty Board—a massive wall of polished dark wood pinned with glowing jade slips and torn parchment.

The board stretched from floor to ceiling, at least twenty feet wide and fifteen feet tall. Hundreds of contracts were pinned to its surface, layered over one another in some places, neatly arranged in others. The jade slips pulsed with faint light—blue for beast hunts, green for resource gathering, white for escort missions. But separated at the very top, cordoned off by a carved wooden border inlaid with gold leaf, were the Red-Stamp Commissions.

High-risk, high-reward faction targets.

Each Red-Stamp slip glowed with a faint crimson light, the characters inscribed upon them written in blood ink that shimmered faintly with residual spiritual energy. These were not simple beast hunts. These were assassinations, sabotage, war.

However, the area directly in front of the board was currently being brutally monopolized.

A hulking, bare-chested cultivator with a massive nine-ring broadsword slung over his shoulder was aggressively dominating the space.

His flesh was scarred and dense with muscle, each ridge of tissue gleaming faintly with sweat despite the warmth of the pavilion. His skin was tanned dark as old leather, stretched taut over slabs of corded muscle that shifted visibly with every breath. Scars crisscrossed his torso—burn marks, blade cuts, the puckered craters of healed puncture wounds. One particularly vicious scar ran from his left collarbone down to his navel, the tissue raised and twisted like a rope embedded beneath the skin.

Dark Qi radiated from him like heat off sun-baked stone—the undeniable pressure of a Tier-1 Peak cultivator in the Obsidian-Frame realm.

The aura was oppressive, thick, almost tangible. It pressed outward in waves, distorting the air around him like heat shimmer. Shi Yan felt it against his skin, a phantom weight that made his muscles tense instinctively. It smelled of ash and burning iron, acrid and choking. Lesser cultivators near the board hunched slightly, their shoulders rounding inward as though bearing physical weight.

Four lackeys, projecting mid-tier auras, stood in a half-circle around him, actively pushing away any rogue cultivators who dared step too close to the board.

Their arms were crossed, their stances wide and aggressive, feet planted shoulder-width apart. Each wore mismatched armor—boiled leather, dented pauldrons, chainmail shirts with broken links. Their faces were hard, eyes narrow and predatory. One picked at his teeth with a splinter of wood, grinning lazily. Another cracked his knuckles, the sound sharp as breaking bone.

"Back off, trash! Iron-Cleaver Zhao is claiming the board right now!" one of the lackeys spat, kicking a rogue lower realm cultivator in the shin and driving him back into the crowd.

The rogue stumbled, teeth bared in pain, a sharp hiss escaping through clenched jaw. His hands curled into fists at his sides, but he said nothing. His eyes darted to Zhao's broadsword, then to the floor. He backed away, head low, swallowed by the press of bodies.

The lackey sneered, rolling his shoulders back in exaggerated satisfaction.

"Anyone who has a problem can speak to his blade!"

None of the surrounding rogues dared utter a word of protest. A few exchanged glances—brief, bitter, impotent. Most turned back to their wine, lifting cups to mouths with forced casualness. The tension hung in the air, thick and sour.

In the Outer Wards, a Tier-1 Peak cultivator operating without the restraints of a Sect was a localized tyrant.

Iron-Cleaver Zhao sneered, running a calloused thumb over the flat of his broadsword as he stared greedily at a newly pinned Red-Stamp bounty at the top of the board. His eyes gleamed with avarice, pupils dilating as he traced the glowing characters with his gaze.

The nine rings embedded along the spine of the blade chimed softly as he shifted his weight, a metallic whisper that carried over the noise of the hall. Each ring was as thick as a man's finger, forged from blackened steel and etched with crude killing characters that pulsed faintly with residual blood Qi.

"Look at this beauty," Zhao bragged loudly, ensuring the entire tavern could hear him. His voice was deep, coarse, scraped raw by years of shouting and spirit wine.

"A Red-Stamp commission. Do you know what this means, brothers? Deaconess Su Yin personally authorized this mark."

A lecherous, arrogant grin stretched across his scarred face, pulling the old tissue around his jaw taut. The scar tissue whitened as it stretched, revealing gaps where teeth had been knocked out and never replaced. His tongue swept across his remaining teeth—yellowed, chipped—as his gaze lingered on the crimson slip.

"They say the Deaconess is as cold as winter ice," he continued, his grin widening until it was almost grotesque, "but if I bring her this target's severed head, she'll be forced to grant me a private audience in her upper chambers."