Chương 8: I Lied (2/2)

Thousands of years ago, the Heavenly Demon violently killed the Celestial Emperor and shattered the Heavenly Dao itself—sundering the celestial architecture that once governed the balance between realms.

Because the Heavens were broken, cultivation was no longer about enlightenment or harmonious ascension—it had twisted into a ruthless, clawing struggle for survival in a world where the very laws of karmic order had collapsed.

'Demonic' and cutthroat arts, once forbidden and reviled, became the accepted standard. The world fractured and reformed into sprawling, oppressive territories run by powerful sect factions that fed parasitically on the weak, draining them dry of resources, lifespan, and hope.

As for the man before him…

The leader's face immediately drained of color, the ruddy flush of false bravado leeching away until only a waxy, corpse-like pallor remained. The bluff had failed instantly. Frantic, he tried to squirm backward, shoulders jerking in violent, uncoordinated spasms—but a sudden, terrifying pressure gripped his throat. The coarse hemp bit deep into the soft flesh of his windpipe. His mouth opened wide, jaw working desperately. No sound came—only a strangled, airless wheeze.

"Stop moving," he advised coldly, tilting his head just slightly. Wild, tangled hair shifted across one pale, mud-streaked cheek, casting his expression into deeper shadow.

"I tied your wrists behind your back, but the excess rope loops upward and knots around your trachea. The more violently you struggle to pull your arms free, the tighter you strangle yourself."

He crouched low, folding his lean frame down with predatory ease. His dead eyes leveled with the leader's bulging, bloodshot gaze.

"You have about three minutes of air left if you panic."

The leader froze, every muscle in his body locking rigid as he felt the coarse hemp biting deeply into his Adam's apple. The fibers scraped raw skin with each shallow, stuttering breath. Real terror finally set in—the raw, animal kind that stripped away pretense and left only the desperate, thrashing instinct to survive. His chest hitched once, twice, fighting the primal urge to thrash and scream.

This wasn't a righteous disciple of some Cloud-Mirror Sect! What kind of monster was this?

The leader realized, with sickening clarity, that he was looking into the eyes of a professional assassin—the kind of invisible killer the scavengers only whispered about in the dark, voices hushed and trembling. The kind that didn't waste breath on warnings or posturing. The kind that simply acted.

"Listen to me," he said, crouching down to eye level. His knees sank slightly into the wet bone-ash sludge pooling across the uneven stone, the cold slurry seeping through the ruined fabric of his tattered robe, but he didn't seem to notice. His voice was flat, clinical, utterly devoid of emotion.

"I do not enjoy theatrical torture. It is messy, it takes too long, and people lie to make the pain stop. I want precise information. In exchange, I will offer you a sliver of hope."

The leader flinched violently at the word torture, his breathing growing shallow and panicked. The sulfur-laced air burned in his throat, metallic and acrid, mixing with the taste of his own sweat.

He pointed the tip of his chipped Jian at the dark archway of the pagoda—toward the decapitated statues standing silent watch, their broken shoulders crusted with ancient moss and grave-dust.

"Answer my questions quickly and accurately. If you do, I will leave you securely tied to this stone. You will live." His tone didn't shift, didn't warm. It remained utterly matter-of-fact.

"In a week, another scavenger crew might wander by and find you."

He paused, letting the weight of that fragile possibility settle.

"If you lie to me... we start dissecting your kneecaps."

The leader visibly swallowed, the motion jerky and strained beneath the biting rope. Sweat mingled with the freezing water dripping steadily from the cracked ceiling above, cutting cold trails down his scarred face. His straw cloak clung to his shoulders, soaked through and heavy, smelling of mildew and rotting hemp.

Looking at the leader's pale face—eyes wide, pupils dilated, lips trembling—he knew the psychological warfare had worked perfectly.

By offering the man a tiny, desperate chance of survival—leaving him tied up for someone else to find—he removed the man's motivation to bite his own tongue and die a martyr. It stripped away the romanticized notion of defiant silence.

It was a standard military interrogation tactic: give the prisoner hope, however faint, and they would cling to it with both hands.

The scavenger's tough-guy persona crumbled completely, falling away like ash swept from a blade.

"W-what do you want to know?" the leader croaked, voice hoarse and breaking.

"Tell me about the surface," he commanded, his tone still flat, still dead.

"Skycloud City."

For the next ten minutes, he extracted a wealth of information from the broken man, his questions precise and methodical, delivered with the dispassionate efficiency of a surgeon cutting through flesh. As he listened, the fragmented memories of the original host seamlessly snapped into place, anchoring the chaotic swirl of half-remembered images and names into coherent, usable intelligence.

He learned that the sprawling, ash-choked capital strictly controlling the abyss below was Skycloud City—a vast, labyrinthine metropolis built in tiered rings around the gaping maw of the chasm. Smoke from a thousand forges and funeral pyres hung perpetually over the skyline, blotting out the sun.

The city was trapped in a bloody, unspoken stalemate between the Four Pillars: the iron-fisted martial enforcers of the Iron-Blood Prefecture, who ruled through overwhelming violence and public executions; the twisted apothecaries of the Flesh-Forge Pavilion, who harvested organs and spiritual essence from living subjects; the shadowy merchants of the Silk & Ash Chamber of Commerce, who controlled trade routes and smuggled forbidden treasures; and the hypocritical orthodox cultivators of the Celestial Remnants, who preached virtue while hoarding ancient relics and practicing blood-refinement behind temple walls.

"How do I get up there without climbing the walls?" he asked, tilting his head slightly, pale eyes never leaving the leader's face.

"T-The Ascension Array," the leader said shakily, his voice cracking.

"A floating stone platform lies at the center of the abyss, upheld by ancient spirit formations carved into the bedrock. It carries those below directly into the outer city. The platform rises once every two hours when the array pulses."

"Who guards it?"

"A monster," the leader whimpered, genuine fear bleeding into his eyes like ink spreading through water. His bound wrists trembled violently behind his back, the rope creaking softly.

"The Abyssal Overseer. It's an abomination at the absolute peak of the Ash-Marrow realm... an Obsidian-Frame. Its body is forged from blackened bone and fused with demonic iron. It patrols the cavern floor directly in front of the array's activation dais. It wields a massive crescent halberd—long as three men, blade sharp enough to cleave through stone." His voice dropped to a terrified whisper.

"You can't fight it. We only sneak past when it stops to feed." Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

He logged the intel, his mind already formulating a kill-box for the Overseer—identifying choke points, terrain advantages, potential blind spots.

The faintest shift in his dead-eyed stare—something calculating, precise, utterly devoid of fear—made the leader flinch and press his shoulders harder against the cold stone wall.

He leaned forward and smoothly ripped the spatial pouch off the leader's belt with a sharp, efficient tug—a simple, grey silk sack embroidered with cheap, faded array lines. The stitching was uneven, clearly amateur work, threads fraying at the edges.

From the original host's memories, he knew the fundamental rules of spatial artifacts: if he cut the silk with his sword, the unstable pocket dimension contained within would instantly collapse, shredding the contents into the void between realms. Furthermore, since his vessel was utterly Daoless—meridians collapsed, dantian barren, spiritual root torn out by the roots—he couldn't use Qi to open it himself.

But I don't need Qi, he thought, offering a faint, cold smile that didn't reach his eyes—a thin, humorless curve of pale lips. I have the owner.

He tossed the pouch onto the floor, just inches from the bound leader's face. It landed with a soft plap in the wet bone-ash sludge. Sulfur-tainted water immediately seeped into the silk, darkening it.

He pressed the poisoned tip of his chipped Jian against the man's throat—not hard enough to break skin, but enough to dimple the flesh, enough to make the leader's pulse visible beneath the blade, a frantic, fluttering rhythm.

"Empty it," he commanded, his voice dead flat, utterly emotionless.

"Slowly."

Trembling, the leader channeled a weak sliver of his remaining Tier-1 Qi into the pouch, his breath hitching with effort.

The array glowed faintly—dull gold light pulsing sluggishly across the faded stitching—and a pile of loot spilled out onto the stone floor with a series of soft clinks and rattles: a handful of cracked, low-grade spirit stones that glimmered weakly in the dim light; tarnished silver taels stamped with the seal of some long-defunct merchant guild; several rusted tomb-chisels, their edges pitted and jagged; and a long, flat, bone-carved rectangular tally plate, its surface yellowed with age.

His gaze locked onto the bone plate immediately, pale eyes narrowing with cold focus.

"What is this?"

"It's a Cadaver Writ!" the leader answered rapidly, words tumbling over each other in a desperate rush, eager to prove his worth and preserve that fragile thread of hope.

"An official tally plate for the Outer Marches' corpse-handlers! We stole it off a dead man so we wouldn't be questioned by the patrols when hauling bodies up from below!"

"Explain."

"The border checkpoints are guarded by the Iron Guard-Prefecture," the leader gasped, eyeing the poisoned blade still resting lightly against his throat, the blackened residue along its edge faintly glistening.

"But they never deeply search men carrying a Cadaver Writ! Corpse-handlers work the absolute bottom of the abyss—they drag rotting bodies from the deepest pits, strip them of valuables, and burn the remains. They are drenched in filth, rot, and heavy Yin energy. The guards consider them cursed by demonic aura, contaminated beyond redemption. If you flash that bone tally, they'll kick you through the gate just to keep the corpse-stench away from them! They won't even look you in the eye!"

"What was the name of the dead man you stole it from?" he asked, his tone still flat, still clinical.

"Shi Yan," the leader breathed, his chest heaving beneath the soaked straw cloak, water dripping steadily from the frayed edges.

"The writ belongs to a mortal named Shi Yan! I gave you everything! I swear to the Heavens! You—you said you'd let me live!"

He stood up slowly, boots squelching softly in the sludge, the wet sound echoing faintly in the suffocating silence. He casually swept the spirit stones, silver taels, and the bone tally into his own belt, tucking them securely into a hidden fold. The rusted tomb-chisels he left where they were—useless weight, not worth carrying.

Well, the interrogation had yielded a flawless harvest: local currency, a verified map of the boss arena, and a seamless identity to bypass the martial borders without drawing suspicion.

Ah no, a guard—a Overseer. And... Shi Yan.

He turned the bone tally over once in his palm, studying the carved characters etched deep into the yellowed surface. The script was crude but official, stamped with a red ink seal that had faded to rust-brown.

I can work with that.

The leader watched him, a desperate, pathetic sigh of relief escaping his lips, the sound wet and trembling. He believed, with every fiber of his exhausted, terrified being, that his compliance had guaranteed his survival. His shoulders sagged. The rope around his throat loosened just slightly as his body went slack with exhausted hope.

He stepped directly behind the bound man, boots silent against the wet stone, his movements smooth and utterly soundless.

"I lied," he whispered, his voice soft and cold—barely more than a breath against the leader's ear.

Before the leader's brain could register the betrayal, before the words could fully penetrate the fog of exhausted relief, his steel-reinforced left arm clamped around the man's chin—fingers locking tight beneath the jawbone, thumb pressing hard against the hinge. With a short, violently precise twist of his hips, channeling all his weight and leverage into a single efficient motion, he snapped the leader's neck.

The vertebrae popped with a sickening crunch, the sound sharp and final in the thick silence.

The body went instantly limp, all tension draining away in a single breath. Weight dropped forward against the restraints, the rope creaking softly. The straw cloak slipped off one shoulder, heavy and sodden, landing with a wet thump against the stone. A final breath rattled wetly from the leader's open mouth, then stopped.

Silence returned to the pagoda—thick, suffocating silence broken only by the hollow plink... plink... plink of water dripping steadily into the rusted iron basin, each drop echoing faintly before being swallowed by the darkness.

He released his grip. The corpse slumped sideways into the bone-ash sludge with a dull, wet sound, head lolling at an unnatural angle.

No hesitation. No remorse.

Just cold, calculated efficiency.

[Target Slain. +75 Embers.]