Chen Ping’s eyes darted frantically. His face was pale, beads of cold sweat rolled down his temples, and his body trembled with apparent terror.

He looked at the eight men closing in on him, his expression a portrait of despair and reluctance.

“I… I’ll hand it over! Just don’t kill me!”

His voice shook, carrying a sob, as if his courage had completely shattered.

With a trembling hand, he slowly reached for the storage bag at his waist. This was his decoy, filled with spoils of war to mask the existence of his Jade Pendant space.

His movements were agonizingly slow, broadcasting his hesitation and fear.

A flash of disdain and triumph flickered in the burly leader’s eyes. He shot a meaningful glance at the three disciples closest to their prey.

“Go. Take the bag. Watch him closely—don’t let him pull any tricks.”

The three Thick Earth Sect disciples understood immediately, the grins on their faces widening.

They were robbers, yes. But even thieves had a code.

Since the victim was cooperating, they would grant him a dignified death. As disciples of the Thick Earth Sect, they upheld the Confucian virtue that “profound character supports all things”—even if that support was a quick death after robbery.

The three remained vigilant, but their body language betrayed their arrogance. They swaggered as they approached.

After all, they refused to believe that a mere ant at the third level of Qi Condensation could generate any waves before eight late-stage experts.

They stepped closer. The distance shrank rapidly.

Fifty feet… thirty feet… ten feet…

Just as the three were within striking distance, and one reached out to snatch the bag Chen Ping was offering—

The feigned terror in Chen Ping’s eyes vanished instantly.

It was replaced by a gaze as cold as a frozen hell, filled with overwhelming killing intent and calculated precision.

Chen Ping tossed the storage bag high into the air.

The spinning bag naturally drew the gaze of the three disciples.

In that split second of distraction, Chen Ping’s hands blurred. Several talismans slid from his hidden sleeve pockets into his palms.

He raised his hands like lightning.

Gripped tightly in his fingers were three talismans glowing with a deep, ominous cyan light. The edges of the paper flowed with an aura of bone-chilling sharpness.

Tier-2 Low-Grade Golden Blade Talismans.

“Not good! Talismans! Tier-2! Fall back!”

The burly leader, a cultivator at the Great Circle of Qi Condensation, had the sharpest instincts. The moment Chen Ping raised his hands, he felt the terrifying fluctuation of spiritual power. His face twisted in horror as he roared a warning.

He tried to snap his juniors out of their greed.

But it was too late.

The three disciples were still staring at the flying storage bag, their mouths opening to ask what their Senior Brother was screaming about.

Chen Ping slapped the three cyan talismans forward.

Zzzz!

A piercing metallic screech, like a blade grinding against bone, resounded through the confined space of the formation.

Three beams of deep cyan light erupted.

They solidified into three massive blades of energy, each over ten feet long. Materializing out of thin air, they carried the will to sever all matter, rushing toward the three disciples with unstoppable force.

The sheer pressure released by the Tier-2 talismans blasted the dust on the ground into a swirling cloud.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Three wet, tearing sounds rang out almost simultaneously.

There were no screams. No struggles.

The expressions on the faces of the three nearest Thick Earth Sect disciples froze in a permanent mask of confusion and astonishment.

Their protective Qi shattered like glass. Their earth-yellow robes—Dharma Artifacts renowned for defense—and the inner armor beneath were as fragile as wet paper before the cyan blades.

Three heads, along with a significant portion of their upper torsos, were instantly sheared off.

The cuts were smooth as mirrors.

Scalding blood geysered from the severed necks, painting the pale yellow light curtain of the trapping formation in a gruesome crimson.

The headless corpses, along with shattered organs and bone fragments, collapsed to the ground amidst a rain of blood.

Warm red droplets splattered onto the faces of two other Thick Earth Sect disciples standing just a few paces back.

Time seemed to freeze.

The remaining five disciples, including the burly leader, felt their ferocious smiles stiffen and transform into expressions of extreme horror and disbelief.

They stared blankly at the bloody scene. They watched the three headless corpses twitching on the ground, their minds completely blank.

A third-level Qi Condensation ant… instantly… instantly slaughtered three ninth-level cultivators?

And the cost.

How could a piece of trash possess three Tier-2 talismans? Each one cost hundreds of Spirit Stones!

What in the world was happening?

The burly leader’s lips trembled.

He had seen it clearly. This “weakling” had casually thrown out three fortune-worth talismans without blinking. And he could see more paper edges peeking from the boy’s palm.

If all eight of them had rushed in together…

This ant would have killed them all in a single breath.

This wasn’t a theoretical threat. It was a tangible, terrifying reality bought with the overwhelming power of wealth and preparation.

But before the shock could fully settle, an even more soul-chilling event occurred.

At the exact moment the Golden Blade Talismans detonated and the blood rain obscured vision, the figure inside the formation moved.

The “Qi Condensation level three” weakling vanished.

He didn’t run. He simply dissolved into the air like a ghost.

The spot where he stood was now empty, occupied only by the three twitching corpses and the nauseating copper scent of fresh blood.

The enemy’s aura and figure were gone. It was as if he had never existed.

“Dis… disappeared?!” one disciple screamed, his voice cracking with fear.

“An Escape Talisman?! No! There was no spatial fluctuation!” another shouted, his face deathly pale as he scanned the shadows.

“He isn’t a level three cultivator! Don’t be fooled!”

The burly leader was the first to snap out of the shock. His eyes turned bloodshot as he roared like a wounded beast, his powerful Divine Sense frantically sweeping every inch of the trapped space.

“He’s still inside! The formation is active! His only method is throwing money with talismans! As long as we keep our guard up, talismans can be blocked! Search! Find him for me! Tear him to pieces!”

The remaining five instantly snapped into a defensive circle, standing back-to-back. Their fearful gazes swept over the blood-soaked terrain.

Vines, tree roots, dark crevices in the rocks…

They scrutinized every shadow.

Their hands gripped their weapons so tightly their knuckles turned white, while cold sweat soaked their backs.

Despite the leader’s brave words, they weren’t fools.

The power of those talismans… the elusive, ghost-like movement…

The enemy’s strength was far beyond their imagination. No one was naive enough to believe he only had talismans. And no one believed this concealment formation trapped him—it trapped them with him.

Their only hope was numbers. They had to strike together the moment he appeared.

It was the only way to buy a slim chance of survival.

The formation continued to hum, the pale yellow barrier isolating the slaughter from the outside world.

Silence returned to the forest, heavy and suffocating. No one knew where the vanished predator would appear next, or whose death he would bring.