Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 13: Evil Shadow

“Move out!” Cross barked, tearing his gaze away from Captain Lei. He fell back without hesitation. Beside him, Luan Ya and Barbarian Ghost mirrored the motion, retreating swiftly into the woods.

Xu Qing narrowed his eyes. He watched Captain Lei stride toward the encroaching wolf pack, spiritual energy erupting from the old man’s body in a terrifying display of deterrence.

Xu Qing didn’t move. His grip tightened on his black iron skewer, a cold glint flashing across its sharpened tip.

“Kid, do you know why the Captain is in charge?” Cross’s voice drifted back from the distance. “It’s not just because his sixth level of Qi Condensation outstrips ours. It’s his judgment. It’s the burden he shoulders when everything goes to hell.”

A deafening crack punctuated Cross’s words. Two hundred paces away, a massive tree splintered and crashed to the forest floor, felled by a single shot from Cross’s bow.

Barbarian Ghost and Luan Ya followed suit. Trunks toppled one after another, forming a makeshift barricade with only a narrow gap left as an exit. Without pausing, Cross and Luan Ya dashed further into the woods.

Only Barbarian Ghost remained. Shield in one hand, spiked club in the other, the towering man leaned against a tree like an immovable mountain, guarding the choke point.

At that exact moment, Captain Lei exploded into motion. His hands glowed with blinding, volatile light as he charged headlong into the wolf pack.

Wherever he passed, any wolf that touched him was obliterated, their flesh and blood collapsing in a spray of gore accompanied by agonizing howls. But the sheer numbers were overwhelming. Within seconds, Captain Lei’s figure was swallowed by the sea of black fur and crimson eyes.

Only the muffled booms of his strikes and the frenzied snarling of the pack echoed through the trees.

“Kid, get over here!” Cross roared from the distance. “Your turn is coming!”

Xu Qing instantly grasped the tactical layout. This was the Thunder Squad’s combat rotation. Without a second thought, he sprinted toward Barbarian Ghost.

The giant grinned, gesturing toward the narrow gap in the barricade with his chin. Xu Qing met his eyes briefly, slipped through the opening, and chased after Cross and Luan Ya.

He soon found Luan Ya in a cleared section of the forest. She was moving frantically, scattering various alchemical powders in a wide perimeter. Biting her thumb, she smeared her own blood across the dirt, drawing erratic, glowing runes that Xu Qing couldn’t decipher.

Noticing his approach, she didn’t waste breath speaking. She simply jerked her head, signaling him to keep moving.

Xu Qing didn’t slow down. He blurred past her, pushing another two hundred paces until he spotted Cross perched high in the canopy of a towering ancient tree. It was a perfect sniper’s nest, offering a commanding view of the battlefield.

Looking down at the approaching boy, Cross spoke in a low, tight voice. “Two hundred paces behind me. That’s your zone. Hold the line.”

Xu Qing gave a sharp nod. The Thunder Squad’s strategy was now crystal clear.

He vaulted forward, clearing the distance. Upon reaching his designated zone, he didn’t bother altering the terrain. Instead, he dropped into the thick mud beneath a dense patch of thorny shrubs, sinking into the shadows.

Just like his hunts in the ruined city, he became utterly motionless.

The moment he concealed himself, the distant rumble of combat intensified. The dense foliage obscured his line of sight, but the violent shockwaves of spiritual energy told him everything he needed to know about the bloodbath unfolding eight hundred paces away.

Deep in the horde, Captain Lei finally burst out from the crushing mass of wolves. Even as a sixth-level Qi Condensation cultivator, he couldn’t afford to drain his core completely. He looked ragged, his leathers torn and stained, but his control over his spiritual energy remained razor-sharp. Having preserved half his reserves, he led the frenzied Black-Scaled Wolves straight toward Barbarian Ghost.

Barbarian Ghost unleashed a feral laugh. The moment Captain Lei vaulted past him, the giant swung his spiked club in a devastating arc, smashing into the vanguard of the pursuing pack.

High in the canopy, Cross’s eyes narrowed to slits. He drew his bowstring back to his ear.

*Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!*

Arrows forged of pure spiritual energy shrieked through the air, leaving visible trails in the wind as they rained down on the wolves, covering Barbarian Ghost’s flanks.

As miserable howls echoed through the forest, Captain Lei didn’t stop. He bypassed Barbarian Ghost and headed straight for Luan Ya’s trapped zone. Behind him, Barbarian Ghost stood alone—a solitary fortress holding back a tide of fangs and claws.

From his hiding spot in the mud, Xu Qing watched the rotation unfold. The first person to blow past his position was Captain Lei.

The old man didn’t stop, merely throwing a brief, approving glance at Xu Qing’s concealed spot before pushing another two hundred paces back. There, Captain Lei immediately sat cross-legged, swallowed a White Pill, and began meditating to purge the Mutagen and recover his strength for the next cycle.

*So this is how a scavenger squad operates,* Xu Qing thought, his eyes cold and analytical.

It was a brilliant leapfrog retreat. Captain Lei, the strongest, took the vanguard. Barbarian Ghost formed the second wall. When the giant neared exhaustion, he would fall back, leaving Luan Ya’s traps to stall the horde, followed by Cross’s sniper fire.

By cycling their positions, they guaranteed each member a window to rest and recover. In a restricted zone saturated with toxic Mutagen, where prolonged exposure meant death or horrific mutation, this was the ultimate survival tactic.

The heaviest burdens fell on Captain Lei and Cross. The Captain had to hold the line the longest and kill the most, buying precious time. Cross not only had to act as a physical barrier in the rotation but also provide constant overwatch to ensure everyone retreated safely.

Every single role was vital. One broken link, one moment of cowardice, and the entire squad would be slaughtered. It required absolute, unshakable trust.

Xu Qing remained perfectly still, his breathing shallow.

Minutes bled away. Soon, Barbarian Ghost thundered past, his chest heaving, his club dripping with gore.

A short while later, Luan Ya staggered by, clutching her ribs, her face a sickly pale.

The last to retreat was Cross. He dropped from the canopy and sprinted past Xu Qing. His expression was a mask of cold stone, but Xu Qing’s sharp senses picked up the erratic, nearly depleted fluctuations of his spiritual energy.

Behind Cross, the forest was alive with the deafening roar of the pursuing pack.

As Cross passed Xu Qing’s bush, he hesitated for a fraction of a second, his eyes darting to the mud.

“I can handle it,” Xu Qing said, his voice a low, steady hum that cut through the noise.

Cross didn’t argue. He vanished into the trees.

An instant later, the wolf pack crested the ridge.

The wind of their charge washed over Xu Qing’s face, thick with the stench of rotting meat and hot blood. The dozen wolves leading the pack were a nightmare of pitch-black scales and glowing crimson eyes, radiating pure, unadulterated madness.

The Thunder Squad’s gauntlet had inflicted heavy casualties, and the scent of their own dead had driven the surviving Black-Scaled Wolves into a blood-crazed frenzy.

They didn’t even notice the boy hidden in the mud. Their eyes were locked on the retreating path of Cross.

Just as the vanguard leaped over the shrubs, a rusted dagger shot from the shadows.

*Thwack!*

The blade buried itself hilt-deep into the forehead of the lead wolf. The beast’s momentum carried its convulsing body forward as it died instantly.

Before the corpse even hit the ground, Xu Qing exploded from the mud like a coiled viper.

His black iron skewer flashed. He drove it straight through the eye of the second wolf, the tip punching out the back of its skull. Without pulling the weapon free, he pivoted, his left hand balling into a fist. He threw a brutal, bone-shattering punch into the jaw of a third wolf attempting to blindside him.

The wolf’s skull caved in with a sickening crunch. Blood sprayed across Xu Qing’s face and chest.

Three wolves dead in the blink of an eye.

Xu Qing didn’t stop. He moved with terrifying fluidity. Like a feral demon born for slaughter, he wove through the pack. His eyes were dead and cold; his strikes, absolute.

Every flash of his iron skewer was followed by the dying shriek of a Black-Scaled Wolf.

The blood soaked through his furs, turning his hands slick and crimson, yet his grip on the iron skewer never wavered. The black metal was now dyed a vibrant, dripping red.

Despite his lethal efficiency, the sheer volume of the pack meant some wolves slipped past his guard. Claws raked across his ribs; fangs tore at his shoulders.

But Xu Qing didn’t care.

The terrifying regenerative power of the Purple Crystal embedded in his chest flared to life. Every superficial cut knit back together within seconds. Even the deeper gashes instantly stopped bleeding, sealing themselves shut.

Because he was drenched head-to-toe in wolf blood, the miraculous healing was completely hidden from the world.

More horrifying than his healing, however, was his bottomless stamina. The crystal fed him a continuous stream of vitality, allowing him to maintain a relentless, explosive pace that should have been impossible for a second-level Body Refinement cultivator.

Slowly, a mountain of wolf corpses began to form around him. The killing intent radiating from the blood-soaked boy grew so oppressive that the frenzied wolves actually began to hesitate, their primal instincts screaming at them to back away.

From a distance, sunlight pierced the dense canopy, catching the crimson mist spraying from Xu Qing’s weapons. He looked less like a boy and more like a manifestation of pure carnage.

Two hundred paces back, Captain Lei watched. Further away, Cross observed from a new sniper perch. Both veterans felt a deep, resonant shock ripple through their chests. The kid’s ruthlessness and inhuman tenacity were staggering.

“Kid, fall back!” Captain Lei roared, breaking the spell.

Xu Qing still had physical strength to spare, but his spiritual energy was running dangerously low. The Purple Crystal could mend flesh and restore stamina, but it couldn’t replenish his spiritual reserves.

Thankfully, as a Body Refinement cultivator, his combat power didn’t rely entirely on spiritual energy, unlike Luan Ya. But the depletion still forced his body to passively absorb the ambient energy of the forest—energy heavily laced with toxic Mutagen.

The two black Mutation Points on his arm began to burn with a searing, stabbing agony.

Hearing Captain Lei’s order, Xu Qing didn’t linger. He immediately kicked off a wolf’s skull and launched himself backward.

But the moment he retreated, a massive wolf lunged from the pack. Unlike the others, this beast didn’t have entirely crimson eyes. Its left eye was a void of pure, inky black.

Xu Qing’s gaze turned glacial. The iron skewer lashed out like a bloody whip, piercing the wolf’s skull mid-air.

He prepared to continue his retreat, but then—

Under the dappled sunlight, the shadow of the falling wolf corpse seemed to writhe.

It detached from the beast and slithered across the forest floor, shooting toward Xu Qing with unnatural speed. The lighting was poor, making it hard to track, and before Xu Qing could react, the shadow made contact with his boots.

Xu Qing’s body convulsed violently.

An indescribable, suffocating aura of absolute evil surged into his veins, threatening to corrupt his very soul.

But in that exact microsecond, the Purple Crystal in his chest—which had never done anything but heal him—violently shuddered.

A freezing, abyssal current erupted from the crystal.

The moment the cold current washed over him, the invading evil intent was violently ripped away, swallowed whole by the crystal. The freezing sensation vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving no trace behind. The Purple Crystal went dormant once more.

Xu Qing gasped, his mind reeling, but his survival instincts overrode his shock. He immediately resumed his rapid retreat. The entire exchange had happened in a fraction of a second; neither Captain Lei nor Cross had noticed a thing.

As Xu Qing fell back, Captain Lei stepped forward to intercept the remaining wolves, a lingering look of awe in his weathered eyes.

“You did good, kid. Get to the rear and rest,” Captain Lei grunted. “These Black-Scaled Wolves live deep in the restricted zone because they crave high concentrations of Mutagen. The outer rim is too thin for them. Whatever drove them out here, they hate this environment. As long as we hold our ground and don’t break, they’ll eventually give up and retreat.”

With that, Captain Lei’s spiritual energy flared like a beacon, and he charged headlong into the pursuing pack to cover Xu Qing’s escape.

Barbarian Ghost hurried over from the rear. He had been waiting anxiously, the prolonged silence gnawing at his nerves. Seeing Xu Qing completely painted in blood, with a trail of butchered wolves behind him, the giant sucked in a sharp breath and reached out to support the boy.

“I’m fine,” Xu Qing said, his voice flat. He sidestepped the giant’s hands. He glanced back at Captain Lei one last time before walking briskly toward the rear, leaving Barbarian Ghost staring after him with newfound respect.

When he passed Luan Ya, she looked at him as if seeing a ghost. Wordlessly, she unhooked a small leather pouch from her belt and tossed it to him.

Xu Qing caught it. Feeling the distinct shape of pills through the leather, he gave her a curt nod of thanks and kept moving.

Finally, he reached Cross. The archer was perched silently on a thick branch. He didn’t speak, but he offered Xu Qing a deep, solemn nod—a clear mark of absolute acceptance.

Xu Qing returned the nod. He moved to the very back of the formation, found a dry patch of roots, and slumped down. Exhaling a breath of foul air, he opened the pouch, took out three White Pills, and swallowed them dry.

As the pills dissolved in his stomach, he closed his eyes and began to cycle his cultivation, drawing in spiritual energy to recover.

Half an hour later, Xu Qing opened his eyes. The mental fatigue had dulled, but a deep frown creased his forehead.

He felt… strangely clean. The heavy, suffocating presence of Mutagen in his body felt significantly lighter than it should have.

Frowning, he rolled up his blood-crusted left sleeve.

His eyes widened in shock.

One of the black Mutation Points on his arm was gone.

He quickly checked his cultivation. He was still at the second level of the Sea Mountain Technique. In fact, after the brutal life-and-death struggle and his current meditation, his physical power felt even more refined and dense than before.

He remembered the agonizing, stabbing pain in both Mutation Points when he was forced to absorb the tainted ambient energy during the fight. He knew exactly what Mutagen buildup felt like.

And he knew White Pills. He had taken them before. They were basic scavengers’ medicine; they could suppress Mutagen, but they absolutely could not erase a fully formed Mutation Point.

There was only one explanation.

The freezing current from the Purple Crystal.

*The shadow… that evil intent… the crystal’s reaction…*

Xu Qing narrowed his eyes, piecing together the bizarre sequence of events. He was certain the shadow touching him hadn’t been a trick of the light. He vividly remembered the sensation of the crystal’s freezing current sweeping through his veins, violently ripping the evil intent away and dragging it back into the stone.

*Did it… eat it?* Xu Qing wondered, a chill of awe and suspicion creeping down his spine.

***

(Author’s Note: Volume One – Awakening of Insects. Awakening of Insects reflects the phenomenon of natural organisms awakening and sprouting, influenced by the changing rhythms of the world.)