Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 15: Bloody Dusk

The figures besieging Captain Lei were none other than the Blood Shadow Squad.

Above, the setting sun bled its final rays across the horizon, the dying light visibly swallowed by the encroaching night. It wouldn’t be long before absolute darkness claimed the wasteland. A creeping chill slithered out from the shadows, permeating the air. The forest, still bathed in the fading afterglow, resembled a dying old man clinging to his last breath. The sunlight lacked the strength to pierce the dense canopy, casting only dim, sparse shadows.

Hidden high within the canopy, Xu Qing remained perfectly still. He observed the battlefield with the cold, detached gaze of a predator, etching every detail into his mind.

Five scavengers formed the Blood Shadow Squad. Two spearheaded the assault, while the remaining three secured the perimeter, sealing off any potential escape routes for Captain Lei.

The three guards hovered at the third level of Qi Condensation, matching Luan Ya’s strength. They kept their distance, circling like vultures, but their mere presence forced Captain Lei to divide his attention.

As for the main attackers, one radiated spiritual energy fluctuations only a hair weaker than Captain Lei’s. He was clearly at the sixth level of Qi Condensation. The old man fought like a rabid beast, his disheveled hair whipping wildly around his face. His tattered leather armor barely contained the bulging, grotesque muscles beneath. This was the Blood Shadow Captain—the man infamous for eating dog meat raw.

He licked his lips, his strikes flashing like lightning as he locked his cruel gaze onto Captain Lei, whose skin was taking on a sickly cyan hue.

“The Thunder Squad ends today,” the Blood Shadow Captain sneered. “Do yourself a favor and slit your own throat, Lei. Otherwise, you’ll end up like Barbarian Ghost—fighting until the mutagen takes over, denied even a whole corpse. Die by your own hand, and I promise I’ll take *good* care of your team.”

“That’s right,” chimed in the second attacker. “Rest easy, Captain Lei. I’ve been dying to get a taste of Luan Ya. And that feral kid you picked up? He’ll fetch a decent price as a Treasure Nurturer.”

The speaker was a grotesque, middle-aged man with a hunched, deformed back and a single, bloodshot eye. His spiritual energy wasn’t as oppressive as his captain’s, but it easily eclipsed Cross’s. He was at the fifth level of Qi Condensation, though his aura flickered erratically, suggesting a recent breakthrough.

Captain Lei’s expression remained carved from stone, but a grim finality settled in his eyes. He abandoned all defense, his counterattacks turning suicidal. His ferocity forced the two Blood Shadow members to fall back and adopt a skirmishing tactic; they were certain of their victory and had no intention of suffering lethal injuries just to finish a dying man. They planned to bleed him out.

*One sixth level. One fifth level. Three third levels.*

Xu Qing calculated the odds, his eyes narrowing into slits. He could easily slip away into the shadows. But in this wasteland, debts of survival were paid in blood. Captain Lei had sheltered him. He wouldn’t leave.

The dense woods and fading light provided the perfect cover. Crouched on a thick branch, Xu Qing’s killing intent flared.

He kicked off the trunk with explosive force, launching himself like a loosed arrow. The third level of the Sea Mountain Technique, amplified by the raw physical power of the Purple Crystal, unleashed its full terror.

He moved so fast he left an afterimage in the canopy. Before anyone on the battlefield could even blink, Xu Qing was among them.

He materialized beside a scrawny youth on the perimeter. The guard’s triangular eyes still reflected Captain Lei’s distant struggle; he hadn’t even registered the shift in the wind.

A cold breeze brushed the youth’s cheek. He blinked, turning his head—

*Crunch.*

A black iron skewer punched through his temple with terrifying kinetic force, bursting out the other side.

Xu Qing didn’t wait for the corpse to drop. He didn’t wait for a scream. He pivoted, his boots gouging the dirt as he launched himself at the second guard like a hunting leopard.

The scavenger’s pupils shrank in horror. He tried to backpedal, but Xu Qing was already inside his guard. A fist, heavy with the crushing weight of the Sea Mountain Technique, slammed into his sternum.

*Crack.*

Flesh and bone pulverized. The man’s chest caved in, a geyser of blood erupting from his back as his heart ruptured. Using the momentum of the strike, Xu Qing whipped his left arm forward. A black dagger tore through the air, a deadly streak of iron.

The third guard finally snapped out of his shock. He raised his weapon, but a gust of wind hit his face. His body locked up. His eyes bulged. Driven by fading instinct, he raised a trembling hand to his forehead, his fingers brushing the cold hilt of the dagger buried deep in his skull. The sheer force of the throw had shattered his frontal bone.

Three breaths. Three corpses.

As the first and third bodies hit the dirt, the man with the caved-in chest finally slumped over, revealing the boy standing behind him.

Xu Qing stood slightly hunched. His messy black hair shadowed the upper half of his face, but it couldn’t conceal the feral, wolf-like glare piercing through the strands. He raised his head, locking eyes with the stunned Blood Shadow Captain and his deputy.

The wind seemed to die.

Captain Lei’s death-clouded eyes widened in shock. “Kid!” he roared, his voice hoarse. “Run!”

Xu Qing ignored him. His gaze remained fixed on the Blood Shadow Captain.

The old cannibal finally looked at the boy as a threat. His eyes flicked to the three corpses bleeding out in the dirt, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. He had miscalculated. First Barbarian Ghost’s suicidal frenzy, and now this lethal stray.

“Kill him!” the Blood Shadow Captain snarled, abandoning his war of attrition to clash directly with Captain Lei.

The hunchbacked fifth-level cultivator let out a sinister cackle and pivoted toward Xu Qing. Spiritual energy flared around him as he cracked his knuckles, a sadistic gleam in his single eye. The kid was fast, sure, but he was just a third-level body refiner. To a newly advanced fifth-level spell cultivator, he was nothing but fresh meat.

Xu Qing’s eyes grew colder.

*I can kill a fourth level,* he thought, analyzing his previous skirmishes. *A fifth level… unknown.*

He didn’t hesitate. Xu Qing blurred into motion, closing the distance in a heartbeat and throwing a brutal punch.

The hunchback sneered. Just as the fist connected, the spiritual energy around the man solidified into an invisible barrier.

*Boom!*

The barrier cracked, but held. A massive recoil surged back through Xu Qing’s arm. *Snap.* His wrist dislocated with a sickening crunch.

Xu Qing didn’t even flinch. He sidestepped, violently whipping his arm to snap the joint back into place. Without missing a beat, he threw his entire weight into a second punch.

*BOOM!*

The fractured barrier shattered like glass. But the moment it broke, a violent shockwave erupted outward, kicking up a storm of dirt and slamming into Xu Qing. The invisible shards of the barrier acted like shrapnel, slicing dozens of bloody gashes across his skin.

The impact threw his wiry frame backward. Blood dripped from his lacerations, and his newly reset wrist popped out of its socket again, hanging limply at his side.

“Ignorant trash,” the hunchback spat, the dust settling around him. “A mere body refiner dares to challenge a spell cultivator? A third-level rat overestimating its worth.”

Inwardly, however, the man was shaken. He hadn’t expected his barrier to cave after just two strikes. If he hadn’t recently broken through to the fifth level—gaining the explosive backlash effect—he would have been in serious trouble.

Xu Qing’s expression remained impassive, as if the agonizing pain in his arm and shredded skin belonged to someone else. Keeping his eyes locked on his enemy, he planted his right hand against the dirt and violently twisted his arm.

*Crack.*

The joint popped back in.

The hunchback’s sneer faltered. Seeing the boy’s utter disregard for his own body made his single eye twitch. He immediately raised his hands, forming rapid hand seals. Spiritual energy coalesced, igniting into a head-sized fireball that roared toward Xu Qing.

The heat was blistering, distorting the air in its wake.

Xu Qing sidestepped, but the fireball curved, tracking his movements. The hunchback’s killing intent surged. Maintaining his defensive barrier, he formed more seals, conjuring a second and third fireball to cut off Xu Qing’s escape.

Trapped, Xu Qing’s eyes darted to the corpse of the scavenger he had just killed. He dove, grabbed the dead weight, and hurled it directly into the path of the leading fireball.

*Boom!*

The flames engulfed the body, reducing flesh and bone to ash in less than three seconds.

*Lethal temperature,* Xu Qing noted, feeling the ambient heat singe his skin red.

He tried to pivot, but the second and third fireballs were already upon him. The hunchback’s eye gleamed with malice. He didn’t give Xu Qing the chance to dodge; he detonated the fireballs prematurely.

*BOOM!*

A sea of flames swallowed the clearing. The sheer thermal shock was devastating. Xu Qing used his explosive speed to evade the epicenter, but the sweeping heat flash-boiled the moisture on his skin, raising dense, agonizing blisters across his entire body. It felt as though his internal organs were roasting.

“Fire Crow, stop playing around!” the Blood Shadow Captain roared from his duel with Captain Lei.

“Relax, Captain!” Fire Crow laughed, his cruelty peaking as he looked at the inferno. “This little wolf cub can take maybe two more hits before he’s a dried husk!”

He raised his hand, summoning two more roaring spheres of fire. With a flick of his wrist, he sent them hurtling into the blaze. Anticipating Xu Qing’s evasion, he detonated them early, blanketing the entire perimeter in a suffocating wave of fire.

The intense heat scorched the earth. Trees instantly turned to ash, opening the canopy and allowing the dying sunlight to pour in, blindingly merging with the raging firelight. Fire Crow squinted against the glare. He was supremely confident. A fifth-level spell against a third-level body refiner? The kid was ash.

Panting slightly, Fire Crow dusted off his hands. He turned his back on the flames, a mocking grin plastered on his ugly face as he strolled toward Captain Lei.

“Looks like your stray wasn’t much use, Lei.”

But as he spoke, he didn’t see despair on Captain Lei’s face. Instead, he saw the Blood Shadow Captain’s eyes widen in alarm.

Fire Crow’s survival instincts screamed. He violently threw himself to the side.

He was a fraction of a second too late.

A charred, blistered figure shot out from the inferno, slamming two consecutive punches into Fire Crow’s newly formed barrier. The shield trembled violently and shattered. The resulting shockwave forced the boy back, but in the same fluid motion, a dagger and an iron skewer were hurled through the collapsing energy.

The barrier’s backlash slowed the projectiles just enough for Fire Crow to twist his body. The dagger sheared clean through his ear, sending a spray of blood into the air. The iron skewer punched deep into his chest. He coughed up a mouthful of blood, but the strike had missed his heart.

Agony turned Fire Crow’s vision red. Howling like a wounded beast, he scrambled backward and whipped his head around.

Twenty paces away, standing amidst the dying embers, was the boy. He was half-crouched, poised like a feral wolf ready to lunge. His skin was a canvas of raw burns and weeping blisters.

Yet, as the bloody dusk reflected in the boy’s eyes, Fire Crow saw only an icy, bottomless abyss. The killing intent hadn’t diminished in the slightest.