Bai Qingyao’s breath hitched, her slender fingers tightening around the silk of her sleeve until the fabric groaned.

“A Spiritual Treasure?” she echoed, her voice trembling with a carefully curated fragility. She managed a strained, weak smile. “Fellow Daoist, while our Tianyao Sect is not without resources, a Spiritual Treasure is a foundation-level asset. Surely…”

Shen Xian didn’t bother to argue. He simply turned on his heel, his cloak fluttering as he began to walk away into the swirling black mist.

“Wait!” Bai Qingyao cried out. She blasted a nearby demonic soul back with a pulse of Qi before desperately sending a private voice transmission to the woman at her side. “Senior Sister Fu, this man reached this depth alone. He is our only hope. Don’t you have a healing-grade treasure on you?”

Fu Shuang, a woman with a round, plump face that currently wore a mask of sheer exhaustion, snorted in disdain. She narrowed her eyes, surveying Shen Xian’s plain attire. This nobody thinks he’s worthy of a Spiritual Treasure? she thought bitterly. But with the shrieks of the damned closing in, she kept her tongue in check.

“Senior Sister!” Bai Qingyao pressed, her mental voice urgent. “The situation is dire!”

“I know,” Fu Shuang snapped back, her eyes flashing with displeasure. A Spiritual Treasure was the dream of any Golden Core cultivator; giving one away felt like carving out a piece of her own heart.

She turned to Shen Xian, her voice dripping with a forced, oily politeness. “Fellow Daoist, we of the Tianyao Sect have always respected the strong. But… you are but a lone wanderer. Can you truly handle this swarm, or are you just looking to flee the moment things turn sour?”

Shen Xian paused and glanced back. He offered her a thin, ambiguous smile that made Fu Shuang’s skin crawl, though she brushed the feeling off as mere fatigue.

“Senior Sister, please!” Bai Qingyao interrupted. She reached into her robes and produced a shimmering pendant carved from translucent ice. “Daoist, this is the [Jade Heart Pendant]. It is not quite a Spiritual Treasure, but its restorative properties are legendary.”

Fu Shuang winced at the sight of the jade. It was a high-tier artifact, immensely valuable. “Junior Sister, wait!” she barked, stepping forward to block the exchange. She looked at Shen Xian with a mocking tilt of her head. “If you want the real prize, you’ll have to prove you aren’t just a silver-tongued coward. Witness your strength? Hmph. If you can’t even clear the path, why should we pay?”

Shen Xian didn’t even look at her. He started walking again.

“Stop! Please!” Bai Qingyao shouted, her voice cracking. She looked at Fu Shuang with genuine terror. “Sister! I will personally reimburse you with a treasure of equal rank from my own collection once we return. We won’t survive another ten minutes!”

Fu Shuang scowled. “Junior Sister, I’m not being stingy. I’m negotiating. Watch me,” she transmitted, before calling out to Shen Xian: “Stay! Let’s make a wager. If you can clear these monsters within fifteen minutes, the Spiritual Treasure is yours. If not… you will serve as our escort out of this tomb for free. A fair deal, wouldn’t you say?”

She smirked. Either way, they gained a powerful bodyguard without losing their best assets.

To her surprise, Shen Xian actually laughed. It was a cold, dry sound that lacked any mirth.

“Interesting,” he said, his gaze pinning Fu Shuang like a bug to a board. “However… I’ve changed my mind.”

“Ha! Admitting you can’t do it?” Fu Shuang taunted.

“No,” Shen Xian replied softly. “The price has doubled. Now, I want two Spiritual Treasures.”

“You—! You arrogant—!” Fu Shuang’s face turned a violent shade of crimson. She was about to unleash a torrent of abuse when a demonic soul lunged from her blind spot, forcing her into a desperate, undignified scramble to avoid being impaled.

“Sister, agree to it!” Bai Qingyao pleaded. “We are dying!”

Among the five of them, only Fu Shuang carried a true healing-grade Spiritual Treasure. If she weren’t a fellow disciple, Bai Qingyao might have considered striking her down herself just to seize the bag.

Fu Shuang ground her teeth so hard they threatened to crack. “Fine! You vulture! One Spiritual Treasure!”

Shen Xian remained motionless, watching the shadows close in.

“We agreed!” another disciple shrieked, her face white as bone, her Qi flickering like a dying candle.

Shen Xian tilted his head. “You heard me wrong. I said… two.”

He smiled. He had been willing to help for one, but since the “immortal maiden” enjoyed the sound of her own voice so much, he was happy to let her pay the “annoyance tax.”

“Ah!” A sickening squelch echoed through the corridor. The disciple who had just spoken was run through by a bone-spike. She collapsed, her aura withered, her life-force leaking into the purplish-black silt of the tomb.

“Sister! I’ll provide the second one!” Bai Qingyao screamed, rushing to the fallen girl’s side. She glared at Fu Shuang. “Agree! Now!”

Fu Shuang’s spirit broke. “Fine! Just kill them!”

Shen Xian’s smile widened, a flicker of crimson dancing in his eyes. He raised his right hand, and a grotesque, blood-red lotus bloomed in his palm, its petals dripping with wisps of tattered black energy.

“An unorthodox art?” Bai Qingyao recoiled, her heart jumping. The man looked like a refined scholar, yet he wielded the techniques of a demonic heretic? But as a black-armored soul lunged at her, she realized that in this hell, a “righteous” death was still a death.

Fu Shuang’s lip curled in pure loathing. A demonic cultivator. I should have known. Greedy, vile, and heretical. She resolved then and there to find a way to renege. Breaking a promise to a demon isn’t a sin; it’s a service to the Heavens.

Shen Xian ignored their judgment. The blood lotus spun, and countless crimson threads shot out like striking vipers.

Sss—!

The sound was bone-chilling. The threads pierced the black armor of the demonic souls, and the creatures began to wither instantly. The thick, asphalt-like Malice was sucked out of them, channeled into the lotus. The very space around the threads rippled with a sickening, unstable resonance.

“Don’t just stand there,” Shen Xian commanded, his voice like cracking ice. “Move.”

Bai Qingyao was the first to snap out of her trance, lifting her jade flute to weave a supportive melody. Fu Shuang followed suit, albeit with a face contorted in fury. How dare this heretic order me around?

Shen Xian ignored her, strolling through the carnage as if he were taking a walk in a garden. With every revolution of the lotus, the “unstoppable” guardians of the second layer were reduced to desiccated husks. They were nothing but clay chickens and pottery dogs before the absolute hunger of his art.

When the last wail faded into silence, the corridor was clear.

Shen Xian stood in the center of the gore, his blood lotus dissipating into his palm. He turned his cold gaze toward the survivors.

“The treasures. Now.”

Before Bai Qingyao could reach for her bag, Fu Shuang stepped forward, her chin tilted up. “The Tianyao Sect does not negotiate with demonic heretics,” she spat, her eyes burning with righteous indignation. “You should be honored we allowed you to assist us.”

Shen Xian’s eyes narrowed. “Is that so? Then I suppose you’re also willing to watch your companions bleed out right here.”

The color drained from Fu Shuang’s face. She looked at the dying disciple on the ground, then back at the cold killer before her. With a shaky hand, she reached into her storage pouch and produced a glowing bottle. Bai Qingyao followed, handing over a radiant silk wrap.

“Remember this, Shen Xian,” Fu Shuang hissed, her voice trembling with humiliation. “You took these under duress. The Li Fire Sect and the Tianyao Sect will not forget this.”

Shen Xian tucked the items away without a word. He didn’t care for her threats. “We’re done. Don’t let me see you in the third layer.”

He vanished into the shadows of the descent, leaving the five women alone in the freezing silence of the tomb.