Crow Immortal: I Can Duplicate Infinite Resources

Chapter 188: Senior, Spare My Life!

The Green Jade Gourd hovered menacingly over the Small Gathering. Before Sect Leader Qi or Elder Yan could even announce their presence, a furious roar erupted from below.

“Where did these ill-mannered juniors come from? Daring to crash the gathering like this? Do you have a death wish?!”

A burly Rogue Cultivator, face twisted with aggression, soared into the air atop a flying broadsword the size of a door plank. He leveled a spiked wolf-toothed mace at the four figures on the gourd, veins bulging on his thick arms.

Seven or eight other Rogue Cultivators flew up behind him, their expressions equally hostile.

Han Yu stood behind his Master, watching calmly. The leader’s eyes were wide as bronze bells, his posture screaming intimidation. Clearly, they had mistaken the elite strike team of Wanchun Valley for clueless amateurs who didn’t know the rules of the black market.

Sect Leader Qi, already in a foul mood from his memories, didn’t have the patience for this.

His Divine Sense swept over them—two late-stage Qi Refining cultivators, a handful of mid-stage. Insects.

Elder Yan’s eye twitched. His hand began to slide out of his sleeve, fingers curling into a claw.

“Let me,” Sect Leader Qi said, his voice low and dangerous.

He pressed his hand down.

BOOM.

The Golden Core aura crashed down like a falling mountain. For miles around, the air solidified into iron.

The burly leader’s face went white. His knees buckled, and his wolf-toothed mace slipped from his numb fingers, clattering to the ground below. The cultivators behind him fared worse; they dropped from the sky like dumplings falling into a pot, screaming as they crashed into the dirt.

“Se… Senior! Spare my life!”

The burly leader collapsed onto the gourd’s surface, kowtowing so hard his forehead drew blood. Cold sweat drenched his back. Only now, with his nose pressed to the wood, did he realize the terror of the beings he had just threatened.

Below, nearly 100 Rogue Cultivators lay prostrate, pinned to the earth by the crushing pressure. Not a finger could twitch.

Sect Leader Qi ignored the groveling man. His gaze swept the gathered crowd like a searchlight. He glanced back at Han Yu.

Han Yu didn’t need to speak. Inside his dantian, six and a half Star Luo Threads were vibrating violently, pointing unerringly toward the southeast corner.

“There,” Han Yu transmitted.

Sect Leader Qi turned. His gaze locked onto a figure in a gray cloak and bamboo hat trying to slither behind a tree, accompanied by a woman whose face was obscured by a veil.

Qi raised a finger.

Spiritual Power lashed out like invisible chains, snatching the two figures and dragging them through the air. They landed hard on the ground before the Sect Leader.

Qi didn’t ask questions. He didn’t threaten. He simply drove his Spiritual Power straight into their dantians.

It was a brutal, invasive scan—the cultivation equivalent of a strip search with a sledgehammer. Under such Golden Core force, no disguise could hold. Even Han Yu’s Thousand Illusions Secret Art would have shattered instantly.

The gray cloaks rippled and failed.

“Pretending to cultivate the Green Grain Qi Cultivation Method, but your core is Little Sky Net Sect, Qi Refining Fifth Layer,” Qi spat, his voice icy. “Spies.”

He backhanded the bamboo hat off the first figure. “Let’s see who you really are.”

Han Yu’s eyes widened.

The face revealed was familiar. Li Xuan.

The disciple who was supposed to be manning the shop in Green Grain Market. The one who had eagerly swapped shifts with Wang Teng.

Of course, Han Yu realized. He swapped shifts to get out of the sect. He needed to meet his handler.

The second figure was revealed to be a pockmarked female cultivator.

As they realized they were captured, panic flashed in their eyes. They exchanged a desperate glance. A faint silver light began to glow in their sleeves.

“Trying to run?”

Sect Leader Qi scoffed. With a flick of his sleeve, he crushed their mobility and ripped two silvery-white objects from their grasp.

Heavenly Secret Spindles.

Seeing their artifacts seized, Li Xuan and the woman collapsed into despair.

“How… how was there no warning?” Li Xuan muttered, his voice trembling.

“The prophecy… it shouldn’t be silent!” the woman cried out.

Their terror wasn’t about death. It was about the failure of their divination. They were genuinely baffled that their “all-knowing” artifacts hadn’t predicted this ambush.

Fanatics, Han Yu thought. Even now, they care more about their dogma than their lives.

“Search their souls?” Elder Yan asked, stepping forward. “Little Sky Net Sect zealots are troublesome. Interrogation is usually a waste of time.”

Sect Leader Qi nodded.

Elder Yan didn’t hesitate. He raised a withered finger and tapped Li Xuan’s forehead.

Flash.

Silver light erupted from Li Xuan’s eyes.

BANG.

Li Xuan’s head exploded like a ripe melon.

Elder Yan instantly raised a barrier, blocking the spray of blood and brain matter.

The pockmarked woman screamed, silver light flooding her eyes, and a second later—BANG. Another headless corpse slumped to the ground.

“Soul restrictions,” Elder Yan grunted, wiping a speck of blood from his shield. “They were rigged to blow. Thorough preparation.”

“We know who sent them. That is enough,” Sect Leader Qi said, looking down at the corpses with distaste. He turned his attention to the 100 Rogue Cultivators still pinned below.

“What about them?” Elder Yan asked. “We can’t just let them go. The good and the bad are intermingled here.”

Sect Leader Qi frowned. Wanchun Valley was in crisis mode. Any one of these drifters could be another spy or a saboteur.

“We screen everyone,” Qi ordered. “Elder Yan, Elder Lü, assist me. If they are Demonic Cultivators, execute them. If they are spies from other sects, detain them. If they are clean Rogue Cultivators, check their storage bags and dantians, then release them.”

“Consider it a rehearsal,” Elder Lü added with a grim smile. “We’ll be doing this to our own disciples in two days.”

Sect Leader Qi nodded. He tossed a single green seed into the air. He formed a seal and whispered a command.

The seed exploded into growth mid-air. It transformed into a massive, serpentine green vine that slithered through the crowd, binding the cultivators one by one until they looked like a string of captured grasshoppers.

Three of the “grasshoppers” panicked. Realizing inspection meant death, they flared with blood-red energy, trying to burst the vines.

Demonic Cultivators.

Elder Yan didn’t even blink. A flick of his finger sent three bolts of Spiritual Power through their skulls. They slumped over, dead before they hit the ground.

The rest of the crowd went limp, terrified into absolute submission.

As the Elders began the processing, Elder Lü nudged Sect Leader Qi. “The spindles. Give them to my disciple. He might be able to read them.”

Qi tossed the two silvery artifacts to Han Yu.

Han Yu caught them. He extended his Star Luo Threads, letting them seep into the alien devices. The vibrations traveled up his arm, translating into information.

He frowned.

“I have the messages they were trying to send,” Han Yu said.

He transmitted the text to the Elders.

Message 1: “The identity of the one who refined the Heavenly Secret Spindles is unknown. Investigation required.”

Message 2: “Han Yu disappeared yesterday for unknown reasons. Only reappeared at the Battle Hall today. Purpose unknown. Urgent investigation required.”

Sect Leader Qi and Elder Lü exchanged bewildered glances.

The Little Sky Net Sect didn’t know Han Yu was the one refining their spindles? That made sense.

But the second message…

Why were they so obsessed with Han Yu’s schedule?

“They’re tracking his daily movements?” Elder Lü whispered. “Is he that important to them? He’s a genius, yes, but to have a dedicated spy network just to watch him take a day off?”

“Do they want to assassinate the next generation?” Qi mused. “But if their prophecy is true, Wanchun Valley falls in 25 years regardless. Why waste resources on a single disciple?”

Han Yu listened, his mind racing. They don’t know I’m the counter-spy. But they know I’m an anomaly. And to fanatics obsessed with fate… an anomaly is the most dangerous thing in the world.