Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 35: Wrinkles Stirred by the Wind

Xu Qing frowned and turned around.

A massive swarm of at least a hundred miniature jellyfish shrieked out of the canyon entrance, diving straight for the youths and their surviving bodyguards.

The group’s expressions warped in terror. They immediately mounted a defense, with the bodyguards throwing themselves forward in a desperate attempt to hold the line.

The older youth Xu Qing had analyzed earlier—the one radiating seventh-level Qi Condensation fluctuations—lashed out, unleashing a sweeping wave of radiant, destructive light.

But the sheer volume of the swarm was overwhelming. Worse, these specific jellyfish possessed a high biological resistance to spells; the kinetic and elemental damage of the radiant light was severely dampened upon impact.

Compounding the issue, the anomalies were incredibly fast, their attack vectors sharp, and their swarm tactics highly coordinated. Within seconds, seven or eight people in the canyon were torn apart.

One of the youths, his previously immaculate silk robes now shredded and soaked in blood, scrambled backward in absolute despair as a jellyfish lunged for his face. “Master Bai, save me!” he screamed at his seventh-level friend.

Hearing the plea, Bai whipped around, firing a condensed beam of light that intercepted the jellyfish just long enough for the terrified youth to roll away, hyperventilating but alive.

Despite maintaining a tactical distance, Xu Qing’s presence didn’t go unnoticed. Three jellyfish locked onto his heat signature, shrieking through the air, intending to bore straight through his torso.

A freezing glint flashed in Xu Qing’s eyes. He didn’t retreat. He simply threw a raw, kinetic punch.

Boom!

His fist slammed into the lead jellyfish. The physical shockwave vibrated through its gelatinous body, instantly exceeding its structural limits. The anomaly violently exploded into a mist of blue gore.

Xu Qing didn’t break his momentum. A dagger materialized in his left hand. Blurring forward, he closed the gap with the remaining two targets.

He was faster than them. He was more agile than them. In the span of a single breath, he slipped between the two anomalies, and their bodies were cleanly bifurcated.

Most of the embattled youths witnessed the clinical execution. Deeply shaken, their survival instincts overrode their pride, and they instinctively began retreating toward Xu Qing’s position.

However, the rapid execution of three assets triggered the swarm’s hive mind. Dozens of eerie, glowing eyes snapped open, locking onto Xu Qing.

This time, over a dozen anomalies swarmed him simultaneously.

Xu Qing’s expression remained perfectly flat. Instead of falling back, he launched himself directly into the swarm. Transforming into a lethal blur, the dagger in his hand became a web of freezing steel. Wherever he stepped, a jellyfish was systematically butchered, bursting with a sickening pop.

But as the body count rose, massive quantities of highly concentrated Mutagen bled into the air. The surrounding flora—including Xu Qing’s meticulously maintained medicine hut—instantly withered, turning a sickly, necrotic blue-black. The surviving bodyguards were similarly affected, their faces visibly graying as the Mutagen invaded their systems.

Watching his sanctuary rot before his eyes, a dense, suffocating killing intent flooded Xu Qing.

He accelerated, moving even faster, his dagger flashing as he carved through the swarm. But a sudden tactical failure occurred. His blade, heavily corroded by the concentrated Mutagen blood, reached its metallurgical breaking point. Spiderweb fractures spread across the steel, and the dagger shattered.

Xu Qing didn’t have the luxury of mourning the weapon. With a flick of his wrist, his iron spike was in his hand. He punctured several jellyfish in rapid succession, simultaneously deploying clouds of neurotoxic powder into the air.

While these anomalies possessed high toxicological resistance, meaning the airborne powder wouldn’t cause immediate systemic failure, Xu Qing wasn’t just trying to poison them. The powder’s secondary function was chemical masking—neutralizing the scent of the Sui Wu blood that had drawn the swarm in the first place.

But his weapon downgrade was a problem. The iron spike possessed excellent armor-piercing capabilities, but it lacked the slashing utility of a bladed edge, drastically reducing his crowd-control efficiency.

Suddenly, a voice yelled from behind him.

“Friend! Take my sword!”

A high-grade longsword, radiating a freezing aura, spun through the air toward Xu Qing’s back. He caught it backhanded without breaking his stride. From his peripheral vision, he confirmed the sender was the youth known as Master Bai.

Xu Qing didn’t waste breath on gratitude. The moment his fingers wrapped around the hilt, he audited the weapon’s specs. It was premium hardware.

He swung it in a wide arc. A freezing, razor-sharp edge cleaved through the air. Xu Qing had zero formal training in swordsmanship, but relying purely on the weapon’s metallurgical superiority and his own raw speed, he instantly bisected eight jellyfish in a single stroke.

As the carpet of corpses thickened, Xu Qing’s clothes became drenched in viscous blue blood. The three surviving bodyguards and the traumatized youths huddled behind him, watching the massacre. Their minds were reeling, their eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated shock.

“He’s… he’s a monster!”

“He’s a body refiner! What tier is that? Has he hit Grand Perfection?!”

“His spiritual fluctuations don’t match that output! He only reads at the fifth or sixth layer!”

“His cultivation level is irrelevant! Look at his absolute ruthlessness!” The guards and the youths were deeply shaken, completely overwhelmed by Xu Qing’s clinical brutality.

Even Bai inhaled sharply, his mind racing. The arrogant girl in the crowd felt her heart hammering against her ribs. Experiencing Xu Qing’s terrifying aura firsthand, she immediately scrapped any lingering thoughts of manipulating him.

The aura radiating from Xu Qing was identical to the ‘monsters’ hidden within her own clan’s elite assassination divisions.

Every single one of those assets had a massive body count. She was instinctually terrified of them. Now, this filthy scavenger boy was projecting the exact same apex-predator frequency.

She absolutely refused to provoke him.

Furthermore, her operational objective was complete: she had successfully drawn out the primary swarm. Whether her sect’s strike team could infiltrate the jellyfish nest deeper in the jungle to extract the target asset was no longer her problem.

The casualty rate of this excursion had far exceeded her projections. Reaching inside her robes, her fingers curled around a premium jade slip—a localized teleportation talisman.

It was her ultimate failsafe.

Just as she hesitated over whether to burn such an expensive asset, a deafening rumble echoed from the canyon entrance. Another massive wave of densely packed jellyfish poured into the chasm, shrieking toward them.

That erased her hesitation. She crushed the jade slip. A spatial distortion swallowed her, and she vanished instantly.

Her sudden exfiltration left her remaining companions exchanging highly complicated, betrayed looks.

Xu Qing ignored the drama. His eyes were locked on the incoming reinforcements. Running a rapid tactical calculation, he planted his feet. The Qi and blood in his body violently detonated. Staring down the incoming swarm, he unhinged his jaw and unleashed a primal, deafening roar.

As his biological energy redlined, the Sea Mountain Technique flared to maximum capacity. The colossal shadow of the Kui violently manifested behind him, mirroring his roar.

The phantom was a nightmare of absolute savagery. Crowned with a single, jagged horn and forged from pitch-black darkness, it looked like a demon dragged directly from the Yellow Springs. Faint, erratic purple light pulsed in its eyes, making it deeply unsettling.

The Kui’s roar was physically soundless, but combined with Xu Qing’s vocalization, it generated a localized wave of psychological terror. The charging jellyfish slammed on the brakes, their eerie eyes snapping wide open to stare at the apex predator blocking their path.

The anomalies weren’t the only ones affected. The youths cowering behind Xu Qing turned ghostly pale. Staring at the massive phantom looming over the scavenger, their pupils shrank to pinpricks.

“Qi and blood manifesting a phantom!”

“That… that phenomenon only triggers when a body refiner achieves Grand Perfection!”

Absolute awe and terror warred in their minds.

The jellyfish swarm processed the catastrophic threat level Xu Qing presented. Furthermore, his deployed chemical agents had finally saturated the canyon, effectively scrubbing the scent of the Sui Wu blood from the survivors.

After a tense, heavy standoff, the hive mind recalculated its priorities. The swarm slowly began to reverse course, swiftly flowing back out through the canyon entrance.

Watching the swarm retreat, Xu Qing internally exhaled. He slowly turned around, his dead eyes locking onto the group of youths.

He specifically scanned the coordinates where the girl with the silver gloves had been standing.

She was gone.

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed into slits.

As his gaze swept over the survivors, several of the girls actually began to weep from sheer terror.

Xu Qing’s current aesthetic was genuinely horrifying.

Bathed in moonlight, dripping with viscous blue blood, his eyes radiated the absolute, freezing apathy of a seasoned killer. Framed by the demonic Kui phantom, he looked exactly like a vengeful ghost.

Only the youth named Bai managed to suppress his primal fear. He stepped forward, formally cupping his fists.

“I am Bai Yundong. Thank you, friend, for your intervention. My group and I swear to heavily compensate you for this debt!”

Noticing where Xu Qing had looked, Bai Yundong took a tight breath and offered an explanation.

“The one who exfiltrated was Li Ruolin. Her clan specializes in Formation arrays, so her assigned emergency asset was a teleportation talisman. It guarantees her a clean extraction from any hot zone.”

“And you weren’t issued one?” Xu Qing asked, his voice flat.

Bai Yundong smiled bitterly. The other youths looked down in ashamed silence.

“We may wear the crests of the major Purple Earth clans, but we aren’t from the primary lineages. We’re just window dressing.”

Xu Qing nodded slowly. He tossed the premium sword back to Bai Yundong. Ignoring the sudden chorus of grateful thanks from the others, he looked at Bai and asked a pointed question.

“What is your relationship to Master Bai?”

“He’s my Third Grandfather,” Bai Yundong replied, caught off guard. He blinked. “You… you know my Third Grandfather?”

Xu Qing gave him a long, calculating look, nodded once, and said nothing. He turned toward the canyon entrance, assessing the ambient light.

“The Mutagen saturation here is critical. You can’t stay. I will escort you out of the zone.”

Without waiting for an answer, Xu Qing began walking. Bai Yundong hesitated for a microsecond before gritting his teeth and falling in line. The others, highly aware of their own mortality, scrambled to follow.

The group of battered youths marched out of the canyon, navigating the treacherous jungle under the cover of darkness.

Despite their humiliating performance against the swarm, they were all cultivators. Surviving a genuine combat scenario had violently recalibrated their worldview. It was a brutal, necessary evolution.

The march was entirely silent. They followed Xu Qing like ghosts.

Even the girls, operating on absolute physical exhaustion, gritted their teeth and refused to fall behind. The forced march lasted the entire night.

Finally, as dawn broke, the treeline broke, revealing the sprawling expanse of the Scavenger Camp’s perimeter in the distance.

A massive wave of relief washed over them. The adrenaline crash hit, but the sight of civilization gave them a final burst of residual energy. Suddenly, a high-pitched whistle pierced the air.

Xu Qing immediately snapped into a defensive stance. He tracked three figures tearing through the sky toward their coordinates.

It was the high-level escorts who had been assigned to the youths.

Xu Qing’s earlier tactical assessment had been flawless. The escorts had deliberately peeled off the apex jellyfish to protect their assets. They had clearly suffered casualties during the maneuver. Touching down, they listened to the youths frantically recounting the night’s events, their eyes lingering heavily on Xu Qing.

Xu Qing remained highly vigilant. He maintained a strict tactical distance, his fingers inconspicuously resting on his poison pouches.

The three experts made no sudden moves toward him. They simply offered a respectful nod before taking point to clear the final stretch of jungle.

Despite the perimeter being in sight, the treacherous terrain meant it was nearly noon before the group finally cleared the jungle boundary.

The moment their boots hit safe dirt, the psychological dam broke. The overwhelming relief of surviving a designated kill zone was too much. Several of the youths collapsed, sobbing openly.

Xu Qing was the last to exit the treeline. He maintained his distance, watching them in silence.

Soon, Bai Yundong led the recovering youths over. After offering a deeply sincere, synchronized bow, they each formally stated their names.

“This excursion was highly impromptu,” Bai Yundong explained, his tone completely stripped of its former arrogance. “Our high-value assets were entirely liquidated in the forbidden zone. Because our bodies are heavily saturated with Mutagen, we have to immediately route through the nearest city’s teleportation array to seek medical treatment in Purple Earth. We cannot forget this debt. Please, keep the sword.”

Bai Yundong bowed deeply one last time, leaving the premium weapon with Xu Qing.

Xu Qing watched the convoy depart, then picked up the blade.

The steel was forged in a deep, abyssal blue, radiating a latent, freezing energy. Despite being used to butcher highly acidic jellyfish, the blade hadn’t suffered a single micro-fracture. Just looking at the edge made the air feel colder. It was an undisputed, top-tier asset.

It was a bit unwieldy compared to his preferred daggers, but it was highly functional. Xu Qing wrapped the blade in a heavy canvas tarp to mask its premium signature and slung it across his back.

Checking the sun’s position, he began the trek back to the Scavenger Camp.

His immediate logistical plan was to procure a new set of daggers, wait for the jellyfish swarm to fully dissipate over the next few days, and then redeploy into the forbidden zone.

By mid-afternoon, the sun was beating down with a lazy, oppressive heat as Xu Qing entered the camp’s perimeter. He hadn’t taken ten steps before his threat assessment protocols triggered.

The camp’s baseline energy was wrong.

There was a heavy influx of unknown operatives.

Furthermore, the local scavengers were looking at him with highly erratic, shifting expressions. He locked eyes with a scavenger he had personally saved during a previous raid; the man looked like he wanted to scream a warning but physically couldn’t.

Instead, the man offered a minuscule, covert nod toward the coordinates of Xu Qing’s sector.

Xu Qing’s stomach dropped. He accelerated his pace, his eyes aggressively sweeping the environment.

As he approached his alleyway, he detected dozens of cold, hostile gazes tracking his movements.

Auditing their uniform specs, Xu Qing immediately identified them. They were the camp director’s personal guard division!

Lurking at the mouth of the alley was the director’s adjutant—the man with the rat-like mustache. The adjutant flashed Xu Qing a cold, highly sadistic smirk.

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed into slits. He shoved open the gate to his courtyard.

Sitting in the dirt was Cross. His face was a ghastly white, and he looked entirely hollowed out. Beside him was Luan Ya, slumped over and visibly suffering from severe internal trauma.

The second Xu Qing stepped through the gate, both of their heads snapped up.

“Kid… Captain Lei…” Cross’s right arm was wrapped in a crude, blood-soaked bandage, trembling violently. He spoke in a hoarse, broken rasp, his words interrupted by a wet, agonizing cough that splattered fresh blood onto the dirt. “Something happened.”

The words hit Xu Qing like a kinetic strike. A deafening roar echoed in his skull. His chest seized, and his breathing hitched.

His heart rate spiked to dangerous levels. His muscles locked. A catastrophic sense of dread violently erupted within his core. It instantly mutated into a dense, overwhelming, and utterly terrifying aura of pure, unadulterated killing intent that bled out of his pores, uncontrollable and absolute. The ambient temperature in the courtyard plummeted.

“What happened?” The words tore from Xu Qing’s throat—a freezing, bone-chilling whisper that carried a faint, almost imperceptible tremor.