Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 38: Extermination

“You ignorant little whelp! You don’t know the immensity of heaven and earth!”

The golden-robed Camp Master’s face twisted into an ugly scowl. He never expected his men to fail against a mere child. He had boasted he would resolve this within the time it took an incense stick to burn. The incense had indeed burned out—but it was his guards who had been “resolved.”

“Useless trash!” A cold glint flashed in the Camp Master’s eyes. He stepped over the threshold and strode directly toward Xu Qing.

With every step, the spiritual energy around him violently surged. An astonishing wave of blood and qi erupted from his core, his muscles swelling beneath his robes until his silhouette resembled a towering mountain. A faint golden light began to radiate from his skin.

The Camp Master was also a body refiner!

However, he didn’t practice a low-tier method like the Sea Mountain Technique. He wielded a supreme art of the Vajra Sect: the Vajra Technique.

Pushed to its absolute limit, his momentum exploded. His footsteps blurred, transforming him into a massive shadow that barreled straight toward Xu Qing. He closed the distance in an instant, throwing a devastating punch. Blinding golden light erupted from his fist, radiating a suffocating Pressure.

Xu Qing’s gaze flicked past the Camp Master to the brocade-robed elder standing inside the courtyard, whose grip was still tight around Captain Lei’s battered form. Suppressing the agonizing twist in his chest, Xu Qing narrowed his eyes.

He knew exactly how this would play out: the moment he gained the upper hand, the other side would likely use Captain Lei as a hostage. This was something Xu Qing refused to allow. The only way to prevent it was through sudden, unpredictable action—so sudden they wouldn’t have time to react.

So Xu Qing narrowed his eyes and threw a punch of his own, meeting the Camp Master’s blow head-on.

A thunderous boom echoed as Xu Qing was forced back seven or eight steps. But he didn’t retreat in a straight line; he shifted sideways a few paces. The sunlight behind him cast his shadow on the ground, and it swayed with his movement.

The Camp Master, feeling the force behind Xu Qing’s punch, shuddered and also retreated. But when he looked up, his eyes held contempt. He lunged forward again, channeling his cultivation base to its fullest, creating a rumbling noise. His words were disdainful, his gaze scornful, but his attacks… were delivered with his full power. Clearly, his outward demeanor was an act. After all, someone who could become a Camp Master and command the fear of a group of scavengers, even if he was a Sect disciple, was not to be underestimated.

“First Vajra Method!” the Camp Master roared. As he spoke, his body swelled even larger, his strength and speed skyrocketing. In the blink of an eye, he closed in and delivered a crushing blow.

Xu Qing lowered his head, hiding his eyes from the Camp Master’s view, and raised both arms to block. Another boom resounded, and he was forced back again, his steps shifting and his shadow swaying even more intensely. But no one noticed.

“Second Vajra Method!” Seeing that Xu Qing had withstood two of his attacks, the Camp Master, whose cultivation had reached the peak of the eighth level of Qi Condensation, felt his killing intent intensify. His body swelled once more as he threw another punch at Xu Qing.

This punch erupted with even brighter golden light. But the moment it descended, Xu Qing suddenly looked up.

The killing intent in his eyes erupted with ferocious intensity. Through his repeated shifts in position, he had finally aligned his shadow directly with the brocade-robed elder at the threshold. Moreover, his movements had concealed the distortions caused by his manipulation of the shadow. And due to the angle of the sun in the sky, his shadow was stretched long at that very moment, reaching just short of the brocade-robed elder.

As Xu Qing looked up and his killing intent exploded, he ignored the Camp Master’s incoming fist and leaped high into the air. The instant his height increased, his shadow abruptly bridged the distance to the brocade-robed elder. Twisting unnaturally, it extended a section further and directly covered the elder’s right wrist, the one holding Captain Lei. Not a trace of Xu Qing’s shadow fell on Captain Lei himself—this was another crucial reason for his earlier adjustments.

In that split second, with a low roar from Xu Qing, the shadow’s eerie power erupted.

The brocade-robed elder’s face instantly changed. An intense, searing pain and an eruption of Mutagen caused his right hand to turn bluish-black. This sudden change horrified him, and he instinctively released his grip on Captain Lei.

The moment the elder let go, Xu Qing’s entire body rumbled. Enduring a punch from the Camp Master, he spat out blood as his speed exploded to its limit. He transformed into a blur, vanishing from his spot and charging toward the brocade-robed elder. At the same time, his iron spike and dagger shot out like two bolts of lightning, hurtling toward the elder and forcing him, with his mutating hand, to retreat and dodge.

While the elder dodged, Xu Qing rushed in, grabbed Captain Lei, and hurled him outward. Cross and Luan Ya leaped from the crowd, caught him, and rapidly retreated.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye, incredibly fast!

“Your shadow!!” The brocade-robed elder’s face paled as he stared at Xu Qing. The suddenness and unexpectedness of everything had left him completely unable to react.

The Camp Master outside the gate also narrowed his eyes, truly shocked by Xu Qing’s series of actions.

Xu Qing wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and coldly regarded the two of them. Under the setting sun, his figure resembled a hunting eagle as he spoke in a low voice.

“Now, it’s my turn.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, his body shot toward the brocade-robed elder with a bang. Compared to the body refiner, Xu Qing felt the first one he needed to kill was the spell cultivator.

He closed the distance in an instant.

The brocade-robed elder’s face darkened. He rapidly retreated, his hands forming seals as he pointed at Xu Qing. Mist swiftly condensed, forming the shadow of a malevolent ghost that lunged viciously at Xu Qing.

The Camp Master bellowed, a blinding golden light erupting from his very pores. He plowed through the air toward Xu Qing like a collapsing mountain, his momentum locking seamlessly with the brocade-robed elder to form a suffocating pincer assault.

Caught in the jaws of this crisis, a glacial glint pierced Xu Qing’s eyes. The dormant ocean of vital blood and qi within his flesh violently detonated.

A deafening, physical roar tore through the space as his vital energy ripped outward like a localized hurricane. Above him, the dense, suffocating crimson mist coalesced into the massive, savage phantom of a Kui beast. The phantom threw its head back in a silent howl, generating a pressure wave that violently shook the very fabric of the surroundings.

Xu Qing did not retreat. He raised both hands, his fingers curling into fists that seemed to grind the air into powder, and threw a devastating double-sided punch! Syncing with his strike, the colossal Kui shadow fractured into two identical, blood-soaked beasts, lunging outward to intercept both attackers simultaneously.

“Blood and qi manifesting a phantom?! This… this is impossible!”

The Camp Master’s expression shattered into pure terror. The moment his fist slammed into Xu Qing’s left hand, the Kui phantom descended upon him with a savage, grinning maw. Under the crushing weight of that predatory pounce, the Camp Master’s protective golden light was instantly snuffed out. His bones groaned, his body convulsing violently as the kinetic shockwave blasted him over seventy feet backward.

The brocade-robed elder fared no better, all color draining from his face. The malevolent ghost conjured by his dark arts actually shivered in the presence of the Kui beast. With a sinister, mocking grin, the Kui shadow unhinged its jaw and swallowed the ghost in a single, visceral gulp. Without losing a fraction of its momentum, the blood-beast crashed directly into the elder.

A deafening boom ruptured the air. The elder vomited a thick spray of blood and was violently hurled backward. Yet, a dome of azure light abruptly flared to life around his frail body, absorbing the lethal kinetic force and sparing him from being ground into meat paste. The source of that desperate azure barrier was a single, glowing slip of paper plastered to his chest.

This was… a Talisman Treasure!

Xu Qing’s face also paled. Though formidable, facing the combined assault of the Camp Master and the brocade-robed elder, his internal organs were churning. Blood seeped from his mouth, but his ferocity didn’t diminish in the slightest. Seizing the moment the Camp Master was stunned, the killing intent in Xu Qing’s eyes erupted as he charged at the brocade-robed elder.

He threw a full-force punch.

“Courting death!” The brocade-robed elder’s face was pale, his eyes filled with venom. As he retreated, he maintained the talisman treasure’s protection with one hand while forming seals with the other. With a fierce wave, seven or eight malevolent ghosts materialized.

Each was comparable to the seventh level of Qi Condensation, emanating Yin coldness and roars as they lunged to devour Xu Qing.

A ruthless glint flashed in Xu Qing’s eyes. He didn’t dodge, allowing the ghosts to pounce and tear at his body. His speed didn’t decrease, his momentum didn’t wane in the slightest as he threw his punch.

Amid the boom, the talisman treasure’s protection trembled.

But this item was, after all, a talisman treasure. Unless its energy was completely exhausted, it was very difficult to shatter. However, it was clear that even this brocade-robed elder likely didn’t possess a second talisman treasure, and this one had already been used who knows how many times. The characters on it had faded and blurred considerably. Now, under Xu Qing’s bombardment, they were accelerating in their blurring.

This caused the brocade-robed elder’s face to change dramatically once more.

He sensed Xu Qing’s ruthlessness and knew he was in a life-or-death crisis. So, madness also appeared in his eyes. Forming seals, he spat out blood, which transformed into a blood shadow that shot toward Xu Qing with a sharp, whistling sound.

But Xu Qing, with his blood and qi boiling throughout his body, completely ignored the opponent’s technique. Enduring his own injuries, he threw another punch!

“Captain Lei is already at the end of his rope, and you still won’t let him go!”

Xu Qing’s eyes turned crimson. The Kui shadow behind him let out a heaven-shaking roar, merging with his fist as it descended with a thunderous impact.

Although the talisman treasure could resist, the violent vibrations still caused the brocade-robed elder, whose foundation had once collapsed, to spit out blood. He was thrown back, the madness in his eyes turning to panic.

A sense of impending death made him let out a sharp shriek.

“Zhang Shiyuan, what are you still standing there for? Attack with me now!!”

Zhang Shiyuan was the Camp Master’s name. Hearing this from a distance, he suppressed the shock in his heart and charged forward.

At that moment, a bloody hole from the blood shadow’s penetration appeared on Xu Qing’s abdomen. But the intense pain no longer mattered to Xu Qing. His blood and qi erupted once more, his inner rage and madness reaching their peak.

“Captain Lei already chose to hide, yet you still pursued him!”

“Captain Lei has lived a life of misery, and yet you still seek to exterminate his very memory!!”

Xu Qing was a tempest of pure, unadulterated fury. He launched a relentless barrage of punches, throwing every ounce of his soul into each impact. The Kui shadow behind him threw its head back and let out a heaven-shaking roar; moving in lethal synchronization with his strikes, the phantom’s massive spectral fists continuously hammered against the elder’s protective barrier.

Thunderous, bone-rattling booms detonated throughout the camp. The glowing characters etched upon the Talisman Treasure grew increasingly faint and blurred under the kinetic trauma, yet the barrier stubbornly refused to shatter. However, the brocade-robed elder could no longer withstand the sheer resonant shockwaves bleeding through from Xu Qing’s primordial power.

An indescribable, suffocating terror clawed at his heart as the cold hand of death tightened around his throat. While his Talisman Treasure was a masterwork against spiritual techniques, it offered no sanctuary against the raw, vibrating force generated by a body refiner’s physical assault. His withered body, already built upon a ruined foundation, simply could not endure the internal hemorrhaging for much longer.

As he spat out rhythmic, thick mouthfuls of blood, the elder was consumed by a feverish, clawing anxiety.

He lunged to cry out for salvation, but the invasive resonance of the vibrations had already colonized his marrow, severing his connection to his own throat. Paralyzed by a primal horror, his entire frame convulsed in a violent tremor. His cultivation techniques were shattered into chaotic fragments by the relentless oscillating frequency, leaving him capable only of letting out a harrowing, blood-soaked roar within the confines of his own mind.

I… I refuse to die here! I—

In the next heartbeat, thick, ropy veins bulged across Xu Qing’s forehead, his eyes erupting into a map of broken capillaries. He interlaced his fingers into a singular, massive hammer and brought them crashing down with every ounce of his sovereign might against the barrier of the Talisman Treasure.

“DIE!”

A cataclysmic, bone-shaking force detonated upon impact. The protective membrane of the Talisman Treasure warped and buckled under the sheer kinetic trauma, though it miraculously refused to shatter. Yet, the elder trapped within the cage was subjected to the full, unmitigated shockwave; his body buckled in a sickening spasm, his eyes bulging from their sockets as the pressure threatened to eject them from his skull.

In that moment, his body could no longer endure the continuous vibrations.

His eyes instantly burst, his internal organs crumbled, his flesh and bones shattered directly into a pulp, a blurry mess!

After doing this, Xu Qing panted heavily and abruptly turned. He threw a punch with his right hand, colliding with the Camp Master who had charged up behind him.

His injured body was sent flying, thrown back over seventy feet. Many of his wounds, which had mostly healed, split open again. Drenched in blood, Xu Qing under the setting sun became a man of blood.

As for the Camp Master, his heart was also violently shaken.

He looked at his collaborator who had been beaten to death, then at Xu Qing—drenched in blood but still crouched in an attacking stance, killing intent in his eyes as he stared fixedly at him. He couldn’t help but feel a chill run down his spine.

This scene also left the scavengers surrounding them utterly shocked to the limit. Each one looked at Xu Qing with a mix of horror and… awe.