Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 40: Growth

A long time passed. The candy melted upon his tongue.

Sunlight pierced the dense canopy, a single, solitary beam coming to rest upon Xu Qing’s face. It felt as though the warmth melted into the deepest recesses of his heart, right alongside the sweetness of the candy.

It was a quiet balm for his sorrow.

Eventually, Xu Qing opened his eyes. He traced the beam of light back to its source, staring into the blinding sun before lowering his gaze to the crude tombstone. He let out a breath that was barely a sigh.

“Captain Lei… may your journey be peaceful.”

He stood and offered a deep, solemn bow. When he finally turned away, he took every ounce of his vulnerability and buried it deep within his chest. The last fragile remnants of his childhood were laid to rest in the dirt alongside Captain Lei, locked away where they could never surface again.

Fate had offered him a fleeting ember of warmth, only for the world to ruthlessly extinguish it. Such was the cruelty of the mortal realm. But this was his path, and Xu Qing had no choice but to walk it.

The profound grief in his eyes hardened, replaced by a chilling, fathomless depth.

His aura sharpened into a razor’s edge, tempered by a newfound, heavy maturity.

In a blur of motion, Xu Qing darted through the sunlit patches of the jungle, racing toward the perimeter. He moved with blistering speed, yet a lingering desolation clung to his silhouette—a shadow so heavy that even the sun could not burn it away.

It condensed into an absolute, freezing isolation.

Growing deeper.

Growing colder.

He was a wolf cub forged in the crucible of a merciless jungle, shedding his pack to take his first true steps as a lone wolf.

***

A day bled away. Xu Qing never broke his stride. By the time the bloody hues of twilight washed over the land, he had crossed the threshold of the forbidden zone and stepped back into the mortal world.

But he did not emerge near the Scavenger Camp. He had taken a different route.

He was never going back.

The execution of Captain Lei’s enemies guaranteed severe blowback. An organization capable of operating across the entire South Phoenix Continent wielded terrifying influence. Even if the man he killed was a mere pawn, an investigation was inevitable.

Xu Qing refused to gamble with his life.

More pressing, however, was the death of the Camp Master.

Captain Lei had spoken of the Vajra Sect. The mysterious organization from the continent might be a passing dragon, but the Vajra Sect was the local tyrant. They were the absolute apex predators of this vast territory.

The dozens of surrounding cities and the Scavenger Camp were all cogs in their machine, directly or indirectly monopolized by their influence. Their Sect Patriarch was a monster who had reached Foundation Establishment.

To the scavengers and commoners of this wasteland, a Foundation Establishment cultivator was a living god. Few had ever laid eyes on one, but the sheer, suffocating Pressure of their existence demanded absolute reverence.

Xu Qing’s hyper-logical mind processed the reality: by slaughtering two Elders of the Vajra Sect, he had painted a massive target on his back. To survive their wrath, the solution was brutally simple.

He needed a bigger, deadlier predator to deter them.

He needed the Seven Blood Eyes.

To the local cities, the Vajra Sect was an unstoppable behemoth. But to the Vajra Sect, the Seven Blood Eyes was an untouchable leviathan. Even if granted a hundred times their courage, the Vajra Sect wouldn’t dare breathe wrong in the direction of the Seven Blood Eyes.

Xu Qing knew that securing the status of a Seven Blood Eyes disciple was his only viable insurance policy.

Stepping out of the jungle, his fingers brushed the cold, heavy metal of the Seven Blood Eyes token hidden in his leather pouch. A sharp glint flashed in his eyes.

He was going to cash in his token.

The core territory of the Seven Blood Eyes was impossibly far. A normal scavenger would spend years trekking through lethal wilderness and crossing treacherous mountains just to catch a glimpse of it.

But this token bypassed all of that.

The back of the medallion was etched with a map of the Seven Blood Eyes’ domain, dotted with raised nodes representing their branch cities. Presenting this token at any branch city guaranteed a one-time, complimentary teleportation.

The closest node was Lujiao City, located in the exact opposite direction of Songtao City.

Unlike Songtao City, residency in Lujiao City wasn’t just a matter of exorbitant spirit coin fees; it required the direct sponsorship of a Seven Blood Eyes disciple. It was an exclusive, gated asset—which was why Captain Lei had never been able to buy his way in.

Xu Qing cast one final, lingering look back at the forbidden zone. Then, he turned his back on it forever, vanishing into the twilight as he sprinted toward Lujiao City.

Three days, he calculated silently. Three days maximum to reach the city limits.

He had never been to Lujiao City, but the name was etched in his memory. It was situated dangerously close to the ruins of the city he had called home for six years.

Cloaked by the night, the lone youth tore through the wasteland, his speed climbing higher and higher.

***

Two days passed.

Xu Qing’s paranoia had paid off. Back at the Scavenger Camp, dozens of Vajra Sect disciples stood in cold, murderous vigil. Seven or eight had even pushed into the jungle to hunt him.

The Sect had received the intelligence with alarming speed. The camp was a cesspool of opportunists; unless Xu Qing had slaughtered every breathing soul, someone was bound to sell the information for a profit.

When the news hit the Vajra Sect, it ignited a firestorm of absolute fury.

The loss of two Elders was a catastrophic blow to their operational strength, but more importantly, it was a humiliating strike against their brand. They needed to liquidate the threat immediately and make a gruesome public spectacle of the killer to protect their market dominance.

Yet, their ambush yielded nothing. The forbidden zone was a sprawling abyss, and they couldn’t even confirm if Xu Qing was still inside. With the vast, empty wilderness outside, the Vajra Sect’s manpower was stretched painfully thin.

Two days of hunting produced zero dividends.

Worse, the rumors had hemorrhaged out of control. Every city and scavenger under the Vajra Sect’s umbrella was whispering about the boy who slaughtered their Elders. The humiliation compounded their rage.

High atop the Vajra Sect’s mountain peak, a furious roar shattered the air.

The Sect’s headquarters, situated on a luxurious summit not far from Songtao City, housed hundreds of disciples and formidable enforcers. The roar originated from the grand main hall.

“You still haven’t found him?!”

The Sect Leader, a middle-aged man draped in opulent golden robes, sat at the head of the hall. His face was twisted in wrath, the spiritual energy radiating from his body violently distorting the air and crushing down with suffocating Pressure.

Two men stood below the dais. Both wore matching golden robes, their spiritual fluctuations vastly outstripping the late Camp Master. They wore deep scowls. After a tense silence, one spoke in a low gravel.

“Sect Leader, the wasteland is too vast. We should conscript the city guards and the camp scavengers to sweep the perimeter. With their numbers, we can flush him out in three days.”

“Are we not enough of a laughingstock already?!” the Sect Leader bellowed. “Two Elders butchered by a feral child! A camp washed in blood! If we outsource this execution to local trash, what remains of the Vajra Sect’s prestige?!”

The two Elders snapped their mouths shut.

The Sect Leader took a ragged breath, his eyes burning with lethal intent. He pointed a trembling finger at the two men.

“Elder Li. Elder Chen. You are both at the absolute peak of the ninth level of Qi Condensation. Either of you could crush that brat like an insect. I have already petitioned the Patriarch to withdraw two Tracking Talismans from the vault. Once approved, you will deploy personally. I don’t care about the cost. I want that boy’s head on my desk within twelve hours!”

Hearing that the Patriarch had been alerted, the two Elders stiffened, their expressions turning deadly serious.

The Sect Leader pulled out a jade slip to finalize the request. But before he could channel his Qi, a cold snort detonated outside the hall like a crack of thunder.

The sheer concussive force of the sound rattled the Elders’ skulls. The Sect Leader’s face drained of color. He shot to his feet and hurried down the steps just as an old man in crimson-and-gold robes strode through the grand doors.

The old man was a towering figure with a ruddy complexion and a wild mane of white hair. Arcs of lightning seemed to crackle within his dark, sunken eyes. With every step he took, a terrifying spiritual storm—one that utterly eclipsed the Qi Condensation realm—roared outward.

The marble floor fractured beneath him. A tempest of Qi whipped around his body. Upon closer inspection, his boots weren’t even touching the stone; he was walking on the air itself.

This wasn’t some cheap wind manipulation technique. It was true flight.

Faintly manifesting behind him was the towering, wrathful phantom of a Vajra deity. The sheer, crushing Pressure of its presence threatened to collapse the hall’s pillars.

The three men instantly dropped to their knees, pressing their foreheads to the cracked floor.

“Greetings, Patriarch!”

The Patriarch ignored them. He floated to the head seat, sat down, and swept his lightning-laced gaze over the kneeling men before locking onto the Sect Leader.

“Yun Wen. Have you forgotten the core doctrine of our Vajra Sect?”

Cold sweat poured down Yun Wen’s face. “Reporting to the Patriarch! Yun Wen has not forgotten! Our doctrine dictates that we either do not strike, or we strike with the absolute, unyielding force of unbreakable metal! That is why I am deploying two Grand Elders simultaneously!”

“Imbecile!” the Patriarch roared, his voice shaking the rafters.

“I just reviewed the intelligence on this boy. He rose from absolute obscurity in a matter of weeks. A rookie in Captain Lei’s squad who, on his very first excursion into the forbidden zone, slaughtered his way through a superior Blood Shadow entity and saved a horde of scavengers!

“He is a master of poison. At merely the sixth level of Qi Condensation, he punched above his weight class again, butchering two of our Elders and multiple disciples, then vanished without a trace!

“And out of the hundreds of scavengers in that camp, only two came forward to sell him out! Do you understand what that means? He has won the hearts of the masses!

“Based on my centuries of studying ancient texts, when you encounter an anomaly like this, you have two choices: you either grovel and make peace, or you annihilate him with everything you have!

“Sending these two out against a freak who specializes in killing superior opponents? You aren’t deploying enforcers—you’re feeding him resources!” The Patriarch’s final words were a deafening bellow.

The three men trembled violently, keeping their heads pinned to the floor.

The Patriarch took a deep breath, his tone dropping into a lethal, icy register.

“I can guarantee you exactly how this plays out. If they fail to find him, fine. But if they do, he will butcher them. Then, blinded by rage, you will personally hunt him down. And he will butcher you, too. By the time I am forced to intervene, the boy will have fled to the ends of the earth. Give him a few years to cultivate, and when he returns, he’ll slap me to death with a single palm!”

Yun Wen was dumbstruck. Sweat stung his eyes. Deep down, he thought the Patriarch was being absurdly paranoid, but he didn’t dare voice a syllable of dissent.

He simply pressed his head lower. “Please instruct us, Patriarch.”

The Patriarch stared out the grand doors, his gaze piercing the distant wasteland.

“Mobilize the entire Sect. Every single disciple. Lock down the perimeter of every city and Scavenger Camp. Seal the borders. Issue Flight Talismans and Tracking Talismans to the two Grand Elders and split the search grid in half. And I will personally take the field. The second he is spotted, I am to be notified immediately so I can crush him myself. That is what it means to strike with unyielding force.

“This leaves zero margin for error. We will execute him, re-establish our market dominance, and remind the wasteland who owns them!”

Moments later, the massive bronze bell of the Vajra Sect tolled, its ominous knell echoing across the mountains.

Swarms of disciples poured out of the gates. High above, the Patriarch and the two Grand Elders took to the sky. Three glowing talismans hovered before the Patriarch, locking onto a faint spiritual trail. Like three streaks of lethal lightning, they tore into the wilderness, fanning out to hunt their prey.