Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 86: Don’t Provoke Me

Perched cross-legged in the canopy, Xu Qing locked his gaze onto the old man from the Banquan Road inn. His muscles coiled with latent tension.

A cold, calculated killing intent surfaced in his mind. The innkeeper was a priority target on his bamboo slip hit list. He had previously avoided Banquan Road, deeming the assassination too risky without proper reconnaissance. Yet here the man was. Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed to slits, assessing the old man’s exposed neck.

However, his primary directive today was resource acquisition. The innkeeper would not die easily. Suppressing his murderous urge, Xu Qing scanned the perimeter.

The surrounding crowd was lethal. Several of the lone operatives radiated a subtle, oppressive threat that triggered Xu Qing’s survival instincts. This was exactly why he had ruthlessly butchered the provoking pirate upon arrival.

Raised in the meat-grinder of the slums, he knew the double-edged nature of hiding one’s strength. Playing the fool too long only invited unnecessary parasites.

Crushing the pirate with overwhelming, bloody ferocity had been a calculated investment. It was a survival tactic forged in the slums: bare your fangs early, establish a monopoly on violence, and broadcast a clear warning.

Don’t provoke me.

As for the decapitations? Fear was a useful byproduct, but the primary reason was purely financial. Their heads could be liquidated for Spirit Stones.

Xu Qing withdrew his gaze. With a subtle flick of his wrist, a fine mist of lethal poison powder rained down, coating the branches around his perch. His perimeter secured, he closed his eyes and meditated, waiting for the asset drop—the sea lizards.

His prior demonstration of violence had paid dividends. The surrounding cultivators maintained a wary distance, acknowledging his right to a share while remaining highly guarded. A fragile, high-stakes equilibrium settled over the basin.

The night bled away. The moment the first rays of dawn pierced the canopy, Xu Qing’s eyes snapped open. He looked toward the base of the mountain. Simultaneously, seven or eight other predators snapped their attention to the exact same spot.

A rhythmic, earth-shaking rumble echoed from the foothills, as if a colossal biological asset was hauling its weight up the slope. The noise alerted the rest of the camp. The latent killing intent in the air spiked instantly.

A massive sea lizard, easily seventy feet long, breached the tree line. Its pitch-black hide resembled ancient, petrified bark, gleaming with a dark, metallic luster. The thick skin was already peeling, separating from the fresh scales beneath in jagged chunks.

Its razor-sharp claws gouged deep trenches into the earth. It panted heavily, every step radiating physical agony, yet it relentlessly pushed forward. Though weakened by the molting process, it still projected spiritual fluctuations equivalent to the eighth level of Qi Condensation. The beast completely ignored the heavily armed cultivators waiting for it.

As it dragged itself toward the summit, the tree line below continued to snap and splinter. A second beast emerged. Then a third. A fourth.

Six sea lizards breached the basin.

Six eighth-level Qi Condensation hides. Xu Qing’s breathing hitched slightly. The current market rate at the Seven Blood Eyes port appraised a single intact hide at roughly five to six hundred Spirit Stones. He wasn’t looking at biological waste; he was staring at a fortune in raw capital.

Despite the massive profit margins walking into their trap, no one broke formation. Xu Qing remained anchored to his branch.

The six lizards dragged themselves into the center of the basin. Ignoring the ring of predatory cultivators, they unleashed synchronized, deafening roars. Their massive frames shuddered violently as they fought to tear themselves free from their old skins.

The roars vibrated through the marrow of every watching Rogue Cultivator. Xu Qing’s gaze sharpened into daggers. He tracked the agonizingly slow separation of the hides from the raw muscle beneath.

The molting cycle took thirty agonizing minutes. The first sea lizard finally tore free. Its aura instantly stabilized. Without a single glance at the heavily armed audience, it lumbered away down the far side of the mountain.

The discarded husk left behind was no longer dull black. It pulsed with a rich, translucent cyan glow, its intricate biological arrays clearly visible. It radiated premium value, retaining the perfect, hollow shape of the beast.

Still, nobody moved. Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed. He kept his hands perfectly still.

They waited as the second, third, and fourth beasts finished their cycles and departed. The absolute millisecond the sixth and final husk dropped, the ceasefire shattered.

The Banquan Road innkeeper struck first. Launching forward like a ballista bolt, he closed the distance to the basin in a blur of motion.

The surrounding line broke. Over thirty rogue operatives surged inward, their suppressed killing intent detonating into a frenzied, free-for-all bloodbath.

Xu Qing vanished, leaving only a dissipating afterimage in the canopy. He tore through the air with a supersonic shriek, diving straight into the meat-grinder.

Concussive shockwaves ruptured the air. Xu Qing descended like a falling guillotine, zeroing in on a pristine cyan husk. As his fingers brushed the prize, a Rogue Cultivator in a straw raincoat intercepted him, his eyes burning with lethal intent.

“Die!” the alien cultivator roared. He swept his hand forward, unleashing a tidal wave of ninth-level Qi Condensation spiritual energy that formed a crushing Pressure over Xu Qing.

Xu Qing didn’t even blink. He didn’t alter his trajectory. He simply pulled his left arm back and threw a raw, kinetic punch squarely at the man’s chest.

As his knuckles struck out, his vital Qi and blood violently detonated. The phantom of the Ba manifested behind him—a calamitous, scorching drought demon that instantly desiccated the ambient moisture in the air. Emitting a soundless, apocalyptic shriek, the catastrophic phantom merged with Xu Qing’s fist and obliterated the enemy’s Pressure.

The alien’s arrogant sneer shattered into pure terror. He had clocked the Seven Blood Eyes disciple as a high-threat target, but the manifestation of the drought demon snapped his nerve entirely.

“Qi and Blood manifesting a phantom! You’re at body-refining Grand Perfection!” he screamed, violently throwing himself backward.

He was too slow. Xu Qing’s fist connected with the force of a siege ram. The alien’s ribcage shattered with a sickening crunch, and he vomited a geyser of blood.

The man was a veteran survivor. Triggering a life-saving escape art, his body glitched and materialized fifty feet away. He spat another mouthful of blood, his straw raincoat blown to shreds to reveal cerulean skin. He stared at Xu Qing, his eyes wide with unprecedented horror.

Xu Qing ignored him. Time was money. He seized the shed skin, crammed it into his Storage Bag, and pivoted to secure a second asset. But before he could launch his next strike, a furious roar tore through the chaotic battlefield.

“Are you trying to liquidate us all?!”

Xu Qing snapped his gaze toward the perimeter. A desperate Rogue Cultivator, boxed out of the resource grab, had drawn his weapon and locked onto the final, departing sea lizard. An alien brute with a trunk-like snout had brutally intercepted him.

“You brain-dead liability!” the trunked brute roared, smashing the foolish cultivator into the dirt. “If a single lizard flatlines here, we all die!”

The pinned cultivator spat blood, protesting frantically. “It’s just a damn beast! How does that equal our deaths?!”

“Are you new to this sector?!” the brute snarled, his eyes burning with homicidal rage. “Do you know why there are no Foundation Establishment cultivators here? Why none of the major syndicates claim these waters? You think we’re standing on an island? I’m telling you right now, this whole landmass is just a minor tumor on the back of a cosmic leviathan!”

“These sea lizards are its spawn! To protect its brood, the leviathan enforces a strict quarantine. No foreign entity above the Qi Condensation realm is permitted in this airspace, and no one is allowed to harm its young! You’re standing on its spine, trying to murder its children?! You want to zero out your own life? Fine! But if it wakes up, it’ll wipe this entire grid!”

“The only reason we bottom-feeders are allowed to operate here is because we’re too insignificant for it to notice!”

Finishing his lecture, the trunked alien drove a blade into the idiot’s chest. Other Rogue Cultivators, enraged by the liability and starved for profit, swarmed the dying man like piranhas, instantly liquidating him and dividing his inventory.

Xu Qing drew a sharp, freezing breath. The intelligence gap finally closed. This explained the complete absence of Foundation Establishment operatives in this highly profitable zone. He glanced at the dirt beneath his boots, then soundlessly re-engaged the skirmish.

Steel flashed in the chaos. His dagger became a blur of lethal efficiency. Any competitor who stepped into his attack vector had their throat summarily opened. The sea wind whipped his black hair back, highlighting the absolute zero temperature of his gaze.

He carved his way through a three-man squad to secure a second hide. By now, the market had closed; all six hides had been claimed. The final owners stood over bleeding corpses, having cemented their property rights through extreme violence.

Xu Qing secured two. The Banquan Road innkeeper also secured two. A lone alien operative claimed the fifth, and a heavily armed five-man syndicate locked down the sixth.

The victors locked eyes, heavily projecting killing intent, but mutual deterrence held. The cost of further aggression outweighed the projected profit margins. The fighting ceased.

Xu Qing swept the battlefield. His gaze met the innkeeper’s, briefly resting on the massive white snake coiled behind the old man.

Catching Xu Qing’s cold stare, the giant snake aggressively nodded in greeting, trying to look as non-threatening as possible.

Xu Qing ignored the reptile. Assessing the old man’s defenses, he abandoned his assassination plan. He withdrew, his boots kicking off the blood-soaked dirt to launch himself back into his tree canopy, where he settled into a cross-legged guard.

The remaining three factions visibly exhaled, backing away to establish their own defensive perimeters.

An uneasy silence reclaimed the basin. However, from the shadows, the predatory, starved gazes of the bankrupt cultivators locked onto Xu Qing and the other asset holders.

Across the clearing, the old man squatted in the dirt, packing his pipe. He took a long, satisfied drag, then suddenly froze. Frantically patting down his pockets, he retrieved a heavy-duty detoxification pill and dry-swallowed it.

He ignored the frantic, gurgling hisses from the white snake beside him. Only when the massive reptile physically headbutted him did the old man snap in a low, irritated whisper.

“Remind him my ass! That kid is a cannibalistic wolf who doesn’t even spit out the bones! Does a psycho who slaughters without blinking need my warning? You think he doesn’t know these desperate losers are going to raid him tonight?”

“And why the hell are you so worried about him, you traitorous reptile? I raised you! Where’s my concern?! I’m pretty sure I just inhaled a lethal neurotoxin walking past his zone!”

While the old man grumbled through his self-diagnosis, Xu Qing observed the camp from his high-ground vantage point. His eyes narrowed to lethal slits as he tracked the hostile stares in the dark. He wasn’t looking at their weapons; he was auditing the Storage Bags on their hips.

Xu Qing slowly licked his dry lips. Reaching into his robes, he deployed a second, heavier payload of poison powder into the surrounding wind.

The sun rotted away. Night fell over the island.

Pale moonlight washed over the basin, casting elongated, grotesque shadows through the desolate canopy. The swaying branches looked like starving ghouls dancing in a macabre, lunar ritual.

The freezing night could no longer mask the volatile spikes of killing intent.

The dim light was insufficient to contain the desperate, ravenous greed of the bankrupt operatives.

And so, the desolate sea wind howled through the trees, playing a premature funeral dirge for the fools about to die.