A clipped and unimpressed scoff followed. "I’m not like you, brat. Do your damn guard duty. There's still an hour left before shift change."

  A dry chuckle. “Hah! Who are you trying to fool?” Shadow-boy muttered, his footsteps retreating with a grumble. "Tch. Acting all proper now..." His voice faded into the distance.

  Zhen let out a slow breath, his pulse settling—one problem gone. But the moment he heard Luo Heng’s boots crunch closer, his body tensed again.

  Damn it.

  His gaze flicked around the dim tent, searching for anything useful. His eyes caught on a bundle in the corner—a pair of long, thin, bleached bones half-buried in the ground, circled by a few gnarled herbs with twisted leaves sickly and veined with purple. Three spirit stones lay beside them, faintly pulsing with spiritual energy.

  Formation Core!

  The heavy footsteps stopped in front of the entrance. He pressed his lips together, barely suppressing the urge to curse. He had been careful—blocking only what he needed in the warding formation—but had he left something obvious? A gap in the flow of energy? A misalignment in the lines? If Luo Heng's skills were even half as meticulous as his work suggested, he would notice.

  Please… just let him walk past.

  The tent flap barely stirred, but Zhen felt the weight of Luo Heng’s presence just beyond it. A heartbeat of silence stretched, then another.

  Then the shift. A step. Closer.

  Shit!

  "You should act like you fainted and run while I distract them," Zhen whispered his command to Ning Xue, then moved, not waiting to see if she followed.

  Bolting toward the formation core, he crouched low, fingers wrapping around the spirit stones. Their warmth pulsed against his palm, feeding a flickering hope of escape. I could use the stones to reinforce the formation… but against Luo Heng? He’d dismantle it in seconds.

  Nearby, the herb coiled in its twisted shape, clearly to provide a poisonous effect to the formations. Zhen's mind raced.

  Others might succumb instantly, but Luo Heng? The man’s cultivation should made him nearly immune to poison. That’s how it always worked in the stories—cultivators forging immunity through years of exposure. So these low-grade herbs were all but useless against someone like Luo Heng.

  That left only one option.

  Zhen pushed his stars, the world around him slowing as his senses expanded. He connected with his qi knots scattered throughout the formation, his mind rapidly parsing through the blueprint.

  He didn’t know all the fundamentals, but he understood enough to make it go ka-boom.

  His gaze locked onto the half-buried bone. Already having an idea of what it was, another idea formed. Risky. It might fail. But there was no choice.

  A defensive stance wouldn’t work. Running wasn’t an option.

  A direct confrontation is suicide.

  His breath came steady now, resolve locking into place.

  My only chance is a surprise attack.

  He reached for it—then hesitated. Is it poisonous? Will it affect me if I touch it? I definitely don’t have Luo Heng’s immunity. He wrapped his robe around his hand and gripped the bone, lips pressing into a thin line. Hopefully, this works.

  His grip tightened.

  From the corner of his eye, Zhen saw the shadow of a hand moving to open the flaps.

  Luo Heng’s raised voice cut through the tense air. "Hey! Zhao Shi! Did you fiddle with the warding formation—"

  So the shadow-boy name is Zhao Shi. Zhen absentmindedly added.

  He didn’t wait for Luo Heng to finish his words or enter the tent. There was no hiding place in this small space and fighting a poison cultivator in a cramped space just felt like a recipe for disaster.

  Crushing two of the spirit stones, he forced the burst of qi to surge through the formation’s threads. The energy traveled along the path of least resistance, burning the threads as it moved. Zhen opened the earlier knots in succession, redirecting the flow toward the entrance.

  Then, he felt another presence manipulating his formation knots.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Not much time!

  He struck from the shadows, one of the black mamba fangs he pulled out flashing in the dim light as he reached the half-opened tent flaps.

  His gaze locked onto Luo Heng. A black ball of qi was already gathered in the man’s raised hand.

  A spike of danger shot through his consciousness. Poison! His body screamed in warning as the qi condensed into a sphere in Luo Heng’s palm.

  "Who are yo—" Luo Heng’s breath hitched.

  Zhen saw the subtle shift in his stance, the tightening of his fingers, the flicker of realization in his sharp gaze. His eyes darted from the poised fang to Zhen’s unwavering grip. Surprise flashed—brief, fleeting—before irritation settled in, a shadow crossing his face like a man forced to acknowledge a mistake. Then, just as quickly, his lips curled, a sneer twisting into something darker. "Damn, Zhao Shi!! How did someone entere—"

  Zhen wasn't sure why the man kept accusing Zhao Shi as if he had somehow betrayed him, even though it was his duty to guard the camp—but he didn’t let him finish. Qi flooded his muscles in a desperate gamble. Pain lanced through his limbs—he knew no proper enhancement techniques, but there was no time for finesse. He risked it all for a single, decisive thrust.

  The fang embedded itself between Luo Heng’s ribs, thrusting deep.

  Zhen's breath hitched. That was... too easy. He had expected resistance, the grating tension of hard flesh meeting bone, but the fang had sunk in like a hot knife through butter. His mind raced.

  A cultivator's flesh should not be this easy to pierce. Was it the fang itself? Maybe. If that were true then it must be the most important treasure of the ninth stage Qi Condensation Black Mamba.

  For a moment, Zhen felt a fleeting sense of loss—what he planned to do next was not what he truly wanted for such a precious item.

  At the same time, Luo Heng hurled the black ball of qi.

  Zhen wasn’t surprised by the counterattack—he had fought this group of cultivators in the morning, ones who attacked without scruples, without hesitation especially resorting to trickery.

  As the black sphere neared, his stars spun rapidly—faint golden fractals erupted across his skin.

  The black qi struck, deforming, sending a jolt through his frame. He stumbled back three steps as the energy deflected with a slight turn of his shoulder, striking the left side of the tent, barely missing the prone Ning Xue.

  Relief flooded through Zhen as he realized the attack hadn’t harmed the girl. His gaze darted downward, his heart hammering. Dark tendrils lingered from the earlier impact, gnawing at the golden shield, his qi reserves steadily drained, each flicker of resistance costing him more qi than he could afford.

  For a moment, Zhen's gaze fixated on the writhing black mass, studying its movements, searching for a pattern—a weakness. There was none. Or at least none he could discern in these fleeting moments. To his senses, it was nothing more than a swarm of hungry leeches, mindlessly devouring his qi.

  What it would do to his flesh, he didn't know—and had no desire to find out.

  A quiet sigh escaped him as he relaxed, realizing that while the qi-draining effect was relentless, its impact on him was negligible.

  His eyes snapped to Luo Heng.

  Luo Heng’s eyes widened, shock flashing across his face. Blood bubbled at his lips. "How…?" he choked, confusion twisting his expression. "You—how did you block it?"

  Black mist seeped from the wound, his fingers twitching as if trying to grasp charge another sphere.

  Zhen smirked, watching Luo Heng struggle to comprehend. For the first time, pride swelled in his chest—his defensive technique had worked like a charm. Even at the cost of a drop in stage, even with the lingering ache of drained qi, he had held his ground against a full-powered technique from the eighth stage cultivator.

  Before Luo Heng could react, Zhen pressed forward. The golden fractals dimmed in places without any black tendrils, only covering the area where the leeches where present, his mind already calculating how to preserve his qi for the remainder of the fight.

  He pounced.

  But Luo Heng’s expression twisted—not with pain, but with delight. A different black qi expelled from other parts of his body, arms outstretched as though to embrace Zhen.

  That mist should also be poison. Poisonous enough that Luo Heng had the confidence to deal with him.

  Deciding to risk it, at the last second to conserve his qi, another golden flash erupted and his hand locked around the fang still embedded in Luo Heng’s chest. Then Qi flooded into it.

  Ten percent of his qi gone in an instance.

  Luo Heng’s grip tightened around his waist and the black qi clung to him. "What an idiot trying to get near a poison cultivator—" Then he abruptly stopped.

  Twenty percent.

  The fang resisted any more qi.

  "What the hell are you doing!?"

  Thirty percent. Zhen grits his teeth. Is this thing sturdier than I thought?

  "Stop. Stop!! You will blast your hands."

  Will my qi even be enough?

  Thirty-four. The flow slowed.

  "Are you crazy!" Luo Heng tried to throw Zhen, but his left hand clasped on his shoulder and he resisted with a burst of strength.

  Thirty-eight.

  Then—

  A final, violent pulse. The qi expanded and detonated.

  BOOM!

  "AAAARRRGGGHH—" Luo Heng’s guttural scream was cut short as his torso was torn apart, reduced to scraps of flesh and bone.

  Zhen felt the golden fractals in his hands fracture, their delicate structure shattering under the force. A sliver of black qi seeped inside, writhing like a living parasite. His breath hitched as he staggered back, coughing—residual poison slipping into his lungs.

  His qi circulation wavered for a moment, the corruption gnawing at his meridians, but he forced his body to stabilize, pushing through the discomfort.

  His eyes snapped to the remains strewn across the ground, waiting—watching—for any sign of movement.

  Nothing.

  Only then did his gaze shift, quickly spotting an intact pouch among the wreckage. Faint qi fluctuations pulsed from within, hinting at the presence of spirit stones.

  Zhen took a step and the world blurred for a moment, the poison slowing down his qi flow and dulling his senses when a sharp, swishing sound sliced through the air behind him.