Chapter 152
The clans did not rush.
They never did.
They advanced with measured steps, boots pressing deep prints into the wet earth, banners rising above the treeline like warnings carved into cloth. Bone Crow's standard fluttered black and white, feathers stitched with runes that pulsed faintly. Iron Root's banner was heavy and dull, metal threads woven so thick they dragged in the mud. Ash Meridian's mark was the quietest—gray cloth, almost unremarkable, yet it bent light around it in a way that made the eyes slide away.
Predators who understood patience.
The settlement tensed.
Guards tightened grips on spears. Mothers pulled children behind stone and rope. No one screamed. Fear here had long since learned to stay silent.
Qiao Mu walked forward alone until she stood at the ravine's edge, spine straight, blade resting casually against her shoulder. She did not bow.
"This is boundary land," she called. "No clan claim. Turn around."
Laughter answered her.
A man stepped out from beneath the Bone Crow banner. His face was narrow, eyes sharp and amused, feathers braided into his hair. His cultivation hummed clean and controlled, a stark contrast to the feral chaos Shenping had fought in the forest.
"Boundary land becomes claimed when something valuable crawls into it," the man said. "And something very interesting did exactly that."
His gaze slid past Qiao Mu.
Locked onto Shenping.
Shenping felt the pressure immediately—targeted intent, sharp as a blade laid across his throat. These cultivators were not guessing. They knew.
Han Zhi moved to Shenping's side. "Don't flare your energy," he muttered. "They want to measure you."
"I know," Shenping replied.
Another figure stepped forward, this one broad and heavy, Iron Root's insignia etched into his armor. "Hand him over," he rumbled. "We take him. You keep breathing."
Qiao Mu laughed, short and vicious. "You think we live by begging?"
Ash Meridian's representative finally spoke.
A woman, pale and calm, her voice carrying without effort. "You don't understand what you're protecting," she said. "That man is unstable. He devours power. Left unchecked, he will poison this land."
Shenping met her gaze.
She flinched.
Just slightly.
Enough.
"She's afraid," Shenping said quietly.
Han Zhi's lips twitched. "Good eye."
Qiao Mu lifted her blade. "Last warning."
Bone Crow's leader sighed theatrically. "Such a waste."
He raised his hand.
The attack came instantly.
Feathers shot forward like blades, slicing through air with shrill screams. Iron Root cultivators slammed their fists into the ground, stone spears erupting upward. Ash Meridian's energy spread invisibly, distorting perception, making distance lie.
The settlement exploded into motion.
Shenping stepped forward.
He did not draw power outward.
He anchored.
The convergence opened just enough to swallow excess, stabilizing the wild energy raging within him. Pain flared, but this time it did not overwhelm. It focused.
A feather blade struck his shoulder.
It vanished.
Not deflected.
Gone.
The Bone Crow leader's smile faltered.
"What—"
Shenping moved.
He crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat, not with speed alone, but with refusal of the space between. His fist slammed into the man's chest.
The impact did not explode.
It collapsed.
The cultivator's energy folded inward, crushed under its own structure as Shenping consumed the imbalance holding it together. Bone cracked. Breath left lungs forever.
The body dropped.
Shock rippled through the clans.
Iron Root roared and charged, cultivation flaring like molten rock. Shenping met him head-on, hands sinking into the man's chest as if into wet clay. Energy surged.
Shenping pulled.
Iron Root's cultivation tore free, ripped screaming into nothingness. The man fell, armor clanging uselessly around an empty core.
Ash Meridian reacted instantly.
The pale woman's eyes went cold. "Kill him. Now."
Illusions shattered as Ash Meridian cultivators attacked from every angle, blades striking from impossible positions. Shenping was cut—arms, ribs, thigh. Blood flowed.
He did not slow.
Pain anchored him deeper.
He opened the convergence wider.
Too wide.
Han Zhi shouted something, but Shenping barely heard it as the world tilted. Power drained violently from everything nearby—cultivators, techniques, even the ground itself. The air screamed as stability failed.
Ash Meridian cultivators collapsed mid-strike, their techniques unraveling.
Silence slammed down.
Shenping staggered.
Qiao Mu caught him before he fell, arm around his waist, teeth clenched. "You're killing yourself."
"Not yet," Shenping rasped.
The clans were broken.
Those still alive were retreating, fear finally overriding doctrine. Banners fell into the mud, abandoned.
Han Zhi stared at Shenping, expression unreadable. "You just declared war on every clan that still breathes."
Shenping looked at the retreating figures, then at the settlement behind him.
"Good," he said quietly. "I was tired of hiding."
The forest shuddered.
Far away, something ancient stirred again—this time not with curiosity, but with hunger.
And the era adjusted itself around the presence of a man who consumed power instead of worshipping it.