The mountain range gradually faded behind him.
Lin Yuan stepped onto the dirt road leading toward Blackstone Town, his pace steady and unhurried. To anyone watching, he appeared calm—just another rogue cultivator returning from a hunt. But beneath that calm exterior, his senses were stretched outward like invisible threads, brushing against every fluctuation of spiritual energy nearby.
The town's silhouette soon emerged: low stone walls, watchtowers dulled by time, and a constant haze of dust and smoke rising into the sky. Blackstone Town was a place where mercenaries, rogue cultivators, and opportunists gathered—a place where strength decided everything and corpses were forgotten overnight.
As Lin Yuan approached the outer perimeter, he felt it.
Not one presence.
Not two.
Several.
They were cautious, keeping their distance, deliberately masking their auras. But to Lin Yuan's refined senses—sharpened by Body Tempering Stage 9 and reinforced by his physique—their movements were clumsy.
So they noticed.
It wasn't surprising.
When he had entered the mountain range days ago, his cultivation had been clearly at Body Tempering Stage 4. Many people had seen him—mercenaries resting at the foothills, scavengers hoping to follow stronger cultivators, even town guards who barely spared him a glance.
Now he returned… radiating a completely different presence.
Stage 9.
Even without deliberately releasing his aura, the density of his qi and the oppressive pressure of his body betrayed his advancement. For experienced cultivators, it was like seeing a beggar return dressed in silk.
A fortuitous encounter.
That was the only explanation their minds could accept.
Greed followed naturally.
Lin Yuan did not turn around. He didn't accelerate. He didn't confront them directly. Instead, he walked straight into town, blending into the flow of people entering and leaving through the main gate.
The moment he passed inside, the noise enveloped him.
Shouting vendors. Clashing weapons. Cultivators arguing over commissions. The smell of alcohol, blood, and sweat hung thick in the air. Blackstone Town was alive in its own brutal way.
The presences followed.
Three of them, from what he could tell.
One at Body Tempering Stage 7.
One at Stage 8.
The last one… barely at Stage 6, but sharp enough to know how to hide.
They moved carefully, rotating positions, trying to avoid suspicion. To ordinary cultivators, it might have worked.
To Lin Yuan, it was laughable.
He made a turn—then another—heading deeper into the town. The streets narrowed. The crowd thinned. Buildings pressed closer together, their shadows swallowing the ground.
Finally, he stopped.
A narrow alley stretched ahead, hemmed in by stone walls stained dark by years of grime. No witnesses, no patrols, no escape routes except forward or back.
Lin Yuan stepped inside.
The footsteps behind him paused.
Then followed.
The moment the last man entered the alley, Lin Yuan stopped walking.
Silence fell.
"You've been following me since the gate."
His voice was calm. Flat. Not a hint of fear or anger.
For a heartbeat, no one responded.
Then a man stepped forward from the shadows, grinning. His clothes were worn but reinforced, his posture loose yet alert—a veteran mercenary.
"No need to be tense, friend," the man said. "We're just curious."
Lin Yuan turned slowly.
Up close, the difference was obvious.
The air around him felt heavy, his muscles coiled like tempered steel. Even without drawing his sword, he radiated danger.
The mercenary's grin faltered for just a moment.
"You went into the mountain at Stage 4," another voice said from behind. "Now you're Stage 9. That kind of leap doesn't happen without luck."
The third man chuckled softly. "Share the opportunity, and we all walk away alive."
Lin Yuan's eyes were cold.
"You've already made a mistake."
The Stage 8 cultivator frowned. "And what mistake is that?"
"You assumed I was lucky."
Before the words fully registered
Lin Yuan moved.
There was no shout. No dramatic buildup. His body exploded forward with terrifying speed, stone cracking beneath his foot as he closed the distance in an instant.
The Stage 6 cultivator barely had time to widen his eyes.
Lin Yuan's hand pierced through his chest like a blade.
A sharp crack echoed as ribs shattered. The man's breath vanished in a wet gasp before his body collapsed, lifeless, to the ground.
The alley froze.
"Kill him!" the stage 7 cultivator shouted.
The Stage 8 cultivator drew his blade, slashing forward in a wide arc aimed at Lin Yuan's neck. The strike was fast, practiced, infused with qi.
Lin Yuan did not retreat.
He stepped inside the blade's range and raised his arm.
Clang.
The sword struck his forearm and stopped.
The cultivator's eyes bulged.
"How ?!"
Lin Yuan twisted his wrist, snapping the blade in half, then drove his elbow forward. The impact crushed the man's throat, lifting him off his feet before slamming him against the wall.
Blood sprayed.
The body slid down, twitching once before going still.
The last man—the Stage 7 cultivator—panicked.
He turned to run.
Lin Yuan picked up the broken half of the sword and threw it.
It pierced straight through the man's back and exited from his chest, pinning him to the alley wall. The cultivator struggled weakly before his head slumped forward.
Silence returned.
Lin Yuan stood among the bodies, his breathing steady, his expression unchanged.
[System Notification: Targets confirmed dead.]
Only now did the system respond.
[Devour function available.]
Lin Yuan knelt and placed his hand on the nearest corpse.
Energy surged as the system activated, refining their remaining cultivation and vitality into pure energy. It flowed into him,not to elevate his realm, they had lower cultivation and the gap in cultivation world kept on widening, but to reinforce and stabilize what he already possessed.
His foundation grew denser. More solid. Like tempered iron being folded again and again.
Moments later, he stood.
No traces left. No wasted movements.
He adjusted his robe and stepped out of the alley, merging back into the town's chaos as if nothing had happened