Today was a feast for vultures. Everywhere one looked, corpses littered the ground. The Central Plains were stained with blood and flesh, and a foul stench—the stench of death—filled the entire air.
"Righteous Hero. Oh! Righteous Hero. Liberate my world. Come down to this filthy earth in pristine white clothes, and liberate my world."
Amidst this hellish scenario walked a man, whistling and singing ballads just like he used to do back in the day.
He wore a cheap, crimson martial robe, now threadbare and tattered from years of use. His hair was mostly white, with only a few lingering strands of black serving as a painful reminder of his lost youth.
Looking at his slightly wrinkled, below-average face, one might think he was either extremely exhausted or unimaginably depressed. But that gloomy expression was his by birthright. His eyes were naturally droopy, and his lips permanently curled downwards.
Shhhhhkkk...
He dragged a heavy wooden box behind him, its bottom covered in blood from constantly colliding with dead bodies.
'Is that...'
He looked into the distance. A bald man was fighting two warriors from the Orthodox Martial Alliance.
His grip tightened on the rope connected to the box, and he began to drag it with much greater force.
By the time he arrived, the bald man had completely defeated the Orthodox warriors, stabbing them with a pathetic, poison-laced dagger hidden in his robe.
"A truly wicked move. As expected of a master from the Unorthodox Alliance," the man spoke, letting the rope fall to the ground.
The bald man was completely exhausted and out of breath. His face was heavily scarred from the countless battles he had fought in his life. Regulating his Internal Energy and easing his exhaustion, the bald warrior gripped his sword and pointed it at the newcomer.
"And who might you be?" his voice was sharp.
The man didn't say anything. He checked his martial robe.'Where is it... I'm sure I put it somewhere here...' He patted down his entire body.
Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he plunged his hands into his trousers.
'Aah... Low-quality paper.' His face twisted for a second. Then he pulled out a few crumpled pages hidden in his pants.
On the paper was a roughly drawn portrait of a bald man with scars on his face. Holding the paper high, he looked at the figure standing in front of him, then looked back at the drawing.
"Are you Master Black Fiend?"
The bald man didn't respond, but a slight movement in his left eye confirmed his identity.
"Master Black Fiend. I heard you have quite the habit of trash-talking behind people's backs. Is it because you're from the Unorthodox faction, or is it the reason you're from the Unorthodox faction?"
"State your identity, martial artist," Black Fiend demanded.
"Right. Right. You don't even know me, huh? Aren't you the one who greatly boasted about defeating me?"
Black Fiend's forehead wrinkled in deep thought. Of course, he wasn't the only target of the great trash-talker, Master Black Fiend.
"How can you make such claims about me when you don't even know what I look like?" The man looked up at the sky. His eyes were solemn.
It was daytime, but dark clouds had completely drowned the world in darkness, as if to match the atmosphere of the slaughter on the ground.
He looked back down at Black Fiend. The bald warrior was tense and highly alert.
To an outsider, the old man standing in front of Black Fiend looked completely ordinary and full of openings. But in Black Fiend's eyes, there wasn't a single flaw to exploit.
Sweat trickled down his forehead. 'I might really die this time.'
The man sighed. "Master Black Fiend. Let's have a talk, shall we?" His tone was formal and polite. He sat down on the box he was dragging, then gestured for Black Fiend to sit on the lid as well.
Black Fiend didn't move.
"You don't want to?" His eyes, cold and devoid of any emotion, locked onto the warrior.
Black Fiend's grip tightened even more on his sword hilt. He knew he would die, but he wouldn't go down without a fight. After all, he was a warrior of the Unorthodox Alliance, respected greatly by others for his strength and presence.
As he was about to channel his Internal Energy and launch an attack, he realized his energy had been completely subdued.
Black Fiend stared at the man on the box in utmost horror.
'When did he...?'
Before he could even finish forming the thought, his body floated into the air and hovered directly over the box. When the unknown force vanished, he dropped heavily onto the wooden lid, sitting face-to-face with the gloomy-looking man.
"Master Black Fiend. I wish to know why you go around spreading false information about people you have never met or fought. I believe even the Unorthodox faction has some pride."
"I-I..." Black Fiend couldn't even form a word.
Who was this man sitting in front of him? He really didn't know. He had a terrible habit of falsely boasting about things he never did just to boost his image in front of others.
"Two hundred and fifty gold."
"Wha..?"
"Two hundred and fifty gold! Just to find your information!" He violently slammed the crumpled paper onto the box.
"That was my entire fortune! I saved it by working hard! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO EARN A LIVING, YOU BASTARD?!" His tone, which had started out formal, instantly shifted into curses and informality.
Black Fiend panicked and quickly apologized. "I-I'm sorry, fellow martial artist! I'll quickly pay you two-fold... no, ten-fold! That much money is nothing in front of m—"
Thwack!
The man drove a dagger directly into the wood, right between Black Fiend's legs.
"Shut the fuck up! And listen."
He took a deep breath before continuing. "In the past, when I used to get cursed at by trash-scum bastards, I didn't pay attention to the words coming out of their mouths. Honestly, it felt good. Running their mouths was the only thing they could do since they couldn't overpower me in strength. But..."
He glared at the bald warrior. "But... after you went around running your mouth across the entire Central Plains, they started calling me a son of a whore. Now their words had a whole different meaning. Those scum really believed that my mother was a fucking whore..."
"I didn't really care that you lied about defeating me. But spreading false information about my mother? Fucker, do you even know that I am an orphan? I never even saw her face."
"How dare you run your mouth without knowing anything about other people?"
Black Fiend scrambled up, quickly dropped to his knees, and grabbed the man's leg. "P-Please forgive me!"
"Tch... So much for being among the greatest Unorthodox martial artists."
"You know, after having enough of it, I finally went out to find the identity of the person who started the rumors. And after finding your name, Master Black Fiend, I looked into you. The kind of person you are. The kind of life you lived."
He glanced at the low-quality dossier lying on the box. It contained all the information about Black Fiend. Looking at the rough pages, he still wondered why they were such poor quality even after he had paid such a massive amount.
Nonetheless, the information was valuable.
"You lived quite a life. You even went as far as claiming I was your illegitimate child, even though we have very little age difference. I suppose since you've never met me, that must be the reason you assumed I was much younger, didn't you?"
"..."
Sweat kept forming on his face, but Black Fiend didn't utter a single word. He quietly listened. His instincts told him it was the right thing to do.
"..."
Even at this point, the bastard Black Fiend *
still didn't recognize him. How many times had he boasted about having great martial masters as his illegitimate children? What the hell was wrong with this guy, spreading useless rumors?
He was frustrated, but he kept his composure and continued.
"Your mother was a prostitute, wasn't she?"
Black Fiend's eyes shot wide open. It was a secret no one knew about. And those who knew were dead.
"She worked hard to give you a better life. Even though she never planned to have you, she still took great care of you. She raised you with love. And in the end, what did you do, you bastard? You killed her? Just because you got bullied a little? You're a miserable wretch..."
Black Fiend clenched his jaw in anger. A hot, bubbling sensation built within his chest, but he endured it.
His Internal Energy was subdued, but he still had a trump card. A trick that had helped him survive countless life-and-death battles.
Waiting for the perfect opportunity, that chance finally arrived. He silently and carefully slid a needle from his sleeve.
The needle was laced with 'Thousand Toxins Poison'—a lethal poison from the Sichuan Tang Clan.
In a split second, he lunged at the man—
Whack!
The man barely moved, lightly tapping the approaching Black Fiend's chest with his fist.
"Aaaaaghh!" He let out a horrifying scream.
Black Fiend's torso slammed flat against the earth. An unimaginable force pressed down on his ribs, cracking the ground beneath him.
After a moment, the pressure eased, though the pain was still there, burning with intensity. Blood poured out of his mouth and nose.
His already injured body was now completely broken. He wheezed, "F-Forgive me..."
His voice was barely above a whisper.
The man stood up from the box, glancing down at the face twisted by agony.
Just then, Black Fiend's subdued Internal Energy was released. Feeling it, he instantly began circulating his Qi, barely recovering from the pain as he immediately crawled backward.
'Is he really forgiving me...?' A hopeful energy flickered in Black Fiend's eyes. He thought for a second that the man in front of him must have been from the Orthodox Faction, but he quickly dismissed the thought. After all, the man had just watched two Orthodox martial artists die and hadn't mentioned a single word about them.
"Th-Thank you, Martial Brother, for showing mercy..."
The man didn't respond. He reached down and pulled open the lid of the wooden box with his bare hands. Reaching inside, he hauled out a human skeleton. The bones were covered in dirt.
'Whose grave did he dig open?!' Black Fiend got chills just imagining this madman digging up someone's grave.
"It's your mother's skeleton."
When he had first received the information about Black Fiend, he just wanted to confront him and demand answers.
But he couldn't stop thinking about this wretch's poor mother. He had tracked down the spot where Black Fiend had secretly buried her body. Surprisingly, it was right beneath the same brothel she used to work at.
Thanks to the ongoing war between the major martial factions and 'Supreme Leader,' the brothel was completely empty, so he had swiftly recovered the skeleton.
"If only your mother had beaten you up a bit, you wouldn't have misbehaved like this, baldy," the man said with a dark grin on his face.
Black Fiend realized with dawning horror that this madman wouldn't let him go so easily.
The next second, the man tossed the skeleton into the air, his Qi thoroughly enveloping the bones.
"Extreme Telekinesis Art, Third Form: Puppeteering."
The skeleton landed softly on its feet, as if it had suddenly gained a soul. Its hollow sockets locked onto Black Fiend.
Every hair on his body stood on end, and without even realizing it, his body began to sprint in the opposite direction.
"AAAH!"
The skeleton ran right behind the bald man. It was truly a strange sight: a ghost chasing a human amidst a battlefield of blood and chaos.
The man felt a profound sense of peace watching the baldy run and suffer in horror.
The stupid baldy tried to attack the skeleton from a distance, but could he really pierce through the protective Qi surrounding the bones?
After a satisfying chase, the baldy's legs finally gave out.
He collapsed, looking back in the direction of the middle-aged man and screaming for forgiveness.
But the man wasn't paying attention. He had silently rolled the expensive paper into a thin tube and began cleaning his ear with it.
'Ah...'
The rough texture of the cheap-quality paper was actually perfect for scratching the ear canal.
Controlled by the Extreme Telekinesis Art, the skeleton reached into its own chest and pulled out two ribcage bones with sharp edges. The baldy kept desperately attacking the skeleton, but his strikes weren't effective. It felt like hitting Millennium Old Steel.
"No!"
The skeleton descended, stabbing the baldy multiple times. Each stab caused massive amounts of blood to burst from his body.
In the end, Master Black Fiend died with a permanently horrified expression on his face.
The man released his control, letting the skeleton collapse into a heap directly on top of the baldy's corpse.
He leaped into the air and landed softly near the bodies. He looked down at the dead face. Even though the expression was one of pure horror, it was still funny and made him chuckle.
"Stay with your mother, and don't cause trouble..."