He sharpened his divine sense, and instantly, the valley seemed to unfold wide beneath his gaze. "A Soul Transformation initiate calls this Zhao Wu terrifying? Over-exaggerated."

  There, Zhi Xuan discovered dozens of guards and caravans halted near the valley. Among them was a figure in pristine white robes; a sword aura radiated from him, solid and oppressive.

  Zhi Xuan snorted softly, a sound lost in the roar of the mountain winds. In his eyes, the sword aura that the people in the city market boasted about was no more than a candle flame trying to challenge a hurricane. Zhao Wu, the "White Lightning Sword," stood arrogantly before the mine gates, arms crossed as he looked down upon the mine slaves working like ants.

  "The spiritual stones collected today must meet the quota," Zhao Wu’s voice boomed, clear yet containing a sharp edge that shook the souls of low-level cultivators. "The Mo Family does not tolerate laziness, and the Heaven Sword Faction does not protect the useless."

  Zhi Xuan, still cross-legged atop the cliff, began to weave his twilight-gray essence. He had no intention of wasting energy on an open battle with the entire guard force. He recalled Ruo Xianxue’s guidance about the shadow that precedes the body.

  "The physical form is a barrier for those who do not understand the darkness," Zhi Xuan whispered. However, his brow furrowed as his divine sense swept past the miners. "Hmm?"

  There, a sight appeared that made even Zhi Xuan hiss sharply. "Small children forced to mine? A mine more wretched than I thought. Heaven, you have found your rival in cruelty."

  Zhi Xuan’s Heavenly Eye glowed more intensely, piercing through the thick fog down to the deepest recesses of the mining pits. There, amidst jagged rocks emitting the faint glow of spiritual stones, he saw a sickening sight. It was not just adult slaves, but dozens of young children with emaciated bodies. Their legs were entwined with cold iron chains that seeped into their very bones as they carved the rock walls with tiny, bleeding hands.

  The spiritual essence of these children was being forcibly drained by those chains to stabilize the Golden Net formation on the surface, turning their lives into fuel for the mine’s security.

  "The Heaven Sword Faction... the Mo Family..." Zhi Xuan hissed, the cold aura he emitted beginning to freeze the dew around him. "You call me a demonic practitioner, yet you build palaces upon the marrow of the innocent. Cruel? That word is far too noble for the likes of you."

  "Oh? Is your heart stirred, Zhi Xuan?" Ruo Xianxue appeared, standing tall beside him this time, gazing toward the valley with an unreadable expression. "Did you not just say the Heavenly Dao is ruthless? This is but a small reflection of the universe’s cruelty."

  "My heart is not stirred, Great Saint," Zhi Xuan replied as he rose slowly, his black-and-white robes fluttering like the wings of a death-bringing crow. "I am merely disgusted to see those who use the name of the 'Heavenly' to cover a stench deeper than the lowest hell. If they desire darkness, then I shall give them true darkness."

  Zhi Xuan clasped his hands, forming a complex mental seal. The Heavenly Samsara Wheel within his mind spun in reverse, pulling all the light around the cliff into his body. In an instant, Zhi Xuan vanished—not because he was gone, but because he had become one with the darkest shadows of the cliff.

  He stepped down from the peak, yet his feet touched neither air nor stone. He glided along the lines of shadows cast by trees and rocks like a black serpent swimming through water.

  Below, Zhao Wu still stood arrogantly. Suddenly, he frowned, his hand instinctively gripping the hilt of his white jade sword.

  "Who goes there?!" he shouted, his voice shattering the silence of the valley.

  The guards immediately went on alert, drawing their weapons and spreading their divine sense in all directions. Yet, they found nothing. The Golden Soul-Trapping Net remained calm, showing no signs of any intruder touching the spiritual barrier.

  "Young Master Zhao, what is the matter?" a guard from the Mo Family asked with concern.

  "The air has suddenly turned cold," Zhao Wu murmured, his eyes narrowing sharply. "There is a strange ripple... as if the shadows in this place have grown heavier."

  Precisely then, Zhi Xuan stood directly beneath the shadow of the mine gate’s pillar, a mere ten steps away from Zhao Wu. He stared at the arrogant youth’s neck with a cold gaze. If he wished, he could have decapitated Zhao Wu then and there, but his goal was not merely to kill.

  "His neck... perhaps his blood could become a delicious Slaughter Seal," Zhi Xuan murmured, his voice drifting amidst the gusting wind. "However, there are surely more rats inside who can serve as fertilizer."

  "Blow up this mine?" One of Zhi Xuan’s eyebrows arched as a Demonic Thought enveloped him; he merely responded with a thin smile. "No, no—not blow it up. I came only for the spiritual stones, and perhaps... a drop of blood."

  Zhi Xuan rotated his left wrist, letting his twilight-gray essence creep like a thin mist across the valley floor. He stepped forward, but each stride now bypassed the boundary of the Golden Soul-Trapping Net without triggering a single warning ripple. To him, the golden net Elder Cao so prided himself on was nothing more than a fragile spiderweb before the Nine Heavens Law of Darkness.

  "You feel it, don't you?" Zhi Xuan whispered, his voice manifesting as a rustle of wind caressing Zhao Wu's ear.

  Zhao Wu flinched, his white jade sword—the White Lightning—vibrated violently and leaped from its scabbard with a deafening ring. "Who?! Show yourself, you cowardly rat!"

  A burst of white sword light exploded from Zhao Wu’s body, sweeping the surrounding area to force the intruder out of hiding. But the slash only cut through empty air. In the eyes of the guards, Zhao Wu looked like a madman striking at his own shadow.

  Zhi Xuan was already inside the main mine tunnel, moving between the damp stone walls. He ignored the panicked shouts outside and focused his senses on the densest flow of energy. Before him, the tunnel branched into dozens of paths, but one central passage radiated a spiritual aura so pure it made his meridians throb.

  "A high-grade spiritual stone vein," Zhi Xuan muttered.

  He darted inside, passing the Five Element realm guards without them noticing. The deeper he went, the clearer the screams and the clinking of the children's chisels became. The scent of rusted iron from the binding chains mingled with the sweet fragrance of freshly dug spiritual essence—a truly ironic combination of scents.

  Zhi Xuan stopped in a vast underground hall. There, piles of cleaned high-grade spiritual stones were neatly arranged in sandalwood chests, ready to be transported to the Mo Family auction.

  "Wealth built on blood," Zhi Xuan hissed. "Fit for me."

  Zhi Xuan stepped toward the sandalwood chests. His figure, still shrouded in the Ghost Hood, appeared like a black mist creeping over the glittering treasures. His Heavenly Eye counted coldly; there were over thirty chests, equivalent to hundreds of thousands of pure-quality spiritual stones.

  "These chests will serve as enough capital to silence the Mo Family at the auction later," Zhi Xuan murmured.

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  However, his attention was diverted when his eyes caught a small silhouette in the corner of the hall. A young boy, perhaps only seven years old, was trying to drag a basket full of stone fragments with legs that trembled violently.

  The black chains bound to his ankles glowed reddish every time the child stumbled, forcibly draining his fragile inner essence to power the Golden Net on the surface.

  "Hah... hah..." The child’s breath was short and hoarse. His large eyes appeared hollow, as if his soul had died long before his body gave out.

  "Enough," Zhi Xuan hissed. His voice was not loud, yet it contained an aura that caused the air in the underground hall to suddenly freeze.

  Zhi Xuan waved his left hand. Ten strands of Demonic Blood Thread energized by his essence darted from his fingers. The threads wrapped around the black chains on the child’s legs and those of dozens of other children in the hall.

  TACK—TACK—KRAK!

  The chains made of meteoric iron shattered instantly, severed by Zhi Xuan’s mental intent which surpassed the sharpness of any blade. The vibration from the shattering chains sent a powerful backlash through the entire formation system in Mist Valley.

  "What?! The Golden Net formation has suddenly weakened!" screamed a Five Element overseer guarding the hall.

  He spun around and saw dozens of small slaves now free, but his eyes widened as he saw the sandalwood chests behind him beginning to float into a bronze vortex—the Heavenly Trifold Reincarnation Cauldron that Zhi Xuan had just manifested.

  "Thief! Stop!" The overseer leveled his silver spear, pushing his entire spiritual essence to pierce Zhi Xuan’s back.

  Zhi Xuan didn't even turn around. He simply raised his index finger backward. "Samsara: The Withered Autumn."

  A wave of gray energy exploded from his fingertip, sweeping over the overseer and three other guards attempting to approach. Within seconds, their skin shriveled, their hair turned white, and their bodies lost all vitality as if time had accelerated a thousand years for them. They collapsed into piles of bone and dust before they could utter a second scream.

  SSHHH! SSHHH!

  "Mmm... I have not spilled blood in a long time," Zhi Xuan murmured as he absorbed the spiritual blood of the four guards. "Four Seals of Slaughter—a good beginning."

  Zhi Xuan stood tall in the now silent underground hall, leaving only the sound of muffled sobbing from the children who remained paralyzed in fear. The young boy near him stared at the ruins of the chains at his feet with trembling hands, then looked up at the black-and-white robed figure whose face was hidden behind the mysterious hood.

  The boy looked at his palms, no longer bound by the weight of iron, then slowly gathered the courage to pull the edge of Zhi Xuan’s ice-cold robe. "M-Master... is this... the afterlife? Are we dead?"

  The tiny voice broke through the harrowing silence of the hall. In another corner, a young girl with a soot-covered face crawled closer, her voice trembling like a dry leaf in the wind. "Big brother... if this is indeed hell, are there no more stones to be carved there? Can we sleep for just a little while?"

  Zhi Xuan grew silent, the hand still holding the remnants of gray energy slowly dimming. He looked into the children’s eyes—eyes that should have radiated the light of youth, but now held only a terrifying emptiness.

  "You are not dead," Zhi Xuan said, his voice flat yet commanding, echoing off the mine walls. "And this is not hell. True hell is the place where those who wear white robes stand."

  The first boy suddenly prostrated, his head hitting the cold stone floor. "Immortal Lord! We beg you... if you are an envoy of the Gods, please do not hand us back to Young Master Zhao. He will whip us if he sees these chains destroyed. He will say we have stolen the formation’s energy!"

  "True, Master!" another child sobbed, and now they all began to huddle around Zhi Xuan’s feet, as if this mysterious figure was the only lifeline for their fragile existences. "The last time Xiao Ming fainted from hunger, Young Master Zhao ordered the guards to throw him into the waste pit... we don't want to be thrown there!"

  Zhi Xuan felt the pure vibration of fear from those small bodies. "Xiao Ming?"

  "He was my friend, Master," the boy whispered with tears washing the dust off his cheeks. "He said he wanted to see the sun one last time before his eyes went blind from the darkness of this mine. But they said... children who cannot carve are not worthy of seeing the light."

  Another little girl gasped for air, clutching her tightening chest. "Master... is there really a sun out there? Our teacher in the village used to say the sun was warm... but here, there is only cold and pain. Do you carry that sun beneath your robe, Master?"

  Zhi Xuan looked at his own dark palms, where the Slaughter Seal resided. He was the bringer of night, yet in the face of this shattered innocence, he felt an impulse he hadn't felt in a long time—not a demonic rage, but a pure sense of justice.

  "The sun is not beneath my robe," Zhi Xuan said as he raised his hand. A soft glow of gray light—not the lethal kind, but the soothing kind—emanated from his fingers, washing over the wounds on the children’s bodies. "However, I will ensure that the man who forbade you from seeing the light shall never see the sun again for the rest of his life."

  "Master... will you kill them all?" the boy asked with a heart-wrenching innocence. "The elders in the mine said killing is a sin... but why do they kill us slowly every day without feeling any sin?"

  Zhi Xuan offered a smile hidden behind his hood—a smile that carried a promise of death for those above. "Sin is a term created by the winners to shackle the losers."

  "And perhaps, I shall change my plan after seeing you," Zhi Xuan remarked, raising his hand and looking upward.

  He spread his palm, and under a sharp spiritual pressure that briefly strained the children around him, Zhi Xuan clasped his hand shut and shattered the mine ceiling above him. A Soul Transformation practitioner possesses power that leaps drastically compared to those in the Five Element realm, allowing them to manipulate their surroundings with pure spiritual pressure.

  BOOM!

  The entire underground hall vibrated violently as the stone ceiling, dozens of zhang thick, shattered into pieces, sucked away by the spiritual gravitational pressure created by Zhi Xuan’s fist.

  Ancient dust scattered, but before the ruins could crush the children below, Zhi Xuan waved his sleeve, creating a solid dome of gray energy that deflected every boulder to the sides of the room.

  Sharp morning sunlight pierced through the massive hole, illuminating the eternal darkness of the mine hall like a pillar of heavenly light. The children flinched, covering their eyes with tiny, trembling hands. For the first time in what felt like a thousand years, they felt true warmth—not the heat of a smelting furnace, but the warmth of the sun.

  "The sun..." the boy whispered, his tears now shimmering golden beneath the light. "This is the Sun!"

  "Heavenly Dao, look at what you have done," Zhi Xuan murmured as he gazed upward, smiling thinly. "My slaughter is without denial, but today I have found a reason to massacre."

  Zhi Xuan did not stop there. With cold composure and an inevitable desire to use this atrocity as a form of perfect Slaughter, he darted upward and hovered in the air. Suddenly, the pressure of a mid-stage Soul Transformation expert felt like a mountain suddenly falling upon the mine.

  The spiritual pressure Zhi Xuan released exploded like ripples on a calm lake, but instead of water, what was created was a shockwave that flattened the guard tents in the blink of an eye. In the air, his black-and-white robes fluttered with a terrifying authority, while beneath his feet, the giant hole he had just created gaped like the mouth of an earth monster thirsty for justice.

  Zhao Wu, the "White Lightning Sword," stumbled back. His once arrogant face was now as pale as ritual paper. The white jade sword in his hand vibrated violently, not out of bloodlust, but from a resonance of fear toward a predator much higher on the cultivation food chain.

  "M-Mid-stage Soul Transformation?!" Zhao Wu stammered, his voice caught in his throat. "Who are you?! How is it possible for a high-level practitioner like you to be in this cursed place?!"

  Zhi Xuan looked down with a hollow yet oppressive gaze, as if looking at an insect squirming beneath his heel. "You ask who I am, while you use human lives as oil for the lamps of your palaces?"

  Zhi Xuan raised his left hand, and instantly, dense twilight-gray essence began to solidify at his fingertips, forming a spinning energy disc with a lethal hum.

  "Attack! Kill him!" Zhao Wu screamed in a high-pitched voice, trying to mask his own trepidation.

  Dozens of Heaven Sword Faction and Mo Family guards, spurred by fear of sect punishment should they flee, attempted to charge. The light from various spiritual weapons—swords, spears, and axes—shot toward Zhi Xuan like a meteor shower.

  Yet, Zhi Xuan did not flinch. He merely moved his arm in a slow sweep as the disc in his hand expanded. "The Wind Splits the Ocean, Ancient Fire Purifies All."

  The energy burst released by Zhi Xuan was not merely an attack, but a pure judgment. The gray energy disc expanded at a speed the eye could not catch, devouring all the spiritual attacks of the guards like a bottomless abyss swallowing sparks.

  BUM!

  In just a single breath, the shockwave swept the entire valley floor. The charging guards were instantly frozen in the air before their bodies were tossed like dry leaves hit by a hurricane. Their armor cracked, their weapons shattered into pieces, and their bodies slammed into the cliff walls with terrifying thuds.

  Zhao Wu tried to hold his ground. He drew his White Lightning Sword, pushing his entire inner essence until the veins on his forehead bulged. "Heavenly Cloud Sword Technique: Light that Severs the Chains!"

  A blinding white light shot from his blade, attempting to split Zhi Xuan’s energy disc. However, the moment that white light touched the twilight-gray essence, it did not explode—it decayed. The light dimmed, turning into black ash that scattered in the wind, allowing Zhi Xuan’s attack to proceed unhindered.