A perfect strategy—'that's what they probably thought,' Ji Wuye mused as a transparent screen flashed before his vision.
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[!] Your passive skill, Deflecting Blows (B), has been triggered!
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The moment the transparent screen appeared, the thin, sinuous black tendrils—like coiling tentacles—binding and straining Ji Wuye's limbs suddenly blasted away with a sound like snapping bowstrings.
They writhed in the air as if in pain before detaching themselves and vanishing into wisps of dark smoke that dissipated on the gentle breeze.
BOOM!
At the same moment, a sound reverberated through the clearing, startling a flock of birds from a nearby tree. Simultaneously, the bandit, emerging from Ji Wuye's shadow to launch an ambush and stab him in the back, was unexpectedly flung away.
The bandit's eyes widened in shock, his saber still clutched in his fingers as he broke free from Ji Wuye's shadow with a strangled gasp.
Yet, even as all this unfolded in a chaotic symphony of movement, Ji Wuye's feet were already in motion.
His white martial robe, adorned with dark blue stripes that caught the sun ray like flowing water, fluttered synchronously with his flowing white hair in the slowed passage of time.
Each strand seemed to float independently, defying both gravity and the laws of motion. His movements, while deceptively languid, carried a speed far surpassing that of the bandit as he hurtled away.
The world around Ji Wuye seemed to move through honey—every sound muffled, every movement dragging. He moved as if merely strolling through a garden, but his pace was unmatched.
In a flash that left only the faintest whisper of displaced air, he passed Geng Ping, who was airborne, mid-spin, and preparing a recovery strike with his saber flaring bright with bluish Qi that cast eerie shadows across his determined face.
Geng Ping's pupils widened in shock, the color draining from his weather-beaten face, but in the slowed perception of time, they barely began to dilate as he attempted to trace the shadow that had darted past him.
Beads of sweat hung suspended around his contorted features, each one catching the light like tiny crystals. But before he could fully react...
"Time to stop playing around," Ji Wuye remarked, his voice resonating in the suppressed temporal flow.
In the next moment, he effortlessly outpaced the mid-air Geng Ping, slipping past his spinning attack aimed at Ji Wuye's original position.
The edge of Geng Ping's blade sliced through empty air with a disappointed whistle. Ji Wuye's white figure, elegant and unhurried like a crane gliding over still water, arrived exactly where the flung bandit was about to land.
SPROUT
A glinting jian, shining with a glaring bluish light—not Qi, but the activation of Ji Wuye's skill Slash Breaker—was seen stabbing directly into the throat of the flung bandit.
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The metal sang with an almost jubilant resonance as it pierced flesh, the bluish glow casting haunting shadows across Ji Wuye's impassive features.
THUD!
The bandit, who had just crashed into the ground with a dull thud that sent dirt spraying in all directions and was about to be hurled away again, was violently halted mid-motion as the blade pierced his throat.
His eyes bulged in terrified realization, hands instinctively rising to clutch at the invading steel before they fell limp at his sides.
Blood sprayed in a fine crimson mist, each droplet hanging in the air before succumbing to gravity and spattering the dust below.
At the same time, Geng Ping and the remaining bandit—the one who had earlier thrown dirt at Ji Wuye, grains of which still clung to the pristine white of Ji Wuye's sleeves—were frozen mid-air.
SPLASH!
The sound cut through the valley air like silk tearing, barely audible yet somehow deafening in its finality.
A faint half-moon sword slash silently passed through their bodies, leaving a momentary trail of displaced air that shimmered in the sunlight.
They remained froze for a fleeting moment, muscles tense and faces contorted in the beginning stages of a scream that would never fully form, before their fates mirrored that of Wei Shan: both were split cleanly in half, the separation so precise that for a heartbeat, the two halves remained perfectly aligned before gravity cruelly insisted they part ways.
"I'm sick of your kind," Ji Wuye muttered, turning his body to face the scattered carnage.
His voice carried no emotion, just a cold certainty that seemed to lower the temperature of the air around him. His white hair settled gently around his shoulders, untouched by the violence he had just unleashed.
Geng Ping and almost all of the bandits lay in gruesome disarray, their bodies cleaved apart and organs strewn across the dirt path of the sunlit valley.
The metallic scent of blood mingled with the earthy smell of disturbed soil, creating a sickly-sweet miasma that hung heavy in the otherwise fresh mountain air.
The sunlight pierced through the clear sky, illuminating rolling half-eyeballs and the gory remnants of the confrontation with an almost cruel clarity.
Golden rays highlighted the wet gleam of exposed viscera and turned pooling blood into shimmering ruby puddles that slowly seeped into the thirsty earth.
How many of these bandits had caused him trouble in the previous timeline?
Even though this was a different timeline now, it still counted as part of his past.
Back to the present, Ji Wuye's feet moved steadily as he squatted down, the fabric of his robe billowing briefly before settling around him without gathering a speck of the bloodied dirt beneath.
His crimson pupils narrowed slightly, shifting side to side from one body to another before a small sigh escaped his lips.
"A pity." He shook his head slightly, strands of white hair swaying with the deliberate movement as he observed that almost all of the bandits' belongings, including their pouches, had been split in half by his attacks, their contents spilling out uselessly.
Still, thanks to their intervention, he had gathered plenty of data, "Even just the shock waves alone possess such power, yet…" he mused, standing upright.
He reached out with his jian—its faint bluish glow now fully dimmed, returning to its natural gleaming silver that reflected the clear sky above—and carefully wiped the remaining sticky blood from the blade's edge.
"-Those old men…" he muttered, his thoughts drifting as a subtle frown creased his brow. He was referring to none other than the Black Thunder Emperor and the Windblade Emperor.
He remembered using his Slash Breaker against them, yet the effect on them of that clash had been far from what he had witnessed here with the bandits.
While pondering, Ji Wuye carefully stored the jian—engraved with glowing hanzi characters that were now slowly dimming like embers cooling after a fire—back into the hanging bag on his horse.
His mount nickered softly, stamping one hoof against the blood-soaked earth as if eager to leave this place of death.
"Ssst..." Ji Wuye ran a soothing hand along its muscular neck, feeling the warmth and steady pulse beneath the glossy coat, before he turned his gaze toward the lifeless corpses scattered around him like broken dolls.
'Inventory,' he commanded inwardly
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[!] You have planted the Soul-Forged Banner!
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...
The bright sun, once high in the sky, had sunk below the horizon, giving way to the soft glow of the silver moonlight shining over the Jianghu. The blue sky deepened into darkness like indigo ink spreading through water, as birds retreated to their nests hidden among the trees with final, sleepy calls that echoed across the valley.
Within this valley, framed by jagged cliffs whose shadows stretched menacingly beneath the moonlight like the fingers of ancient giants, Ji Wuye sat on a vast desert plain slope. The rough texture of stone and sand pressed against him through his robes.
A campfire crackled and burned beside him, its flickering flames illuminating the surrounding gloom and sending sparks dancing upward like earthbound stars seeking to return to the heavens. The dry wood popped occasionally, punctuating the night's silence with its homely percussion.
His crimson eyes, deep as pools of freshly spilled blood, reflected the dancing firelight as he focused on a book in his hands—a text on the concepts of the Zone and Sword Zone, an additional reward from Kunlun alongside the qians they had given him and the promotion.
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[!] Your understanding of the realm of 'Zone' has slightly increased!
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[!] Your understanding of the realm of 'Zone' has slightly increased!
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As the transparent notifications flickered continuously before his vision like silent fireworks, Ji Wuye closed the book with a decisive snap that sent a small cloud of dust swirling in the firelight.
He raised his head to gaze at the dark sky. The silver moonlight cascaded softly over his long, white hair, turning each strand into a thread of luminescent silk that framed his face.
"Now, let's improve my martial arts,"
