Yan Hongde endured the searing pain and pleaded, "Young Master He, I'll talk, but please spare them!"
If Yan Hongde had known you were such a ruthless maniac, he would never have dared offend you no matter what.
"Ah!"
You directly hacked one person from Peach Blossom Village to death.
"Do you think this is a market, haggling with me over vegetables?"
You had thought Yan Hongde was an honest man, but it turned out he had eight hundred tricks up his sleeve as well.
Seeing how merciless and vicious you were, Yan Hongde could only reveal the full truth in broken intervals.
Many years ago, Golden Yue Kingdom had wanted to carve out a secret troop transport route through Black Dragon Forest that led directly to the Great Qian Empire.
But Black Dragon Forest's environment was harsh and its territory vast, and Golden Yue Kingdom's people became lost within it.
Later, they happened upon Peach Blossom Village.
Peach Blossom Village had already existed for over a hundred years then, and its people had perfectly adapted to Black Dragon Forest's natural environment.
Golden Yue Kingdom had Peach Blossom Village's people help open the troop transport route, while using Peach Blossom Village as an important supply point.
In return, Peach Blossom Village received Golden Yue Kingdom's money, supplies, and some cultivation arts and martial skills.
The two sides had cooperated for many years, until the troop transport route was recently exposed and drew the Great Qian Empire's army into a campaign of encirclement and suppression.
That was what led to today's events.
"Village Elder Yan, I thought you were a loyal and honest elder. Who would've thought you had another route here in Black Dragon Forest? You're practically the underworld."
The reason you had not discovered Peach Blossom Village's martial artists was that Golden Yue Kingdom had given Peach Blossom Village a martial skill capable of concealing one's cultivation aura.
You found this martial skill on Yan Hongde's body. It was a top-tier martial skill called the Aura Concealment Art.
The Aura Concealment Art allowed its practitioner to display only the realm they wished to display, thereby concealing their true cultivation.
"At least some equipment dropped." You flipped through the Aura Concealment Art and muttered to yourself.
Yan Hongde and the last dozen or so people from Peach Blossom Village were also killed by you.
You searched Peach Blossom Village from top to bottom. Unfortunately, they only had third-rate cultivation arts, so poor that they would feel too rough even for wiping one's ass.
There was not much money either. In truth, Golden Yue Kingdom had not provided Peach Blossom Village with many resources.
What it had provided more of was exploitation.
However, you found more than a hundred Inner Divinity Paste pills and several first-rate cultivation arts on Sui Yangzhi. That was your greatest haul.
Inner Divinity Paste was an auxiliary cultivation medicine used by those in the Marrow Washing Realm and above.
You, at the Bone Tempering Realm, could use it too, and its effects were even better than Qi and Blood Paste.
After plundering everything, you prepared to leave.
With practiced ease, you burned the corpses, demolished the houses, and methodically destroyed the crime scene.
After covering all your tracks, you headed east.
You were going back to the Great Qian Empire.
Peach Blossom Village had already been exposed, and it would inevitably draw more armies from both the Great Qian Empire and Golden Yue Kingdom.
It was no longer safe to remain in Black Dragon Forest.
You traveled east for two months, occasionally encountering Great Qian Empire troops along the way.
You did not expose yourself and chose to make wide detours around all of them.
Thus, you spent even longer traveling than when you had entered Black Dragon Forest.
Still, you had not been idle along the way. You had cultivated the Aura Concealment Art to the beginner stage.
You could now conceal your cultivation among martial artists of the same realm.
You traveled for another four months.
You discovered that the closer you came to the outer edges of Black Dragon Forest, the more stringent the Great Qian Empire army's inspections became.
You knew it was because the secret troop transport route incident had become such a huge affair.
You still chose to sneak around the inspections.
Black Dragon Forest was enormous, and the Great Qian Empire could not possibly blockade every exit.
You specifically traveled through places without roads.
You crossed mountains and ridges, taking a long detour.
Fortunately, you were not discovered along the way.
In the sixtieth year, you had already been traveling through Black Dragon Forest for over a year.
It had taken you less than half a year to enter, yet now you had spent more than a year taking detours before finally nearing the edge of Black Dragon Forest.
With the aid of Inner Divinity Paste, you had touched upon the bottleneck of the Bone Tempering Middle Stage.
You knew that within a year, you would break through to the late Bone Tempering Realm.
Your proficiency in the Aura Concealment Art had reached the initial mastery stage.
You could conceal your cultivation before martial artists one realm higher than yourself. This allowed you to lie low with even greater peace of mind.
You completed your fifth True Qi refinement.
The power of your True Qi Release increased greatly.
Your released True Qi could not only injure ordinary people.
If martial artists in the Early Skin Tempering Realm failed to defend themselves, they too would be pierced through by your released True Qi.
With a wave of your hand, a stream of True Qi shot forth.
A tree as thick as a bowl was severed cleanly at the waist.
You nodded and continued onward.
Three days later, you finally left Black Dragon Forest safely.
You found an inn to rest and recuperate.
You calmly ate and drank by yourself.
Yet your sharp ears caught the conversations of everyone in the inn.
During the nearly twenty years you had lived in seclusion within Black Dragon Forest, many major events had occurred in the jianghu.
You learned of the Extinction Sect Leader's death.
You recalled that he was the Divine Dragon Sect Leader, the one who had others gather five keys and granted their wishes.
"This Divine Dragon Sect Leader was no good after all. He talked about granting other people's wishes, yet he got himself killed."
You also learned that the Joyous Zen Sect, one of the Three Great Demonic Cults, had secretly abducted a princess of the Li Imperial Family and made her a cultivation furnace for harvesting supplements.
After the matter was exposed, the Li Imperial Family sent eighteen Apex Grandmasters to attack them, nearly wiping out the Joyous Zen Sect.
In the end, Vajra Temple, one of the Five Great Sects, stepped in and preserved the Joyous Zen Sect's lineage.
The Joyous Zen Sect never recovered, falling from one of the Three Great Demonic Cults into a third-rate sect.
"These dual-cultivation people really let the little head control the big head. They even dared capture a princess for their games. Now they played themselves straight into disaster."
You picked up a bite of food, kept your ears pricked, and silently continued enjoying the gossip.
At that moment, the discussion from a nearby table reached your ears.
"Three days from now, Lin Jingzhi, master of Sword Establishment Sect, will fight Zhou Qiyun, master of the Blood Demon Sect. Are you going to watch?"
"Of course. This is a life-and-death battle between Apex Grandmasters!"
"What life-and-death battle? Zhou Qiyun cannot possibly be a match for Master Lin."
"You can't call him Master Lin anymore. Hero Lin has already announced that he is no longer the master of Sword Establishment Sect. This time, he is going to the Blood Demon Sect in a personal capacity."
"Sigh, three years have passed, and Hero Lin still cannot let it go."
"Who could let it go after something like that? Young Hero Miao, Miao Liwu, was such a heaven-sent prodigy of a disciple, yet the Blood Demon Sect forcibly plotted him to death!"
When you heard news of Miao Liwu, your face darkened, and you walked over.
"You said Miao Liwu is dead?!"
Those people looked at you strangely. "You didn't know? It spread throughout the entire jianghu three years ago."
You steadied yourself and sat down directly.
You tossed out a five-hundred-tael Silver Note. "Tell me everything in detail!"
The person closest to you stretched out his hand and snatched the Silver Note into his palm.
He grinned. "No problem, young master. My neighbor's third younger brother was involved with the cleaning auntie from Sword Establishment Sect for a while. I know this matter best!"
"Cut the nonsense. Get to the point."
"Alright, alright. It happened like this..."
It turned out that three years ago, forty-one-year-old Miao Liwu had entered the Grandmaster Peak realm.
At that time, as the youngest Martial Path Grandmaster in history, he could already fight Apex Grandmasters across realms without being defeated.
If it were a battle across realms below the Apex Grandmaster level, it would not have been all that astonishing.
But between a Grandmaster and an Apex Grandmaster lay a chasm like one that split heaven from earth.
Take lifespan, for example. Grandmasters still only had a lifespan of one hundred years, while Apex Grandmasters could reach two hundred years.
Such a lifespan that shattered all limits completely defied people's understanding.
That showed just how enormous the gap between Grandmasters and Apex Grandmasters was.
Yet under such an objective disparity, Miao Liwu could still battle an Apex Grandmaster.
This had never happened before in history.
Miao Liwu's talent and combat strength could only be called monstrous.
If Miao Liwu were allowed to become an Apex Grandmaster, he would undoubtedly become the number one person on the Martial Path.
It was in that very year that the Blood Demon Sect realized Miao Liwu posed an immense threat.
Thus, they launched an encirclement to kill him.
Before you continue