Lu Xuan stared expressionlessly at the petite loli blocking the alley entrance.
She swung a chain covered in slime with her little hand.
With a crazed smile, she said, "Big brother, you have to be gentle with me!"
With that,
Jiang Xi's petite body flickered. As her collagen-soft fingers waved, blazing qi and blood erupted.
The chain tore through the air and shot straight toward Lu Xuan.
Bang!
The chain passed through Lu Xuan and slammed into the wall behind him with a splattering thud, sending dust flying everywhere.
Jiang Xi revealed a perverse, manic grin.
"Big brother, let's enjoy some wonderful moments together!"
She yanked hard on the chain in her hand.
Lu Xuan was an ordinary person. There was no way he could block her attack.
She would drag Lu Xuan away like a dead dog.
But just as she excitedly tugged, the chain went taut, yet did not move forward even half an inch.
"Hm?"
Jiang Xi furrowed her brows slightly.
She increased her strength, but still could not pull it even half an inch.
She turned around in confusion.
Amid the dust,
Lu Xuan's figure slowly rose. Along with him came his icy voice.
"You surprised me. I actually couldn't detect that you were a Martial Artist."
After patting the dust from around him, Lu Xuan's tall figure appeared before Jiang Xi completely unharmed, causing her expression to stiffen slightly.
"You—you're all right?" she asked in surprise.
"No!"
She suddenly realized something. Looking at Lu Xuan again, her voice turned shrill. "You're not an ordinary person. You're a Martial Artist. How is that possible?!"
At this thought,
she no longer dared to be careless. She clenched all five fingers around the chain and pulled hard.
However, even after unleashing all her qi and blood, she still could not pull the chain back. It was as immovable as if it had been welded to the wall.
"Stop wasting your strength."
Lu Xuan tilted his head and asked seriously, "Can you tell me how you concealed your qi and blood power?"
Concealing one's qi and blood cultivation.
In Lu Xuan's eyes, this question was extremely serious.
Because he possessed Psychic Power and could pry into the energy signatures of most living creatures.
Unless the other party was several realms stronger than him, their Psychic Power could not penetrate the energy barrier.
Yet Jiang Xi—
She was clearly only a Third-order Martial Artist, but he could not probe her at all.
It made no sense.
For Lu Xuan, who had always been cautious, this was definitely bad news.
"That's what I should be asking you!"
Jiang Xi discovered that she could not retrieve the chain, so she took out two short daggers instead.
Without giving Lu Xuan the slightest time to react, she charged straight at him.
"Overestimating yourself!"
With a thought from Lu Xuan, the chain that had been completely motionless came alive. It spun half a circle in the air and slithered toward Jiang Xi.
"How is this possible?!"
Jiang Xi was horrified. She had just tried to cancel her attack and turn to flee.
But the chain gave her no chance. Clang after clang, it knocked away her daggers, bound her hands and feet, and tied her up like a zongzi before flinging her to the ground.
"Damn it! How could you be so despicable?"
Jiang Xi struggled like a maggot.
"Despicable?" Lu Xuan raised his hand. The chain dragged the little demoness up and hung her high in the air. Only then did he walk closer and sneer. "As a Martial Artist, you came to assassinate me, an ordinary person?"
"And you're calling me despicable?"
His finger moved.
The chain tightened like a snake binding its prey. One end even pierced through Jiang Xi's flesh.
"Aaaah!"
Her scream rang through the alley, but could never escape it.
Lu Xuan reached out and pinched Jiang Xi's little face with five fingers, smiling faintly. "Can you speak properly with me now?"
"Who—who are you?"
Jiang Xi's face was deathly pale as she stammered, "I should have realized it. The monster meat we ate that day was of an advanced level. I should have realized that you weren't an ordinary person... You can even control objects from a distance. I—I think I've seen something like this somewhere before."
Panic and terror filled her.
She should have realized long ago that Lu Xuan could not be an ordinary person.
After all, Lu Ying had such an outstanding talent. How could her brother possibly be an ordinary person?
But she had not expected him to be so powerful.
"You didn't answer my question!"
Lu Xuan's voice turned cold as he flicked his finger.
Pfft—the chain pierced through Jiang Xi's other leg.
Blood gushed forth.
"If you want to live, you'd better answer my question."
Lu Xuan stared at her.
One end of the chain swayed before Jiang Xi. The thing that had once been a toy in her hands could now suppress and kill her with nothing more than a thought from Lu Xuan.
"I—I'm a member of the Holy Cult."
Her lips trembled as she explained slowly, "I don't know what kind of force the Holy Cult is either. They gave me an energy crystal that can suppress qi and blood, disguising me as an ordinary person."
"Oh?"
Lu Xuan's gaze shifted to the necklace around Jiang Xi's chest.
Within his Psychic Power perception,
he could not probe this thing at all.
He raised a finger, and the necklace floated into his palm.
Focusing his Psychic Power on it, Lu Xuan felt as though he had struck an invisible wall that prevented his Psychic Power from penetrating.
"Interesting."
He put the necklace away.
Using Psychic Power to cover his cultivation consumed a great deal of energy. This thing was just right for him.
"Can you let me go now?"
Jiang Xi begged.
Lu Xuan did not respond. Instead, he asked again, "The Holy Cult should be an evil force. You people specifically destroy people's Martial Dao foundations and make them join you?"
At this,
Jiang Xi's eyes widened. "How did you know?"
Lu Xuan did not answer. He stroked his chin and pondered. "So Shen Liyue isn't a good person either. Her strength is probably hidden even deeper. A Martial Master, or a Martial Dao Grandmaster?"
There are far too many Old Sixes.
No wonder I died three times in the future.
This world is still too dark. Every one of them is more skulking than a dog. The slightest carelessness, and you'll be schemed to death in an alley.
"The Holy Cult. I need to pay close attention to this organization."
If Jiang Xi had not exposed herself on her own today, he would have fallen right into their trap.
"Hey, can you hear me?"
All color had drained from Jiang Xi's face. Blood flowed down her legs onto the ground, gathering into a pool.
She felt that she was going to die.
"Didn't you say you'd let me go?"
Lu Xuan glanced sideways at the pleading in her eyes and snapped his fingers.
Clang!
The chain binding Jiang Xi rapidly tightened. Like sharp blades, it crushed her into countless pieces of flesh and blood.
"With so little information, you still expect to live?"
Lu Xuan snorted disdainfully, took her Storage Ring, tossed down a fire, and disappeared into the alley.
The incident made him even more vigilant.
He constantly probed his surroundings.
Only after secretly slipping into the Black Market did he sell everything he had left for money.
All the spirit herbs sold for five hundred thousand Federal Coins.
The other monster flesh sold for three hundred thousand.
There was not much in Jiang Xi's Storage Ring. She was even poorer than him.
In short,
he had not even earned a million Federal Coins from this trip to the Black Market.
"The Black Market really is black."
After finishing everything, Lu Xuan returned home.
His little sister was still cultivating.
He did not disturb her. Instead, he quietly returned to his room and opened the Martial Artist Forum.
"What kind of organization is the Holy Cult?"
He entered the search term.
Countless related posts immediately appeared.
The official explanation was as follows—
The Holy Cult can be viewed as a group of demonic cultivators. These people suffered damage to their Martial Dao foundations and were unwilling to become ordinary. At first, the Human Federation did not reject this force's belief in surviving through desperation and even offered them assistance. After all, allowing Martial Artists to return to the battlefield was a great thing... But a hundred years ago, the new leader of the Holy Cult developed an evil technique that devoured other people's foundations to repair his own. Countless young talents suffered because of it. The Federation had no choice but to launch a purge, but some people escaped with this evil technique. Moreover, after a century of development, whether the Holy Cult possesses even more cruel and inhumane techniques unknown to others remains unclear. Any Martial Artist who encounters...
The Holy Cult was an organization everyone wanted to beat down.
"Using another person's foundation to repair one's own..."
After reading the general introduction, Lu Xuan felt a chill creep down his back.
"No wonder they set their sights on my little sister. The talent she's displayed is enough to attract the Holy Cult's attention."
"Tsk. What a nuisance!"
Lu Xuan was suffering from a splitting headache.
Soon, he calmed himself and sorted through the situation at hand.
He had concealed his strength, but two enemies lurked in the shadows: the Xu Family and the Pharmaceutical Company.
Once he was exposed, death was certain.
That problem had not yet been resolved.
Now his little sister had also been targeted by the Holy Cult.
Lu Xuan did not know what purpose they had in wanting his little sister to join the Holy Cult.
But he knew one thing.
Things were dangerous now.
"Shen Liyue is a ticking time bomb."
"That woman isn't weak. With my current strength, I definitely can't beat her. Once she learns of Jiang Xi's death, she'll certainly suspect that I've concealed my cultivation. Although she can't attack me directly, she'll definitely keep testing me. She might even use my little sister to test me..."
What should he do?
Lu Xuan was troubled.
Shen Liyue appeared to be a Ninth-order Martial Artist on the surface, but no one knew how strong she truly was.
Killing her directly would certainly fail.
"So, the only plan left is to send my little sister to the Four Great Academies ahead of schedule."
Lu Xuan opened his smart wristband and entered Xu Xin's contact information.
Just as he was about to make the call, an email marked with an exclamation point suddenly appeared before him—
[Sender: Lu Xuan] [Type: Will] [Recipient: Lu Xuan]
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