Entering the Trap, Slaying the Savage Foe

In the secret chamber, Lin Chen sat cross-legged on a cushion, three jade boxes set before him.

In the middle box lay the three-hundred-year-old Silvermoon Grass. It gave off a gentle yet immense pulse of spiritual energy. This rare treasure could strengthen his foundations and directly raise his cultivation.

The boxes on either side held two Crimson Flame Ginseng roots, each more than two hundred and fifty years old.

Scarlet from end to end, the roots looked as though they had been forged from flame. They were excellent aids for tempering the body and breaking through bottlenecks.

"With the three-hundred-year-old Silvermoon Grass as the main ingredient and the Crimson Flame Ginseng to support it, I should be able to take my cultivation a step further."

Lin Chen nodded slightly. These three spirit herbs would save him several years of idling away in the Miasma Forest.

What a shame. If I could refine these three spirit herbs into pills, I might even reach the ninth level of the Spirit Martial Realm in one go.

Having made his calculations, Lin Chen hesitated no longer.

He picked up the Silvermoon Grass, carefully plucked a silver-glimmering leaf, and placed it in his mouth to refine. Then he entered seclusion.

A month later, Lin Chen emerged from seclusion and set out on the journey home.

The coachman remained a man of few words. After bowing respectfully to Lin Chen, he cracked his whip and set off.

The carriage followed the mountain road. As it left the Herb Garden and entered a stretch of forest, the light began to dim.

At first, everything seemed normal. Insects chirped, birds called, and the mountain breeze rustled through the trees. But as the carriage entered a narrow passage between two steep cliffs, everything changed—

Every sound stopped.

The insects, the birds, even the wind vanished in an instant. Dead silence settled over the world. Only the rumble of wheels against the road remained, suddenly loud and clear.

Inside the carriage, Lin Chen opened his eyes. He lifted the curtain and stepped down.

The coachman pulled on the reins. Wariness crossed his weathered face as he turned and said quietly, "Young master, something's wrong."

"I know. Go back ahead of me. I'll handle this."

Lin Chen's voice was calm.

He had thought his baiting tactic might fail. As it turned out, the old methods still worked.

No, this was hardly even a trap. Apart from Lin Chen himself, the Lin Family truly had set nothing up.

He was the trap.

"Yes."

The coachman bowed and fled, abandoning the carriage without hesitation. He was only a Body Tempering Realm martial artist. Staying would be useless; he could not even take a blow for Lin Chen. Better to hurry back and find reinforcements.

"Come out."

Once the coachman had gone, Lin Chen fixed his gaze on an ancient tree in the distance.

"Hmph. Sharp eyes."

A figure slowly emerged from behind the tree. The man was tall and broad, dressed in coarse gray clothes. His face was thick with flesh, and a vicious scar ran from the corner of his left eye to his mouth.

Most chilling were his eyes: cold and brutal, like a jackal watching its prey.

"Butcher Hu Yuan."

Lin Chen named him.

A name could be wrong, but a nickname rarely was.

Hu Yuan had earned the name Butcher through sheer ruthlessness, killing people as casually as slaughtering dogs. He had more than a hundred lives on his hands, including women, children, and the elderly. His crimes were monstrous.

Yet after Blackwind Stronghold had fallen, he had not fled. Instead, he had stayed to take revenge on the Lin Family and the Li Family, as though he and Li Baichuan had been brothers. That surprised Lin Chen.

Then again, perhaps birds of a feather simply mourned their own.

Across from him, Hu Yuan grinned, twisting his scar into something uglier. "Young Master Lin, I've been waiting for you."

Hu Yuan's voice was rough and grating, like sandpaper scraping stone.

"For over a year, I've hidden like a stray dog, thinking of revenge day and night. Now you've finally left the city alone. How could I let this chance pass?"

He licked his lips.

"But I'm a cautious man. When you came to the Herb Garden last time, I held back. I was afraid of an ambush."

At the word alone, Lin Chen thought he heard a trace of resentment in Hu Yuan's voice. Perhaps he imagined it.

"You're only the beginning. I'll make the Lin Family and the Li Family pay dearly!"

The moment he finished speaking, a violent aura erupted from Hu Yuan. He unleashed the full power of the eighth level of the Spirit Martial Realm, sending dust and dead leaves swirling across the ground.

"Die!"

Hu Yuan lunged, bringing his blade straight down at Lin Chen.

Just as the blade was about to strike—

A streak of lightning cut through the air, illuminating the dim, hushed forest.

Hu Yuan felt an astonishingly concentrated force strike his blade. It knocked his certain kill off course. The edge swept past Lin Chen and slammed into the ground, carving a trench several feet long.

"What?!"

Hu Yuan's pupils contracted as he stared at Lin Chen.

Lin Chen's presence had changed completely.

No longer restrained, his cultivation at the eighth level of the Spirit Martial Realm surged forth—two notches stronger than Hu Yuan's own.

"You hid your cultivation?!"

"No. Impossible! You're not Lin Chen. Are you that old bastard Lin Xuan? What trick are you using to disguise yourself?"

Shock and fury seized Hu Yuan. He could not believe that such deep cultivation, faintly surpassing his own, belonged to the young man before him.

How old was this boy?

Hu Yuan had cultivated for more than a century and endured countless hardships to slowly reach the eighth level of the Spirit Martial Realm. Within the bounds of Kaiyang City, he was confident he ranked among the top five!

Lin Chen did not answer. He merely grinned, baring white teeth.

"Your technique is rather strange. It can even alter the light. Like a spider spinning a web, it draws people under your control without their noticing."

"Unfortunately..."

"Before my sword, it's all an illusion!"

At a thought, Sword Intent soared skyward, sharp and unstoppable. It tore through the gloom shrouding the forest, and sunlight streamed between the leaves, scattering bright specks across the ground.

Then Lin Chen strode forward, sword in hand, and slashed straight at Butcher Hu Yuan!

A bloody battle erupted in the forest.

Only moments into the clash, Hu Yuan was covered in blood and gravely wounded.

They were both at the eighth level of the Spirit Martial Realm, but their fighting strength was two tiers apart. How could Hu Yuan withstand him?

At last, Hu Yuan drove his spiritual energy to its peak and unleashed his signature technique, Blood Fiend Ghost Slash, desperate to carve out a way to survive.

But Lin Chen answered with a single ordinary stroke. It cut down the blood fiend ghost and took Butcher Hu Yuan's head.

"Against absolute strength, every trick is just a mantis trying to stop a carriage."

Lin Chen murmured the words.

He stepped forward and searched the corpse. Once he was sure he had missed nothing, he flicked a finger. A spark landed on the body and reduced it to ash.

"Quiet and secluded, with good surroundings. You picked yourself a fine resting place."

Lin Chen clicked his tongue and turned away.