Glutton

Whoosh-

Along with that sharp cry came a brilliant rainbow of light in midair. Its dazzling radiance lit up the surroundings, turning hundreds of meters in every direction as bright as day. Then came a rolling crash of thunder!

Only then did a figure descend amid the lightning and thunder, drifting down in flowing white robes.

"Qi Dian of the Riverside Gate is here! Who dares run wild?"

Crack!

With a mighty crash from the heavens, Qi Dian made his dazzling entrance.

"So cool." Even Yue Wen below couldn't help marveling. Just what he would expect from a disciple of an immortal sect.

The sheer spectacle of his entrance was beyond anything independent cultivators like them could match.

Seeing Qi Dian soar toward him amid that dazzling display of light, sound, and lightning, a flicker of wariness crossed the black-clad man's eyes. He immediately pulled the great banner from the ground and swung it through the air!

Whoosh-

The banner whipped up a murky, sinister wind that formed a black ribbon and hurtled toward Qi Dian.

In midair, Qi Dian turned his hand and drew a longsword. Its gleaming blade was clearly no ordinary weapon. He unleashed three feet of sword light, intending to cleave the sinister wind in two!

Boom!

The sword light collided with the sinister wind, then suddenly shuddered and shattered. The wind burst into a cloud of black mist. Without another word, Qi Dian was knocked straight to the ground, landing on his back and passing out.

Less than three seconds after his entrance.

Qi Dian was down for the count.

"So it was all flash?" Yue Wen covered his face.

Though that brief clash had been chaotic, his cultivation had allowed him to see everything clearly.

The sinister wind unleashed by the black-clad man carried a disruptive mental attack. Sharp as Qi Dian's sword light was, the moment it touched that wind, he lost control of his technique and the clarity of his Divine Palace. His sword light dispersed, his true qi destabilized, and a single blow brought him down.

He remained unconscious.

"Fuck." Even the black-clad man was surprised. He cursed, "Just a little punk after all."

His opponent's aggressive arrival had made him nervous for a moment. Since when had cultivators been stationed in the cemetery east of the city? He had thought the Supernatural Affairs Bureau had sent someone specifically to ambush him.

With skills like that, why make such a flashy entrance?

The black-clad man raised his hand again. Four black steel needles shot through the air, piercing Qi Dian's four limbs and pinning him to the ground to form a temporary seal.

"Heh." He sneered viciously. "Since you're an immortal sect disciple, there's no hurry to kill you. The Riverside Gate may not be a major sect, but it's been operating in River City for years. It ought to have a decent fortune. I'll kidnap you for ransom first, then squeeze all your supernatural techniques and magical artifacts out of you, and finally refine you into a corpse puppet. That's how you get full use out of something. Hehehehe..."

Listening to that wicked laughter, Yue Wen had roughly figured out the man's background.

Qi Dian had called him an evil cultivator the moment he arrived. The techniques he used involved summoning corpses and bewildering souls, and his way of doing things left even less room for doubt.

Those the orthodox path called evil cultivators fell into two categories. Some had a talent for cultivation but practiced evil arts that harmed others in pursuit of greater power. Others had no talent for cultivation but could embark on that path by paying certain prices-prices that often meant falling into evil.

Neither kind had any place in a harmonious society.

Every one of them was a ruthless outlaw.

The black-clad man probably belonged to the first category. Though his methods were sinister and dark, he still looked human overall.

Evil cultivators like him could never operate openly. They could only make a living by taking underworld jobs. Today, he was probably here to summon corpses for a client and find the "Zhang Wei" they wanted.

Yue Wen's thoughts raced as he considered what to do.

If he kept standing by, the black-clad man would take Qi Dian away once the job was done. Yue Wen might stay safe by hiding until the end, but Qi Dian would certainly meet a terrible fate.

If he went out to fight the black-clad man, victory was hardly guaranteed. He had never encountered an evil cultivator before, after all. He knew neither his opponent's cultivation level nor what tricks he had.

If he secretly called the Supernatural Affairs Bureau, not only would he probably be discovered, but their people would also take some time to arrive.

After thinking it over, Yue Wen looked at the figure in overalls standing ahead. His eyes suddenly lit up as an idea came to him.

The black-clad man placed a temporary soul seal on Qi Dian to keep him from waking, then turned back to the corpses before him.

His actual job wasn't finished yet.

Even evil cultivators who acted without restraint had to finish the jobs they accepted. Otherwise, they would lose their credibility, and with it the support of the underworld. They couldn't survive through normal channels, let alone cultivate.

So in certain matters, evil cultivators followed the rules more closely than orthodox cultivators.

He sent another voice message to his client. "An orthodox cultivator tried to interfere just now. I've dealt with him. Send me any other information you have about the target."

The client soon sent back another long message, all about "Zhang Wei."

Then the client added, "I hope you'll hurry. My patience is limited."

"Don't worry, boss," the black-clad man vowed. "If I still can't pinpoint the target with all this information, I'll go eat shit!"

Putting away his phone, he confidently addressed the five figures standing before him. "Zhang Wei, the perpetually single loser who graduated from River City Technical College, got drunk during military training and publicly pissed outside the girls' dorm while insisting he was showing everyone his weapon, confessed to the girl he liked by giving her canned fermented herring, took selfies in stockings in his dorm and sold them online as worn, only to discover the buyer was his roommate, worked at an antiquities shop after graduation, and stole an important item from that shop while working overtime before his death... step forward!"

With that, he smiled confidently at the five restless corpses, waiting for his target to walk out.

Having already taken several steps forward, the corpses had reached the bottom of the slope and were very close to him. He could make out their mangled faces, which seemed to retain the struggle and agony of their final moments. Those were expressions he loved to see...

Tap, tap.

Before his smile had lasted very long, two corpses took a large step forward together.

"..."

Silence.

A sinister wind swept fallen leaves across the hillside. The black-clad man stared ahead, his mouth hanging open, utterly speechless.

He simply couldn't believe it.

"Huh-what?"

After a long while, he finally stammered, "There are two even with all that?"

Could there really be two such extraordinary specimens in the world?

And both were named Zhang Wei, and both were buried here... He began to wonder whether he had learned the Corpse-Summoning Technique wrong.

?

This was just too bizarre!

Fortunately, there were only two corpses. He could take both back to his employer. Still, remembering his earlier boast, the black-clad man felt a little worried.

My employer won't think I'm some kind of glutton, will they?

"Huh?" The puzzled black-clad man looked back and forth between the two corpses, then suddenly frowned.

One wore overalls and had center-parted hair, its face indistinct. The other's clothes were fairly clean, and its lowered head hid its face, but judging by its general outline, it ought to have been a handsome man.

It also had a more dashing air than the other corpses.

It stood out a little.

He stared at the handsome corpse that stood head and shoulders above the rest and asked hesitantly, "Was this one here just now?"

As he pondered, that "corpse" suddenly raised his head, revealing bright eyes and finely shaped brows. He grinned at the man. "You've got a pretty good memory."

"A living person?!" The black-clad man recoiled in alarm and tried to leap backward.

He had spent half his life playing with corpses, but this was the first time one had frightened him.

It was already too late.

The handsome fake corpse was, of course, Yue Wen. Worried that he might be no match for the man if he tried to rescue Qi Dian head-on, he had quietly slipped in among those "Zhang Weis."

He had used their advance to close the distance between himself and the black-clad man.

Now was the moment to strike!

Sword-Controlling Technique!

A cold gleam shot from Yue Wen's wrist in an instant, the sword light streaking out like Hou Yi's arrow shooting down the sun, impossibly fast! At a greater distance, the black-clad man might have had a chance to dodge, but fewer than seven paces now separated them.

Beyond seven paces, a flying sword was fast.

Within seven paces, a flying sword was both fast and accurate!

-Shhk!