The city had sunk into its midnight hush by the ti Robert moved. He left the inn like a shadow unmoored, slipping through the narrow lanes where lantern light sputtered against cracked walls. The Carr compound lood in the distance—its spires faint against the moon, its walls bristling with watch fires and restless guards.
Robert stopped in a narrow alley opposite the compound. He inhaled, focused, and summoned the presence bound to him. A ripple of darkness stirred at his feet, and from it rose the Shadow Reaper Assassin. Its form was tall and gaunt, cloaked in an aura that bent the moonlight away, its blade fingers shimring like liquid night. A faint pull tugged at Robert's chest—one thousand soul points evaporating like mist. He accepted the loss calmly.
The Carr clan boasted strength, yes—elders at Spirit Root levels eight and nine, and their clan head, Tom Carr, rumored to have reached the Soul Manifestation Realm, first level. But compared to the Reaper, they were brittle stone before a scythe.
Robert's lips curved faintly. "Tonight, they will now fear."
He crossed the street openly, boots striking stone.
The guards at the gate stiffened, squinting into the gloom. For a heartbeat, disbelief froze them. Then recognition struck like a storm. "It is him!" One guard choked. "The ghost we have hunted for five days!"
The man bolted inside, his voice echoing through the courtyard. "he is here! The one who crippled young master Ewan!"
The compound erupted with noise. Torches flared to life, boots hamred against stone, and weapons scraped free of their scabbards. But Robert did not falter. He stood at the threshold, cloak loose around his shoulders, face half-lit by torchlight. His silence was heavier than their shouting.
Inside, word raced ahead of him. An elder burst into the inner hall, bowing low before the clan head.
Tom Carr sat at his son's bedside, jaw clenched, eyes bloodshot with sleepless rage. Ewan lay there, pale and broken, his dantian shattered, his future stolen. When the knock ca, Tom's fury lashed out instantly.
"Why do you disturb ?" His voice cracked like a whip. "Have you found the coward, or do you dare waste my ti again?"
The elder swallowed hard, but his tone carried urgency. "Patriarch… The boy has co himself. He stands at our gate."
For a mont, Tom thought he had misheard. Then his body surged with killing intent, the bed fra rattling under the force. He rose, his aura flaring, and stord toward the hall.
All right. The villain who dared to cripple my son will be visible to .
By the ti Tom arrived, dozens of guards and elders had gathered. Robert stood calmly in the center, a lone figure encircled by steel and malice. At his back, the Shadow Reaper lood, silent, unblinking, its very presence curdling the torchlight.
Tom Carr strode forward, fury etched deep into his features. His voice carried across the hall like a thunderclap.
"Why?" He demanded, pointing a trembling hand. "Why did you destroy my son's dantian? Who are you, and what clan do you belong to?"
Robert t his gaze without flinching. His voice was even, almost casual.
"I am no one. And as for your son, he provoked in the market and humiliated common folk while hiding behind your na. He thought his arrogance was a shield enough. I rely showed him otherwise."
The hall erupted into a storm of whispers. Shock rippled through the gathered crowd—this boy, no older than eighteen by the look of him, spoke to Tom Carr with a calmness that bordered on insolence.
Tom's face turned crimson, his fists trembling. "A worm dares to lecture ?" He whirled on his guards, barking the order. "Kill him before my eyes! Tear him apart!"
Robert's hand rested on the hilt of his sword. His golden eyes flickered in the torchlight as he spoke softly, his words sharp enough to cut the silence.
"You are making the sa mistake as your son."
Tom Carr's roar drowned him out. "Strike! Now!"
Dozens of blades drew as the guards lunged forward, qi flaring like sparks in the night.
Robert exhaled once, steady, and moved.
The first wave of Carr guards ca at him like a tide—swords flashing, qi humming with the raw aggression of Spirit Root cultivators at the first stage. Their auras were loud and unrefined, trying to crush him through sheer noise. Robert's gaze sharpened. His hand tightened on his sword's hilt.
He vanished.
To the onlookers, it seed his body flickered, dissolving into shadows and reappearing between two guards. Shadow Step—Second Form: Breath Sync. His movents were so perfectly in rhythm with their own inhales and exhales that they failed to register him until his sword had already whispered past.
Steel rang. One guard stumbled back, his weapon sheared in half, the qi along its edge collapsing. Robert twisted and pivoted, and his sword described a smooth arc that forced the two others to stumble into each other. His strikes were not ant to kill—each blow targeted the threads of qi that bound their cultivation, unraveling them with performative skill.
Another rushed him from behind, sword raised. Robert's cloak swirled as he turned, his sword tracing a spiraling path through the air. Coiling Scales—Second Form. The technique twisted his opponent's strike inward, collapsing the man's stance before Robert's hilt slamd into his chest. The guard crumpled with a gasp, clutching his dantian as his cultivation unraveled.
Ten heartbeats. That was all it took for the first five to fall.
The Shadow Reaper remained still at Robert's back, its tall, featureless form watching silently. The Carr elders exchanged wary glances, misinterpreting its inaction.
So that is it, they thought. The boy relies on that figure's strength. The person is simply conserving their power, letting him play with the guards.
Their mistake made Robert's task easier.
Another flurry of blades ca at him. He dropped low, spinning with a sweep of his sword that tore through their defenses. Sparks lit the hall as his steel slid along them, not shattering, not tearing flesh—rely severing the delicate balance of qi that sustained their cultivation. Each man staggered back, clutching at their chest or abdon, their auras sputtering like candles in a storm.
He rose, his cloak snapping behind him, his sword tip steady. His breath was calm and asured. His eyes, however, burnt with restrained power.
By the tenth breath, silence fell. Every guard who had attacked him lay groaning on the floor, their cultivation stripped away like paint peeled from old wood. Their weapons lay in shards or scattered uselessly across the polished stone.
Robert stood exactly where he had begun, not a drop of blood on him, not a scratch upon his body. His sword glead faintly in the torchlight before he lowered it to his side.
Gasps rippled through the hall.
Elders leaned forward, trying to reconcile what they had just seen. Dozens of Spirit Root level one cultivators had been dismantled, one by one, in re breaths. And not a single life was taken. The precision was unnerving, unnatural.
Robert's voice broke the silence, low and unshaken.
"I am not here to fight." He let the words hang for a mont, asured, undeniable. His gaze swept across the hall until it settled on Tom Carr himself. "I am here to say—stop looking for . I did not co to make enemies of your clan. I ca to ask questions. Nothing more."
The tension that gripped the hall did not ease. If anything, it thickened, swelling around Tom Carr like a storm about to break.
The clan head's jaw trembled with rage, his aura flaring until the very torches bent in its pressure. The sight of his guardsn loyal to him, sworn to his family's strength, lying crippled on the stone, was more than humiliation. It was an insult.
"You dare stand here and lecture ?" Tom's voice thundered, his killing intent suffocating. "You cripple my son. You humiliate my guards. You think you can speak with such arrogance in my hall?"
Robert did not flinch. "Your son provoked . Your guards obeyed your order. I rely defended myself. If you listen, we may avoid more bloodshed."
But Tom Carr was past listening. He surged, shaking the rafters. The Soul Manifestation Realm, the first level, unfurled around him like a tempest, crashing against the walls and rolling over the gathered elders. Many had to steady themselves under the weight of his power.
Tom's finger stabbed through the air, pointing at Robert like the edge of a blade.
"You will not leave this hall alive. I will kill you myself. And let all who hear of this know—whoever dares touch the Carr family will pay in blood!"
Robert's grip on his sword tightened. His cloak shifted in the storm of qi, his hair lifting slightly under the pressure. Behind him, the Shadow Reaper tilted its head, a subtle, chilling gesture—as though it had been waiting for this very mont.
The hall held its breath.
The storm was about to break.
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