Ethan didn’t even look at the pile of fifty freshly decapitated corpses. He casually swept his plain iron sword through the air, clearing an invisible speck of dust from the steel before sliding it back into its leather scabbard with a crisp, echoing CLICK.
"You lot," Ethan said, his voice dropping into a flat, lazy baritone as he gestured with his chin toward the remaining, shivering rcenaries. "Pick up the hunting tools. Start cutting those logs and build enough cargo sledges to haul every single piece of material in this clearing. If any of you feel like testing your luck and escaping through the mist, feel free to try it."
"This is insane!" a heavily armored rcenary from the rear ranks suddenly scread, his face contorted in a mix of terror and indignation. "You’ve slaughtered half our leadership! You think you can just enslave—"
SHING!
Ethan didn’t let the man finish his sentence. His arm blurred in a casual, backhanded arc. A second, blinding crescent of golden light—another catastrophic Brilliant Slice—erupted from his blade, expanding instantly as it swept across the left flank of the rcenary crowd.
WHOO-SHUNG!
The golden wave tore through the ranks like a scythe through dry grass, instantly silencing the protests. Another forty rcenaries were cleanly bisected at the waist, their upper bodies sliding off their legs into the mud in a horrific, synchronized eruption of blood and internal organs. The sheer, unadulterated brutality of the strike completely erased the remaining n’s will to resist.
Within less than two minutes, a proud coalition of two hundred battle-hardened frontier killers had been systematically decimated, leaving barely a hundred survivors trembling in the dirt.
"Move," Ethan commanded softly, his athyst eyes completely void of emotion.
He walked back toward the massive redwood tree, his boots stepping over the erald spider ichor. With an air of absolute, supre indifference, he slid down the trunk and leaned his back against the rough bark, closing his eyes as if the remaining hundred ard cultivators didn’t even deserve a fraction of his attention.
"Watch them closely, Roy, Sister Mary," Ethan murmured, his voice sounding entirely tranquil to the outside world. "If any of them steps an inch out of line or attempts to flee, do not waste your breath. I will personally ensure not a single soul leaves this valley alive. There will be no further warnings."
"Understood, Master Ethan!" Roy shouted instantly, standing as straight as an arrow, his hand resting firmly on his katana as he glared at the terrified prisoners.
"Leave them to us, Ethan," Mary added, her voice tight but fiercely confident as she drew her longbow, her eyes sweeping over the rcenaries like a hawk guarding its nest.
The survivors quickly scrambled toward the fallen redwoods, frantically hacking at branches and binding logs with trembling hands, terrified that even a slow movent might trigger another golden flash of death. To them, the youth resting under the tree was an untouchable, omnipotent monster who could slaughter hundreds without breaking a sweat.
But beneath that mask of absolute, terrifying arrogance, Ethan was living on a razor’s edge.
The mont his eyelids closed, a violent tremor threatened to shake his chest. Inside his restricted core, his spiritual energy was completely, entirely depleted. His ridians burned with a fierce, hollow ache, and his vision was swimming in a sea of gray exhaustion.
He was at the absolute brink of fainting.
The first Brilliant Slice had consud more than half of his remaining reserve; executing that second golden crescent to silence the rear ranks had been an astronomical gamble that completely drained his marrow. If a single mid-tier cultivator had possessed the courage to step forward and test his defense right now, Ethan wouldn’t even have had the strength to lift his iron blade.
Yet, he sat there, legs crossed and posture completely relaxed, projecting an aura of supre, unbothered majesty. He had deliberately executed those forty additional n with a careless, backhanded flick to drive a psychological stake of absolute terror into the survivors’ souls. On the frontier, a display of rcy from an injured man was an invitation to be slaughtered—but a display of casual, excessive cruelty from an apparently bored master was an absolute deterrent.
"Faster, you useless dogs!" a rcenary sub-leader barked at his own n, his face covered in cold sweat as he hauled a heavy wooden log toward the spider matriarch. "If the master opens his eyes and sees we aren’t moving, he’ll turn the rest of us into fertilizer! Move your heavy asses!"
Louisa quietly stepped closer to Ethan’s resting form, her eyes still wide with that intense, intoxicating mix of fear and adoration. She noticed a faint bead of sweat forming near his temple, and without a word, she knelt down beside him, using her clean sleeve to gently, reverently wipe his brow, her heart hamring wildly against her ribs just from being within his suffocating, magnificent presence.
Ethan didn’t open his eyes, but a faint, internal smile crossed his mind as the passive absorption of his Great Athyst Devourer constitution began to slowly, microscopically draw in the ambient spiritual energy from the fresh pools of blood around him.
Louisa’s small, delicate fingers trembled slightly as she pulled her sleeve away from his brow, her large eyes fixed entirely on his rugged, sculpted face.
"Master Ethan..." Louisa whispered, her voice barely louder than the rustle of the leaves above.
"Just call Ethan," he replied smoothly, his deep cutting through her nerves like a velvet blade. He didn’t open his eyes, his features locked in a state of absolute, unbothered tranquility that made him appear even more profound, mysterious, and completely unreachable to the world around them. "What is it?"
Louisa swallowed hard, her knees pressing into the damp, blood-stained soil as she leaned in closer, terrified that the rcenary prisoners working in the distance might catch her words. "Master... is there... is there absolutely anything I can do for you right now?"
-------------------
From this mont forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.
Note: These are only the ranks ntioned so far to avoid spoilers.
Body Refinent Realm
Skin Refinent / Bone Refinent / Organ Refinent
Spiritual Gathering Realm
Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation
Spiritual Core Realm
Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Spiritual Core)
Spiritual Soul Realm
Spiritual Soul Awakening / Soul Nourishing / Soul-Core Fusion
Golden Core Realm
Pri Fusion / Core Perfection / Core Destruction
Spiritual Sea Realm
Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??
Dao Manifestation Realm
Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??
Spiritual Transcendence
Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??
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