The white void of the Mortal Shroud Mist hung thick and heavy inside the lobby of the archives, transforming the room into a sensory vacuum.
Elder Qi’s dark green wood Qi flared like a dying star, frantically lashing out to form a protective periter of thorny briars. His fingernails, stained with poisonous residue, clawed the empty air as he tried to re-anchor his spiritual orientation.
"Form a circle! Back to back!" Qi commanded, his smooth, high-pitched voice cracking with a sudden spike of raw panic. "It’s a localized array! Don't let the master pick you off!"
He still believed they were being targeted by an elite, high-tier cultivator hiding in the rafters. He had no choice but to think that way; a mortal could never bypass the spiritual perception of a third-seal master.
Shen Jin drifted through the dense white condensation like a feather falling through a windless night. His boots made absolutely no sound against the mud-slicked floorboards. The translucent map of his Danger Sense Radar guided his hands with terrifying geotric precision.
To his right, the second enforcer was blindly swinging a heavy iron club, the weapon cutting a desperate, whistling arc through the fog.
Shen Jin stepped into the blind spot of the swing. He didn't execute a loud punch. Instead, his right palm gently glided forward, making light contact with the enforcer's ribs.
Vanguard Pulse.
A micro-frequency kinetic vibration shot directly through the man's leather vest, bypassing his muscle tissue entirely and rattling the underlying bone matrix. The enforcer let out a muffled, strangled gasp as his lung capacity instantly collapsed. He fell sideways into a row of historical ledgers, losing consciousness before his head hit the floor.
Two down. Four to go.
"Brother Chen? Report!" a voice barked from the left.
Shen Jin turned on his heel, using [Glinting Shadow Steps] to phase through a patch of absolute shadow thrown by a towering oak bookcase. He materialized right behind the third and fourth enforcers, who were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, their blades raised in a panicked guard.
Shen Jin didn't waste ti with delicate strikes. He reached out, grabbed the collars of both n’s robes, and subtly channeled the pressurized internal energy of his Second Seal. With a light, fluid pull, he caused their montum to collapse into each other.
BANG.
Their foreheads collided with a dull, heavy thud. The structural force of the impact—fortified by Shen Jin’s kinetic distribution—was enough to split their defensive Qi lines instantly. Both n went limp, collapsing into the white mist like severed strings.
"Who's there?! Show yourself!" Elder Qi scread.
The branch head of the Flowing Jade Chamber was losing his mind. In less than forty seconds, four of his most ruthless elite enforcers had gone silent within the mist without throwing a single counter-strike or releasing a defensive flare. The absolute quiet of their defeats was far more terrifying than a roaring battle.
Qi let out a guttural roar, abandoning his delicate Vine-Braid Bind control. He opened his ridians fully, unleashing a violent, omnidirectional shockwave of green spiritual wood needles from his body. Thousands of sharp, toxic splinters exploded outward in a 360-degree radius, designed to shred anything within fifteen ters.
[🚨 DANGER SENSE ACTIVATED!]
High-Density Projectile Matrix Detected.
Trajectory: Omnidirectional. Fatality Rate: 0% (Iron Skin active).
Structural Integrity Warning: The wood needles will heavily compromise the structural pillars of the library lobby.
Optimal Counter-Path: Execute [Kinetic Dissipation] via the soles of your feet while creating a localized atmospheric vacuum with your umbrella.
Shen Jin didn't try to dodge the thousands of toxic splinters. He stood perfectly still, opening his arms wide as he executed the advanced principles of the Vanguard ridian Scripture’s second volu.
The mont the storm of green needles struck his chest and limbs, his skin didn't tear. The Iron Skin Ointnt lattice held perfectly. More importantly, his active sub-technique, [Kinetic Dissipation], ignited through his pathways. The imnse kinetic force of the third-seal projectile storm was instantly absorbed into his flesh, converted into a neutral, liquid current, and sent rushing down his legs.
THUD.
A deep, low vibration rattled the stone foundation of the library as Shen Jin discharged Elder Qi's full-power attack directly into the bedrock of the city. The stone floor beneath his boots cracked into a spiderweb pattern, but his body remained entirely unbothered.
However, the sheer volu of the explosive needle blast had a side effect. The violent displacent of air tore a massive hole through the center of the Mortal Shroud Mist, revealing the state of the room.
The fog cleared just enough to show four enforcers scattered across the floor, completely unconscious.
And standing directly in front of Elder Qi, clutching a broken, shredded oilskin umbrella and shaking violently from head to toe, was the scrawny stable boy, Shen Jin. His clothes were torn, and his face was covered in white plaster dust. To anyone looking, it appeared the poor child had just walked through the front door at the exact worst second, getting caught squarely in the crossfire of the branch head’s massive area-of-effect attack.
"Y-You..." Elder Qi gasped, blinking through the clearing mist, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at the stable boy. He looked around frantically for the hidden master, completely unable to process that his ultimate technique had just been swallowed by the bedrock.
"The needles... they're so sharp!" Shen Jin wailed, letting out a high-pitched, pathetic shriek of terror.
In his "panic," Shen Jin stumbled forward blindly, his foot catching on the trailing hem of his oversized trousers. He fell face-first toward Elder Qi, his arms flailing wildly in the air.
To Elder Qi, it looked like a terrified mortal child was falling toward him. Out of pure, defensive reflex, Qi raised his left hand to swat the boy away like a fly.
But as Shen Jin’s flailing right hand ca forward, his palm "accidentally" brushed against the main ridian node located right beneath Elder Qi’s raised elbow—the exact nexus where the man's wood Qi circulated from his core to his limbs.
Shen Jin didn't throw a punch. He simply let his fingers twitch.
Vanguard Pulse: Maximum Frequency.
A microscopic, invisible kinetic shockwave—vibrating at a frequency designed to liquefy internal structures—injected itself straight into Elder Qi’s primary ridian gate.
CRACK.
It made no external sound. But inside Elder Qi’s body, the effect was catastrophic. The sudden, high-frequency disruption caused his own pressurized, third-seal spiritual energy to violently backfire. The green wood Qi reversed its flow, tearing through his own internal pathways like a chainsaw.
"GAAAAH!" Elder Qi let out an agonizing, blood-curdling shriek.
He flew backward six feet, his left arm instantly twisting at an unnatural, broken angle as his own muscles convulsed. Blood erupted from his nose and ears as his internal dantian lines suffered a massive, debilitating shockwave. He crashed hard against the mahogany reception counter, sliding into the mud, his face pale as death.
Shen Jin landed hard on the floorboards beside him, rolling twice before hitting a stack of fallen books. He imdiately curled into a ball, clutching his head and crying loudly.
"I'm sorry! I didn't an to trip! Please don't kill !" Shen Jin sobbed, his voice echoing through the ruined lobby.
The front door creaked open further. Old ng stood behind his desk, his unadorned iron sword drawn by three inches, his single clear eye wide with an expression of absolute, stunned bewildernt. He looked at the five elite enforcers twitching on the floor, then at the heavily crippled branch head coughing up blood, and finally at the wailing stable boy covered in dust.
To Old ng, the calculus of reality had just broken. The stable boy had run into the room, gotten blasted by an omnidirectional needle storm, stumbled in panic, and sohow managed to accidentally trigger a catastrophic ridian backfire in a third-seal master by tripping over his own pants.
[PING.]
[High-Tier Confrontation Concluded: Elder Qi Neutralized.]
Assessnt: The host successfully defended the base of operations, neutralized a third-seal threat, and discharged a full-power elental strike safely into the earth. Public perception remains thoroughly convinced of your utter clumsiness and absurd, demonic jinx status.
[Rewards Distributed:]
45 Vanguard Points (VP) added to the Karma Ledger.
Current Balance: 45 VP.
Elder Qi dragged his broken body up, staring at Shen Jin with a look of pure, unadulterated horror. "Cursed... the boy is a living calamity..." he wheezed, before turning on his heel and fleeing into the rainy street, abandoning his unconscious enforcers entirely.
Shen Jin kept his face buried in his sleeves, his theatrical tears continuing to flow. But beneath the fabric, his lips curled into a calm, dangerous smile. Forty-five points. Volu Three of the Scripture was within his grasp, and the ledger was growing heavier by the day.
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