The stink burnt his lungs. Black smoke rose from his ears and nose, and Gangbao keeled over. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

  “Ugh.” The boy clutched his throat. The stench was unbearable, the pain was not. The force of his hand made him collapse further onto the floor, rattling the table and chairs.

  I should be stopping my windpipe! He clutched harder. Best way to stop the stink.

  “Why did you not listen? Was I not clear?” The old beggar rasped. He was usually drunk on wine. Gangbao suspected he was intoxicated on something else now.

  “The cultivators are vermin! They’re parasites, taking all our women and wine! We, the little folks, have to stick together. The emissary said so, the great lord chose so!” Spittle flew from the beggar’s mouth, his eyes turning purple and red. His nose was comically large, protruding from his ragged hood.

  He was angry.

  At me? Gangbao felt his grip on his throat loosen. Are they going to spare me?

  “Filthy traitor. I liked you. Even begged the lord to give ye a worm. But ye killed it!” The beggar gestured with his nose, and the helper girl stepped forward. She took her hands out of her tattered robe.

  Where fingers should be, there were claws.

  “Deliver his head. I’ll make up to the lord for the wasted worm.” The beggar commanded, and Gangbao knew this was it.

  “Y-You, why are you doing this?” He felt his hand tighten again, this time almost crushing his throat. But with a wheeze, he managed to get the words out, “W-We gave you work! Granny Nyang took care of you!”

  “I know. I’ll go to her next.” The girl replied sweetly as she approached.

  “B-But why?”

  “Because she deserves better.” That was her only answer, filled with absolute conviction. “I’ll deliver her to my lord. Then we’ll all be happy.”

  The girl raised her claws, placing them at Gangbao’s neck. The old beggar looked away, and even the other hooded figures looked mournful.

  Gangbao recognized them. Some were neighbours, then there were the workers. Madlanders from the slums, and the maid from the tavern.

  Maid…. I wonder what the scary Yao maid told me back then. I… can’t remember.

  He focused on the piece of paper between his vice-grip hand and aching throat. It felt warm.

  His soul screeched in pain. No! It wasn’t his soul, but a worm. An ugly transparent worm he could now see clearly with his–Qi, is this qi? Inner vision?

  Gangbao noticed a crucial detail. What screeched wasn’t the worm either, but its corpse! That’s right! The scary maid had killed it. And then–

  Why didn’t she take it out?

  The helper girl’s claws nicked his skin.

  The door upstairs was kicked open, and a shadow rushed out holding a sharp, metallic blade.

  ***

  An Xing, the face of Dark Star, cut down another cultist before reaching out with his abnormally long arms to clutch the throat of another. Although he was the face of the mercenary group, his own face was hidden behind a sinister bone mask. Through the tiny bead-shaped eyeholes, he cast his gaze upon his captive.

  It was a young woman, her eyes filled with fear.

  “P-Plea—” She begged.

  With a sickening crunch, the young woman was dead, and the void qi left through all her orifices. The girl’s body joined the seven other corpses at his feet. Vermins, each and every one of them.

  The clearing was getting crowded. An Xing took a step forward. The remaining three cultists took a step back.

  They gulped, all in the Imperfect Heaven 2nd Realm, with one at the peak stage.

  They also had an Imperfect Heaven 3rd realmer. A madlander as large as a tree with four eyes, two of them grafted from voidfiends. So confident he was, spouting some nonsense about lord this and emissary that.

  That man’s head was now crushed like a watermelon in the centre of a crater to the clearing’s south.

   Came the message from his wife.

   An Xing corrected.

  

  Cultists, no better than their void brethren, plagues that infested the Last Ascension Mortal Plane like cancer. They did the void’s bidding as insider agents, summoning fiends and corrupting the grand dao wherever they went. Their only mission was the total destruction of the dao and all intelligent life on the mortal plane with it.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  

  

  An Xing clicked his tongue as the last of the cultists died. He jumped up, releasing his Imperfect Heaven 3rd Realm power without holding back. His dao shard churned out aspected qi to the beats of blood.

  ***

  “Hahaha! Why stall your death like rats, oh scourge of the planes? Shouldn't you cultivators challenge the heavens head-on?” The cultist woman yelled as another tree turned into cinder shrapnel.

  The leader of the mercenary team, nicknamed Leady, covered his body with qi again, letting the defensive spiritual art absorb most of the damage. He then used the force from the explosion to propel himself in the opposite direction.

  The cultist woman gathered qi to her grotesque mouth, her sharp teeth glinting like a silver saw. The void qi condensed, then shot out in a stream of destruction, turning the forest in her path into a corrupted wasteland.

  Leady dodged still, not wasting qi with any gaudy counterattack, using the branches and rocks as springboards.

  “Leady, this is bad!” Hairy yelled from somewhere.

   Leady wrote into the artefact. He got no reply.

  <(μ_μ)? >

  Other than from Lanky.

  “Status!” He yelled out.

  “These madlanders bitches used some kind of acid smog. They got our stuff.”

  “It won’t take long. Focus on defence!” Leady yelled back, then spun out of the way of another void qi beam.

  “Defense? For what? Do you want to live that much, oh cowardly heretics? I shall deny that! Soon, like your friends, your heads will be delivered to the merciful lord.” The cultist woman said. She gestured with her tongue, and the lackeys that had been helping her chase Leady down scattered. They were heading in Soupy and Hairy’s direction.

  Tsk. Okay, woman, let’s talk. Leady decided to probe. “W-What do you mean? Did you attack the other teams too?”

  “Oh, ho ho. Attack? No, no, lost child. It was but an invitation to serve the great void. In death, they shall be liberated, as we will soon liberate the whole mortal plane!” Her eyes were sickly purple, her veins green. She was confident in her victory.

  “Aren’t you afraid? We have the sects on our side! They will hunt you down, each and every one.” Leady sidestepped a clawed hand, then unleashed another defensive spiritual art to deflect a scythe kick. He was quite proud of the fear he managed to ‘unconsciously’ leak through his voice.

  “Sects? Ahahaha. Those dens of depravity. And how shall they know? For all their vast knowledge, you four merely messed up your mission and were gobbled up by the accursed chaosfiends. Not even bones will be left!”

  “Yeah, right. Then what about the other teams? All of them failed? They’ll know something is fishy before the day is even over.”

  “Leady! Soupy’s injured. I’m running.” Hairy screamed from somewhere and ran in a ‘random’ direction. His teammates had picked up on Leady’s ploy.

  “Dammit all!” Leady roared, trying extra hard to appear distressed, then unleashed his dao shard to its fullest capacity. The aspected spirit qi flooded out like a dome. He vanished, and then appeared in the path of the other cultists who wanted to chase after Hairy and Soupy.

  “Quite admirable, oh misdirected martyr. We shall take you first since you have kindly remained behind.” The cultist woman cackled even as Leady ripped one of her fellow cultists to pieces after connecting the madlander man’s limbs to eight different trees with his spiritual art.

  < 3. >

  Leady saw that message from Lanky, then grinned.

  “What’s so funny?” The cultist woman stopped. Her face distorted in humiliation. By now, her dark shaded madlander skin was nowhere to be seen. It had turned into ash grey with pulsing veins of purple and green. “How dare you laugh?”

  “Y-You made a big mistake. Even if the sects can’t figure out what happened, what about the Su Fox Clan?” Leady wheezed.

  “Ah, yes. The corrupted grace from the south. Do not worry, it's of no concern.”

  “You bluff?”

  “We, do, not, bluff.” The void qi from the cultist woman rushed out like a tsunami, as did her corrupted art. One strand of the beams even hit one of her allies, the poor man’s body bursting into cinder shrapnel. “The sects, the city, and even the land bridge itself! None will escape our convergence, for the lord emissary himself has come to clean the house!”

  “There’s a Wretched Emissary?” Leady yelled in shock, this time he did not need to feign it.

  “HOW DARE YOU!” The cultist woman seemed to go insane, not that she was particularly sane before. The frequency of her attacks increased as though she had unlimited void qi to spare, and the other cultists had to retreat from the area because of the friendly fire. “OUR LORD IS HOLY! YOU HERETIC SCUM ARE THE WRETCHED ONES!” She then grinned, her purple eyes morphing into crescents, “And soon, he will have your heads. The heads of the sectsmen, of the townsfolk, and even of the corrupted grace from the south.”

  “I have a hard time believing you, scum. You want to kill Fairy Su? In your dreams perhaps!”

  “Well, it matters not what you believe. Today will be the last day the scandalous princess will walk the planes. Heh, for we know her weakness. How dare she call herself an immortal! The Lord shall kill her.” The cultist woman laughed, “Just like he had killed the corrupted grace from the West.”

  Leady gasped, the sentence hitting him like a horned ram, “Y-You, what?” He didn’t need to fake his astonishment.

  The madlander cultist woman opened her mouth, but not to reply. Another beam shot out, and the battle continued.

   Leady was salivating. He immediately sent the juicy gossip into the communicator network, then got back to ‘arguing’ with the madlander woman.

  ***

  “That’s what he said.” An Ping, the leader of the Dark Star Mercenaries, repeated the information she had received from her comrades.

  She stood with Yung and Su Nanya, at the command where the cultivators from the sects and clans were gathered.

  Had, gathered.

  It was already past the time when the various teams were supposed to lure the chaosfiend stampedes to join the battle between the Four Fears Chimera and the Bone-eating Putrid Python. With the chaosfiend reinforcements, and under the renewed aura of the chaos-spring, the Four Fears Chimera was supposed to war and win against the void, rupturing the voidrift sideways until it was gone.

  The chaosfiends, in turn, would have been injured greatly in the process too, so the cultivators would clean them up. If there was an Unfolding Heaven 1st Realm voidfiend, as long as it wasn’t a 3-star species or higher, the Flareful Empress and the other cultivators could kill it.

  But that didn’t happen. The exact opposite happened.

  From the many caves dotting the valley, legions of voidfiends rushed out, guided by hooded cultists, most of whom were madlanders.

  And from one of the nearest caves to the blindspot of the Four Fears Chimera, a beam of void qi shot out, skewering the chaosfiend’s bird-head instantly. Its other three heads cried out in pain before the fiend ran into one of the caves.

  Indeed, it ran away, with the Bone Eating Putrid Python slithering after it.

  The cave system merely a few hundred meters from the chaos-spring exploded, revealing the culprit behind the fearsome void qi attack. The Flareful Empress clicked her tongue and rushed towards the scene.

  It was a Wretched Emissary. Most certainly in the Unfolding Heaven 1st Order, and looked to be from a breed no one knew about. And unfortunately, even the weakest Wretched Emissaries were classified as 4 star voidfiends.

  The plan was ruined. It was a free for all now. The voidfiends were making short work of the chaosfiends. The sect cultivators had followed the Flareful Empress’s lead to protect the chaos-spring.

  “If this emissary is strong enough to kill the revived grace from the west, then we are doomed. Unless, of course, Fairy Su has some methods.” An Ping said calmly.

  “Tut, what lies these insects utter. Is our precious Su Xiya not here, playing her fun games on the lushful trees?” Su Nanya yawned, pointing at the fluffy grey fox.

  Indeed, Madam Floofykins was alive. Yung had floofed her this morning; she was definitely not dead.

   Su Nanya wrote.

   The message caught Yung off guard.

   She explained, The vixen paused, considering her words.

  The light in the fox princess’s eyes threatened to spill over in rage, yet only Yung could feel it. Su Nanya would only ever show her vulnerable side to him.

  So Yung would listen, and he would do his best to support his girlfriend. Before that, though.

   He needed to ask!

  I have unlocked an extra completely free-of-charge chapter on Patreon. No strings attached. (But I would be immensely grateful if you could give the story a fair review!)

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