Chapter 40: Chapter 40

Throughout the journey, Hunter’s spiritual sense was having a complete meltdown. Foundation Realm senses screaming warnings constantly. Like car alarms going off in his head. Danger everywhere. Threat level maximum. Please leave immediately.

Except his sense had gone from scanning a mile in every direction to maybe a hundred meters if he pushed it. The corrupted qi was pressing in like fog, limiting his range, making everything harder to read. But he couldn’t just give up and stop using it. That would be even stupider. So he kept pushing, kept scanning, even though every pulse of spiritual awareness felt like shoving his hand into ice water mixed with broken glass.

Can’t leave. Waystation forward. Supplies won’t last if we turn back now. No choice but through.

Story of his life in this world. No good options. Just less terrible ones.

[LUNA] YOUR STRESS LEVELS ARE HIGH (◕‿◕✿)

[LUNA] BREATHING EXERCISES MIGHT HELP

"We’re walking through spiritual Chernobyl and you’re suggesting breathing exercises?"

[LUNA] BREATHING IS IMPORTANT

[LUNA] ALSO YOU’RE SPIRALING

[LUNA] FOCUS ON NEXT STEP, NOT BIG PICTURE ♥

"Next step: don’t die. Step after that: continue not dying. Very manageable goals."

[LUNA] THAT’S THE SPIRIT

[LUNA] YOUR SARCASM NEEDS WORK (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧

Luna was right. Annoyingly right. The big picture was overwhelming. Next step was manageable. Just walk. Just don’t die. Simple goals that felt impossible but were technically achievable.

Hours passed. The corruption peaked somewhere around midday.

They passed a clearing that made Hunter’s spiritual sense try to escape his body and run screaming in the opposite direction.

He stopped walking. Couldn’t help it. His body just refused to move closer. Han, walking beside him at the front of the formation, stopped immediately. The rest of the Shadow Legion, all sixteen souls bound together, halted behind them. Everyone sensing something was very wrong even without Foundation Realm senses.

"Don’t look," Han said quietly from beside him.

But Hunter was already looking. Couldn’t help it. Like watching a car crash in slow motion.

The clearing was maybe thirty feet across. The grass was dead. Not autumn dead. Murdered dead. Black and withered like someone had poured concentrated malice directly into the soil. The trees around the edges were skeletal, bare branches reaching up like clawed hands frozen mid-grab. Get full chapters from Nove1Fire.net

But it was the center that made Hunter’s stomach turn inside out.

A circle of stones arranged in deliberate pattern. Stained dark. Very dark. The kind of dark that doesn’t wash away with rain or time or prayer. The kind of dark that used to be inside people before it was forcibly extracted.

And the smell. Sweet rot mixed with copper so thick Hunter could taste it coating his tongue. His qi recoiled violently like touching hot metal. His dantian felt cold, his meridians contracting protectively. Every cell in his body screaming one message: RUN.

"Ritual site," Qiu whispered, voice shaking in a way Hunter had never heard from the pragmatic merchant. "The stones are positioned wrong for natural formation. Someone arranged them deliberately."

"Multiple victims," Han added, his military composure cracking. His hand tightened around his spear shaft. "The qi corruption is too widespread for one or two deaths. This took time. Planning. Repetition."

"How recent?" Hunter managed to ask through the bile rising in his throat.

"Weeks. Maybe days." Qiu’s face had gone pale as old parchment. "The corruption is still active. Still spreading like infection through the natural qi. Whatever happened here..." He swallowed hard. "It was very, very bad."

Hunter’s spiritual sense touched the clearing’s edge experimentally and immediately pulled back like touching fire. The wrongness there was overwhelming. Not just corruption. Intent. Malicious, hungry, gleeful intent soaked into the ground like blood into cloth, like laughter recorded in the soil itself.

Whoever had done this had enjoyed it. Had taken pleasure in the screaming. Had savored every moment of suffering inflicted.

His hands started shaking. "We need to leave. Right now."

"Agreed," Han said, already turning. "Double time. We want distance between us and whatever made that. Maximum speed, maintain formation."

"You think it’s still around?" Hunter asked, voice tight.

Han’s expression was grim, uncertainty bleeding through his usual military confidence. "I don’t know enough about Blood Path techniques to track their movements or predict their patterns. That’s specialized knowledge sect cultivators train for years to develop. What I do know..." He paused, jaw clenched. "What I do know is that Blood Path cultivators return to their hunting grounds. Like predators marking territory. They come back to sites that worked before because the corruption makes future rituals easier. The qi is already twisted, already receptive to their arts."

"So we’re walking through someone’s active hunting ground." Hunter’s voice came out flat.

"Maybe. Or maybe they moved on weeks ago and we’re just seeing the aftermath." Han’s honesty was somehow worse than false confidence would have been. "I can’t tell. That’s the problem with limited knowledge at my cultivation level. Sect members would know. Maybe Core Realm and above might sense more details through stronger spiritual senses. Me? I just know it feels wrong and every instinct I’ve developed in twenty years says we should leave."

"Best idea I’ve heard all day," Qiu muttered, already moving.

Nobody argued. They moved faster, formation tightening protectively around the children. Got past the clearing. Kept moving until the oppressive wrongness started to fade.

But Hunter couldn’t shake the image. The circle of stones arranged with terrible purpose. The dead grass marking boundaries of suffering. The presence of something that had laughed while people died screaming for help that never came.

The oppressive feeling gradually lessened as they put distance between themselves and that cursed place. Still bad. Just less apocalyptically bad. Like moving from "definitely dying" to "probably dying." Progress, technically.

Around mid-afternoon, Han called brief rest. "Ten minutes. Water only. Then we push through completely. Want to be past this entire region before nightfall."

Everyone stopped gratefully but nervously. The Shadow Legion looked rough. Pale faces. Sweating despite cool air. The newer cultivators among them, still at Level 1 Body Refining, were feeling the corruption most intensely. Their meridians, barely refined, couldn’t filter out the tainted qi as effectively. Even Tao, Xuan, and Lex at Level 3 looked shaken, their usually steady qi circulation disrupted by the wrongness in the air. Primal instinct screaming danger in frequencies that bypassed logic and went straight to survival fear.

Tao kept muttering what sounded like prayers under his breath, except Hunter was pretty sure the words were actually the multiplication table. "Seven times eight is fifty-six, seven times nine is sixty-three..." Apparently math was comforting when facing existential horror. Who knew.

Xuan couldn’t stop checking his sword. Drew it. Inspected the blade. Sheathed it. Drew it again thirty seconds later. Nervous energy needing outlet, hands needing something to do besides shake.

Lex had gone quiet. Very concerning. Lex was never quiet. The guy who made inappropriate jokes during demon squirrel attacks, who couldn’t shut up during watch rotations, who talked through everything like verbal diarrhea was a personality trait... silent. He sat against a tree, staring at nothing. Face pale. Hands trembling slightly despite his best efforts to control them.

Hunter sat beside him without invitation. Didn’t have good answers. Couldn’t promise everything would be fine. So he just sat there. Existing near someone who was spiraling, offering presence instead of empty reassurance.

"It’s not everywhere," Hunter said finally, voice quiet. "Most places are normal. Boring even. People live entire lives without encountering this stuff. This is just a bad stretch of road we got unlucky with."

"Bad stretch. Right. That’s one way to describe ’active murder forest with recent victim evidence.’" Lex’s laugh was slightly hysterical, brittle around the edges. "What if we’re next? What if we walk around the next corner and find whoever made that clearing waiting with a smile and bad intentions?"

"Then we fight. We’ve fought worse odds."

"Have we though? Really?" Lex looked at him, eyes too wide. "Those were demon squirrels. Animals. This is people who chose to become monsters. That’s different. That’s worse somehow. Squirrels just wanted food. These cultivators enjoyed killing. That’s so much worse."

Hunter wanted to argue. Couldn’t. Because Lex was absolutely right. There was something fundamentally more terrifying about human evil than animal violence.

"We’ll get through it," Hunter said anyway, because what else could he say?

"Because Han’s been through worse. Qiu’s been through worse. They’re both still alive. That means survival is possible." Hunter met his eyes. "And because we don’t have other options. Forward or die here. Those are the choices."

Lex laughed again. Less hysterical this time. More exhausted resignation. "You’re terrible at pep talks. Absolutely the worst. You should never motivate people professionally."

"Yeah. I know. My pep talks are basically ’we’re probably going to die but maybe not.’"

"But thanks anyway. Somehow that helped."

"Anytime. My rates are reasonable for existential crisis intervention."

Mei walked over with Little Sparrow in tow. Stood beside Hunter. Didn’t speak immediately. Just existed near him. Small and scared but trying to be brave because the adults were pretending everything was fine so she would too.

Little Sparrow was clutching Gerald the rock like a security blanket, knuckles white.

"You okay?" Hunter asked gently.

"The air tastes bad," Mei said, voice small but steady. Matter-of-fact observation without complaint. "Like old meat left out too long in summer heat."

Hunter’s stomach turned. Even knowing how harsh this world was, even after Qiu’s explanations about brutal childhoods and constant danger, it still hurt to hear Mei casually reference rotting meat through personal experience. Seven and a half years old and already familiar with death and decay.

"We’re leaving," he promised, meeting her eyes. "Just taking a short break so people can catch their breath. Then we walk until we’re completely past all the bad air."

"Okay." She nodded. Seemed satisfied with that answer. Then quieter, almost shy: "Can I stay near you? When we walk?"

"Yeah. Of course. You can walk right next to me if that helps."

"Gerald says you’re safer than other people," Little Sparrow added, speaking for his rock companion. "Geological wisdom indicates proximity to Foundation Realm cultivators increases survival probability."

"Gerald’s a very smart rock. Tell him I appreciate his statistical analysis."

Little Sparrow beamed. Mei smiled, small but genuine. The kind of smile that made everything horrible slightly more bearable.

She turned to Little Sparrow with sudden authority. "Give me Gerald for the rest of the walk."

"What? No! Gerald is mine!" Little Sparrow clutched the rock protectively.

"You were being careless with him earlier. That’s dangerous. He could get hurt." Mei’s voice had gone full responsible adult mode despite being seven and a half. "So I’m confiscating him for safety reasons until you demonstrate better geological stewardship."

"I was just carrying him! Gerald didn’t mind!"

"Gerald is a rock. He can’t consent to negligent handling."

"That’s not how rocks work!"

"Give me Gerald or I’m telling Wei Lin you ate his food."

Little Sparrow looked stricken. "You wouldn’t."

There was a brief standoff. Then Little Sparrow reluctantly handed over Gerald with the solemnity of surrendering a sacred artifact under duress.

Mei clutched the rock with satisfaction. Mission accomplished. Order restored through benevolent dictatorship.

Hunter bit back a smile. Seven and a half years old and already mastering negotiation tactics through strategic blackmail. His influence was clearly profound and possibly concerning but also kind of impressive.

She wandered back toward Wei Lin, Gerald secured, Little Sparrow trailing behind while muttering about tyranny and unjust confiscation policies.

Wei Lin was drawing tactical diagrams in dirt with his stick, explaining optimal defensive formations to no one and everyone simultaneously. "The problem with our current formation is the gap between outer perimeter and inner circle. If we tighten the spacing by approximately two feet..."

"Gerald has danger sense," Little Sparrow interrupted, still bitter about the confiscation. "We should follow his navigation instead of your mathematical optimization."

"Geological formations lack neural networks necessary for threat detection," Wei Lin countered with patient condescension. "That’s basic biology."

"Gerald is special. He has geological wisdom accumulated over millions of years of sedimentary existence."

"That’s not how rocks work."

"You don’t understand Gerald like I do."

Normal chaos. Weird chaos. But somehow comforting in its familiarity. The junior division arguing about rocks and tactics while the world around them leaked spiritual poison and corruption.

Children being children despite everything trying to make them not be.

Han approached, expression serious. Very serious. Military mask firmly in place but something haunted underneath. "We need to talk. Away from the others."

They moved to the edge of the rest area, out of easy earshot. Han’s voice dropped low, professional soldier delivering tactical assessment.

"What do you know about demonic cultivation?"

"Evil arts. Use people as resources. Sects hunt practitioners. Blood Path is the most common type." Hunter paused. "That’s about it. My knowledge is embarrassingly limited and probably wrong."

"Close enough for our purposes." Han paused, choosing words carefully like defusing a bomb with vocabulary. "Blood Path cultivation requires victims. It’s not optional or metaphorical. The techniques literally need human life force to function. You drain qi, blood essence, sometimes souls depending on the specific art. Can’t practice it without killing people. That’s the foundation of every Blood Path manual."

"Why would anyone choose that?" The question came out horrified. "Orthodox cultivation is slower but you don’t have to murder people."

"Fast advancement. Orthodox cultivation takes decades of careful progress. Blood Path can reach Foundation Realm in just a few years if you’re willing to kill enough people." Han’s voice went hollow, empty in the way that meant he was holding back something terrible. "If you’re willing to become a monster for power."

"What makes them monsters?" Hunter asked, though he suspected he already knew. "Besides the obvious murder."

"The arts corrupt you. Change you fundamentally on a spiritual level. The tainted qi you absorb from victims integrates into your cultivation base, twists your meridians, poisons your dantian." Han’s jaw clenched, his qi fluctuating slightly with suppressed emotion. "Makes you crave more victims like addiction. The more you kill, the more you need to kill to feel satisfied. Eventually you can’t stop even if you wanted to. The craving becomes physical pain without regular victims. That’s by design. Blood Path manuals include that addiction mechanism deliberately to ensure practitioners can’t back out once they start."

Hunter felt sick. "That’s..."

"Evil. Yes. Completely evil." Han’s voice carried two decades of accumulated horror and helpless rage. "Their killing intent becomes part of them. Permanent. They leak corrupted qi constantly. Can’t suppress it fully no matter how hard they try because it’s integrated into their cultivation base at the foundation level."

"That’s why the forest feels wrong," Hunter said, pieces clicking together. "The killing intent and corrupted qi just... soaking into everything like spiritual pollution."

"Yes. Blood Path cultivators were here. Probably used this route multiple times given the intensity of corruption." Han’s jaw tightened, uncertainty entering his voice. "At least, that’s what I’ve been told by sect members I’ve met over the years. Peak Body Refining doesn’t give you the complete picture of how Blood Path techniques work at higher levels. I’m just repeating secondhand information from people who actually studied this professionally. Higher realm cultivators probably understand the mechanics and tracking methods better. But from what I know, from what I’ve seen..."

He stopped. Swallowed hard. Started again.

"What I know for certain is that when we encounter them, and we probably will because they return to successful hunting grounds, they’re not negotiable threats. They’re not people who made bad choices and might be reasoned with. They’re diseases wearing human skin, and the only cure is death."

The words hit hard. Clinical. Final. This wasn’t moral philosophy or ethical debate. This was tactical assessment from someone who’d seen the aftermath and knew exactly what they were dealing with.

"You’re saying we kill them on sight."

"I’m saying they chose this path knowing exactly what it meant. They crossed lines that can’t be uncrossed. Made themselves into predators that feed on human suffering." Han’s voice dropped even lower, almost a whisper. "They’ll do worse to us, to the children especially, if given any chance. Fresh young victims with pure qi are worth more to Blood Path techniques. That’s why children disappear near corrupted regions. That’s why sect missions focus on finding Blood Path cultivators before they find isolated villages."

Hunter’s stomach twisted. He thought of Mei. Of Wei Lin and Little Sparrow. Of three kids who’d sworn soul bonds and trusted him to keep them safe.

"You’ve seen what they do," Hunter said. Not a question. A statement. "Seen the aftermath."

"Fifteen years ago. Sect hired caravan guards to help secure a crime scene and identify bodies. They needed extra hands because..." Han’s expression went distant. Haunted. "Forty-three victims. Most were children. Young children with strong life force. Better for cultivation."

His voice stayed level. Controlled. But Hunter saw his fingers dig into the spear shaft, tension radiating through his whole body.

"There was a toy," Han said quietly, staring at nothing. "Cloth doll. Homemade. Sitting in the dirt beside one of the..." He stopped. Swallowed. Started over. "She couldn’t have been more than six. The doll was clutched in her hand. She died holding it."

Silence. Heavy. Hunter didn’t know what to say. What could anyone say to that?

"Some things you don’t forget," Han continued, voice rough. "Some things change how you see the world. Change what you’re willing to do when you encounter the people responsible. So when the moment comes, when we meet Blood Path cultivators in these woods, you do what’s necessary without hesitation. Understand?"

Hunter thought about Mei. About the junior division arguing over Gerald’s geological wisdom. About three children who should be playing and learning and being safe instead of walking through corruption hunting grounds.

Thought about what Blood Path cultivators would do to them if given the chance.

"Yeah," Hunter said, voice hard. "I understand."

Han nodded once. Sharp. Final. "Good. Now let’s move. We’re burning daylight and I want to be miles away from that clearing before sunset."

They returned to the group. Han called formation with military efficiency. "Rest is over. We move now. Fast pace, tight formation. No stragglers. We want serious distance from that clearing before the sun sets."

The Shadow Legion moved as one.

Sixteen people walking through corruption and the horror that awaited them.