Deng Feng was a seventh subrealm Anima Realm cultivator and the newly made second in command of the Raging Boars. Like the other members of this sect, he had once been a roaming bandit who made a living from those he pillaged. He joined Mao Yuhan after the man displayed his incredible prowess. He had been lured in by the man with promises of power, riches, and women.

And he’d gotten those.

Until recently.

“We’ve been searching this damn forest for a whole day. Where the hell is that brat,” he grumbled.

Mao Yuhan had established a base near the Magical Beast Forest’s mouth, then had his men expand their search out from that point in a net. The goal was to thoroughly search the forest, leaving no stone untouched, while continuously expanding their search radius to prevent Jian Wu from escaping.

So far, they hadn’t had much luck.

At the very least, Deng Feng had seen neither hide nor hair of the brat.

“Sir! We’ve found something!” someone called out.

Deng Feng turned in that direction. “What did you find?”

“Footprints,” said the man.

Deng Feng rubbed his chin as he looked at the footprints. It was hard to judge who they belonged to, but he could tell their shape that whoever made them was wearing boots. He followed the footprints as they disappeared around a tree.

“Let’s follow the footprints,” he decided. Maybe they wouldn’t lead him to the person they sought, but this was the only lead they had so far.

With Deng Feng in the lead, they followed the footprints as they created a winding path around numerous trees. Sometimes they stopped only to reappear several chih away. It was like someone had tried to erase their tracks but failed. Deng Feng smirked. Whoever this person was, they did not possess the skills needed to erase their presence.

His thoughts changed when the footprints came to an abrupt end. They stopped in the middle of a clearing. It was like whoever they belonged to had suddenly sprouted wings and flown away. Deng Feng looked left, then right, but no matter where he looked, no new footprints appeared.

“Dammit. What’s going on here…”

“AAAAAHHHH!”

At that moment, cries of alarm echoed behind him. Deng Feng whirled around. His eyes bulged at the sight of several of his men impaled upon black spears. The spears had emerged from his men’s shadows. Most of them were already dead, their hearts pierced, but a few were squirming as they bled out.

Someone suddenly dropped from the ground. It was a young man with black hair, dark eyes, and fair skin. He wore a sleeveless black gi. His bare arms were muscular and covered in scars. Deng Feng remembered seeing him once. This was their target!

“It’s you! Jian Wu!” Deng Feng shouted.

Jian Wu only glanced at him for a moment before exploding into action. He was in front of Deng Feng before the man could even blink. His speed was shocking. What kind of training did this brat do to get so fast?! And wait. Since when had he reached the Anima Realm?!

While shocked, Deng Feng was experienced with life and death battles. He’d been fighting for his life since before joining the Raging Boars. When Jian Wu threw a punch, Deng Feng raised his sword to block the air. He didn’t use the flat end either. His goal was to let the boy slice his hand apart on his blade.

That didn’t happen.

Deng Feng grunted when something slammed into the back of his head. He stumbled forward. Jian Wu turned his sword aside, grabbed his head in a clincher, and slammed a knee into his face. His vision went white as pain exploded in his nose. Deng Feng screamed in shock as he was launched off his feet and flew through the air.

He attempted to swing his legs around so he would land on his feet, but something struck him in the stomach, and he gasped in agonic asphyxia as the air was driven from his lungs.

He couldn’t even gasp when he struck dirt. His vision blackened for a moment as pain overloaded his senses. Then it came back. He found himself lying in a crater.

A figure stood over him.

His vision was blurry, so he couldn’t see this person very well, but he knew who it was.

“P-please… spare me…”

The figure tilted their head. He couldn’t make out the expression on their face, but they seemed almost curious.

“I wonder how many of your victims’ lives you spared when they begged you?” asked a voice. They sounded young. The cold edge in their tone was at odds with how youthful they sounded.

Deng Feng wasn’t sure, but it felt like the blood was draining from his face. He shivered, though whether from fear, pain, or both, he didn’t know.

“I… I don’t… want to die…”

“I’m sure your victims didn’t either.”

Deng Feng knew, in that moment, that he was going to die. This was the end. He tried to get up, but the damage done to his body was so bad that he felt intense pain every time he tried to move. Somehow, he managed to roll over onto his stomach and attempted to crawl away.

Amidst the dying screams of his comrades, Deng Feng never saw the foot that rose above him and descended on his neck with swift, brutal accuracy.

***

Wu Jian sighed as he stared at the corpse of the man he just killed. He didn’t know their name, their history, or what crimes they had committed, but given they were a member of the Raging Boars Sect, their crimes must have been numerous. He felt no remorse in their deaths. Even knowing he had stained his hands in more blood didn’t bother him.

This was necessary.

It was kill or be killed.

A feline muzzle nuzzled his left leg. He reached down and began stroking Yōuměi’s soft fur, even as he looked up at the carnage all around him.

While Wu Jian had focused on killing the leader, Yōuměi had been slaughtering everyone else. She had shown no mercy. Many of her foes had died instantly when she manipulated the shadows to impale them. The few who avoided sudden death were killed when their throats had been torn out by either claw or mouth. Their blood drenched the ground, creating thick pools. The poignant scent made Wu Jian wrinkle his nose.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

“Grrr?”

“No. We’ll leave the bodies. I’m sure it’ll cause a lot of psychological damage to the people trying to capture us.”

“Purr.”

Yōuměi leapt into Wu Jian’s shadow, and he soon took off. He didn’t travel along the ground but through the trees. Memories of his time playing tag with Wu Meiying and Hou Jingshu flashed through his mind, but he banished those times of better days. They were behind him. Thinking about how much he missed those two would not help him right now.

He soon reached the base they were currently using. It was a small cave that used to belong to a pack of magical beasts. Wu Jian, Yōuměi, and Huǒ Shuchang drove them out. Now they were using it as one of their bases.

Xing Zhena, Xing Bai, and Xing Lingxin were currently there. None of them were powerful enough to play an active role in ambushing the Raging Boars’ sect members. It was more than the fact that they had a weak cultivation. They weren’t trained in combat like him and the others.

“Welcome back,” Xing Zhenya smiled when she saw him. Her brow furrowed when she saw the blood on his boots, but he feigned ignorance. “How was it?”

“I managed to defeat one of their squads. They were traveling in a group of six. Assuming this is their standard formation, there should be at least twenty more groups.”

The Raging Boars was not a large sect, consisting of about one hundred and twenty people total. That said, they were larger than the Wu Clan had been, if only by a little.

“What was the cultivation of the people you took out?” asked Xing Bai.

“I don’t know about all of them since Yōuměi here defeated most of them, but the person I fought was at the seventh subrealm of the Anima Realm,” Wu Jian wandered over to the group and sat down. Xing Zhenya looked to be cooking something inside of a pot. He judged from the scent that it was congee, and a glance inside revealed his guess to be correct.

“There are only two people within the Raging Boars Sect who are at that level. Deng Feng and Mo Jun. Both of them are terrible people. Deng Feng was well-known in Chenhou for sexually harassing women. He’s even taken several people’s wives and left them broken. You did a good thing by removing him,” Xing Bai said.

Wu Jian nodded and smiled appreciatively. He knew that Xing Bai was trying to make him feel better about taking a life, but it wasn’t necessary. He had lost his innocence a long time ago.

Huǒ Shuchang and Gao Zhou returned not long after Wu Jian. They sat around the fire as Xing Zhenya served them some congee. Because they lacked the supplies to make a good meal, the food was very basic. The congee had no real flavor. Wu Jian and the others ate without complaint, though Huǒ Shuchang looked at the content of his bowl like it had insulted his ancestors before digging in.

“How was it?” asked Wu Jian.

“We managed to kill two teams,” Huǒ Shuchang said before pushing a spoon full of food into his mouth. “We were lucky. A second team stumbled on us just as we were finishing off the first team. They were no match for me, of course.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Xing Zhenya fumed.

Huǒ Shuchang looked away and continued eating.

“What was the highest cultivation level?” asked Wu Jian.

“Anima Realm. Sixth subrealm,” Gao Zhou answered. Huǒ Shuchang looked like he had been about to, but one glance at Xing Zhenya made him think otherwise.

“So not the second subcommander,” Wu Jian murmured. He sighed and shook his head. “Let’s wait until nightfall, then change locations.”

“What if we run into members of the Raging Boars on the way?” asked Xing Zhenya.

“That’s why we’re waiting until night. It’ll be harder for them to track us at night, and they also need to rest. However, if we run into any squads on the way, we’ll simply take them out,” Wu Jian replied.

Nightfall soon came and the group left the small cave after removing all traces of having been there. They did stumble upon two squads, who looked like they were traveling back to base, but Wu Jian and Yōuměi quickly disposed of them. It did not take long before they arrived at their next established location.

***

Four days passed. Mao Yuhan was getting irritated. Fifteen of his twenty squads had gone into the forest and not come back. They were probably dead.

“Dammit! How is this brat killing off so many of us?!”

He slammed his fist into the armrest of his chair, smashing it apart. It was a dinky contraption made from simple wood. He snorted in disgust and allowed his anger to stew.

Jian Wu somehow managed to kill off more than half his sect. This was not only a huge blow to his pride, but it also meant the Raging Boars had lost a lot of power. It wouldn’t take much effort for another sect to sweep in and clean them up. He could try and appeal to the Wind-Lightning Pavilion for help to bolster his ranks, but he doubted they would do anything. He was a subsidiary of their sect in name only.

“He must be using that magical beast of his.”

Jian Wu had a magical beast companion that was at the ninth subrealm of the Anima Realm when they fought against him. It was probably even stronger now.

“If it’s a half-step into the Asura Realm, I should still be able to handle it, but if it has stepped into the Asura Realm, then…”

Then he was screwed. The difference between a half-step Asura Realm cultivator and one who had truly stepped into the Asura Realm was like heaven and earth. You simply couldn’t compare the two.

A loud explosion suddenly rocked the area. Mao Yuhan was so startled he fell to the ground. The tent flapped as a blast of hot air rushed inside.

“Mao Yuhan! Where are you, you coward?! Come out here and face me!” a young voice shouted from outside his tent.

Mao Yuhan leapt to his feet and stomped outside. Screams echoed around him the moment he did. His eyes widened when he saw several tents burning. Corpses littered the forest, many of them bleeding, but some with no noticeable wounds.

In the center of this carnage stood the person he was after. Jian Wu stared at him with his arms crossed. The scars on his body lent him an imposing demeanor, though Mao Yuhan was not intimidated. He felt nothing but rage as he stared hatefully at the boy who had ruined all of his hard work.

“You damn bastard! Jian Wu! I’ll kill you for this! You are courting death!”