Chapter 559: Chapter 559: A Fragile Twig

The bald brute from the Night Marauders laughed, a booming sound of arrogant dismissal that echoed off the clay walls. He didn’t give the youth’s cryptic words a single ounce of importance. To him, a hundred armed men against a single brat meant absolute victory, regardless of whatever brave front the boy tried to put up.

However, standing just half a step behind him, the leader of the Cat’s Eye Bandits—a lean, rat-faced man who had survived the frontier on pure, paranoid instinct—suddenly narrowed his slit-like eyes. He reached out, his hand gripping the brute’s tattooed shoulder to pull him back.

"Hold your horses," the Cat’s Eye leader whispered, his voice laced with a sudden, icy drop in confidence. "Something is wrong. The brat looks entirely too calm. His eyes... those aren’t the eyes of a coward."

The bald brute snorted, shaking him off. "You’re seeing ghosts, you rat. He already threw the stones in the dirt. He’s paralyzed."

Still unconvinced, the Cat’s Eye leader turned his head and snapped his fingers toward one of his elite lackeys standing in the front row—a mid-stage Body Refinement fighter renowned for his agility. "You. Step up there. Grab the bags and keep your eyes peeled."

The selected mercenary smirked, eager to impress his boss. He strutted forward confidently, completely relying on their overwhelming numerical superiority and the absolute terror they assumed Ethan was experiencing. Walking right past Ethan’s flank, the lackey bent his waist, extending his dirty, claw-like hand toward the heavy silk bags resting in the mud.

"Don’t mind if I do, little prince—"

Before the man’s fingers could even graze the fabric, the world instantly went askew.

There was no sound of a blade. There was no thunderous explosion of spiritual energy. To the lackey, the horizon simply spun violently upside down in a dizzying, sickening blur. As the sky and the dirt inverted, he found himself looking backward, catching a fleeting glimpse of his three syndicate leaders. Their faces, previously twisted in smug arrogance, were suddenly wide with pale, unadulterated horror.

Did I trip? the mercenary thought, his mind completely dumbfounded by the sudden shift in perspective. Why are they looking at me like that?

Then, the light in his eyes extinguished, and his world went dark forever.

CRACK.

It was a sharp, hollow sound, like a dry winter twig being effortlessly snapped beneath a heavy boot. Ethan’s hand had moved with such terrifying, ungodly velocity that not a single one of the hundred mercenaries had even seen his arm blur. By the time their eyes registered his movement, Ethan was already standing in the exact same relaxed posture as before.

The lackey’s head was twisted entirely backward at a grotesque, unnatural 180 degree angle. The lifeless corpse collapsed forward into the dirt, his face buried in the mud right beside the silk bags, a thin stream of dark blood pooling from his ears and nose.

Ethan hadn’t even bothered to draw his iron sword. He had broken the neck of a seasoned frontier fighter with his bare hands as if the man were nothing more than a frail blade of grass.

The raucous, depraved laughter of the hundred-man horde cut off instantly, plunged into a suffocating, dead silence. The metallic stench of fresh death immediately filled the narrow alleyway.

Mary’s breath hitched, her eyes wide as she stared at the dead man. The despair that had gripped her soul just a moment ago suddenly transformed into a dizzying wave of shock. He hadn’t surrendered. He had simply baited them.

Ethan slowly turned his head back toward the three leaders. His amethyst eyes burned with a freezing, abyssal violet light that seemed to swallow the dimming afternoon sun. His lips curled back into that slow, chillingly serene, predatory smile, his voice dropping into a smooth, welcoming purr.

"The money is still right there," Ethan said softly, gesturing toward the blood-splattered silk bags with a slight tilt of his chin. "What’s the matter? Aren’t you going to come over and pick it up?"

The bald brute’s jaw remained slack, his eyes fixed on the twisted corpse of his lackey. The initial arrogance that had fueled the hundred-man horde instantly evaporated, replaced by a cold, suffocating dread.

The three syndicate leaders were no weaklings; they were all firmly established in the middle stage of the Spiritual Gathering Realm, a level known locally as the Spiritual Mist stage.

The vast majority of the hundred mercenaries behind them were hardened veterans sitting at the absolute peak of the Body Tempering Realm, specifically within the advanced Organ Refinement tier. By all laws of the frontier, an army of this caliber should have been able to flatten a minor district without breaking a sweat.

Yet, as they looked at the crimson-clad youth standing casually over the corpse, not a single man dared to take a step forward. A heavy, paralyzing hesitation locked their boots to the dirt.

"If you won’t come to the money," Ethan whispered, his purple eyes flashing with a sudden, terrifying luminescence, "then I will simply bring the graveyard to you."

Before the leaders could even shout an order to retreat, Ethan moved.

He didn’t activate a high-tier movement technique; he simply exploded forward on pure, raw physical velocity. His figure completely vanished from their sight, leaving behind a violent vacuum of wind that kicked up a blinding cloud of dust and debris.

What followed was not a battle—it was a swift, industrialized butchery.

Ethan’s cheap iron sword finally slid from its scabbard, its metallic hiss drowned out by the immediate, horrific symphony of tearing flesh and shattering bones. He carved through the bottleneck formation like a reaper through dry wheat. His movements were a flawless display of terrifying, low-angle slices and vertical cleaves.

SLASH! CRUNCH! SLICE!

-------------------

From this moment forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.

Note: These are only the ranks mentioned so far to avoid spoilers.

Body Refinement Realm

Skin Refinement / Bone Refinement / Organ Refinement

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

Prime 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 ??