Chapter 112: Reward!

The world blurred.

Kian moved so fast his body became a smear of indigo light, every step of Wind Step snapping the air like a whip. They met on a higher step.

Su Chen’s black-edged hand chops came in vicious arcs, each one carving crescents into the stone where Kian had stood a heartbeat before. Kian twisted, dropped, and slid beneath them, the heat of each near-miss kissing his skin.

He kicked off a bamboo stalk, flipped over a descending chop, and felt the black light shear a leaf’s width from his spine. Below, the crowd saw only two shadows unraveling the air.

The sixth step cracked where no one stood, then the seventh. Su Chen’s sister stumbled back, her eyes unable to follow either of them.

"Hahaha! Fairy Qinglian!" Kian called out to Su Chen’s sister. "Do you see how strong your brother has become?"

Kian threw a knee, an elbow, and a bronze-backed straight right.

Su Chen swayed around the first two, then caught the punch with his open palm. The impact boomed, shoving them both apart.

Once again, Kian shouted: "Was he this strong a few days ago? Isn’t it clear that this is an imposter?!"

Kian rode the force, kicked off the air, and flipped back to the stone. Before his feet landed, Su Chen was already there, hand slicing down at his throat.

"Silence!"

Kian folded backward at the knees, the black chop passing over his nose.

He rolled, came up running, and threw three Qi swords in quick succession. Su Chen tilted his head, letting the first whisper past, caught the second, and crushed the third with his mouth.

Not one break in his pursuit. Kian barely dodged another hand chop, this one aimed at his eyes, and threw a wild punch Su Chen blocked with his forearm without even looking.

Kian grinned, chest heaving.

The green-gold twin Qi inside him surged again, and he closed the distance. They traded blows faster than a mortal eye could blink—palm, elbow, knee, heel—Su Chen blocking, redirecting, and slipping past each one like he had already seen them.

While mid-battle Kian used his ability Loved By the Land to analyze the danger level of Su Chen. And for a moment, his heart dropped.

Red.

"Fuck!"

Kian seperated from Su Chen and looked at him for a long moment.

Su Chen tilted his head, about to attack again, when suddenly he turned around and defended himself.

Bang!

An icicle attack was blocked with a hand.

Fairy Qinglian floated behind Su Chen, her face filled with murderous rage. There was a coldness to her that even Kian found chilling.

"You!" Su Chen growled. "You dare use the Ice Fairy Battle Form against your own brother?"

"Filthy imposter!" Fairy Qinglian sneered coldly, her eyes murderous. "How dare you call yourself my brother? You are nothing but an old soul posessing a young flesh. Disgusting!"

Su Chen’s face turned cold.

Kian’s smile broadened.

[Subquest 1 Completed: You have succesfully stolen ’Fairy Qinglian’ from Su Chen.]

[Reward: 600 Fortune.]

Her hate for Su Chen was so big that she now saw even Kian, a total stranger, more favorably than she saw Su Chen. That was enough for Kian to complete the Subquest and win the reward.

[You have finished all three subquests and succesfully stolen all the close people to Su Chen.]

[Subquest 1: Steal Xiao Cui. (Complete)]

[Subquest 2: Steal Fatty Wang. (Complete)]

[Subquest 3: Steal Fairy Qinglian. (Complete)]

[Special Reward: Steal all three and receive a unique aspect of the Chosen One’s cultivation.]

For a moment, Kian absorbed the feeling of recieving so much Fortune points at once. It was indeed a delightful experience, not to mention the Special Reward.

Smiling was the least of it. Kian let the feeling of six hundred Fortune settle into him like a warm, delicious meal while his eyes drank in the scene in front of him.

This was success.

Fairy Qinglian hovered above the broken step, her battle form shedding cold that turned the air to mist.

Su Chen stood on the stone below her, his face calm and untroubled, as if being called a filthy impostor by his own sister meant less than nothing.

"You killed my brother," Qinglian said, her voice shaking with cold fury. "The moment you took that body, you killed the boy I grew up with. You are not him! I knew it!"

Su Chen didn’t even flinch. "That boy was already dead. I gave this body a second life, nothing more."

Her hands trembled, and icicles materialized around her like a crown of knives. "Then you should have buried him, not worn his body and pretended you were him."

He tilted his head, as if she had said something mildly interesting. "Believe whatever you want. It changes nothing. This is me now."

Kian’s smile didn’t falter but he was aannoyed.

This man was ice. No fear, no hesitation, not even a flicker of guilt. He had been caught, exposed, and abandoned by someone who had once loved him, and he still looked like he had won. He didn’t even care about talking about it.

Indeed, a Soul Lord must be old and experienced in all ways of scheming.

Kian felt a chill that had nothing to do with Qinglian’s ice. How old was an average Soul Lord?

Then Su Chen turned toward him, slowly, as if dismissing the woman entirely.

With a wave of his hand, the battle form of the woman collapsed for an unknown reason, filling her dace with dread.

The black Qi around Su Chen’s hands coiled and uncoiled, patient as a snake.

"But I don’t understand one thing." His voice cut through the mist. "I have never harmed you. I have never done you any disservice. In fact, I am a stranger to you. I am a good person who doesn’t want to do much evil."

He took one step forward, and the stone cracked under the weight of his killing intent. "Why is it that you come to trouble me again and again? Why is it?"

Another step.

"Are you just a scumbag who doesn’t like people being happy? Or is it that you were just aiming to break my morale to win the myriad bell above?"

"Myriad bell?"

"Since you know who I am, there is no matter to hide. That is my treasure, from my past life."

Su Chen raised his hand, and black flame automatically lit up on the bell.

"Oh?" Kian’s grin came back, all teeth and no warmth. "You say you are a good person, but you are anything but. You are possessing a young man. He should have lived a happy life of his own. How are you good and me evil? You are clearly scum."

Not to mention whatever scheme he was pulling with this bell.

Su Chen paused, then let out a long, almost disappointed sigh. He looked at his own hands, then back at Kian. "This body’s host was already dead when I possessed him. But indeed, the truth is, I am not that good of a person either. At least, not in my past."

The black flame around his knuckles deepened.

Su Chen added: "I have raped many women. I have killed millions. I have led kingdoms to war." His eyes turned flat and deep, unblinking. "But that doesn’t mean some backwater dog gets to bark at me and do whatever he wants."

Kian’s sneer was cold.

Su Chen continued: "So I am going to kill you, and show you the consequence of your actions. In a very, very painful way. Not just you, but the people around you as well."

Kian scoffed, the sound sharp with disgust. "You talk too much."

He glanced back toward the bottom of the steps, raised one hand high, and snapped his fingers.

The signal was casual—just two fingers and a flick of his wrist—but every woman who belonged to him understood it instantly.

In the space of a breath, Feimei, Jiao Yin, and Xiao Cui’s figures blurred at the edges, then folded into shimmering threads of light and vanished into the island gateway.

The captainess alone remained rooted, her face white with confusion and her lips parted as if the world had just stolen her breath.

Su Chen’s gaze flicked from the empty street to Kian’s raised hand, and his eyes darkened with a hunger that swallowed everything else on his face.

"An island realm," he said, the words already thick with obsession. "No. More than that. A space that takes the living. You carry a true gateway treasure."

His black Qi roared along his arms like oil set alight, and he shot forward, suddenly close, suddenly monstrous.

The hunger in him had changed the air itself.

"That should belong to me!"

Kian dropped low and met the rush. A black hand chop screamed past his ear. He twisted, drove his shoulder into Su Chen’s chest, and broke away again, running backward down the steps.

The crowd screamed and scattered.

Many were torn apart by black fire.

Kian moved back relentlessly, grinning.

Black fire carved a glowing line through the stone an inch behind him, then another. Kian threw a Qi sword behind himself without looking, forced Su Chen to check, and used the pause to close half the distance to the captain.

"Come girly!"

"Where?"

"To my arms!"

"Fu-!"

She jumped, then turned to run, but Kian was faster. His arm banded around her waist and hauled her up against his side. She cried out, struggling, but he only held her tighter.

"Stop whining," he said. "You’re coming with me."

"You are not leaving! Myriad Bell!" Su Chen landed on the step behind them so hard the stone split into three jagged pieces, and a black blade was already swinging from his hand.

Kian’s free hand rose, fingers stiff with indigo light, and the air split open behind him—a seam of pale sand and distant red sky and wind that smelled like another world.

He dragged the captain into it, and the seam closed around them both as neatly as a wound sealing over.

It was too fast for even Su Chen.

The last thing Su Chen’s killing blow touched was empty air.

Su Chen did not roar.

He stood alone on the broken stairs, chest heaving, black flame still leaking from his knuckles, and slowly clenched his hand so hard the bones cracked.

"You won’t be allowed to live for long," came Kian’s voice.