Chapter 122: For Guessing Correctly Your Reward Is Death

High above the clouds, a flying ship tore through the sky, retreating from the Blackstone Mountain region.

Inside the cabin of that ship, the atmosphere was heavy. Han Kuang, Li Mei, and Ma Teng sat around a large table, their faces twisted in a mixture of extreme hatred and deep seated fear.

"That brat must die." Han Kuang slammed his fist onto the table. "If we go back empty handed, the Moutain Corpse Asura will skin us alive! We need his head."

"But Elder Shen of the Cloudwater Sect is involved now," Ma Teng gritted his teeth. "If we attack him openly, we’ll be crushed instantly. We can’t lose our lives in such rush."

"Who said we have to attack openly?" Li Mei said, her eyes gleaming with a venomous light. "We can use sneak attacks or we can hire the Shadow Assassin Pavilion or use the Soul Rotting Curse on him. As long as we get his head and present it to Senior Mo, we may be rewarded, not punished."

A Curse is a form of malicious power attached to a target through spiritual means. Unlike poison, which damages the body or an ordinary technique, which attacks through spiritual energy, a curse can remain hidden inside the target and continue affecting them long after the caster has casted the spell.

Curses can be created through blood, hair, soul fragments, spiritual marks, contracts, talismans, resentment or even one’s true name, but using true name requires a High Calibre Curse Master. The stronger the connection between the caster and target, the harder the curse is to remove.

Some curses affect the body, causing wounds to worsen or cultivation to deteriorate. Others target the soul, spiritual sea, meridians, lifespan or at high level even one’s luck and fate.

Removing a curse is usually far more difficult than curing an injury. A powerful healer might easily repair damaged meridians but will be helpless against a curse because destroying it requires finding its source and foundation rather than simply healing the damage it causes.

For this reason, curses are particularly feared among cultivators.

Because if a curse takes root deep enough, even killing the caster may not be enough to save the victim.

"Yes! A sneak attack or curse is the only way!" Han Kuang nodded fiercely. "We will make him suffer a thousand cuts before taking his head. We just need to find the right opportunity when he leaves the sect’s protection—"

"Wait."

Ma Teng suddenly froze. His voice cut through the heated discussion like a knife.

Han Kuang and Li Mei stopped and looked at him. "What? You’re backing down just because of a curse caster’s reputation?"

Cursecultivators were also known for their rather... questionable temperaments. Unlike ordinary cultivators, they often spent years studying resentment, hatred, blood, souls, and other negative forces.

Constantly dealing with such things could gradually distort one’s personality. Some became eccentric, some paranoid, while others developed strange obsessions with curses and their effects.

Of course, this did not mean every curse cultivator is insane. But in the cultivation world, whenever someone’s described as a curse master, most cultivators instinctively became a little more cautious around them.

After all, nobody wanted to offend someone whose idea of revenge could be as simple as cursing your descendants for three generations.

"No..." Ma Teng’s eyes were wide, fixed on a spot near the center of the room. A cold sweat was rapidly break out on his forehead, soaking his collar. "Did... did we always have four seats at this table?"

"What are you talking about? Of course we only have three—"

Han Kuang’s words died in his throat as he followed Ma Teng’s gaze. Li Mei also turned her head and the moment her eyes landed on the figure, her pupils contracted violently.

Sitting casually beside the table, right in the middle of their war council, was a fourth person.

He was a young man dressed in pristine white Cloudwater Sect robes. He was leaning back slightly, one leg crossed over the other, looking incredibly relaxed as if he were just enjoying a leisurely afternoon tea.

It was Yu Liang.

’How?!’ Han Kuang’s mind exploded. ’The gaurding disciples. Our spiritual senses! How did he get in here?!’

They were Peak Foundation Establishment Realm experts. Yet, not a single one of them had detected him. It was as if he had materialized out of thin air, completely bypassing all their defenses and perceptions.

Panic instantly seized their hearts. They tried to release their spiritual energy to attack, but their bodies felt incredibly stiff, locked down by an invisible, terrifying pressure.

"Y-you..." Han Kuang’s lips trembled, his voice cracking as he pointed a shaking finger at the young man. "Y-you are that disciple..."

Yu Liang looked at the three terrified demonic cultivators and smiled warmly.

It was a gentle, handsome smile, but in their view, it was more chilling than the gaze of a demon.

"You’re right," Yu Liang said with a calm smile. "And for guessing correctly, your reward is death."

He didn’t waste a single second giving them a chance to use their trump cards.

A talisman appeared between his fingers. It wasn’t your normal talisman but a deep, terrifying purple, inscribed with runes that seemed to distort the very space around it.

The moment it appeared, the spiritual energy in the entire cabin was violently sucked away, and a suffocating, world ending aura locked down the ship.

A Tier 5 talisman.

A treasure even among the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators meant to use as a life saving measure.

"Tier 5... No! Stop! We surrender—!" Li Mei screamed, her voice tearing her throat as she realized what that purple paper meant.

Buzz!

Yu Liang flicked his wrist. The Tier 5 Heavenly Annihilation Talisman activated.

A blinding flash of purple light instantly swallowed the entire ship. The space within the light simply collapsed and erased everything inside it.

When the light faded a fraction of a second later, there was nothing.

There were no bodies. There was no blood. There wasn’t even any spiritual unstability. The three Peak Foundation Establishment experts and the disciples of the Passion Sect had been completely erased from existence, their souls and physical bodies annihilated in an instant.

The only proof they had ever existed was the lingering, terrifying aura of the Tier 5 talisman which eventually faded out.

Yu Liang stood at the distance watching the scene, he had already activated Tier 5 Blink Talisman before activating offensive talisman.

He looked at the empty space. Using a Tier 5 talisman to kill three Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators and some disciples was an unimaginable waste of resources to anyone else, but to him, it was just the most efficient way to ensure absolutely no variables were left behind.

He adjusted his sleeves as he muttered.

"I don’t like leaving potential dangers behind."

Then with use of another talisman, his figure dissolved into a faint white fog.

The fog scattered into the air, and Yu Liang vanished completely.