"... We're from a provincial nation. Nobody gives us enough importance to care about empire's affair."
"Hmph! Monkey fight monkey. Let's go find an inn for the day," Shi Yan finally spoke, snorting with righteous disdain. His voice was calm, but his aning clear:
"Let the dogs kill each other. I've got sermons to write and wine to sip."
He was from the Light Church, after all. Technically above petty rcenary guild rules. The kind of man who'd watch a battlefield from a holy rooftop, praying loudly for peace while privately ranking everyone's swordplay.
But not everyone shared that level of holy detachnt.
Outside the city, the fight between hundreds escalated to thousands.
The wastelands shook, rumbling beneath the feet of mortals and idiots alike as barrages of sword Qi, beastfire, and lightning hailstorms slamd into the cursed soil like divine punishnt with no moral authority behind it.
Fortunately, the fight stayed outside the barrier.
Yi Town remained untouched.
For now.
Just like Dong Lei said: this was a free kill zone.
And more than that—it was profitable.
The rcenary Guild, though one in na, was actually a splintered beast, with different branches managed by different empires, each one answering to their local politics first and the guild laws second.
The "peace" policy?
Only applied inside the city.
Once you stepped into the wasteland?
All bets were off.
Looting, killing, backstabbing, and spirit-harvesting were not only legal—they were rewarded with rit points, rank boosts, and "reputation tokens" that could be exchanged for discounts on cultivation pills and whores with spiritual alignnts.
At this very mont—
- A Tianlong Empire rcenary stabbed a Black Tortoise cultivator through the neck and looted his storage ring.
- A Black Tortoise escort squad bribed rogue sect wanderers with ten fire crystals each to join their side.
- One ambitious Foundation Establishnt fool tried to ambush a Nascent Soul veteran and was promptly used as a spell component.
All because one horny Alchemy King's brat couldn't tell a concubine from a working girl.
Master Leng, the four-ard freakshow who started it all, now had a bounty on his head.
The Black Tortoise side demanded it—not just for revenge, but to save face.
They had failed to protect their Alchemy King's reputation.
So now, to avoid sha and inter-empire backlash, they needed a trophy. A head. A corpse. A scapegoat.
And that head?
Was Master Leng's.
Dong Lei explained as the squad walked away from the madness.
"The bigger this gets, the more the empires will care," he said grimly. "Tianlong and Black Tortoise have been saber-dancing for decades. Sothing like this? Could ignite a proxy war."
"But we're not in the empire," Lan Tian said, frowning. "We're in Yue Country."
Exactly.
Yue Country, while under Tianlong's nominal control, was independent in spirit and too isolated by geography to be dragged into frontline politics.
- To the east lay the Eternal Frost—a cursed glacier range so deadly even spirit beasts learned to migrate south. Beyond that lay the territory of the Vermilion Phoenix Empire, which was mostly allied with the Tianlong Empire.
- To the south was ocean, and past that, the lawless Bai Hua Plains, ruled by rogue tribes, matriarchs, and insane plant beasts.
- The west and north were Tianlong Empire heartland, directly linked to Black Tortoise territory.
If war broke out, the frontlines would be up north.
Yue?
Might not see a single bloodstain.
Might even profit, by selling dicine and collecting corpses for resale.
That's why, in Yi Town, rcenaries from Yue were the most neutral.
Not cowardly—pragmatic.
They didn't fight for empire glory.
They fought for rit, money, or mayhem—preferably all three.
After finally settling into Yi Town's most overpriced and spiritually-questionable inn, the group got their rooms assigned.
And as expected—social dynamics kicked in like formation arrays during a beast tide.
Yu Feng and Nalan Yufei? Obviously got a room together. They were won, and despite mutual breasts friction, they'd both rather share with each other than wake up next to any male from their party.
Lan Tian and Shi Yan?
From opposite factions. One born of shadows, the other glowing with holy hypocrisy.
And yet… they chose to room together.
Why?
Because real cultivators can ignore petty doctrine in favor of a quiet room and a decent lock.
Then ca Dong Lei and Ku Rong.
Now by default, they should've shared a room. They were both muscle-built tanks with about three brain cells between them (and two belonged to Dong Lei).
But the mont Ku Rong walked in—seven feet tall, red skin, the vague aura of a death deity who once ate his own shadow—Dong Lei suddenly rembered he really needed a room to himself.
> "A-ahem! I snore loud," Dong Lei said, sweating.
> "Also I fart out spirit smoke in my sleep. Dangerous. Very dangerous."
So Ku Rong got his own room too.
Finally—
Su Xiaobai.
He was automatically given a private room.
Not because he asked.
Not because he deserved it.
But because the innkeeper took one look at him and instinctively thought:
"This man will definitely be visited by assassins or succubi in the middle of the night, and I'm not cleaning up the ss."
Which was, to be fair, accurate.
But Su Xiaobai?
Didn't even plan on staying.
The mont his luggage touched the floor, he placed a fake puppet under the covers (standard villain decoy trick), he slid out the window like a lusty ghost thief and vanished into the night.
He wasn't here to nap!
He was here to observe and maybe loot so corpses.
____
Outside the barrier, the world had gone to hell.
The wasteland was afla, tens of thousands of rcenaries fought across shattered terrain, qi blasts cracked the sky, blood rivers ran through darkened soil and corrupted beasts, summoned war constructs, and flying swords zipped through like drunk mosquitoes.
And through it all—
Su Xiaobai just stood at the edge.
Watching.
Feeling the heat kiss his cheeks.
Ah, war, terrible, tragic, beautiful, profitable.
And then—
"You?"
A surprised voice broke through the sound of explosions and screaming.
He turned.
From behind a formation-etched boulder, a veiled figure stepped out. The veil was pulled back—Charming blue eyes, lips like provocation.
Who else?
Yu Feng.
Caught red-handed.
Also sneaking out.
She looked at him like a wife catching her husband reading erotic talisman scrolls under the covers.
"Hm... seems like we're on the sa page," Su Xiaobai muttered, surprised.
Yu Feng didn't smile back. She crossed her arms, eyes narrowing.
And then—
Another voice.
"This is great~!"
Nalan Yufei popped up beside her like a squirrel who found a war. Her eyes sparkled, her armor shimred, and he looked like a noble elf princess cosplaying as an adventurer.
Too enthusiastic.
Too excited to see death.
'Definitely ran away from ho,' Su Xiaobai thought, 'Probably rebelled against her strict elf mom who wanted her to marry and water her flowers for eternity,'
This elf just wants blood, loot, and bad decisions.
He smirked.
Adventurous, naive, fun and angerous.
Perfect.
What Su Xiaobai didn't know was—
A certain author, perched in a wine-soaked celestial teahouse above the clouds, heard that exact thought.
And with a smirk, dipped his spirit brush into karma-ink and scribbled onto Su Xiaobai's fate scroll:
"Elf princess mother arrives. Overpowered. Possessive. Judgntal."
"Possibly brings marriage contract."
Fate shivered.
Sowhere in the distance, a massive white crane dropped a letter onto a matriarch's desk in the Elven Kingdom.
And the matriarch?
Read it once.
Then stood up slowly.
Her aura cracked the palace walls.
"Feifei... Ran away?!"
___
Back in the wasteland, Su Xiaobai suddenly sneezed.
"…Tch. Must be the corrupt Qi."
Yu Feng side-eyed him suspiciously.
Nalan Yufei was too busy pointing at so poor bastard being electrocuted into giblets by a divine lightning pig the size of a war chariot.
"Ooooh, that one popped!" she said gleefully, as the man's spirit beast and pants were vaporized together.
Su Xiaobai shook his head.
Childish...But entertaining.
Let's be honest—he wasn't here to play moral guardian.
He was here to watch a goddamn war—and it was glorious.
Thousands of cultivators, from Core Formation trash mobs to Integration Realm bosses, clashing like ants with nukes. The wasteland outside the barrier had beco a hell-forged arena, and it was the first ti Su Xiaobai had seen so many fights outside the Xiantian Sect's safety net.
Which ant only one thing.
Data collection ti, baby.
His mind calculating spiritual outputs, observing aura control, asuring killing intent distribution. He wasn't just spectating—he was profiling the entire battlefield like a villain with an Excel spreadsheet of death.
Yu Feng, having seen too many wars, remained calm.
Until—
The ground scread.
And a black-robed cultivator from the Black Tortoise side let out a roar, raising both hands into the sky—
"Mountain Rupture Swamp Domain—Form!"
The earth cracked.
A mountain rose.
No, not just a mountain—
A fucking black swamp mountain, a hundred ters tall, made of rotting stone, liquefied earth, and death qi vapor. It tore out of the land like a demon sprouting from the corpse of the continent.
And then?
He hurled it like a rock.
Straight at the enemy.
Su Xiaobai raised his eyebrows.
Boss move.
"Humph!" Until the opposing cultivator dodged with a lazy sidestep.
The swamp-mountain missed the mark.
Now it was coming for them.
Right where Su Xiaobai and the girls stood.
"Fuck…"
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