Chapter 86

Chapter 86: Crisis

Wang Jie looked into the Thunder Well. “Don’t worry. I won’t go deeper. Tower Lord, go collect the thunder-pattern gold. I’m not going to gamble with my life.”

Jiang You Sheng nodded. “As long as Master cultivates at this level, there won’t be a problem.”

He handed Wang Jie two items. One was a thin piece of material shaped like a cicada-wing token. The other was a set of chen artifact battle armor.

“This cicada-wing token,” Jiang You Sheng explained, “is paired with another in my possession. If Master pinches it, the one in my hand will move. If anything happens, I can rush to you immediately.”

He then tapped the armor. “And this chen artifact can withstand danger. It’s a second-tribulation chen artifact. In the shallow thunder zone, that’s enough.”

Wang Jie accepted both with genuine gratitude. Whatever Jiang You Sheng’s deeper intentions might be, he hadn’t hesitated to help. “Thank you, Tower Lord.”

Jiang You Sheng left.

Wang Jie pulled on the battle armor and pressed the cicada-wing token tight against his body. He drew a steadying breath and faced the Thunder Well.

Now he would cultivate.

Standing alone near the edge was worse than he’d expected. With no one beside him, the mind kept whispering the same thought: one slip, and you’re done.

He climbed down.

Lightning flickered around him. Heat rolled in waves, so intense it made his lockforce feel thick and viscous—harder to move, harder to shape.

That was the point.

When lockforce became harder to control, every adjustment became training. Once he adapted here, he’d control it outside with ease—like tempering the body in high gravity.

A figure plunged into the Thunder Well some distance away.

A creature of the Eight Hells Mad Clan.

It cast a careless glance at Wang Jie and dove deeper without pause.

Anyone cultivating here had already greeted the Mad Clan. This was their territory. The Thunder Well drew countless beings, but most were either Mad Clan or those permitted by them—starry sky behemoths, strange creatures of the void, and even the occasional puppeteer.

Wang Jie spotted one such puppeteer, controlling a puppet body, rushing into the Thunder Well. He couldn’t tell if it even noticed him.

A few days later, Jiang You Sheng returned briefly. He saw Wang Jie cultivating alone, gave a satisfied nod, and left without disturbing him.

On the second day after Jiang You Sheng’s departure, a gaze settled on Wang Jie.

Greedy. Hungry.

Something licked its teeth in the dark. “A Roaming-Star Realm follower, and the little kid he’s guarding might belong to the seventh star chain lord. Catch him, and we’ll get plenty.”

“Old Three,” another voice rasped, “watch the house. Don’t let him climb back inside.”

“Old Two,” came the next order, “get ready.”

“Understood.”

Perched on the rim of the Thunder Well, Wang Jie suddenly felt it—a prickling unease, the sensation of eyes boring into his back.

He opened his eyes at once.

Enough. Back to the house.

He began climbing up, but a sudden chill crawled over his skin. A sharp, screeching sound tore through the thunder from far away.

He turned.

In the lightning, something moved—huge, fast, relentless. A beast nearly ten meters long, with a triangular head like a scorpion’s, swam through the storm and rushed straight toward him.

A starry sky behemoth.

Wang Jie didn’t hesitate. He slapped his hand against the cicada-wing token.

In a place like this, he had no interest in fighting.

But his arm wouldn’t move.

His hand froze midair, as if his muscles had turned to stone.

What—

He tried to force motion. Nothing.

Then he felt it.

At his feet, something black and slick flowed like living tar, wriggling over the rim and climbing his leg, creeping toward his torso.

The shriek rose higher as the scorpion-headed beast closed in.

The black thing climbed quickly to the cicada-wing token, wrapped around it, and began dragging it away—downward.

Wang Jie’s eyes widened. He forced qi and strength together. In an instant, the binding pressure snapped.

He lunged, grabbing for the black creature.

It slipped away with unnatural speed, dodging his hand and skittering upward along the rim—still carrying the token.

Wang Jie launched into Jia Eight Steps and chased.

The scorpion-headed beast hit him at the same time.

A claw lashed out, stretching far beyond its body, slamming at Wang Jie through the lightning.

Wang Jie pointed.

Heaven and Earth Luo Xuan Finger.

Finger force collided with the claw and knocked it aside.

The beast reeled, stunned. It was a Star-Breaking Realm predator—yet this Ten Seals human had batted away its attack?

Its hunger sharpened into excitement.

Wang Jie didn’t care about its pride. He cared about the token.

But the black creature—shadow-hunting beast, if the voice was to be believed—was too fast. The brief delay was enough for it to pull farther away.

“Human,” a cold voice called from above, “you’ll never catch a shadow-hunting beast.”

Wang Jie looked up.

Outside Jiang You Sheng’s house, another starry sky behemoth had crawled out. It grinned down at him with bared teeth.

So it had been a trap from the start.

One beast chased him from the storm. One blocked his retreat. The shadow-hunting beast stole the token.

Wang Jie’s face hardened. “What are you?”

The scorpion-headed beast lunged again. This time its claw gleamed ink-green—poison.

Wang Jie’s mind raced.

Two Star-Breaking Realm beasts already. He couldn’t win cleanly.

Run.

Then his heart sank.

A third starry sky behemoth crawled in from another direction, sealing the last path.

Three Star-Breaking Realm beasts formed a killing ring around him.

No way up.

No way out.

The three beasts surged forward together.

Wang Jie slid downward along the rim.

Below, the lightning grew denser.

The scorpion-headed beast followed, gliding through space with ease. “Human, going to the deep thunder zone is suicide. Hand over your resources, and we’ll spare your life.”

Wang Jie stared at it—not just with his eyes, but with the perception he’d honed. He could see its qi.

And something about it was wrong.

The qi of all three beasts trailed behind them, shaped like tails their bodies barely showed. Almost invisible to sight, yet unmistakable in qi.

That was their real weapon.

A tail strike you wouldn’t see coming.

The scorpion-headed beast snapped forward—claw and tail together.

Wang Jie pulled a sword from his storage ring.

Star-Gazing Sword Form.

Sword qi flared, slashing the scorpion-headed beast—and fanning outward to cut at the other two.

Clang, clang, clang.

The sword qi struck their bodies like sparks on iron. They didn’t even dodge.

Compared to the nine-eyed mantis, they were slower. But their defenses were far stronger.

Wang Jie kept sliding downward.

Lightning thickened. The thunder roar grew deeper, heavier.

The beasts pushed through his sword qi and closed in. They could roam space; they didn’t need to cling to the rim. While Wang Jie climbed and slid, they simply moved.

They caught him.

Two claws swept in. Between them, the invisible tail spear stabbed faster than both.

Wang Jie pretended not to see it.

The scorpion-headed beast’s eyes glittered with cruel certainty. Countless creatures died to this move. Even Star-Breaking Realm cultivators couldn’t always withstand it.

What hope did a Ten Seals human have?

The tail struck—

Wang Jie vanished.

Jia Eight Steps carried him past the tail by a hair’s breadth, and he appeared above the beast’s head.

Star-Gazing Sword Form.

Sword qi gathered into a concentrated, dazzling arc, and Wang Jie drove it down with every ounce of his combined power. Qi fused with strength in a violent surge.

The blade pierced from the beast’s crown through its body.

The scorpion-headed beast screamed, thrashing, trying to twist toward him.

“How—”

Another roar tore through the storm. “Old Two!”

The other beast lunged toward Wang Jie with rage.

Above, the beast guarding the house finally moved, charging down in a frenzy.

Wang Jie didn’t give Old Two time to recover.

He raised a finger.

Heaven and Earth Luo Xuan Finger pressed down with crushing force, smashing the beast’s head before it could mount a counterattack. The body shuddered once and went limp, sliding into the lightning below.

Star-Breaking Realm was strong.

But arrogance got you killed.

Wang Jie panted hard, turning to the remaining two. Murder filled their eyes as they closed in.

He slashed upward, trying to cut a path.

Lightning split the sword qi in midair, shattering most of it. The rest struck the beasts and did almost nothing.

Not enough.

A poison-coated claw swept for him again. If the poison weren’t there, Wang Jie might have risked grabbing it and tearing it apart with brute force.

Instead, he dodged and drove forward.

He had to kill one more before the last completed the encirclement.

Then his body locked.

Again.

That shadow-hunting beast.

A savage curse surged up Wang Jie’s throat as the scorpion-headed beast’s claw slammed into his back.

He flew, blood spraying from his mouth, forced toward the beast’s open jaws.

The beast snapped down.

Wang Jie raised his head at the last instant and pointed.

Heaven and Earth Luo Xuan Finger blew through the beast’s mouth and out the side of its face.

The battle armor saved him. Without it, that earlier claw strike would have broken him in half.

The beast shrieked and whipped its tail.

Wang Jie had been watching for it the entire time. Jia Eight Steps carried him aside, barely clearing the sweep.

The beast retreated, and the air around it twisted into poisonous ink-green. The poison condensed into a cloud and rolled over Wang Jie like a tidal wave.

Wang Jie drew a breath to strike—

And froze again.

His eyes snapped down.

There.

All his qi sank, gathering into his right leg as he forced the blockage to concentrate.

The shadow-hunting beast—black, slick, alive—clung near his ankle.

Its movement faltered for the first time, as if startled that he could still act.

Wang Jie stomped.

The shadow-hunting beast burst like rotten fruit, splattering into a puddle.

The thing was black.

Its blood was blue.

Above, the green cloud had already swallowed the space overhead, and from within it a concentrated lance of poison shot down like an arrow.

Wang Jie used Jia Eight Steps and raised his wristguard.

The poison arrow scraped the wristguard’s edge.

The beast’s eyes narrowed in satisfaction. Even a grazing touch should corrode flesh to bone.

But the wristguard remained unmarked.

Wang Jie’s gaze hardened.

He pushed forward into the cloud, but the poison curtain dropped, blocking his path. At that moment, a sweep of lightning tore through the cloud, ripping it open.

Wang Jie sidestepped the lightning, then flicked his blade.

He didn’t fight the thunder—he guided it.

Sword qi brushed the lightning’s edge, drawing a streak of it like a ribbon into the poison cloud.

Where the lightning passed, the green cloud vanished.

So thunder countered the poison.

Good.

Wang Jie flicked again, drawing more lightning into the cloud, shredding it in strips.

The beast retreated, furious, tail lifting high.

In Wang Jie’s sight, all of its qi poured into that tail. Then it fired again—a green poison arrow, sharper and faster.

Wang Jie had already read the movement.

He dodged cleanly, no wristguard needed.

Sword in hand, thunder at his side, eight steps swaying on the rim.