“Damn it!”

It was exactly as Genmo had described.

As soon as that accursed Jihan joined the battle, the tides shifted dramatically.

“Damn it all!”

Geng Yong was now faced against the blue-eyed boy in individual combat.

He had already been having a hard time defending against his relentless offence when he had Genmo to take some of the heat away.

Now, he felt truly cornered. A sensation he thought he had left behind years ago.

“Damn you!” he yelled as he swung his sword with all his might at the insufferable little brat.

To suffer such humiliation…

He wouldn’t accept it!

Swoosh.

However, no matter how badly he wanted to etch out a victory for himself, reality was much too cruel to hand it to him.

“Face it, Geng Yong,” yelled Genmo. “We cannot win this.”

“I refuse!”

Genmo could only sigh internally.

They both knew that victory had slipped out of their grasp.

With Jihan pinning him down, Geng Yong had no chance against the blue-eyed boy.

Their defeat was only a matter of time.

Geng Yong, on the other hand, didn’t seem to agree.

‘!’

Feeling the rising heat around him, Genmo widened his eyes.

“Don’t forget where we are, Geng Yong!” he yelled. “This is the Shimmering Sword Sect!”

“And what of it?!”

“They won’t take kindly to you setting up a pseudo-domain within their territory.”

“Humph! They should be glad that I’m cleaning their house of these demons!”

“Is that so?” asked a foreign voice.

Turning over to its source, it was revealed to be coming from a boy even younger than the blue-eyed one. He was holding a black sword in one hand, and a set of shackles in the other. Covering his left eye was a black eye patch that seemed to be held in place by golden chains. His body was clothed in fine black robes with gold accents along the seams and a pair of functional but stylish fur-lined boots.

Altogether, he appeared to be the son of some wealthy clan somewhere, much like the other young masters one would see on occasion.

But one thing differentiated him from most.

He had unusually dark skin.

To most, this detail would be considered largely irrelevant, at least in the context of a direct confrontation, but that was not the case when it came to Geng Yong.

Geng Yong was someone who had travelled all around the lower continent and had sampled of the many cultures therein.

One trait that seemed almost universal was that lighter skin tones were viewed as more desirable. They signified the privileged class; those who would not have to toil in the fields doing menial labour. They were a mark of the ruling class; those who could order others to do their bidding. And not least of all, when it came to women, lighter complexions added to their perceived fragility. They appeared more delicate, more vulnerable, and thus, they were to be handled with more care.

Why was this relevant?

Geng Yong had been somewhat apprehensive when facing off against the blue-eyed boy.

To have gained so much strength at such a young age meant one of two things. He had either encountered tremendous good fortune, or he was backed by a powerful organization.

The former wouldn’t amount to much. Luck had its limits. The latter, however, was something anyone in Geng Yong’s position would have to pay attention to.

Even as a member of the Merchant Guild, he couldn’t exactly afford to go around offending everyone he met. There was a level of respect that had to be paid to certain parties, ranking among which were both the Lanxiang Clan and the Shimmering Sword Sect.

That was why Geng Yong had refrained from using the full extent of his power up until this point.

But seeing how the two boys were dressed similarly, and realising that he had no idea who the darker one was, meant that they were both nobodies.

After all, there was no way someone who had such dark skin would go unnoticed in high society.

Coming to this realisation, Geng Yong ignored the new voice and proceeded to cycle his qi to its limits.

His body started to generate heat, causing the ambient temperature to spike. Under his feet, the grass was burnt to ashes before the soil beneath it started to liquefy into molten lava.

His qi spread out further, creating a patch of land that resembled the surface of a volcano. A network of glowing red lines appeared all over his body and spread out from under his feet across the ground making it appear as if his blood vessels had extended into the land around him.

This was the pseudo-domain that he had come up with which he called the Bloodfire Domain, and within it, his combat capabilities were greatly enhanced.

He now no longer believed that he would be suppressed by the blue-eyed boy.

It wasn’t strange for him to think so. After all, he was much older than these youths and had likely been in the minute realm longer than they had been alive. That difference in age and experience was not something that could be easily overcome.

Unlike raw cultivation, the integration of qi into one’s body, which was relatively simple and could be accomplished through brute force, the development of a domain was in the realm of the mind.

Through observing the life cycles of mortals, it was clear to see that the human body was not something that could continually grow with age. There was a very obvious region somewhere in their early adult years where they would reach their physical peaks, and thereafter, their bodies would decline.

This meant that it was very normal for younger people to be physically stronger than their elders.

The same held true for cultivators, as, underlying their enhanced bodies was their fundamental human biology. They too experienced a physical peak in their early adulthood and would decline thereafter.

The difference was that cultivators could influence the world with more than just their bodies. Their minds were equally, if not more potent, and the rules of the game were quite different when it came to the mind.

More time meant more knowledge. It was a plain and simple rule.

That rule dictated that all things considered, the chances of juniors being more knowledgeable than their seniors were slim to none.

And knowledge was the great divider.

Anyone who had stepped into the fifth realm would realise it. The barrier to true strength, the wall that stood between them and the most powerful beings on the continent, was knowledge.

Geng Yong had no doubt that his knowledge far surpassed these juniors.

His only remaining apprehension was that he had scorched a section of the sect’s property, something that surely wouldn’t be appreciated.

But he wasn’t too concerned.

Any complaints could be mitigated by claiming that he was apprehending demonic cultivators.

Now, all that was left was to-

“Oh. You’ve gone and made it nice and toasty,” said the one-eyed boy. “Perhaps we should roast some marshmallows.”

Turning to face him, Geng Yong noticed that in a radius of several metres around the boy, the grass remained. The patch of land he was standing on stood in stark contrast to its surroundings.

That caused him some concern as it could mean only one of two things.

Either that patch of land had some special properties that allowed it to resist his domain, or more concerningly, the boy’s stability coefficient was higher than Geng Yong’s phenomena rewriting.

Geng Yong was leaning toward the latter, which caused him to frown.

It was then that he took note of the black sword in the boy’s hand.

Upon closer inspection, it seemed to be the true core of the stable patch. It, or perhaps one of the golden rings on his fingers, was likely a powerful defensive artefact.

Narrowing his eyes, he asked, “who are you?”

“Someone who has grown quite weary of watching this farce.”

Geng Yong shifted his feet, widening his stance.

“You know,” the boy continued, “qi and I have a bit of an… intimate relationship. Whenever it sees me, it seems it can’t wait to rush over and tell me how its day went. It often speaks of the people it met and the things it saw, sparing no amount of detail. Honestly, it can be burdensome at times.”

Geng Yong’s eyes shifted between the other parties present.

They too didn’t seem to have the foggiest idea what the boy was talking about.

The boy sighed.

“Qi is usually quite cheery, you know. It bounces around enjoying the wonders of the world and is easily able to overlook the darker parts of this existence.”

The boy’s eyebrows twitched as if he had realised something.

“I’m referring, of course, to unbranded qi,” he said. “Qi that has been enslaved by us cultivators isn’t quite as chipper. Even so, time seems to heal all wounds.”

“What’s your point?” asked Geng Yong.

“Patience,” he replied. “I’m getting to it.”

The boy placed his hands behind his back and tilted his head slightly upward, now looking off into the distance.

“An interesting thing I recently discovered,” he said, “is that, unlike natural qi cultivated from the environment, the qi of demonic cultivators seems to remember the time it spent with its previous master or masters as is often the case.

“This results in an interesting difference.

“You see, the qi of demonic cultivators is often in turmoil. It contains the feelings its previous masters felt in their final moments together. Whether it be rage, terror, despair, denial, or whatever else, the feelings remain, and they cause the qi to behave differently.

“Instead of speaking, it screams and shouts, as if desperate for someone to hear.

“And unfortunately for me, just like the regular, cheerful qi, this tormented qi comes straight to me to voice its grievances.

“Geng Yong, was it?”

He paused for a moment before lowering his head again.

“Do you have any idea how loudly your qi is screaming at me right now?”