Huang Ying paused slightly after Li Jun laid the facts bare, but his expression didn't change much. He turned his head a few times, giving the basin that used to be several mountains a few sweeping glances before he responded.

"You're right. They would have died within the next few days anyway, but I still caused their death so that I could become what I am now, but I won't let myself be shackled down by it. For something to live, others must die, that is the simplest rule of life that holds true for all living beings. But that does not mean that I will forget it, they died because of me, so I will at the very least not waste my life, doing so would make all the deaths meaningless. They won't get to see it, but I'll also help them get their revenge."

Huang Ying had always been mature due to how he grew up, but as he started to walk up the incline of the basin, his black eyes seemed far deeper and mature than before, as if they had seen the passage of several lifetimes, a side-effect of absorbing so many memories. Li Jun noticed something off about what Huang Ying said, latching onto it as he questioned.

"Their revenge? Aren't all the bandits dead already, who else is there to get revenge on?"

Huang Ying didn't stop walking after Li Jun asked his question, quickly climbing out of the basin and giving his surroundings a few sweeping glances. His gaze locked onto a small path through the forest that would take him to the main road that led away from Green Willows village, heading for it with a calm gait as he told Li Jun what he learned.

"No, four of the bandits are still alive, they're acting as scouts by the main road. But while they're also on the list, they're not the main targets. The attack on the village wasn't the idea of the bandits, someone paid them to do it. I want to know who did it and why."

This was information that Huang Ying had received directly from the memories of the bandit leader so there was almost no chance of it being wrong. The person in the memory introduced themselves as an intermediary for the Shrouded Moon Agency, so that would be where Huang Ying would start looking. At the same time he could also look for information about his parents, he did still want to know why they abandoned him. There were a lot of things he wanted to do, lots of places he wanted to travel and explore, and now he finally had a strength that gave him the freedom and right to do so. But first, he would have to take care of the last bandits, one of them in particular.

Huang Ying followed the narrow path through the forest, occasionally stepping onto one of the small side paths that snaked away into various directions. After moving from road to road, Huang Ying reached a small clearing housing a one-room hut. From this position, the people within the hut could peer through the cracks in the trees and see various positions on the main road, allowing them to know when there were people they could attack.

Huang Ying simply walked right up to the hut and opened the door, stepping into a room that only contained two windows and a table surrounded by chairs. Four people, three men and one woman, were currently sitting around the circular table and were playing cards. They lazily turned their heads towards Huang Ying as he stepped into the room, quickly rising to their feet with alert gazes when they didn't recognize him.

But their fates had already been set in stone the moment Huang Ying awoke and saw the hundreds of memories. Huang Ying's hand was still on the handle of the door, his hand clenching around it and giving it a powerful pull, directly tearing off the handle as well as a half-meter large chunk of the door.

Huang Ying had reached the First Step of Mortality after his body was rebuilt, but due to the uniqueness of the devouring element, all his parameters were far stronger than other people at his cultivation realm. Not to mention that the four people in front of him hadn't even started cultivating, they were completely normal people.

Huang Ying threw his arm forward, the jagged chunk of wood flying forward and piercing into the chest of one of the three men. His body flew backward and was nailed to the wall, his life ending before he even hit the wall. Huang Ying didn't give the three remaining people any chance to react, stepping forward at a speed impossible for a normal human.

He was only two meters away from the people, so he reached the bosom of the second man in no time, his fist already punching out by the time his feet stopped moving. His fist crashed into the man's chest and caused a crunching sound to ring out, blood pouring out from the man's mouth as his ribs were crushed and turned his lungs and heart into pincushions.

The man fell to the floor, Huang Ying moving his right arm and pointing at the last of the men, who was so shocked by the events that he hadn't even finished standing up yet. When Huang Ying's finger pointed out, a one-meter wide circle of mud-like darkness appeared beneath him, tens of crimson eyes and jagged maws visible in the darkness. The darkness moved forward much as the mud had within the mountains, half-formed arms and tentacles stretching out and latching onto their surroundings to pull itself forward.

The grotesque scene quickly escalated when the darkness latched onto the man's legs threw itself at him, the tens of maws eating away at both his flesh and his soul. The man opened his mouth to scream, but part of the mud-like darkness latched onto his head and covered it before he could scream, his body vanishing into the darkness as a faint stream of energy entered Huang Ying's body.

The darkness vanished after devouring the man, Huang Ying turning his gaze toward the sole remaining bandit, the blonde-haired and black-eyed woman who was so terrified that she had frozen in place. Huang Ying tossed aside the table that stood between the two of them, walking up to her while looking at her with cold eyes. He grabbed onto her left wrist, giving it a sideways glance before speaking up.

"You had a thing for handicapped people, no? If I recall correctly, you are very fond of amputees."

This woman was Huang Ying's main target here, some of the things she had done sickened him down to his core. The woman didn't even get the time to let out a terrified yelp, Huang Ying moved his arm with all his might, flinging the woman through the shattered door of the hut, her left arm remaining in his grasp. Huang Ying let go of the severed arm and followed after the woman, who had already crashed into the ground and rolled for a few meters before stopping, howling in pain due to her severed arm. Huang Ying ignored her howls, his eyes remaining cold as he spoke.

"Do you remember? Three days ago you enjoyed yourself with a brown-haired and black-eyed man, you first cut off a few fingers, then you moved on to his hands, then his arms. Once his arms were gone, you moved on to the feet and legs, pleasuring yourself all the while. His name was Cui Feng, and while I wouldn't consider him a friend, he was fair to me, fairer than most others. I want you to know that this is happening to you because of what you did to him."

Huang Ying walked over to the woman and stomped down on her right knee once he finished talking, crushing it nearly completely flat. Even if a cultivator had only reached the First or Second Step of Mortality, the bodies of non-cultivators would be like paper to them, tearing at the smallest touch if they weren't careful. This was why people considered cultivation a blessing and were extremely grateful to the gods who gave them the gift.

Huang Ying raised his leg twice more after stomping down on the woman's knee, crushing her other knee as well as her other shoulder, thoroughly crippling all her limbs. The woman's screams were already so shrill and harsh that they were ruining her throat, blood pouring out from her open mouth. Huang Ying's eyes remained cold as he looked at her, a thought flashing through his mind when he saw how easy he found this. Perhaps Li Jun was right, perhaps a part of him did actually break within that darkness.

Huang Ying didn't linger too much on the thought, if he broke then he broke, he just wanted the freedom that he sought. He took a few steps back and crouched down, placing his palms on the ground while looking at the woman, pouring his energy into the ground.

"The earth is as merciful as it is cruel, I hope you find suffering in the depths."

The earth beneath the woman started to tremble and crack as Huang Ying spoke, a crack just large enough to fit her body opening beneath her after nearly five seconds. She fell into the crack with a hoarse scream, her scream temporarily stopping when she crashed into the bottom of the crack, six meters below the surface.

Moving so much earth was hard for Huang Ying, who was only at the First Step of Mortality, so his face had gotten rather pale. He stood up from his crouched position and walked back into the hut, using his devouring element to eat up the two other corpses to replenish a bit of his energy. Once the two corpses were devoured, Huang Ying returned to the crack, crouching at the side of it and placing his palms on the ground again.

"Now it is your time to sink into darkness. But you won't get the chance to rise again."

The top half of the crack started to close up as Huang Ying finished his words, fully vanishing after four seconds. The area looked as it always did, but hidden a few meters beneath the surface, the woman was locked in her earthen grave and could only wait to suffocate or bleed to death, only then would her punishment end.