"Monster...Cruelty...Too cruel...Monster..."

The last surviving person amongst what was once a group of 15 people was muttering incessantly, almost deliriously. He had been forced to lie there and watch as the others were killed one by one in different ways. To him, it almost looked like Huang Ying was purposefully using different ways to kill them so that he could test out various different things that he had read about. Huang Ying was currently sitting on the youth's back, his right foot tucked underneath his left thigh as his right elbow rested on his knee, his hand supporting his chin as he kept an eye on Hei Ya and Hong Yi.

"Finished? Well, guess even the two of you have a limit to how much you can eat. Alright, guess that means we can finish up here."

The black wolf, Hei Ya, and the sparrow, Hong Yi, had both gorged themselves on the flesh of the 14 people. None of the corpses remained whole, some were only missing smaller chunks but others were missing entire limbs and more. Huang Ying stood up from his seated position and lowered his gaze to look at the youth beneath him.

The youth wasn't wrong, Huang Ying's actions could only be considered monstrous and cruel. He had seen the depths of cruelty and human depravity, so while he wasn't one to resort to cruel, he knew that there were few people more suited to it than him. He tapped the ground with his foot and caused the earth around the youth's head to rise up and encase it in an orb.

The orb then compressed itself, crushing the youth's head and causing blood to seep out from the earthen orb before it sank back into the ground, only leaving behind the crushed remains of the youth's neck. Hei Ya walked over with slow steps after Huang Ying finished, Hong Yi lazily lying on top of his head, she was so stuffed with meat that she could barely move. The sludge-like darkness covered in eyes and maws rose up from Huang Ying's shadow and started to suck in the headless corpse, the voice of Li Jun sounding out within Huang Ying's head.

"So how was it, your first taste of dishing out cruelty rather than having it served to you?"

This was Huang Ying's first true life-or-death battle against other humans, it was also only the third time that he took the lives of other people. The first time was before his body was rebuilt, when he escaped from his prison cell, the second time was right after his body was rebuilt and he acquired his law of devouring. Huang Ying's eyes swept across the clearing and the remaining corpses, his expression wavering between tired and bored.

"Easy. Easy and boring. There's no competition, no test of strength, no challenge. I really can't see how some people manage to get any enjoyment out of it."

He really couldn't understand those kinds of people, he didn't get any joy out of dealing with these people, it just felt like a terrible waste of time. Had it not been for what they did to Langye then he wasn't even certain he could be bothered to spend so long on them, taking care of them one by one.

A stream of energy entered Huang Ying's body through his shadow, coursing through his body and sinking into his dantian. This one felt a bit thinner than the streams he was used to getting from devouring Demonic beasts. But unlike the energy he got from Demonic beasts, most of this stream of energy sank into his dantian and attached itself to the island hovering within it.

He was currently at the 6th Mortal Step so the ashen island in his dantian had reached 16 kilometers in diameter, when it reached 32 then he would have reached the 7th Mortal Step. The mound of earth placed on the island had also reached a height of 32 meters and the wind whizzing above the island had grown stronger, all signs of his increased cultivation.

Huang Ying observed his dantian for a bit, his gaze mostly focusing on the dim stars that hung a bit above the gleaming stars that were the memories he had devoured so far. Other than the one dim star, which had descended so much that it was just about to mix with the others, none of the other dim stars had moved yet. He was a bit dissatisfied, but there was nothing he could do about it but wait for them to descend to confirm his hypothesis.

He pulled his consciousness out of his dantian and had his sludge-like shadow stretch out a bit, encroaching on the remaining corpses and devouring them one by one. He could increase his cultivation a bit by devouring them and he had to see exactly what they were planning, exactly what they needed bait for.

New stars appeared in the sky above his dantian, Huang Ying sifting through the memories stored within them to learn whatever he could. He spent a few minutes going through the most recent memories, eventually learning what the two different factions were planning. His lips couldn't help but curl slightly in disdain when he saw the full extent of their plan.

"Really, every time I think I've seen the full extent of your patheticness you somehow manage to surprise me."

Langye wasn't the only 'bait' that they had hung up, they had strung up a further 50 people from the Silver Cloud faction, who in turn had strung up about 30 people from the Burning Cloud faction. And for what was it that they were stringing up so many people as bait? They wanted to have the beasts within the forest run rampant and form a stampede, opening a path to the center of the forest.

According to what these people had been told, a powerful Demonic beast at the center of the forest had recently birthed a child so they wanted to kidnap the child. They didn't want to kidnap it to keep it, they wanted to use it as a hostage so that the beast who birthed it would be forced to give them a bit of its blood and some of the resources it was apparently growing in its lair.

They had no chance whatsoever to beat the beast in combat, so this underhanded trick was the only thing they could resort to if they wanted to achieve their goal. Of course, they also planned on having the beast swear an oath before returning the child, otherwise, it would just kill them when they gave the child back. Li Jun's voice rang out in his head after Huang Ying finished going through the memories, it seemed like he had been waiting for him to finish up before he decided to speak up.

"You should leave now that you've finished with your business here. The scent of blood coming from here has attracted a group of people not from your academy, things would end poorly for you if you were to go against them. You should head westward, one of your friends is coming from that direction, I'm guessing that she's already discovered you."

With Langye having perished there was only one female friend that Li Jun could mean, Song Yi. Huang Ying gave a slight nod of his head, not too surprised that there were people not from the academy present within the forest. He had learned from these people's memories that others had also come to the forest to take advantage of the childbirth that the beast in the center of the forest had just experienced.

Quite a few groups had apparently arrived from various academies or other organizations, some had ties to the Burning Cloud and the Silver Cloud factions while some came from the main part of the continent. Huang Ying had stayed closer to the edge of the forest so he had yet to meet any of those groups, but the deeper parts of the forest were actually a hotbed of activity right now, people and beasts killed and strung up all over the place to rile the beasts into a stampede.

Huang Ying gave Hei Ya and Hong Yi a few quick pats while gesturing westward, the group of three quickly leaving the area. Li Jun couldn't lie to Huang Ying right now, so he didn't doubt him when he said that things would end poorly for him if he remained here and faced them.

He could hear a thunderous explosion coming from behind him a mere minute after he left the area, the sound of trees breaking quickly following. He didn't need Li Jun to tell him anything to know that the people had likely discovered him and were currently in pursuit, they probably wanted to shrink the number of people that could compete with them later on.

Huang Ying clicked his tongue slightly and picked up Hei Ya and Hong Yi, carrying one underneath his arm while putting the other inside a pocket that lined the inside of his robe. The two of them were too weak to move at a sufficient speed so he had to carry them like this if he wanted to pick up the pace.

Huang Ying kicked off the ground and shot forward while using a bit of wind to lighten his body. The trees were rather dense here but since he was on his own it was rather easy for him to maneuver around the trees where there was a need for it. The people behind him seemed to have it a bit worse, the sound of trees getting torn out and knocked over coming from the rear without end. But looking at how easily they seemed to be able to tear through the trees, he guessed that they had brought along a rather large Demonic beast and were using it as a mount.

Even worse, the beast seemed to be rather quick, the sound of breaking trees only growing closer and closer as the minutes ticked away. After spending almost six minutes running, the people chasing him finally entered Huang Ying's perception, which had increased to 19 meters after devouring the 15 people just now. To be more specific, the head of their mount entered his perception, slowly crawling closer and closer.

The mount looked like a barrel-wide leg-less weasel covered in light brown fur, it slithered along the ground like a snake as it broke through all the dense trees. Huang Ying couldn't see the people riding it yet, but this weasel alone had reached the 6th Mortal Step, fighting it would definitely not be easy.

He continued to run for another minute before suddenly kicking a tree at his side with his foot, sharply altering his direction and dashing to the left. The reason for his sharp turn was that Song Yi had entered his perception, already waving in his direction in a hurried manner.

He crossed the 19 meters between them in only a few seconds, grabbing onto a branch to stop himself before he crashed into Song Yi at full speed. She looked a bit disheveled after spending a few days in the forest, her previously waist-long black hair had been roughly cut so that it only hung down to her ears and was covered in dirt, her skin also had a few bruises and cuts that caused blood to stain her robe.

But she at least still had a robe to wear, so she was a bit better off than Huang Ying, who hadn't found anything he could wear amongst the belongings of the people he just killed. Her two differently colored eyes swept over Huang Ying's body for a short moment as she spoke, her eyes quickly turning behind him.

"Oh, you picked up some new pets? Couldn't you find anything be... Wait, now's not the time for that, keep fucking running!"

She quickly reached out and slapped the hand that Huang Ying was using to hold onto the branch, spurring him to let go before she turned to the side and started running. Huang Ying did as she said and let go of the branch, quickly following her as the two fled from the still chasing weasel. Huang Ying might have his perception, but Song Yi had such strange eyes and bloodline that not even Li Jun was quite certain what they were. After all, Huang Ying only discovered her when she entered his perception, while she, on the other hand, seemed to have discovered him several minutes ago.

The two continued to run, Song Yi occasionally changing direction sharply to avoid some areas. Had it not been for Li Jun tellin him then Huang Ying would never have known that they avoided running into other groups or entering the dens of dangerous Demonic beasts each time Song Yi changed direction. It didn't take long for Huang Ying to come to the conclusion that Song Yi was the best possible compass to bring along for something like this, nothing seemed to escape her eyes. But the beast chasing them never slowed down, it even seemed to get a bit faster as time passed, causing Song Yi to let out a bitter curse, even shouting at the people chasing them before letting out a somewhat softer mutter.

"Man, fucking leave us alone already! Tch, if only that terrible drunkard Chen Hong was here, at least he would make it easier to escape. Gah, fuck it, I'll just have to use it! Ey, Night Stalker, stop running for a bit, we'll never escape them like this. In a minute, just stick close to me."

Huang Ying felt like raising a complaint on the nickname she used, after all, it was only once that he had walked up to her house in the night. But seeing that she was being uncharacteristically serious, he decided that now was a time where he should just keep his mouth shut, he could nag at her once they were safe.

The two stopped running and turned to face the incoming pursuers, Song Yi rubbing her interspatial ring and taking out an orange crystal fragment. She held it behind her back and started to slide her finger along it, quickly drawing a bit of blood due to how sharp the edges of the crystal were. She started to slowly insert a bit of Qi into it with each finger motion, the crystal starting to release a very faint light.

Their pursuers had fallen off a bit after Song Yi took the lead, but they still managed to catch up in only thirty seconds once Huang Ying and Song Yi stopped running. The leg-less weasel knocked down the trees in front of them and revealed the people riding on its back, a group of six people clad in earthen brown robes embroidered with a symbol resembling a straight mountain cracked down the middle. The one who led the group was a yellow-haired woman who seemed to be in her late twenties, her arms were crossed in front of her chest as she looked at Huang Ying and Song Yi.

"You're fast, far faster than people of your realm should be. I'm sure that you are exceedingly talented and famous where you come from, but I'm afraid that we can't allow any risks towards the upcoming operation so I'll have to make you vanish here. Please don't despise me as you head for the yellow springs."

Huang Ying couldn't help but roll his eyes when he heard how the woman spoke to them. She acted as if she was incredibly far above them, but she was at best at the peak of the 9th Mortal Step. And asking them to not despise her after she killed them? Such a selfish and idiotic request showed far more of her actual personality than it did anything else. One of the men in the group behind her, a brown-haired youth who actually looked to only be around 13 or 14 years old, hurriedly interrupted the woman just as she was about to raise her hand to give out her orders.

"Please wait, Senior Sister! I know that we must kill them, but can you give me that girl for a bit first? My Big Brother said that there's no better feeling than when you forcibly take a girl's virginity so I want to put it to the test."

Hearing such a request, Huang Ying couldn't help but grimace slightly. Why was it that the men he interacted with here in this forest were all so repulsive and pathetic? It couldn't be the natural state of all cultivators to be like this, he had met a few good people in the academy after all. Was his luck in men that shit, or was his luck in enemies just that good? After all, pathetic people like them deserved no respect and didn't even have any determination worthy of admiration, killing them wouldn't leave behind the slightest sense of discomfort, even if the opponent was such a young child.

The leading woman turned her head slightly, her eyebrows only furrowing slightly at the request. But Song Yi pulled out the crystal she had been hiding behind her back before the woman could say anything, the corners of her mouth curling up somewhat grimly while her eyes were somewhat dark.

"Sorry to disappoint, but that thing was stolen away a few years ago already. Now if you'll excuse me, we're gonna fuck off. Goodbye, and don't worry, we'll kill you at a later date."

Song Yi threw the crystal to the ground and shattered it, causing a light orange haze to rise up from the shards and quickly surround her and Huang Ying, as well as the beasts he was carrying. Huang Ying felt the world blur in front of his eyes as a violent force carried them away. He was just barely able to feel that they were being flung through the forest at nearly three times their previous speed.

It didn't take long for them to leave the group of six people in the dust and completely leave the area. If Huang Ying had to come up with a problem then it would be that they seemed to be heading deeper into the forest. But he could only mentally shrug his shoulders at it, heading deeper gave him the chance to devour stronger Demonic beasts, and maybe even a cultivator or ten if they were all as pathetic as the people he had met here so far.