Huff Huff Huff.

A man stumbled and fumbled through the dark forest. The thick fog that blanketed the forest allowed neither knowledge of where the man headed nor where he was. It did not matter to him. All that mattered was that he ran far from what was behind him.

Thud.

The man tripped. He quickly snapped his head to where he came from. The sheer anxiety, horror, and stress could be seen in the dilated pupils within his wide eyes. Looking into the boundless fog which seemed to contain a thing that stared back, all the man heard in the silence was his heartbeat and breath which only increased in speed by the moment. Trapped in his fear, the man did not move. As the moment drew on, the man seemed to regain both his wits and breaths as he slowly calmed himself.

Shunk!

The man’s eyes widened once more. He slowly looked down at the dark red blade, coated in his blood, protruding out his chest. Once the blade retracted out, the man fell forward as the life in his eyes slowly went stale.

Behind the man’s lifeless body, there was a youth in a green cloak with a hood. White robes could be faintly seen underneath the cloak. The youth swung his sword to rid the blood on his pristine blade.

I wonder if the rest have been finished off.

Ye Tian put the sword away on his back and walked off as the events of earlier rolled back in his mind.

***

Three figures in hooded, green cloaks could be seen sprinting through the forest at fast speeds. The trio came and left the locations they passed through without disturbing the ambient life. Each of the three carried weapons of their choice on their backs as a sturdy figure carried a huge bag, giant broadsword, and bow with arrows while the other two carried a normal-sized sword, bag, and bow with arrows.

“We should take a break, rest, and plan since we’re close to the bandit hideout,” shouted the sturdy figured person.

A closer look would reveal that this was Nan Feng and the other two were Ye Tian and Yu Ling. Upon hearing Nan Feng, the other two stopped. The trio then sat around resting while staring at a huge map that Nan Feng had taken out.

“The bandit hideout was reported two miles ahead of us,” Nan Feng pointed out. “The information provided shows that there are a total of 34 bandits with five of them at the muscle stage and one of them at the blood stage.”

Bandits having cultivation was quite often as it was still fairly easy to kill cultivators during the first three stages when they could not use qi. Some bandits would be lucky enough to kill a cultivator through numbers or ambush. Other bandit groups were formed from rogue cultivators, who got their Qi cultivation techniques by luck, or retired soldiers. Some bandit groups were even partially mercenaries as these scourges expanded their choices of earning cash.

Not all bandits were necessarily bad though, some people were just unable to get the opportunity to cultivate and had to join bandits to get cultivation techniques. In fact, the person who had provided the trio with information was a retired bandit who renounced his old ways.

“We should first observe them and find out if there are any opportunities when they are separated, so we can kill them,” Ye Tian advised.

The green cloak’s camouflage function was vital to this plan’s success. The trio went along with Ye Tian’s plan and thus the next few days were spent observing from afar. The group had split to different sides of the forest to gather maximum information, and they would reconvene at night with what they gathered. As a result, Ye Tian was filled with boredom as he sat alone on a tree.

It had been a month since Ye Tian started training with Lu Yin. There was plenty of progress, but Ye Tian still couldn’t win against Lu Yin in anything yet. During this period, Ye Tian and the others had reached the muscle stage, and they decided to take on a mission. The group had taken on this seemingly impossible mission since they figured that they could take on numbers with a little bit of planning.

On the fifth night, the group met up again to form the plan.

“These bandits spend most of their time in their rooms. At night, they come out to drink and gamble. Their blood stage boss came out only once in these five days,” reported Nan Feng.

“Every noon, three of the muscle stages will each take out five mortal bandits to form squads and hunt for food. I followed a few of these groups. It seems that they rely on traps and only hunt if there isn’t any catch. I’ve marked down the locations of the traps,” reported Yu Ling.

“These bandits often use the restrooms in the wild during the morning since they drink pretty heavily every night. There are also a few that wake up during the night to use the restroom,” reported Ye Tian.

“We should strike when they split into hunting groups. Since the squads of 6 will split up to check the traps, we need to memorize where traps are. Each of us will follow a squad and then it will be easy to pick off the bandits individually at each of the traps. The bandits do this often and are fairly organized, so I circled the regions of traps which are cleared by each bandit squad,” Yu Ling pointed out.

During the past month, the trio had met up plenty of times and Yu Ling was slowly becoming more talkative when Ye Tian was next to her. However, Yu Ling was still fairly reserved around Ye Tian and it would only take some more time before she felt comfortable near Ye Tian.

“Do you know the rotational schedule? Perhaps we can take out the people who aren’t going to hunt when they use the restroom,” Ye Tian asked.

“Yes, I’ll show you two tomorrow and we can strike the day after,” Yu Ling replied.

“So we have plans for the night, morning, and noon, but what should we do after that? The bandits will know something is up when people don’t return in the afternoon,” asked Nan Feng.

“They don’t know we’re here and will likely have someone go out and find the late bandits. We’ll see if we can take out some more from there. With at least three muscle stages gone, 15 bandits during the noon, and a few more during the night and morning, we should then be able to assault the camp by using the element of surprise,” answered Ye Tian.

The next day ensued with Yu Ling showing Ye Tian and Nan Feng the faces of the people who will move out on the next rotation. After that, the trio committed the maps of the traps to their memory. The night soon began to fall and the bandits once again started to have a merry time drinking and gambling. Little did they know that their lives were hanging by a thread.

The trio met up in their spot again.

“Okay, listen, guys, the plan could fail, so if it does then escape and we can plan out our next steps,” Nan Feng stated and looked into the eyes of both Yu Ling and Ye Tian to get their affirmation. After receiving a nod from the two, Nan Feng declared with satisfaction, “Move out!”

The trio split to surround the bandit camp on all sides. Tonight, every person who wasn't part of tomorrow’s hunting squad would not return from their leisure trip to the woods. The bandits didn’t even notice the people who went missing as they all got drunk and slowly dozed off.

***

“Hahahaha! Old Li has lost at least a quarter of his retirement fund from his gambling,” laughed a bandit with a missing front tooth.

“Shut up!” hissed the bandit named Old Li as he got up to leave.

“Awww Old Li’s feelings are hurt,” another bandit laughed.

“Shut up! I’m going out to take a leak! I’ll be back to take back what I lost,” Old Li shouted before walking off into the dark.

After traveling for a minute or two, Old Li stopped to take off his pants when a shadow dropped down from the trees behind Old Li. A flash of reflected moonlight slashed through Old Li’s neck. Old Li froze before a thin line appeared on his neck and his head fell off.

Back at the bandit camp. One of the bandits noticed that Old Li hadn’t been back for a while, “Hey, where’s Old Li?”

“Who cares about that loser?”

“True.”

“Damn it! I lost just as much as Old Li! I’m going to drink till I drop today!”

***

As the sun rose and quickly reached its peak at noon, the trio quickly reconvened to count their kills during the night.

“I killed two,” reported Yu Ling.

“One,” reported Ye Tian.

“I took out a muscle stage,” reported Nan Feng with a big grin.

“Nice! There are 25 mortals, 4 muscle stages, and one blood stage remaining,” exclaimed Ye Tian.

Perhaps the kill count was low for the number of people who went to use the restroom at night and morning. However, there were limits as to who they could kill. First of all, there were plenty of people on guard duty which already halved the number of people drinking. Next, some of those people were on hunting rotation thus they couldn’t be killed. The trio had already thought about a classic night strike. However, the numbers of people on guard duty and the blood stage bandit proved too risky thus the trio could only whittle down the numbers.

“Good luck on the next operation,” Nan Feng spoke before the trio split again.

***

At the bandit camp, a one-eyed bandit woke up the sleeping bandits, “Wake up! You are on hunting duty! You too! If you guys don’t get up then you’re not eating today!”

One of the bandits who woke up rubbed his eyes before asking, “Where’s Old Li?”

“Are you into him or something? Get up for hunting duty already!”

The bandits quickly organized into three squads with six bandits in each squad before moving out. Within the bush, Ye Tian’s eyes peered out with a vicious gleam.

It’s time for today’s core operation!