As Ao Jin pillages my body with this power, his voice is strangely soft.

“You know, we used to be normal. My Wife, child, and I.”

He’s calmly delving into his history as his fire rages within my meridians. Flooding every piece of it, filling every corner, going on every branch. Despite that he has such a small amount, he’s using it like a mist, making sure every piece is touching some part of the lining inside me. The rest of the space is being filled with normal Qi.

It makes it worse to know that this isn’t the end, only the beginning. He hasn’t even started to utilize the Qi that he’s pouring into me.

And through all of this, now I have to listen to his back story? No, I need to see if there’s a way through this talisman with my scan.

A quick check shows that the Talisman it’s in one of a series of pouches laying on his belt. He’s keeping a steady flow of Qi going into it. It appears it initially needed a large amount of Qi to activate, and then a small amount to keep it going.

A very high-quality Talisman, meant for ease-of-use low maintenance. Something those normal cultivators wouldn’t be able to lay their eyes on. It’s also meant for cultivators of around his rank or maybe a little higher.

This must be the reason that I can’t seem to budge even a little. Its strength is so much higher than mine that there’s no way I could break free of this.

He has too much high-level gear.

I mean, it makes sense for what he’s trying to do, but wanting it and being able to get it are two separate things.

I’ll need to be careful about using my scan. I don’t know what other devices he might have, that might be able to tell things based on knowledge.

What’s crazy is that he is taking it easy on me, as there’s clearly more he could do within the demonic cultivation method he’s using.

He’s already doing this much because there’s that much of a benefit. If he finds out that I can actually find out things about a person?

Well, there are more ways to get a person to do something than just coercing them. And while I fought off an attack in my soul, I’m not so sure how that would go with having my body puppeteer'd and mind drained.

Everything will have to hinge on when the tamed creatures attack.

He continues speaking about his family, oblivious to my internal plans.

“We tried to live a simple life together. Although we were part of the side family, I was always treated as a waste, just because one member from the main family didn’t like my father. Even after he died, they never stopped coming after me and my family for anything they could.”

His eyes are bunched up with tears, even as his grip tightens, causing me even deeper pain and feeding even more into the reaction building inside.

“It wasn’t even a good excuse that they used to take them away from me. They bought off another family who caused problems for me and then immediately demanded compensation afterwards. I desperately tried to pay them off, using any way I could. Even selling my body and doing horrible things to people on their behalf.

“But it was never enough. Because of the things I did, my family exiled me. One of the other clans as compensation took my wife and child. The things they make them do every day…”

My God…

His eyes turned crazed, as the things he’s gone through and done is clearly broken him.

Since I wasn’t using the scan earlier while healing him, I could only tell that there was some deep trauma in his life. Not where it had stemmed from and what he’d be willing to do to resolve it.

… To be frank, if I went through the things that he did, I might have turned out like him.

I thought similar things as a hypothetical to other people I’ve had to kill in this world. But in this situation, I can’t deny if I had no other options, I’d probably do the same.

I don’t even need the scan to know how terrifyingly common going through a thing like this is. And the scariest part is, he’s still in a privileged position. He clearly could get all these items and keep his cultivation.

For those without it…

With that said, I still will need to stop him.

And this pain is still mind-blowingly awful.

It may not be as bad as what I went through to help my cultivation, but it’s still is enough to occupy a portion of my mind.

What does scare me, is that he hasn’t begun to actually use with this yet. This is going to get so much worse than what I went through earlier.

While I’m thinking this, he’s still talking,, but it’s mainly derivations of what he had gone through and how terrible it was. There are also many colorful words for what he’s going to do to the family that has his wife and child. And that is basically torturing and raping them, as they had done to his family.

Strangely enough, he’s not saying much at all about the family that exiled him.

However, that no longer matters to me, as another creature has stolen my attention away.

A child sized grasshopper is sneaking up on us from a few 100 meters away. Its eyes are clearly on Ao Jin.

It’s also too weak to do anything to him.

If it attacks, it’ll give away that I can control creatures! And I’m not even controlling this one!

I send several taming requests to it, but I have so little mana left, and apparently it doesn’t care enough that it blows them off.

Of course, this is one beast that is stubborn and doesn’t want to be part of a contract with me.

Like a cat hunting its prey, it approaches with its eyes locked on his position. Closer and closer it comes.

Ao Jin notices nothing during this time, but as it gets within 20 meters, I can sense that he’s noticed it’s there.

I filed this information in the back of my mind and towards the tame creatures that are still approaching from far away.

Once this grasshopper gets within around 10 meters and is hidden within a Bush, still similar to a cat, it wiggles its butt and then leaps in suddenly.

Unfortunately for it, I see a flash of movement and it practically explodes in a shower of bug guts. My scan tells me he slapped it down.

It is then that he stopped talking and turned his eyes on me. Just like I had assumed, he’s now looking at me suspiciously.

It’s easy to see that he knows.

With how the bugs had moved earlier around me and attacked him, and now this grasshopper creature, it’ll be easy to see that I can control creatures. Even while bound.

His eyes now look accusatory, as if I had wronged him.

“I wasn’t sure before… but I know now.”

His hand points at me, and I subconsciously flinch.

The tension between us grows and I can feel that things are about to get much worse for me if he’s actually figured it out.

I still can’t help but to feel some hope that he hasn’t, but his next words

“You and those creatures. You have…”

He’s going to say it! I’ve…

“Been keeping them away this whole time!”

“Been controlling them this whole time!”

…

Even though I have said nothing this whole time, an awkward silence rises between us. My eye had twitched at him not getting it, which he caught.

He backtracks.

“Ah, I mean… you’ve been doing something suspicious with these creatures…”

Sigh. I got baited. I’ve already given enough away. I’m not in a position to play around and reveal anything.

I need to be silent and show nothing. Forget about him and his family. I’m in a bad situation myself here.

It’s silent for a period, as he seems to mull over a few things. It appears he’s using the time to meditate and spread his spiritual sense over the local area before recollecting it.

It’s not long after that it appears he’s finished setting things up to use me as a cauldron. He goes quiet before looking back at me.

He finally speaks.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll need to begin now. Once I start, I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to do anything since all your Qi will be taken. However, I need to be sure that you can’t do anything to me.”

It takes only a second after he speaks, but I feel white-hot pain in every part of my limbs. My eyes twitch and blackout periodically, with my head spinning. It’s hard to concentrate. I force my scan to assess the situation.

I can’t move my head to look, but my scan shows they’re gone.

He cut off all my limbs.

They now lay on the ground below me.

The nearly bloodless dagger is now held in his hands.

Even though I’m used to worse pain than this, it’s a different feeling not being able to use and now feeling pain within something you’ve had for your entire life.

My healing constitution isn’t slacking, as it automatically attempts to regenerate them, in addition to my healing aura.

He observes, as it quickly Regrows, similarly to my head earlier. And he does it again, just before it fully grows back.

Another quad of limbs falls to the ground, filling the air with a bloody stench that I can’t smell.

And he does it again. And again. And again.

Until he finally stops. Or, to be specific, my limbs aren’t growing anymore.

Even I’m confused, as I can feel the sensation in my limbs there, but not. Of course, the overwhelming amounts of pain is there too.

My scan lets me know that this is just another form of phantom limb syndrome. Accelerated mostly because of the situation.

Regarding the limbs not growing, though? It appears he’s worked out that he can use the Talisman to restrict what parts of my body are covered.

So, when my body was reduced to a limbless state, he then restricted it to that. Preventing it from growing new ones.

He then walks over to one of my limbs and brings it to his mouth… before taking a huge meaty bite.

The blood is still dripping from his lips, as he says haunting words.

“Now we’re ready to begin.”

… there are still at least 18 hours before all the tamed creatures reach here.

Fuck.