Bai Qi's senses had made him aware that no one of the [Sha Zhu] bandit's near the center of the town was a danger. Or better said, none of them could be considered even as a challenge.

Thus, he acted decisively, rushing from presence to presence and ceasing their existence with a single claw attack.

First, it was a 1st level Warrior Lord that had just begun to move as the Beastmen auras left the immediate area, and the man did not have a chance to understand what happened as Bai Qi's flaming claws tore him in two. He had a couple of collared women with him, and with the three naked, it was easy to understand what was happening before Bai Qi arrived.

The young women screamed as the two parts of the bandit fell on the ground, but as they tried to look at who did it, they found only the open door of the house, with no signs of anyone present.

The second target, also a 1st level Warrior Lord, had been quicker to act, and when Bai Qi appeared near the target's house, he found himself with a prepared opponent. Regretfully for the bandit, what he assumed to be just a Sage had speed, strength, and means far above him.

*Clang*

Bai Qi's left claw deflected the bandit's rune-covered hatchet, and the right one tore at the man's throat. "Go near the big building. The slavers will be dead shortly." Leaving these words to the person behind the door, Bai Qi disappeared from the spot.

Only to appear an instant later near another house, a hundred feet away, from where he felt the two intermediate-leveled Sages, two presences with no cultivation, and what had made him rush there, the air of death.

*CRASH*

Bai Qi kicked the door, which flew in with part of the wall. And then, he immediately rushed inside.

The house consisted of a single room, and except for two beds, it was empty. A single rune-light illuminated the room, and Bai Qi saw how two men held two young girls while holding their weapons right below the girls' collars.

"Leave us alone, or we will kill them!" The two exclaimed almost at the same time, pushing their dagger and curved sword, respectively, and drawing a few droplets of blood from the necks of the half-naked, shivering girls.

But Bai Qi did not even look at them, his eyes directed on the body lying between the beds. It was a middle-aged woman, and while the collar prevented him from being sure, the puddle of blood beneath was enough to guess she had her throat slit. The blood was dark and had almost dried, so indeed, at least an hour had passed.

"Kill them! Let us escape, or we will!" The sword-holding bandit yelled again.

"Do it then, and you two will follow right away." Bai Qi evenly said as he looked at the teary-eyed girls that showed practically no reaction to these words. Bai Qi felt furious, but he did not show it at all. Even more, he goaded the bandits, "Hey, why don't you kill them already? Want me to help?"

"You think we will not do it?! Their blood will be on your hands!" Now it was the knife-holding bandit the one to scream, but neither of them tried to act anyway.

The bandits knew that if the young Sage in front of them meant his words, it did not matter if they killed the girls or not, as both would die anyway. And if he was only scaring them, the situation did not change either. After all, as soon as they killed the girls, he would kill them as well.

As for Bai Qi, he wasn't going to allow the two animals to kill the girls, and he indeed planned to put them down like the rabid dogs they were. He just needed to distract them, and it worked.

"Now, if you aren't doing anything, should I be the one to solve the situation?" His unexpected words made both bandits look at him, and then, Bai Qi's aura exploded, freezing them on the spot.

Bai Qi's soul had recuperated, and even he was infusing half of his soul power into his inner world to hasten the awakening of Kui Mulang, his full-power aura was far above a Peak Sage one.

Maybe not enough to crush the two Sages in front of him but suppressing them entirely for a few breaths was easy.

*Swoosh* *Swoosh*

With a single thought, two throwing daggers materialized from his [Void Ring], and under his control, lodged into the bandits' heads.

*Thump* *Thump*

A strand of aura shoved the bandits' weapons away and so left the girls untouched as the two dead bodies fell on the ground when Bai Qi released the suppression.

His senses indicated that Ye Su and Fan Jia had dealt with the other five by now, and so, all the nine [Sha Zhu] company members were dead. The thought crossed his mind, followed by another one,

"You two, it is safe now. And..." Bai Qi looked at the two unmoving and unresponsive girls, and while he was anything but a saint, he felt a pang of sadness for them, "I am sorry for your loss."

___________________________________________________________________

[Qingchu Shui] was located in one of the rare areas where even Spirit Beasts were rare, so it had only a few trained cultivators, most of which had either already left the Martial path or because of their low realm had decided to embrace a mortal-like life.

On its heyday, [Qingchu Shui] counted near four hundred people. Slightly over a hundred houses, a small store, some utility buildings, and a big building that served both as an inn for the rare visitors and as a meeting place for the villagers formed the small village, surrounded by a low wooden wall.

Located just a few hundred feet from the river, where a small pier and a couple of fisheries stood, it was never a wealthy village, but it had been a peaceful one.

At least until ten years ago, when without notice, close to a hundred cultivators from the nearby desert arrived and took it with ease. Led by three Warrior King, with close to three dozen Warrior Lords, and the rest Sage realm cultivators, the [Sha Zhu Company] as they called themselves did not spend any effort suppressing the attempts of the villagers to fight back. And to no wonder, as the strongest person in the village was a mere 4th level Warrior Lord.

And while the tragedy of losing their homes or whatever wealth they had would be bad enough, the villagers met one far worse. After all, the [Sha Zhu Company] main business was one of slavery, and after the crazed conquest, all the remaining villagers, close to two hundred, were collared and forced to work.

Some sold, some killed, and some died because of overworking and malnourishment. By now, only six of the original villagers remained, and one of them was the middle-aged woman in front of Bai Qi.

Her ragged attire did not hide the signs of beatings and malnourishment, while her still shaking body hinted at what had been forced on her recently. Just a few minutes ago, and what Ye Su stopped when she entered the house, severed the life of a half-naked and drunk man and then led her out towards the other enslaved women she and Fan Jia had been gathering from this part of the town.

"Thank you." Although both with a shaky voice and body, the woman thanked and tried to bow. And she would have done so if not for a push of aura.

This push came from the young man that stood near the gathered girls and women, and as she looked at him, he lightly shook his head, "There is no need for such."

***

"All members of the [Sha Zhu Company] in the village are now dead. Please gather everyone in the village, and as soon as I return, I will proceed to take off the collars." Bai Qi informed the women and girls they found either in the beds of the now-dead bandits. Between them and the dozen that Fan Jia had found in one of the locked warehouses, they numbered 23.

After leaving the still frozen girls he had rescued to Ye Su and confirming that there was no one wounded, he left her and Fan Jia in charge of gathering the enslaved people.

{Please look that they don't do anything crazy, and bring Pang from outside the village as well.} Bai Qi instructed them and left towards the place he sensed the Beastmen gathering.

***

Even without sensing the Beastmen, it would be hard to miss the spot just a mile away from the village where they gathered. The constant shrieks and cursing that sounded from the place were unmissable.

*Step*

Using 'Counting Steps', Bai Qi appeared near his companions.

"Everyone's fine? Wait, where is Zhua?" Bai Qi was sure that no one would be wounded, but now that he reached the place, he found that only five were present.

"Ah, she will be back shortly. Just recently, she passed through here, running after an escapee." Heise Zhao dutifully reported as the others nodded, indicating they were unharmed.

"And I take that she growled something like, do not interfere, right?" It was the only possible explanation why the escapee wasn't on the list of already dead bandits after all.

"Grrr, she did." Heise Zhao growled in turn.

"You damned beasts, release me!!! And you, who the fuck are you?! Are you in league with these beasts?!" A woman was rolling on the floor, collared as the people of the village. In truth, she had been groaning, shouting, and cursing since before Bai Qi arrived and did not stop at all, but he paid no attention to her until this moment.

"Oh, where are my manners! It's nice to meet you, Miss Ma Su. This one unworthy of looking at you is called Chen Guang, and I am just a mere guide for the [Steel Fang] region guests you already met." Bai Qi made an exaggerated salute as he spoke in a court-like manner.

He did it seriously, and his expression did not change even as the beasts started chuckling. Kass Shaa'r laughed to the brink of tears, and the usually serious Heise Zhao chuckled while trying to hide it. Bai Ze and Bai Rui did not conceal their half-growling giggling, and surprisingly, even Gi La hissed in something like laughter.

"You brat! What the hell do you think you are doing?! Our boss will never let you live!!" Defeated, collared, and now laughed at made Ma Su howl hysterically.

"Shut up." Bai Qi's expression turned cold, and his command carried both aura and consciousness behind, making the almost mortal Ma Su bleed from her ears from the sheer pressure.

[Restraining Collars] or [Slave Collars] not only sealed the cultivation of their wearer but also made him controllable by a mix of pain and enforcing from the formations on it. When Bai Qi had broken Pang's collar, part of the formation was damaged.

And when he repaired it, considering that they may need it to suppress the Warrior King cultivator they knew about, he used runes to reinforce the sealing effect, leaving the other two out. Not because he had not had enough time, but because he lacked the tools to engrave a correctly working formation.

In any case, the enforcing formation would not be enough to make Ma Su speak all the truth as her consciousness was still one of a Warrior King. As for the pain one, well, what need he had of a formation for that?

***

Bai Qi's interrogation methods were rarely orthodox and painless, especially when he did not care about how bad they were like in this case.

Ma Su's cursing and shrieking were replaced by wailing and howling, and even some of his companions chose to look away.

Half an hour later, Bai Qi left the sobbing wreck Ma Su had become and called for the Beastmen.

Huo Laohu, at least from the reports he had gotten, was sure that no Beastman was killed or went missing after the incident with the humans attacking the litter's location of a few small packs. But from Bai Qi forced out from Ma Su, it turned out that the attack was a cover-up.

The [Sha Zhu Company] boss, Sha Chailang, knew that breaking such a taboo would force all the nearby Beastmen to the location and that another separate group would be able to sneak unnoticed. And complete their objective without alarming anyone.

While most current Beastmen were born naturally, from the union of two Beastmen, some instances of Spirit Beasts evolving into Beastmen were still present. Usually, it was possible to determine the likeliness of this happening by examining a Beast's core. And it was a common practice in the [Steel Fang], after which, if the result showed a possibility, the Beast would relocate to the fringes of the region, to the more-or-less safe zones.

The process had to happen by itself naturally, so Beastmen only made sure of the safety of those zones and never interfered with what happened inside. After all, Spirit Beasts were not so-capable of speech and understanding, and a natural process implied fights, hunts, and consumption of their prey spirit cores.

The spirit cores of such beasts, if harvested at the moment before the breakthrough, were purer and stronger and so were sought after by cultivators that absorbed cores to advance.

Ma Su wasn't in the know of the details, as the people sent to capture the beasts weren't even from the [Sha Zhu Company], so she could only share some details.

After he explained what he had learned, the same thought crossed everyone's mind, and Heise Zhao was the one to voice it out, "Huo Laohu needs to know about this. And where the ancestors Zhua is?!"

*Flick*

As if to respond to his question, a message talisman suddenly flew towards Bai Qi, and he caught it with a quick movement.

"The Heavens have decided to help us." Bai Qi's eyes gleamed as the contents entered his mind, and all the Beastmen looked at him in surprise. One replaced by joy as he continued, "Zhua found them."

"Where?" The five asked in unison.

"Twelve miles upstream. You all go there. I will take care of the matters in the village and then follow after you."

"But what about the [Sha Zhu Company] new contract?" Kass Shaa'r asked right away, as his tone denoted worry.

"I am unsure of what kind of power is the [Void Palace], but I doubt that it's weak. Or that they aren't prepared or do not have their defensive means. Our arrival will not change much for them anyway, so a couple of days does not matter." Bai Qi smiled with ease, and his tone contained none of his inner doubt.

"And what about her?" Bai Rui pointed at the lowly sobbing woman behind Bai Qi.

"Hmm? I think that my methods were enough to make her understand her misdeeds. So, we will see what to do about her later." Bai Qi shrugged before half-turning and asking, "Do you agree?"

"...Yes, master." Without daring to raise her head, Ma Su responded after forcing herself to stop shaking.

"Now, go before Zhua attacks alone." Bai Qi motioned for the Beastmen to leave, and they immediately so.

"I know you did not lie, but how did you miss a separate camp just a few miles from here?" Bai Qi asked the woman after the Beastmen departed, and he started walking towards the village.

"...I was wounded. Maybe the boss did not want to share all with me as to not distract me?" Although she gave an almost valid reason, Bai Qi and even she knew that it could not be so. Indeed, just how much care it was, to forget about a camp near the one you are leaving Ma Su to guard?