Realm Walker

If Steward Pang truly was a member of Dark Rose, then killing him and performing spirit communion would yield a wealth of information. The hunt for Black Wuchang could accelerate dramatically. Zhang Yuanqing felt a surge of elation at the thought. Black Wuchang had eluded them for too long, and he was even more anxious about it than Fu Qingyang.

Still, Zhang Yuanqing couldn’t make sense of what had happened. ”But why would he try to kill me? At a critical juncture like this, killing me would only create unnecessary complications.”

”He has his reasons. Once I kill him, spirit communion will give us the answers.” Fu Qingyang opened the liquor cabinet and retrieved a bottle of red wine along with a couple of wine glasses. ”Care for a drink?”

So that’s where Li Dongze picked up the habit, Zhang Yuanqing noted as he shook his head. ”Got any cola?”

Fu Qingyang put the second glass back. ”You’ll have to wait until this is over and buy some yourself.”

He sipped the tart wine with an easy expression, looking nothing like a man on his way to kill someone. If anything, he looked like he was headed to a private lounge.

Perhaps only someone born into generations of old money could cultivate that kind of effortless calm. Zhang Yuanqing certainly couldn’t manage it. His mind was racing with questions. How exactly would they take down Steward Pang? How much intel did the man possess about Dark Rose, and what risks would he face if the operation went sideways?

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the drive. Fu Qingyang cradled his wine glass and gazed out the window, watching the night scene pass by and taking the occasional sip. Zhang Yuanqing reclined his seat and lay back with his eyes closed, conserving his energy.

Roughly twenty minutes later, Fu Qingyang set down his glass. Almost simultaneously, the van began to slow.

Zhang Yuanqing opened his eyes at once and sat up to peer through the window. The van had pulled over outside a high-end residential complex. The architecture was extravagantly modern, with orderly rows of buildings clad in sleek black tile. A plaza stretched out directly in front of the entrance, with a fountain in the center, which, at first glance, made the place look more like a luxury hotel than a residential neighborhood.

This guy’s loaded. Housing prices here have to be at least 1.5 million per square meter, he thought to himself.

”Centurion, if we just walk in like this, won’t we tip him off? Shouldn’t we set up a perimeter first?”

Fu Qingyang replied evenly, ”Pang Wudi sent a vengeful spirit to kill you. Right now, he’s sitting at home waiting for confirmation. Until that spirit returns, the safest thing for him to do is wait. Showing up unannounced in the dead of night is precisely how we catch him off-guard. The more people we deploy, the more likely he is to notice.”

The young aristocrat still took the time to explain his reasoning to his trusted subordinate, despite the coolness of his tone. Then, he shifted gears. ”That said, a basic sweep is still in order, just to make sure no other Dark Rose operatives are lurking nearby and jeopardize our plan.”

How is he going to sweep the area? Zhang Yuanqing wondered.

Fu Qingyang raised his right hand, pressing two fingers together like a blade, and touched them to the center of his brow. The next instant, Zhang Yuanqing caught the faintest shimmer of pale white rippling outward from Fu Qingyang’s forehead, expanding like a wave. The further it spread, the fainter it grew, until it vanished entirely beyond the limits of perception.

A dozen seconds later, Fu Qingyang opened his eyes. ”There are no ambushes nearby.”

Seeing the stunned look on his subordinate’s face, he allowed himself a thin smile. ”Don’t be so surprised. This is what a Scout does.”

It wasn’t surprise that filled Zhang Yuanqing’s mind. This is the real deal. Compared to this, Li Dongze’s just a phony.

Fu Qingyang stepped out of the van and walked up to the guard booth at the community gate, his gaze settling calmly on the security guard. ”Open the gate.”

This was the kind of upscale community that required a keycard to enter or leave.

The guard stared at the striking young man before him, impeccably-dressed in a fitted white suit with his hair pulled back in a neat, short ponytail. He was so handsome it was almost intimidating. Those deep, composed eyes carried the air of a king looking down from his throne, regal elegance laced with quiet authority.

”S-sir, which unit are you with?” the guard asked respectfully.

”Open the gate,” Fu Qingyang repeated, his voice unchanged. ”Don’t waste my time.”

For reasons the guard couldn’t articulate, a wave of reverence and submission washed over him. He fumbled to open the gate, practically trembling as he did. Fu Qingyang gave a slight nod and strode through the iron gate into the complex.

Zhang Yuanqing hurried after him, only to be stopped by the guard. ”Hold on! Which unit are you with?”

Zhang Yuanqing recalled what he had just witnessed. He schooled his expression into something stern and remote, eyes deep and steady, doing his best impression of Fu Qingyang’s regal bearing. ”Don’t waste my time.”

The guard looked him up and down, then waved him off with an impatient flick of his hand. ”Yeah, yeah, get lost.”

Zhang Yuanqing’s composure cracked with a flash of embarrassment. He quietly activated Charm, beguiling the old man into a daze, and slipped through the gate while he wasn’t paying attention.

It’s not that my aura is weaker than Fu Qingyang’s. We just have different class abilities. He could never charm that old man like I did, he told himself, salvaging what remained of his dignity.

He jogged to catch up, then muttered under his breath, ”Centurion, why didn’t we just climb over the wall? Using the front entrance leaves a trail.”

The white-suited figure strode on without slowing. ”Don’t forget who we are. We’re the authorities.”

Fair enough. If it were Li Dongze, he’d probably say climbing walls isn’t elegant, Zhang Yuanqing grumbled inwardly.

***

Pang Wudi sat in silence at the bar counter in his living room, part of a sprawling single-floor unit on the 21st floor of the west residential tower. He wore a judo uniform, his square-jawed face set in a grim, severe expression, a glass tumbler cradled in one palm. On the marble counter before him sat a bottle of whiskey and a battered old flip phone. He was waiting for the vengeful spirit inside the phone to return.

It was two in the morning, and the spirit had not yet returned. That meant the target had not yet been eliminated. Even so, Pang Wudi wasn’t worried. He didn’t believe Yuanshi Tianzun could possibly evade the spirit’s pursuit. The Nocturnal Specter class had no dream-domain abilities. Once the boy entered the dream, he was as good as dead.

Since acquiring the item, Pang Wudi had used it to dispose of several enemies he couldn’t afford to be seen killing personally, and it had never failed him. The item was the perfect assassination tool, lethal and invisible, leaving no trace whatsoever. Even a Scout as sharp as Fu Qingyang would never find a single lead.

Its only drawback was that it had no effect on targets at the Saint tier, and after ten uses, the vengeful spirit would turn on its owner, hunting them through their own dreams. Of course, for someone at the Saint tier like Pang Wudi, that amounted to little more than a minor inconvenience.

”Once Yuanshi Tianzun is dead, Fu Qingyang will be furious, but he’ll have a hard time suspecting me. Still, the man is sharp. I’ll need to be careful for the next three days,” he muttered as he drained the last of his whiskey. At that exact moment, an image flashed through his mind. Fu Qingyang, in his white suit, standing just outside the security door, accompanied by a good-looking young man.

The image had been transmitted to him by a potted plant he kept by the front door. At the Saint tier, a Wood Demon could link with nearby vegetation, turning plants into his eyes.

Pang Wudi’s eyes went wide, and shock and bewilderment crashed over him in a violent tide. Yuanshi Tianzun isn’t dead? They’ve come to my door? How is that possible?!

He instantly made a decision. He had to leave immediately. He would flee, relay the news of the failed assassination to his contact, Heaven’s Injustice, then report to his superiors and await further orders. He would adapt from there. One thing was certain: he could not stay where he was. At the very least, he needed to dispose of the assassination item first.

With the decision made, Pang Wudi bolted for the balcony, intending to leap from the window.

Drip, drip, drip...

The lock on the security door melted into molten iron, droplets splattering against the floor. The door swung open, and Fu Qingyang stepped inside, dark crimson gloves on his hands.

”Don’t bother running. You won’t get away,” he said calmly to the figure sprinting toward the balcony.

Without looking back, Pang Wudi flung a handful of spores behind him. The spores swelled explosively in midair, blooming into a swarm of small, octopus-like plants with writhing tentacles that hurtled toward Fu Qingyang and Zhang Yuanqing.

Zhang Yuanqing threw himself sideways, narrowly avoiding the incoming cluster of flailing plant creatures. He hadn’t expected the fight to erupt this instantly, without so much as a single word exchanged.

Fu Qingyang did not retreat. He walked straight into the storm of writhing plants as though he had calculated the trajectory of every single one, his stride unhurried, almost leisurely, yet each step carried him precisely through the gaps between the grasping tentacles.

At the same time, he flipped his right hand over and produced a small dark green command banner. With a snap of his fingers, he snapped it forward. The banner embedded itself in the balcony tiles with a sharp crack. A hazy green barrier of light erupted outward, forming a cage that sealed Pang Wudi on the balcony.

”Hmph!” Pang Wudi’s body swelled violently, inflating like a balloon until he stood three meters tall, a towering giant whose muscles coiled and bulged like thick vines, taut and hard as iron.

He drove a massive fist into the barrier. The impact detonated in a burst of green light that swept across the living room in a shockwave of shattered radiance.

By then, Fu Qingyang had already reached the balcony entrance. From his Inventory, he drew the patina-covered bronze sword.

Fear flickered through Pang Wudi’s eyes. He opened his mouth and exhaled a dense, grey fog. Drifting within that murky cloud were spores too fine for the naked eye to see, each one ferociously parasitic. The moment they made contact with a living being, they would grow at a frenzied pace, draining every drop of life force until nothing remained.

The fog rolled forward. Even a Scout, with their predictive instincts, couldn’t dodge an attack like that.

But Fu Qingyang didn’t retreat a single step. A small white banner appeared in his left hand, embroidered with a magnificent, awe-inspiring white tiger. A phantom tiger’s roar tore through the room, scattering the fog in an instant.

Fu Qingyang took one step forward and raised the eight-faceted bronze sword high.

Pang Wudi’s massive frame began to tremble. His legs seemed unable to agree on a direction to go. His left foot tried to dodge left while his right foot wanted to flee to the right, and his torso had entirely different ideas of its own. In the end, all he could manage was to summon a suit of vine armor that encased his towering three meter body.

Fu Qingyang brought the sword down.

The vine armor split apart. Flesh separated from bone as the three-meter tall giant was cleaved cleanly in two. Organs spilled out in a wet cascade, and dark red blood spread across the balcony tiles in a widening pool.

Zhang Yuanqing watched from behind, equal parts stunned and thrilled, thoughts racing through his mind. Dead? A Saint-tier Walker, just like that? Why didn’t he dodge? That strike looked so simple. Was it really that hard to avoid?

Fu Qingyang returned the bronze sword and the command banner to his inventory, then glanced back with a look of calm detachment. ”Get over here and perform spirit communion.”

Zhang Yuanqing reined in his scattered thoughts and hurried over. ”R-right, okay...”