The once-silent village felt as if a power button had been pressed for everyone at once.
Noises began to echo from the surrounding cottages one after another.
The middle-aged woman's eyes slowly regained their focus. She struggled to push herself up from the ground, looking in complete bewilderment at the cultivators standing around her with blood-stained long swords.
“Ah... Who—who are you people? Why are you here?” the woman shrieked.
Immediately after, a child's wails echoed from nearby. The woman's face paled, and she scrambled over to check on him.
The Sword Peak disciples exchanged glances, all of them finding this incredibly bizarre.
These mortals certainly had nerves of steel. Two giant wolves had nearly leveled the village just moments ago, yet they had slept through it all and only woke up now?
Even pigs would hang their heads in shame at such sleep quality!
Qin Zhiwei pulled some golden sore ointment from her spatial ring and walked toward the young boy.
But as she pulled back the boy's torn sleeve, her movements suddenly froze.
“No injuries?” Qin Zhiwei muttered under her breath.
“It's not that he isn't injured.”
A cool, crisp voice came from behind her.
Qin Zhiwei turned around to find Bai Zhirou staring intently at the boy's arm, her expression solemn and her gaze calm.
“Look, Senior Sister. His sleeve is torn, and there's even a small amount of blood remaining on the fabric.”
“Yet his skin is completely intact, without even a faint white mark. This is far too bizarre.”
In her mind, Jiang Ye whistled. “Ooh, not bad, Xiao Bai. You've got a sharp eye.”
Hearing this, Bai Zhirou couldn't help but blush, feeling a bit guilty like a thief caught in the act. After all, in the heat of the moment earlier, she had directly called him by his name, Senior Jiang Ye.
Swoosh!
Right then, a sharp whistling sound cut through their thoughts.
A Dharma Boat bearing a green banner swept in at high speed, hovering steadily directly above the giant wolves' carcasses.
The Sword Peak disciples tensed, their hands gripping their sword hilts.
Six green-robed cultivators stood on the deck of the Dharma Boat.
The leader was a gloomy-faced young man with a scar at the corner of his eye—the True Disciple and Second Senior Brother of Beast-Taming Peak, Zhao Zonghan.
The six of them leapt down from the Dharma Boat. Upon seeing the decapitated wolf carcasses on the ground, their faces instantly darkened.
Zhao Zonghan took a step forward and snapped rudely, “Who gave you permission to act? How dare you kill the Tier Four bloodline grey wolves that our Beast-Taming Peak has been pursuing for three days and three nights!”
Gu Changqing snorted coldly, refusing to back down. “So you were the ones who drove these two beasts toward Daniu Village? Do you have any idea that these giant wolves almost slaughtered the entire village just now?”
Hearing this, the Beast-Taming Peak disciples showed looks of disdain. They clearly didn't care in the slightest about the lives of a few hundred mortals.
Zhao Zonghan's eyes turned cold as he turned the tables. “If you hadn't intercepted our sect quest halfway, the disciples we sent here would have already set up the formation!”
“Accepting quests blindly without even figuring out the situation first!”
Upon hearing this, the Sword Peak disciples were taken aback, but they quickly put the pieces together.
No wonder Beast-Taming Peak was so invested in this search quest! They had locked onto the wolf demons' trail long ago!
“Awoo—”
Suddenly, a wolf's howl echoed from the Beast-Taming Peak Dharma Boat.
Everyone looked up and finally noticed that inside a cage on the deck, a smaller, pure white wolf pup was bound with iron chains.
The little white wolf stared fixedly at the two giant wolf carcasses below, slamming itself frantically against the iron cage.
The Sword Peak disciples came to a sudden realization.
So that was it.
The people from Beast-Taming Peak had long mapped out the giant wolves' range of activity, using the village's mortals as bait to capture the three grey wolves!
“Hmph.”
Seeing the expressions of the Sword Peak disciples, Zhao Zonghan sneered.
“I assume you've figured it out by now. The one up there is the pup of these two giant wolves. We had just laid a trap to capture the pup, but these two old wolves went Berserk and escaped.”
Qi Linger couldn't listen to this any longer and immediately snapped back, “You didn't have the ability to keep the giant wolves contained yourself, and now you have the nerve to blame us?”
Tensions flared instantly, both peaks on the verge of drawing their swords.
But Gu Changqing pressed his hand down, gesturing for everyone to calm down.
Now was not the time for infighting with Beast-Taming Peak.
It was common knowledge in the sect that Beast-Taming Peak frequently went out to capture demon beasts to form contracts with them or sell them off.
Thus, they were always highly proactive when it came to quests involving demon beasts.
Seeing that he wouldn't gain any advantage, Zhao Zonghan waved his hand impatiently.
“Forget it. Since the giant wolves are dead, let's head back to our respective bases.”
Only then did the two groups separate.
The Sword Peak disciples went to pack up the two Tier Two peak giant wolf carcasses. As long as they brought them back, this B-grade quest would be considered more than successfully completed.
Bai Zhirou stood in place, her brow furrowed.
It was too coincidental.
The attack of the giant wolves, the sudden appearance of Beast-Taming Peak, and the abnormality of the villagers... everything carried a strong sense of dissonance.
At the same time, in her mind, Jiang Ye squinted slightly as he stared at the game panel before him.
After slaying two Tier Two peak giant wolves, the progress bar on the panel had barely budged.
【Adventure Quest: Demon of Luopo Village】
【Current Progress: 5% — 10%】
Two monsters capable of wiping out a starter village only granted a mere 5% progress?
This meant those two wolves didn't even qualify as elite monsters in this quest. At best, they were just common trash mobs on the side of the road!
“Senior, you think there's something wrong too, right?” Bai Zhirou asked softly in her mind.
Jiang Ye's tone was casual.
“Yeah. Working backward from our assumption—let's assume this village is hiding a massive landmine, but we haven't found it yet. That means there must be a huge underlying issue!”
At first listen, Bai Zhirou felt like her senior was just letting his imagination run wild again, but upon closer thought, it actually seemed to make quite a bit of sense.
Jiang Ye continued, “So, where do you suspect the problem lies?”
Bai Zhirou pondered for a moment and slowly said,
“I think that young boy is a bit off. His arm seemed to be injured, yet it has fully recovered.”
Jiang Ye said straightforwardly, “What's there to think about? Just go up and stab him once, and we'll find out.”
Bai Zhirou: “...”
Her senior's methods were, as always, simple and brutal.
By now, Qin Zhiwei had finished checking the villagers and turned back to send a voice transmission:
“Aside from their bodies being a bit weak, I didn't find any traces of demonic qi erosion.”
Upon hearing Qin Zhiwei's conclusion, the sense of wrongness in Bai Zhirou's heart grew even stronger.
She bit her lip, struggling with how to verify her suspicion "elegantly" and "without raising suspicion."
In her mind, Jiang Ye watched the hesitating Xiao Bai and felt completely speechless.
“Why think so much? As the old saying goes, practice makes perfect. Just close your eyes and do it!”
Buzz!
In an instant, Bai Zhirou's body trembled slightly, and her clear eyes turned playful and mocking.
Jiang Ye logged on.
Having taken control of the body, he wasted no time on nonsense, walking with large strides toward the still-sobbing young boy.
Under the stunned gazes of the parents, this seemingly delicate young girl grabbed the boy's collar and lifted him up like a little chick.
“Let me borrow a bit of your blood.”
Swoosh!
Pressing his fingers together like a sword, Jiang Ye sliced a deep gash into the boy's arm without the slightest hesitation.
Blood welled out immediately.
“Why are you hurting my boy?!”
The parents finally snapped out of it, their eyes turning red with fury as they lunged forward frantically to snatch the child back.
Jiang Ye cast an impatient glance at them.
It was merely a single glance.
In that split second, a sliver of aura from his nearly tangible 【Killing Sword Intent】 leaked out.
The oppressive pressure, carrying the scent of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, pinned the couple to the spot. It was as if they had fallen into an ice cave; they couldn't even budge a finger.
Jiang Ye's divine sense swept carefully over the child's wound.
“Strange. The amount of blood flowing out is clearly on the low side, but other than that, there doesn't seem to be any other issue.”
Under the intense pain, the child wailed loudly, tears and snot smearing all over his face.
The commotion instantly drew everyone's attention.
The Sword Peak disciples quickly gathered around, and even Zhao Zonghan, who was about to board his vessel, returned with his men.
“Junior Sister Bai, did you find something abnormal?” Gu Changqing asked, filled with shock and doubt.
Jiang Ye casually tossed the child onto the ground and clicked his tongue impatiently.
“The sample size is too small, so there are data discrepancies. Let me swap to another one and test.”
With that, he reached out and grabbed the middle-aged woman by the back of her neck, lifting her straight up.
“Stop!”
At that moment, Zhao Zonghan took a step forward and barked righteously:
“Your Sword Peak always spouts righteousness and morality, yet now you're publicly harming defenseless mortals?! What an eye-opener!”
Seeing an immortal backing them up, the muscular man nearby, who had been frozen in fear, also snapped out of it. Trembling all over, he cried out:
“Y-Yeah! We have no grievances or grudges. How can you immortals bully us common folk like this...”
Gu Changqing frowned slightly. Although he also didn't understand what Bai Zhirou was doing, he chose to trust his junior sister.
He stepped forward, pulled out a gold ingot, and tossed it directly into the man's hand.
“My junior sister would never act without a reason. How about this: let Junior Sister Bai make a cut on your hand, and we will give you a gold ingot.”
The muscular man, who had been full of grief and indignation, bitterly decrying the cruelty of the immortals, suddenly widened his eyes at the sight of the glittering gold. He swallowed hard.
He brought the gold to his mouth and bit it hard. The grief and indignation on his face vanished instantly, replaced by a flattering, sycophantic smile.
“But... then again!”
“Since you immortals really want to cut us, as law-abiding citizens, we should naturally cooperate...”
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