“The tracks suggest east,” Azure said as I knelt over the disturbed earth where Rocky had been. “Two pairs of footprints, likely males judging by the size. They were struggling with something heavy.”

  Wei Lin and Lin Mei fanned out to investigate the area, while I focused on the main path.

  “Look at these marks!” Lin Mei called as she squatted down beside some crushed plants. “Someone dragged something heavy through here.”

  “Judging by this,” Wei Lin raised a shredded piece of rope, “it was recent. The fibers aren’t frayed.”

  There were clear trails of their passage – broken branches, scuffed dirt, even some shredded pieces of rope tangled on a bush, suggesting whoever it was that took Rocky didn’t care about hiding their tracks. Either they were too busy moving their heavy ‘prize’ or they simply didn’t care. The latter worried me. Those that didn’t care usually had the power to not care.

  “The spiritual residue is still fresh,” Azure said. “They shouldn’t be far.”

  I was about to answer but stopped when I felt it.

  A powerful pulse of energy swept over the area.

  My body dropped into a defensive stance automatically and I spun around expecting an ambush.

  Only to find…nothing.

  There was simply a cloud of dust where Liu Chen had been standing just moments before.

  “That aura…”

  “It was Liu Chen!” Wei Lin shouted, pointing down the road. "He just took off in that direction!"

  I blinked.

  The pressure that I had felt, it had been around the level of a pseudo sixth-stage Qi Condensation cultivator. But Liu Chen was just a kid. Unless...

  "The soul bond," I realized. "Rocky must be sharing his power somehow."

  There wasn't time to analyze it further.

  We had to chase after him, but I could see Wei Lin and Lin Mei were still winded from our initial sprint. After all, they were only at the third-stage of Qi Condensation.

  "Go on ahead," Wei Lin wheezed, waving me forward. "We'll catch up."

  I immediately took off, but even at the fifth stage of Qi Condensation keeping up with Liu Chen was difficult. He moved desperately fast, his tiny form barely visible ahead of me as he tucked and rolled beneath trees and over rocks.

  I could have used the suns' energy to close the gap, but the risks outweighed the benefits.

  Empowering myself with the red sun's power might make me look like a demonic cultivator, while the blue suns' energy might attract the terrifying attention of whoever had been doing those soul experiments .

  "Master, the boy’s qi fluctuations are growing increasingly erratic. If he keeps this level of power output…"

  I pushed myself harder but the distance between us was only growing.

  Liu Chen had access to surprising power, but his young body wasn’t conditioned to handle it.

  The power didn’t belong to him. If he kept this up, he could hurt himself real bad.

  As I ran, I began to hear voices.

  There were two of them, one yelling in anger, the other pleading, and underneath it all, the unmistakable chorus of grinding rock that had to be Rocky.

  I burst through a final stand of trees and was about to call out to them, when I saw a golden flash.

  A cultivator, well-built, brown-haired and cocky, simply vanished from where he stood and reappeared in front of Liu Chen, his hand already forming what looked like a backhand.

  Time slowed.

  The boy couldn’t dodge and Rocky hadn’t fully materialized yet.

  The aura of the guy had to be… seventh stage Qi Condensation.

  Far beyond what I could handle normally.

  But “normally” wasn’t an option.

  Without even thinking about it, I blasted red sun energy through my fundamental rune.

  The Blink Step rune flared to life on my thigh as the Titan’s Crest ignited my hand.

  In that split moment, I felt my physical essence spike, felt the world blur and shift as I reappeared between Liu Chen and his attacker just as the strike was landing.

  I grabbed the guy’s wrist with one hand while my other fist drove forward, perfectly executed Phantom Strike, straight to his chest.

  The force of the strike sent the bandit flying backwards several feet, his boots tearing great gashes in the dirt as he slid away.

  I cut off the red sun's flow of energy almost immediately, but it was too late.

  Liu Chen was staring up at me wide-eyed and confused.

  "Big Brother Ke Yin?" he asked hesitantly.

  A low rumble came from Rocky as he shifted his enormous mass, and his one massive hand came down to gently pat Liu Chen on the shoulder. For a moment, the boy calmed down slightly as he looked at Rocky with wonder in his eyes. But his gaze then returned to me as he tried to figure out whether I was truly the Big Brother Ke Yin that he knew or some demon.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "That aura..." the cultivator I’d struck whispered, looking at me with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. "I felt it for a second, but now…now it's gone." He shook his head. "No, I'm sure of it. I sensed something demonic about that energy."

  "Brother," the shorter of the two bandits whispered in a hushed voice. “Maybe we should just leave? That stone elemental clearly has friends, and..." he pointed to my robes. "They look like they’re from the Azure Peak Sect..."

  “Shut up!” The first bandit snarled. "The Mountain Tiger Gang will arrive at any moment. With them, we can easily def—"

  "What? Where?" the second former bandit exclaimed in alarm. "I don't see anyone coming!"

  "Didn’t I just tell you to shut up, you fool?" the first bandit roared. "Let your older brother handle this!"

  "Their reactions to their supposed allies are... interesting," Azure said softly in my mind.

  "They're using their old gang's name to try and intimidate us," I replied quietly in my own mind. "But I can tell they've deserters themselves."

  The arrival of Wei Lin and Lin Mei drew the first cultivator's attention. He looked them over dismissively, then laughed. "Third stage cultivators? They won't make any difference."

  “Big Brother Ke Yin,” Liu Chen tugged at my sleeve. "Those bad men wanted to steal Rocky! They were going to sell him!"

  “I understand,” I gently patted Liu Chen's head. "I'll take care of it."

  Turning to the two bandits, I let a small smile cross my face. "You must be either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish to steal an element guardian belonging to a Core Disciple."

  The taller of the two bandits glared at me, while his brother's face turned pale.

  "Liu Chen," I continued in a casual manner, "what will your Master do if he finds out some lowly thieves tried to steal the element guardian that he gave to his favorite disciple?"

  The boy’s eyes widened as he realised where I was going with this.

  "Master will be very angry, Big Brother Ke Yin. Even I am scared when he gets mad."

  "Yes," I agreed, frowning. "Life Realm Elders can be quite... temperamental."

  The shorter of the two bandits took a step toward his brother, saying, "I think we really messed up. Look at the aura that kid is radiating - he must be a disciple of some ancient monster. Which Elder wouldn't want a talent like that? And it would explain the stone element...".

  "Let me think!" the first bandit shouted, staring at me, Liu Chen and Rocky with a mixture of anger and worry. I could almost see him calculating our strength and deciding whether or not he could take us all.

  Now was the perfect time to nudge things a little further.

  "Liu Chen," I whispered, knowing that the two bandits could still hear me, "maybe you should activate the life-saving treasure that your Master gave you. It's a waste to use something that can kill a Stellar Realm cultivator on a Qi Condensation practitioner, but I'm sure he'll give you another one."

  Liu Chen, who proved himself to be quite the actor, nodded and pulled out a necklace I didn't even realize he had.

  The necklace was old and the metal was tarnished with age, but it was clear that whoever crafted it had put a lot of effort into it. There were small formations etched into the surface of the necklace, but they were too worn to read clearly.

  I found myself genuinely interested in the origins of the necklace.

  Was it an extremely powerful relic from whatever mysterious background Liu Chen had?

  Or was it just some family heirloom?

  The first bandit stared at the necklace intently. Although it didn't seem to emit any obvious aura, he clearly felt uneasy by it. I watched as his golden Qi aura flickered and faded as he finally decided on what to do.

  "Clearly there was a misunderstanding,” he bowed formally. “My brother and I immediately realized that this was not a simple rock, but rather property of the Azure Peak—"

  "A member of the Azure Peak Sect," I clarified, smiling smoothly.

  "Yes, yes, of course," he replied quickly, without missing a beat. "A member of the sect. We were just trying to return it, since we feared it might have become lost."

  His younger brother's exasperated sigh told me what he thought of this excuse.

  I was impressed by the older brother’s audacity - his expression was so full of sincere-looking earnestness that if someone had walked up at that exact moment, they might have actually believed him.

  It was that type of quick thinking that kept confident liars alive in the cultivation world.

  Even I had to respect it.

  "Ah, so it was all a misunderstanding," I said, matching his tone. "In that case, we should thank you for your help."

  Liu Chen started to protest loudly, but I quieted him with another pat on the head.

  "Just trust me," I said quietly, and he fell silent, though his skeptical expression suggested he questioned my judgement.

  "Since that is cleared up," the first bandit said brightly, "we should really continue on—"

  "Oh, but I’m sure you can help us a little more," I smiled, gesturing towards Rocky. "Our friend appears to be quite tired from his breakthrough. Would you mind helping us carry him back to the sect?"

  Rocky let out a massive grinding noise that somehow sounded like an exhausted yawn.

  I watched as the first bandit's face went through a number of rapid-fire micro-expressions - frustration, calculation, resignation - before settling back into his practiced smile. "Of course! My younger brother and I would be happy to help."

  "For once," the second bandit said, "I actually agree. It's the least we can do after this... misunderstanding."

  "How generous of you both," Wei Lin smiled. "How rare it is to run into such... helpful strangers on the road these days."

  "Yes," Lin Mei added. "Especially those who are so good at identifying valuable items that aren't theirs."

  I looked at the shorter fat one.

  While he had shown signs of cowardice earlier, he seemed to have a reasonable understanding of when to cut his losses. That type of practicality was relatively rare in the cultivation world, where pride and face often led people to an early death. In my experience, being able to acknowledge when you were outmatched was an underestimated survival skill.

  As we watched, Rocky's large mass collapsed in on itself, returning to the boulder form we'd left him in. The two brothers approached cautiously, likely expecting another transformation, but nothing happened.

  I noticed Liu Chen's expression - it seemed like the boy had hoped for some kind of revenge but killing them would have been foolish for several reasons.

  Firstly, I wasn't confident of being able to defeat a seventh stage Qi Condensation cultivator, even if I'd used the combined energy of both suns and Rocky's support, it would be a high-risk battle with no assurance of victory.

  More importantly, we'd recently learned that someone was resurrecting the dead.

  The last thing I wanted to do was become the focus of someone's resurrection-revenge plot.

  In this world, avoiding enemies was smarter than creating them.

  Let others play the role of hero and villain.

  I'm happy to stay alive in the background and grow stronger.

  "Master," Azure’s voice broke through my thoughts as we began our journey back to the sect, our unwilling porters stumbling under the weight of Rocky ahead of us. "You managed that fairly well. But I’m curious about the boy's necklace."

  "Add that to the ever-growing list of mysteries," I thought back. "Like how he is suddenly a sixth-stage cultivator and whatever unknown background he has."

  But those were questions for later.

  Right now, I was content watching Wei Lin and Lin Mei flank our new "friends" while Liu Chen literally bounded along beside his stone guardian, providing an endless stream of commentary about how Rocky liked to be carried "just so" and how they should be more careful with his friend.

  I had just begun to relax when I detected the subtle energy from the way station washing through the area like silk sliding across skin. Immediately, my suns dived back under the canopy of the Genesis Seed.

  The pressure washed over us like a gentle breeze and for a moment, my heart froze.

  Had I been caught?

  Then it was gone, and I let out a shaky breath I hadn't even realized I was holding.

  "Master," Azure whispered in my mind, "if you channeled the blue sun's energy... "

  I knew exactly what he meant.

  If I had used the blue sun energy in the confrontation, I wouldn't have made it back to the sect.

  Right now, I’d be a lab-rat, subjected to whichever cultivator was crazy enough to mess around with souls.