Five days passed in tense silence.
Wang Ben spent them working on formation diagrams in his quarters, refining the Youming Sanctuary Array's theoretical framework while waiting for materials that might never come. The shadow-drinking crystal remained inaccessible, locked behind Crimson Bastion contracts and merchant fear. But the work itself was calming, a way to focus his mind on something other than the threat that lurked beyond the compound walls.
His father had doubled the guard rotations. His mother rarely left the family quarters. Wang Chen, too young to understand the tension that gripped the household, continued his cheerful exploration of the world, oblivious to the danger that had brushed so close to his family.
On the sixth morning, Li Mei announced that she needed to visit Physician Luo.
"My cultivation has been... unstable." She said it quietly, when Wang Tian was occupied with correspondence in his study. "The stagnation is worsening. I've been putting off the appointment, but I can't delay any longer."
Wang Ben looked at his mother, seeing the strain that had accumulated over the past weeks. Her qi condensation had been frozen at early-stage for years, but something in the recent upheaval had disturbed even that fragile equilibrium.
"I'll come with you."
"Ben'er, you don't need to..."
"I'm coming." His voice left no room for argument. "Wang Chen too?"
Li Mei hesitated, then nodded. "He's due for his monthly assessment. Physician Luo wants to monitor his spiritual root development." A faint smile crossed her tired features. "He says Chen'er shows promise. More than you did at his age, apparently."
Wang Ben felt a complex mix of emotions at that. Pride in his brother's potential. Concern for what that potential might attract. And beneath it all, the cold awareness that taking both his mother and brother outside the compound walls was exactly the kind of vulnerability Xue Feng would exploit.
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: Proposed movement outside compound creates high-risk exposure window]
[Analysis: Subject Li Mei (qi condensation 3, stagnant) and Subject Wang Chen (infant, no cultivation) represent optimal targets for hostage-taking strategy]
[Recommendation: Request Foundation Establishment escort or postpone appointment]
His father was the obvious choice for protection. But Wang Tian had a meeting with the Patriarch this morning, clan business that couldn't be postponed. The timing felt wrong, but Wang Ben couldn't articulate why without revealing more than he should.
"We'll take the main streets," he said finally. "And we'll be back before midday."
The physician's quarter occupied a quiet district near the city's eastern market, where apothecaries and physicians had clustered for generations. The morning traffic was light, merchants setting up their stalls and servants running early errands. Nothing seemed out of place.
Wang Ben walked beside his mother's sedan chair, one hand resting casually near his sword hilt. Wang Chen gurgled happily from Li Mei's arms, reaching for the colorful awnings that lined the street. Two Wang Clan guards followed at a respectful distance, both mid-stage qi condensation cultivators who had been with the family for years.
[ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN: No immediate threats detected]
[Note: Multiple observation points identified. Surveillance density consistent with previous patterns. No anomalous signatures within detection range.]
The lack of anomalies should have been reassuring. Instead, it made Wang Ben's skin prickle with unease. Xue Feng had been watching for weeks. He knew their patterns, their vulnerabilities. If he was going to strike, he would choose a moment exactly like this.
They reached Physician Luo's clinic without incident. The elderly physician welcomed them into his receiving room, fussing over Wang Chen with the practiced ease of someone who had treated three generations of cultivator children. Wang Ben stationed himself near the door while his mother explained her symptoms in low tones.
"The meridian blockage is more extensive than I'd hoped." Physician Luo's voice carried concern that he couldn't quite hide. "The treatment I have in mind will require several hours. Perhaps you should return this afternoon..."
"We'll wait," Wang Ben said. The thought of making this trip twice in one day, of creating another window of vulnerability, was unacceptable.
His mother gave him a look that mixed gratitude with worry. "Ben'er, you don't have to stay the entire time. The guards..."
"I'm staying."
[ALERT: Anomalous qi signature detected]
[Distance: Approximately 200 meters, approaching from northwest]
[Signature analysis: Demonic corruption markers present. Classification: hostile]
Wang Ben's hand closed around his sword hilt. "Mother. Stay here. Don't leave this room for any reason."
"Ben'er? What..."
He was already moving toward the door, pulling it open to find one of his guards rushing up the stairs.
"Young Master! Cultivators approaching, at least three. Their qi feels... wrong."
"I know." Wang Ben stepped onto the clinic's balcony, scanning the street below. The morning crowd had thinned noticeably, merchants retreating into their shops as if sensing the coming storm. "Get inside. Protect my mother and brother."
"But Young Master..."
"Do it."
The guard hesitated only a moment before obeying. Wang Ben descended to the street level, his sword clearing its sheath as the first of the demonic cultivators rounded the corner.
There were three of them this time. Not the wounded, desperate creatures from the rooftop battle, but fresh fighters with corruption that pulsed beneath their skin like living things. Their cultivation signatures blazed with wrongness, qi condensation enhanced beyond natural limits by whatever dark bargains they had made.
[THREAT ANALYSIS: Three subjects detected]
[Subject 1: Mid-stage qi condensation (estimated stage 5) with significant demonic enhancement. Effective combat capability: late-stage qi condensation]
[Subject 2: Mid-stage qi condensation (estimated stage 4) with moderate demonic enhancement. Effective combat capability: mid-stage qi condensation]
[Subject 3: Late-stage qi condensation (estimated stage 7) with extensive demonic enhancement. Effective combat capability: peak qi condensation or higher]
[WARNING: Combined threat level exceeds host defensive capacity. Recommend immediate retreat or acquisition of reinforcements]
Wang Ben couldn't retreat. His mother and brother were trapped in the clinic behind him, and these cultivators had positioned themselves to cut off escape toward the compound. He was the only thing standing between them and his family.
"The young master himself." The largest of the three spoke with a voice like grinding stone. "Lord Xue said you might be foolish enough to come without your father. It seems he was right."
"Where is he?" Wang Ben kept his stance loose, ready. "Xue Feng. Too afraid to face me directly?"
"Lord Xue has other preparations to make." The demonic cultivator smiled, revealing teeth that had begun to elongate into something inhuman. "We're just here to soften you up. Perhaps take a few... trophies."
His gaze flicked toward the clinic's upper floor, where Wang Ben knew his mother was watching through the window.
Something cold settled in Wang Ben's chest. Not fear, though fear was present. Something harder. Something that whispered tactics and angles and the precise moment when a stronger opponent would overextend.
"Then let's begin."
The first cultivator lunged, faster than his apparent cultivation should have allowed. Wang Ben sidestepped, feeling the corrupt qi brush past him like diseased wind, and answered with a strike that opened the man's forearm to the bone.
It should have been crippling. Instead, the cultivator laughed, blood streaming down his arm as he pressed the attack with renewed fury.
[OBSERVATION: Demonic enhancement provides pain suppression and accelerated aggression. Standard incapacitation techniques ineffective.]
[Recommendation: Target vital points. Accept that lethal force may be required.]
The second cultivator flanked him while the first kept him engaged, forcing Wang Ben into a retreating spiral that gave ground step by step. His sword work was precise, economical, everything the System had helped him refine over months of training. But precision couldn't close a five-stage cultivation gap, and economy couldn't compensate for three-to-one odds.
A strike slipped through his guard, opening a shallow cut across his ribs. Another followed, barely deflected, the impact numbing his left arm. The third cultivator, the strongest, hadn't even engaged yet. He stood back, watching, waiting for Wang Ben to exhaust himself against his companions.
[COMBAT ASSESSMENT: Host sustaining accumulating damage. Defensive posture unsustainable beyond 2-3 minutes at current attrition rate.]
[Tactical options limited. Recommend deployment of reserve assets.]
The Golden Bell Shield Talisman. Wang Ben could feel it against his chest, hidden beneath his robes. Thirty minutes of protection once activated, capable of absorbing attacks up to late-stage foundation establishment. Against qi condensation opponents, even enhanced ones, it would hold indefinitely.
But using it meant revealing he had such a resource. And once the demonic cultivators realized they couldn't touch him, they would turn their attention elsewhere. To the clinic. To his mother and brother.
Wang Ben forced himself backward, creating space, buying heartbeats. His breathing was ragged now, qi consumption mounting as he pushed his early-stage cultivation to its limits. Blood dripped from half a dozen wounds, none fatal but all draining.
"Enough games." The third cultivator stepped forward, and Wang Ben felt the weight of his presence like a physical force. "Lord Xue wants you alive, but he didn't specify intact. Let's see how well you scream."
He moved, and Wang Ben barely had time to register the attack before it was upon him. Not a sword strike, but a palm technique, demonic qi concentrated into a killing blow that would shatter his defensive qi and rupture the organs beneath.
Time slowed.
Wang Ben's hand moved to his chest, finding the talisman through his robes. He channeled a thread of qi into the ancient paper, feeling the formation patterns carved into its surface ignite with stored power.
The Golden Bell Shield Talisman activated.
Golden light erupted around him, wrapping his body in a luminous shell that rang like a struck bell as the demonic palm strike connected. The impact was thunderous, a sound that echoed off the surrounding buildings and rattled windows for a hundred meters. Wang Ben felt the shockwave wash over the barrier, felt it dissipate harmlessly against protection designed for enemies far beyond this one's level.
The barrier held. Easily. The golden light didn't even flicker.
The demonic cultivator's eyes widened. He struck again, and again, each blow ringing off the protective shell like a hammer against an anvil. But the talisman was Grade 7, designed to withstand foundation establishment attacks. Qi condensation strikes, even enhanced, couldn't scratch it.
"What..." The corrupted man stepped back, reassessing. Then understanding flickered in his twisted features. He turned toward the clinic. "The mother, then. And the infant."
[WARNING: Hostile intent redirected toward protected subjects]
[Priority: Intercept before subjects are reached]
Wang Ben moved, but his wounded body couldn't match the demonic cultivator's enhanced speed. The barrier protected him, but it couldn't make him faster. He watched in horror as the corrupted figure launched toward the clinic stairs, toward his mother and brother who had only two mid-stage guards between them and death.
From above, he heard a crash. Furniture breaking. One of the guards shouting a warning cut short. The demonic cultivator was almost at the door...
And then Zhao Yu crashed into the street like a thunderbolt.
Wang Ben had seen Zhao Yu fight before. During the clan war, on the walls of the Dao compound, in the desperate battles that had nearly killed them both. He had seen his friend's natural talent, the instincts that made him dangerous beyond his cultivation level.
He had never seen anything like this.
Zhao Yu didn't attack the strongest cultivator first. That would have been the obvious choice, the heroic charge against the greatest threat. Instead, he went for the wounded one, the cultivator whose arm Wang Ben had opened earlier, and finished him with a single devastating strike before the man could react.
The corrupted cultivator crumpled. For one instant, as the demonic power faded from his eyes, Wang Ben saw something that might have been relief. Then he was just a corpse, whatever he had been before the corruption consumed him finally at rest.
Then Zhao Yu was moving again, flowing between the remaining enemies with a grace that seemed almost precognitive. He wasn't just reacting to their attacks. He was anticipating them, positioning himself in the spaces they were about to occupy, striking at the moments when their guards would be weakest.
[OBSERVATION: Subject Zhao Yu displaying combat prescience exceeding standard martial training]
[Analysis: Movement patterns suggest awareness of opponent intentions before physical telegraphing. Possible mechanisms: enhanced threat perception, accelerated pattern recognition, or manifestation of latent Battle Soul capability]
[Battle Soul manifestation probability: HIGH]
Something cold and ancient stirred in Wang Ben's chest. Not fear. Recognition. He had seen warriors move like this before, in dreams he couldn't fully remember. Zhao Yu wasn't just fighting well. He was fighting like something more than human, and Wang Ben didn't know whether to feel relief or concern for what his friend might be becoming.
The second demonic cultivator fell, his throat opened by a strike that Zhao Yu shouldn't have been able to land. The young man's sword had found the exact instant when demonic enhancement created a vulnerability, the heartbeat gap between one surge of corrupt power and the next.
The strongest cultivator snarled and launched himself at Zhao Yu with killing intent that warped the air around his fists. He was still faster, still stronger, still capable of ending this fight with a single clean hit.
He never landed it.
Zhao Yu didn't block the attack. He simply wasn't there when it arrived, having moved a fraction of a heartbeat before the strike began. His counter caught the demonic cultivator across the back, a shallow wound that nevertheless drew a howl of frustrated rage.
"What are you?" The corrupted man spun, qi flaring chaotically as he abandoned technique for raw power. "You're nothing! Early-stage qi condensation! How are you..."
"Nothing that matters to you." Zhao Yu's voice was strange. Calm. Distant, as if the words came from somewhere far away while his body fought with terrifying precision. He was already moving again, forcing the demonic cultivator to defend, to react, to think about something other than Wang Ben for the first time since the fight began.
Wang Ben pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the protests of wounded muscles. Together. They could do this together.
He joined the attack, his sword finding the openings that Zhao Yu created, his tactics complementing his friend's instincts. The demonic cultivator was still stronger than either of them, still enhanced beyond the limits of natural cultivation. But he was also alone now, his companions dead, his advantage of numbers erased.
And then a new presence entered the street.
Xue Feng emerged from the shadows of a nearby alley, his corruption more visible than ever, black lines crawling beneath skin that had taken on an unhealthy pallor. He looked at his fallen allies with something that might have been disappointment or might have been satisfaction.
"Enough." His voice carried the weight of enhanced cultivation, late-stage qi condensation pushed beyond its limits by demonic bargains. "Step away from him. This one is mine."
The surviving demonic cultivator retreated immediately, leaving Wang Ben and Zhao Yu facing the true architect of this attack.
"Wang Ben." Xue Feng's smile was a broken thing, full of hate and hunger and something that might once have been grief. "I told you I would take everything from you. I told you I would make you watch."
He raised his hand toward the clinic, where Li Mei still sheltered with Wang Chen.
"Let's start with your mother."
END OF CHAPTER 68