20: Chapter 20: A Single Sword Strike to Decapitate, A Cuckoo Taking Over the Nest

Night fell, and Black Wind Valley was silent.

Thick fog completely obscured the stars and moon in the sky, and the air was permeated with a hint of cold, damp chill.

Inside the dilapidated wooden house, Su Tie and the others huddled in the corner with their families, not daring to even breathe loudly.

Su Yu sat alone in front of the two wooden chests, his eyes slightly closed, his breathing calm and long, as if he had truly resigned himself to his fate.

"Bang!"

The tightly shut wooden door was kicked open violently, sending wood splinters flying.

The one-eyed bald man led three of his trusted bandit subordinates and strode into the room.

As they entered, an extremely intense and pungent smell of blood instantly filled the entire cramped space.

"Senior, visiting so late at night, is there something you need?"

Su Yu opened his eyes and hurriedly stood up, his body slightly hunched, his tone revealing a hint of fear.

"Stop feigning ignorance."

The bald man sneered, and his remaining eye flashed with a chilling, dark red light.

"Although I don't understand spirit fields, I know that with just you bunch of useless wretches, there is no way you could cultivate those few mu of wasteland. Do you really take me for a saint?"

He swept his gaze over the shivering women and children in the corner and licked his lips.

"The cultivation technique I practice recently hit a bottleneck, and I need a few good portions of blood-food. Since you delivered yourselves to my doorstep, it saves me the trouble of going out to catch Mortal."

Before he finished speaking, the aura on the bald man, which had been disguised as the Qi Refining 7th Layer, suddenly erupted like a volcano.

The thick blood-evil aura condensed into a tangible red mist, shrouding the entire wooden house.

Qi Refining Stage 8! A demonic cultivator!

Feeling this suffocating spiritual pressure, Su Tie and the others were utterly deathly pale.

They had assumed the other party was just an ordinary bandit, but they never expected it to be a high-level demonic cultivator hiding here to avoid being hunted down by a sect.

In front of a Qi Refining Stage 8 demonic cultivator, they, the side branch members in the early stages of Qi Refining, did not even have the qualification to escape.

"Drain the blood of the men, and keep the women alive."

The bald man waved his hand impatiently, and his three subordinates grinned hideously as they drew their magical artifacts, ready to step forward and seize them.

Su Yu did not retreat, nor did he beg for mercy.

He simply looked at the bald man calmly, his toe imperceptibly tapping against the edge of the wooden chest behind him.

"Click."

A faint, crisp sound, insignificant in the room filled with blood-evil aura.

But in that instant.

The two wooden chests filled with gold and silver exploded with a roar, and the yellow and white items scattered everywhere.

The broken array disk hidden at the bottom of the chest erupted with a blinding dark golden light.

The Second-Rank Geng Metal Residual Array, although it had lost its killing power due to being broken, was forcibly activated by Su Yu at this moment, instantly releasing an extremely domineering Metal-element spiritual energy lock.

Within a radius of three zhang, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was forcibly frozen, turning into a quagmire.

The bald man was about to activate his blood-evil cultivation technique, but the impure demonic essence within his body suddenly stalled, and a stinging pain from mana backlash surged through his meridians.

"An array disk?! You dare to scheme against me!"

The bald man was both shocked and furious. Although his mana was hindered for half a breath, he was, after all, at the Qi Refining Stage 8, and he only needed one breath to forcibly break through the restraint of this residual array.

However, all Su Yu needed was this half-breath.

The moment the dark golden light shone, the hunched and cowardly disguise on Su Yu instantly vanished.

Replacing it was a peerless sharpness forged from mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

"Clang!"

The green edge sword was unsheathed.

Su Yu did not use any complex cultivation spells to clash with the opponent's true essence.

The spiritual energy of his Qi Refining 7th Layer peak was fully contained within his limbs and bones, and following the meridian circulation path of the martial arts "Heavenly Dragon True Qi", he completed an extremely dangerous limit compression within his body.

His figure didn't even leave an afterimage before he had already crossed the distance of less than one zhang between them.

Fast.

Fast to the extreme, defying the common sense of spellcasting in the cultivation world.

The bald man's pupils shrank instantly. Just as he wanted to raise his blood energy shield, a cold sword light had already cut into his protective blood energy from an extremely tricky blind spot.

There was no roar of mana collision, only the soft sound of a sharp blade cutting through flesh.

"Pfft."

A bald head soared into the sky, and foul blood from the neck cavity sprayed onto the dilapidated wooden boards.

In the bald man's remaining eye, there still lingered disbelief, shock, and fear of that stunning sword strike.

It wasn't until the corpse fell heavily to the ground that the three bandit cultivators who had just drawn their magical artifacts finally reacted.

They stared blankly at the headless corpse on the ground, their minds completely blank.

The leader at Qi Refining Stage 8, without even casting a single spell, was slashed down with one sword?

"Clang."

The long saber in one bandit cultivator's hand fell to the ground.

The three men collapsed like mud, their bodies trembling like chaff.

Su Yu ignored them, flicked his wrist lightly, and the blood droplets on the sword blade slid down the spine of the sword, dripping onto the floor.

He slowly sheathed the sword, swept his gaze over the three bandit cultivators, and spoke in a flat tone.

"Go and call the rest of the people outside. Anyone who wants to avenge him can come together."

The three men, as if granted amnesty, scrambled and crawled out of the wooden house.

Inside the house, Su Tie and the others only then let out a long breath, feeling that their backs were already soaked with cold sweat.

A one-hit kill.

Without the slightest hesitation, and without giving the opponent any chance to fight back.

Su Tie looked at the demonic cultivator's corpse, and the awe in his heart for Su Yu had climbed to its peak.

A moment later, the remaining dozen or so bandit cultivators in the valley were all gathered in front of the wooden house.

When they saw their leader's headless corpse, all thoughts of resistance were extinguished in an instant.

At the bottom of the cultivation world, it has always been the rule that the strong are respected.

"Dispose of the corpse cleanly and wipe away the bloodstains on the ground."

Su Yu stepped out of the wooden house, stood on the steps, and looked at the shivering bandit cultivators below. His voice was not loud, but it carried an unquestionable dignity.

"From today on, the rules of Black Wind Valley have changed."

"Staying here, you are no longer bandit cultivators, but long-term laborers under me. If anyone wants to leave, I won't stop you, but if you step half a step outside this valley entrance, you won't need to keep your heads anymore."

How could the dozen or so bandit cultivators dare to disobey in the slightest? They knelt on the ground one after another and answered in unison.

After bloodlessly receiving this labor force, Su Yu waved his hand to let them go back to work.

He turned his head and looked at the spirit spring that had dried up by a small half.

The Second-Rank Spirit Gathering Array diagram copied from the Qingmu Su Clan finally had a use.

As long as the array is set up properly to lock in the thin spiritual energy of this spirit vein so it doesn't leak out, it can be disguised as an ordinary mortal mountain villa to the outside world.

Here would become the starting point for him to lay down his foundation.