The Shattered Vortex

Chapter 17 The Reaper's Harvest

The blue spirit-stone lamps flickered wildly, casting long, frantic shadows across the stone amphitheater. The hundreds of masked bidders froze in their tiered seats, their expensive porcelain masks reflecting the sudden, violent crimson light bleeding from Lu Chen’s eyes.

Executioner Kuro did not hesitate. He had survived twenty years in the empire's underworld by slaughtering threats the moment they showed their teeth. With a feral screech, he pulled the massive, curved scythe from his back. The blade erupted in a thick, oily black shroud of shadow-Qi—the trademark Crows’ Veil technique of a Second Layer True Foundation master.

"Die, arrogant whelp!" Kuro roared, leaping from the auction stage. He brought the massive scythe down in a wide, sweeping horizontal arc meant to sever Lu Chen's torso from his legs.

Lu Chen didn't retreat a single inch. He stood his ground in the center of the shattered arena, his burlap cloak whipping violently in the localized gale generated by the incoming weapon.

Thrum.

Deep within his belly, the multi-layered Golden-Crimson Cosmic Vortex spun on its planetary axis. The solid, crystalline emerald needle at its center vibrated, channeling a dense, terrifyingly sharp physical solid Qi into his bare right arm. The shimmering aura around his hand turned so concentrated it looked like he was wearing a gauntlet made of jagged, bleeding glass shards.

As the shadow-cloaked scythe reached his ribs, Lu Chen shot his bare hand forward, grabbing the razor-sharp steel blade with his naked fingers.

CRUNCH.

The impact sounded like a mountain collapsing. The black shadow-Qi coating the scythe instantly shattered upon contact with Lu Chen’s hand, ground into useless sparks by the absolute friction of his cosmic vortex. Kuro’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets beneath his long hair as he felt his entire momentum halt instantly. A mortal youth in rags was holding his master-crafted weapon bare-handed, and the steel was actively cracking under the pressure of the boy's grip.

"Your foundation is wide, Kuro," Lu Chen said, his flat, layered voice vibrating the very bedrock beneath their feet. "But it is hollow."

Before the executioner could pull the weapon back, Lu Chen executed The Devouring Maw through the steel blade itself.

Vrrr—!

A terrifying, crushing vacuum erupted. Executioner Kuro gasped as a massive, violent torrent of his own hard-earned True Foundation shadow-Qi was forcefully dragged out of his meridians, flowing visibly along the metal shaft of the scythe and directly down Lu Chen's throat. The skeletal man’s skin instantly began to turn a dull, ash-gray color, his muscles withering as his life force was systematically vacuumed away.

"Release it! Release me!" Kuro shrieked, desperately trying to open his fingers, but the absolute gravity of the Shattered Mirror Technique locked his hands to the hilt like iron welds.

Driven by pure survival panic, Kuro used his remaining left hand to draw a hidden, poisoned stiletto from his sleeve, driving it straight toward Lu Chen’s throat.

Lu Chen didn't even blink. He raised his left hand, his index finger extending like a iron rod. The shimmering blade of solid emerald Qi extending from his knuckles sliced cleanly through Kuro’s wrist before the stiletto could even cross half the distance. A fountain of dark blood sprayed onto the stones.

With a final, catastrophic surge of his cosmic core, Lu Chen completely drained the executioner’s energy. He balled his left hand into a fist and drove it straight into Kuro’s chest.

BOOM!

The strike didn't just penetrate the flesh—the jagged, peak-tier Qi exploded internally, completely liquefying the executioner's organs and shattering his True Foundation core into sparkling dust. Executioner Kuro went entirely limp, tumbling backward into the mud of the arena floor as a hollowed-out, lifeless husk.

The hundreds of wealthy bidders in the stands erupted into a frantic, uncoordinated stampede. They screamed, throwing off their expensive porcelain masks as they scrambled toward the narrow exit tunnels, terrified of the monster that had just casually eaten the city’s most feared killer.

Lu Chen didn't chase the fleeing crowd. He casually tossed the ruined, cracked scythe aside and turned his gaze toward the auction stage.

Behind him, inside the electrified spirit-iron cage, the young woman with the fierce, emerald-green hair watched him with a mixture of shock and wariness. The runic chains bound tightly around her arms were still pulsing, suppressing her wind-affinity spiritual root, but her sharp green eyes never left Lu Chen's face.

Lu Chen walked up the stone steps of the stage, his boots clicking against the bloody marble. He stopped directly in front of the electrified bars.

"You are from the southern sects," Lu Chen said, his pitch-black eyes evaluating the complex, blue runes humming along the iron cage.

"The Jade Lotus Sect," she rasped, her voice weak but her tone fiercely proud. She clutched her wrists against the burning suppression of the chains. "I am Lin Xue. If you came here to claim me as your prize like the rest of these imperial dogs, you will find nothing but a corpse. I will shatter my own core before I become a slave."

Lu Chen looked at her for a brief moment, a cold, humorless smile breaking across his face.

"I have no interest in slaves, Lin Xue," Lu Chen said, raising his right hand. "I only have an interest in debt."

He slammed his bare palm directly onto the electrified, pulsing spirit-iron bars of the cage.

The Devouring Maw opened once more. The massive, arcing blue electricity meant to incinerate anyone who touched the cage was violently seized by Lu Chen's cosmic vortex. The lightning didn't burn him; it was aggressively ground down, crushed, and devoured by the spinning storm inside his belly, fueling the emerald needle until the entire cage went completely dark, its runes dying out into dead iron.

With a single, effortless pull, Lu Chen tore the heavy iron door off its hinges and tossed it off the stage. He stepped inside, his emerald-crimson finger snapping the runic chains binding her wrists as if they were nothing but brittle glass.

Lin Xue stumbled forward, gasping as her suppressed wind-affinity Qi instantly flooded back into her wider meridians, a soft gale swirling around her emerald-green hair. She looked at her bare wrists, and then up at the terrifying youth in the burlap cloak.

"Why did you free me?" she whispered, her green eyes wide with disbelief.

Lu Chen turned his back to her, looking toward the dark subterranean tunnels that led deeper into the city's hidden infrastructure. Jiang Chen's memories were pulsing in his mind, revealing that this local auction was merely a small branch. The true headquarters of the Hall of the Five Crows lay deep within the capital city of the Holy Land.

"The Crows took everything from me nineteen years ago," Lu Chen said, his voice a low, terrifying promise of absolute destruction. "You know the paths of the southern border. I know how to kill. We both want this empire to burn. Pack your things, girl. The hunt is moving inland.''