The Smokewights surrounding the leaf ship didn’t respond to the green-robed cultivator’s question. Completely ignoring the leaf ship’s defenses, they floated aboard and started circulating among the passengers. The cultivators looked around with varying facial expressions. Some of the Smokewights approached Xu Qing and circled around him a few times, their vicious faces just barely visible in the smoke as they inspected him. A moment passed, and the Smokewights left the ship. Returning to the puppets, they gathered in front of the centermost puppet and kowtowed.

“Exalted one, of the thirty-five cultivators, six have suspicious auras.”

The expressions of the passengers flickered when they heard that.

Before anyone could do anything, the puppets’ eyes glowed even more brightly with a red color. It was especially evident in the center most puppet. In fact, it was so bright the entire leaf ship looked like it was the color of blood.

“Kill them,” the puppet said in a cold voice. In response, the Smokewights rose into the air and transformed into six huge faces that shot toward the leaf ship.

Battle prowess equivalent to six heavenly palaces erupted from the six vicious faces. In any location, battle prowess of that caliber would be considered the backbone of a species. And that was more the case considering there were no Spirit Trove or Void Returning cultivators in Sea-Sealing County right now. The most powerful were Nascent Soul experts, but people like that would be stationed in their sect or species headquarters. As a result, Gold Core was the highest level of battle prowess that could be found out and about.

The six faces rushed toward six individual cultivators. Three of them were lone travelers. Two were members of the group of eight. And one of them was one of the green-robed members of the consortium.

Rumbling booms echoed out as the six cultivators fought back. But the red light shining from the puppets weakened them, such that the six Smokewights easily devoured five of them. The final individual fled. But before he could get far, the center most puppet blurred into motion. Chasing after him, the puppet unleashed a palm strike that caused everything to shake. The fleeing cultivator screamed, then exploded.

Pseudo-Nascent Soul, Xu Qing thought.

He had been able to tell from the beginning that the six faces were not individual Smokewights. They were formed by numerous Smokewights merged together. As for the eight puppets, the center most puppet had pseudo-Nascent Soul battle prowess, while the others were at the level of seven or eight heavenly palaces. That level of battle prowess was on par with the Holytide Black Guard.

These must be elites among the Smokewights.

Xu Qing stifled his killing intent, as he didn’t want to reveal himself right after he had just arrived in the prefecture. He sat in place coolly. That said, he had already released his taboo poison, and was ready to activate it at a moment’s notice.

As Xu Qing sat there in concealment, the six faces hovered above, scanning the crowd of passengers.

Every cultivator on the leaf ship was breathing heavily and looked furious. That included the two cultivators from the Dawnluster Consortium. They were obviously enraged that their compatriot had just been killed. However, they didn’t dare say anything.

“Exalted one, the magical device reading… hasn’t weakened. There’s still someone suspicious onboard.”

The puppet with pseudo-Nascent Soul battle prowess just hovered there for a moment.

“Kill them all.”

“Yes, sir!”

When the cultivators on the leaf ship heard that, their faces fell. All at once, they burst into motion. Even the green-robed cultivators fled at top speed.

None of them moved quickly enough. The six faces broke apart, turning into twelve faces, each of which had five-palace battle prowess. As they shot in pursuit of the passengers, the puppets also took motion, with the exception being the pseudo-Nascent Soul puppet.

The puppets with seven- and eight-palace battle prowess could easily slaughter random cultivators like this. In the blink of an eye, miserable shrieks rang out everywhere.

The one to attack Xu Qing was one of the twelve Smokewight faces. It now looked like a human. Within the blurring smoke that made it up was the face of a middle-aged woman. As she neared, her mouth opened wide. At the same time, tendrils of smoke snaked out from her, which performed incantation gestures to launch a magical attack.

Xu Qing just looked at her coldly.

All of a sudden, she shivered, then let loose a bloodcurdling scream. There was no way she could stand up to the power of Xu Qing’s taboo poison, and began to immediately dissolve. She backed up at high speed, smoke crumbling everywhere. No attempt to dispel the poison did any good, and her screams intensified. A moment later, the smoke vanished, as she was destroyed in body and soul.

That immediately attracted the fury of the other Smokewights. Two of the puppets flew toward Xu Qing and launched attacks.

Xu Qing frowned. His mission was to perform a secret investigation, and thus he hadn’t intended to get involved in a fight. But since they were attacking him, he would react in kind. As per his custom, he would wipe them out.

As long as no one finds out, it won’t affect the mission.

He pulled out his dagger, then suddenly vanished. The puppets could tell something had gone wrong but before they could react, Xu Qing appeared behind one of them. The dagger slashed through its neck.

Explosive cultivation base power ripped through the puppet. Then a boom echoed out as the puppet collapsed. Out from inside emerged a stream of gray smoke that tried to flee.

The shadow appeared out of nowhere and devoured it.

“I need one of them alive,” Xu Qing said calmly. Bursting into motion, he slammed into the next puppet. The puppet exploded, and the gray smoke inside of it fled. However, Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior shot forth and surrounded it with crackling lightning.

All of this takes a bit of time to describe, but actually happened in the time it takes a spark to fly off of a piece of flint. Two puppets and one face were destroyed, causing the remaining Smokewights to look over in shock. The pseudo-Nascent Soul puppet reacted with particular intensity. Its red eyes glowed even more brightly. It was about to issue some orders about what to do when, out of nowhere, more agonized shrieks rang out from the Smokewights in face form.

All eleven of them screamed in horror as their bodies started corroding. The expressions of the Smokewights within the smoke were that of agony as they howled. There was nothing they could do. In the shortest of moments, they lost all their life force, and became scattered scraps of smoke.

“You!!” Trembling, the pseudo-Nascent Soul puppet turned and fled. The other four puppets did the same.

They were too slow.

Xu Qing blurred with incredible speed, appearing only a moment later in front of the pseudo-Nascent Soul puppet.

He could kill actual Nascent Soul enemies, so someone in the pseudo-Nascent Soul level counted for almost nothing.

Xu Qing’s eight heavenly palace erupted with power. Taboo poison spread out, and the power of the violet moon converged on his finger. Then, Xu Qing struck the puppet. As the puppet shivered, the shadow arrived, wrapping around Xu Qing and instantly boosting his fleshly body power to the ten-palace level. It was a peak level of fleshly body power that even an early Nascent Soul expert would have trouble dealing with, much less a pseudo-Nascent Soul cultivator….

Xu Qing’s attack caused the pseudo-Nascent Soul puppet to explode as his hand reached inside and grabbed the white smoke.

The smoke rippled and distorted, revealing the face of a young woman. She looked terrified as she opened her mouth to speak. Xu Qing viciously twisted his hand, causing half of her to collapse. She lapsed into unconsciousness.

Having accomplished that, Xu Qing turned to look at the remaining four puppets. All were in a bad state, as the shadow, patriarch, head, and lion had already been fighting them.

Face completely expressionless, Xu Qing went over and destroyed all four puppets. The gray streams of smoke that emerged from them couldn’t escape; he captured them all. The reason he didn’t kill them was that he wanted to get information from them. He wanted to know exactly what they were looking for, and how they had determined someone suspicious was on board.

He had been suspicious about the Smokewights ever since arriving at the harbor.

Back on the leaf ship, he sat down cross-legged and took out one of the gray streams of smoke. “What are all you Smokewights looking for?”

The leaf ship was clearly a living being, as it was trembling.

As for the gray smoke, it distorted to reveal a face that glared at Xu Qing without saying a word.

Not wanting to waste words, Xu Qing released his taboo poison. The face instantly started screaming shrilly, which in turn caused the other captive Smokewights to tremble. Moments later, the gray smoke was destroyed in body and soul. Xu Qing moved on to the second Smokewight. Voice calm, he asked the same question.

The Smokewight hesitated.

Xu Qing tossed the smoke to the shadow.

“Eat.”

The shadow excitedly opened its mouth and devoured the smoke. Then it made deliberately loud chewing sounds that were laced with the screams of the Smokewight. The other Smokewights now looked at Xu Qing as if he were a Yama King from the Yellow Springs.

Xu Qing grabbed the third Smokewight. This time, before he could even ask a question, the gray Smokewight blurted, “Our leaders gave us a mission. We’re just supposed to look for people who seem suspicious. And we kill them. We’re not supposed to let them get anywhere near the depths of Daybreak Prefecture.

“The inspection method relates to their aura…. We can detect human blood in a cultivator’s aura. Even if it’s a tiny fraction, we can still find it.”

Xu Qing was stunned. Off to the side, the stone lion, the head, and Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior all looked instinctively at Xu Qing. From what they remembered, the Smokewights hadn’t initially detected Xu Qing.

Xu Qing considered the development. After interrogating the other gray Smokewights, he came to the conclusion that it was as the first had said. They were on a mission and didn’t know much in the way of details. Even torture produced the same answers.

After a while, Xu Qing turned his attention to the last Smokewight, which was the white smoke from the pseudo-Nascent Soul puppet. The young woman was conscious again, and when Xu Qing focused on her, she trembled and her eyes went wide.

“I don’t know anything else….” 𝒍𝒊𝒃𝒓𝙚𝙖𝙙.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Xu Qing waved his hand and was about to ask Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior to interrogate her when the shadow suddenly let loose fluctuations of longing, as if to impart to Xu Qing that it could do just as good a job as the patriarch.

Xu Qing thought for a moment, then tossed the white smoke to the shadow.

“I want answers,” he said.

The shadow looked excited, while the patriarch looked shaken. The latter felt a sense of intense crisis. Meanwhile, the shadow opened its mouth and gobbled up the young woman.

It was impossible to say what torment the shadow inflicted, but after enough time passed for half an incense stick to burn, the shadow spat out the white smoke. The young woman looked completely terrified, to the point where she had almost lost her mind. As she trembled, she blurted, “I’ll talk. I’ll talk! The human Marquis Yao came to our species and entrusted us with—”

All of a sudden, the young woman’s words activated a secret warding spell within her. Before she could finish speaking, she violently exploded. Smoke scattered everywhere.

Xu Qing felt ripples of shock flowing through him. It took about ten breaths of time for him to calm himself. The young woman was gone.

Marquis Yao?

After a bit more time, he put the matter aside and patted his hand onto the surface of the leaf ship.

“We need to get to Mount Daybreak. Time is of the essence.”

The leaf ship vibrated, and the four trembling legs started moving it forward.

This contnt is taken from 𝑙𝘳𝑎.𝒸ℴ𝓂