Chapter 578: Chapter 578: The Golden Reckoning

"This is an absolute extortion!" Mary hissed, her bowstring drawn back to her ear, her aim locked directly between the one-eyed leader’s brows. "You didn’t fight a single spider! You didn’t bleed for a single spool of silk! You have absolutely no right to a single pebble in this clearing!"

"Rights mean shit on the frontier, widow!" a bearded mercenary from the second line shouted, letting out a crude, mocking laugh as the rest of the horde began to jeer and bang their weapons against their shields.

"We are being reasonable here," the leader grinned, his voice dropping into a menacing, razor-sharp edge as he took a heavy step forward, the sheer physical pressure of two hundred armed cultivators compressing the air until Louisa began to hyperventilate. "Leave exactly half of those filled sledges behind, and leave the matriarch’s unharvested abdomen completely intact for my crew. Do that, and we will graciously allow you to wheel the remaining scraps back to the town gates. Refuse... and we will simply bury the three of you alongside your exhausted master in this mud, and take every single thread for ourselves. Choose quickly."

The tension in the clearing snapped tight like a overwound crossbow string, the cold wind howling through the trees as the massive mercenary vanguard prepared to slaughter the family for the mountain of gold.

The oppressive weight of two hundred armed mercenaries pressing down on the clearing seemed to suffocate the very wind. Weapons clashed against shields, crude laughter echoed through the misty valley, and the stench of cheap liquor and greed hung heavily in the air. Roy’s knuckles were white as he held his stance, and Mary’s arm trembled slightly from the sheer strain of keeping her bowstring pulled to its absolute limit against an army.

Then, a sound cut through the noise.

It was a slow, deliberate rustle of fabric. Near the base of the massive redwood, Ethan slowly pushed himself off the bark. He stood up, his towering, powerful frame elongating as he straightened his spine. The dark patch of blood on his torn Star Iron suit remained, but his posture carried absolutely none of the frailty or exhaustion the mercenaries had gambled on.

"Roy," Ethan spoke, his low baritone slicing through the mercenary jeers with an unnatural, freezing clarity that instantly silenced the front lines.

The boy didn’t break his stance, but his eyes darted toward the youth. "Master Ethan?"

Ethan casually walked forward, passing right between Mary and Roy until he stood at the absolute forefront of their small perimeter. His amethyst eyes were completely calm, but a dark, terrifying amusement danced within those purple depths.

"Why are you wasting your saliva debating with cattle, Roy?" Ethan murmured, his voice dripping with smooth, effortless disdain. "Is that the lesson I carved into your soul just moments ago? A true swordsman does not negotiate his survival. He does not bicker over percentages with the dead."

The one-eyed mercenary leader narrowed his single eye, a sudden, instinctual jolt of pure panic spiking through his chest. "You arrogant little brat, you’re bluf—"

"This is how things are settled on the frontier...!!!" Ethan erupted.

SHING!!!

The plain iron sword flew from its leather scabbard with a sound like a tearing fabric of reality. But the blade didn’t ignite with the white-blue luminescence of his previous Sword Intent. Instead, Ethan channeled a fraction of his restricted core, converting the raw spiritual pressure into an blinding, catastrophic explosion of pure solar gold. The entire clearing was instantaneously illuminated as if a miniature star had just descended into the dark valley.

"Brilliant Slice!!!" Ethan roared.

He executed a single, horizontal, crescent sweep from right to left.

A monumental blade of compressed golden light shot forth from the steel, expanding as it tore through the air. The velocity was absolute. The trajectory was flawless. The golden crescent traveled at a height exactly level with the human throat.

VUUUU-shung!!!

There were no screams. There was no clashing of steel. The golden light sliced through the heavy iron shields, the master-crafted breastplates, and the reinforced steel greatswords of the mercenaries as if they were made of nothing but morning fog.

The golden wave traveled for thirty yards, cutting a perfect, horizontal path through the dense crowd before finally dissolving into the distant trees with a faint hiss.

A suffocating, absolute silence fell over the forest.

A second later, the horrific laws of physics took hold. At the absolute front line of the mercenary vanguard, over fifty heavily armed cultivators—including the one-eyed leader who had been mid-sentence—frozen in place. Then, in a sickening, synchronized motion, fifty heads slid cleanly off their shoulders, raining down into the emerald-stained mud in a grotesque, continuous downpour of crimson. Fifty headless torsos collapsed forward a moment later, their severed arteries painting the dark foliage in a massive, sweeping fountain of hot blood.

The remaining one hundred and fifty mercenaries instantly lost all color in their faces. Their weapons fell from their limp hands, clattering uselessly against the stone. Some fell to their knees, their trousers instantly soaking through with urine as they stared at the perfect, straight line of fifty freshly decapitated corpses decorating the mud.

Ethan didn’t chase them. He simply held his plain iron sword casually at his side, the blade completely clean of blood, its surface still humming with a faint, residual golden warmth. He turned his head slightly, his freezing, abyssal eyes locking onto the terrified, shivering survivors who were instinctively preparing to turn and sprint for their lives.

"If a single one of you attempts to run," Ethan whispered, his voice carrying a dark, absolute authority that echoed directly in their marrow, "I will ensure your head touches the dirt before your heel can leave the ground."

Ethan slowly turned his head back toward the boy, his piercing eyes locking onto Roy’s trembling frame with the unyielding weight of an apex predator.

"Be a man, Roy," Ethan commanded, his deep baritone cutting through the thick scent of fresh blood filling the clearing. "And stop acting like a coward."

Roy stood entirely incredulous, his mind struggling to process the absolute, instantaneous annihilation of fifty elite mercenaries. He swallowed the dry lump in his throat and simply nodded his head in silent, reverent compliance. Beside him, Mary nodded with deep maternal approval; she could feel her son finally being broken down and remolded into a true man of the frontier under this youth’s brutal guidance.

Louisa, however, could only stare with eyes full of absolute, unfiltered adoration. Ethan looked completely demonic—drenched in the green ichor of the beasts and the dark crimson of his own blood, terrifying and bloodthirsty—yet he radiated such a raw, suffocating wave of pure, unadulterated testosterone that she could feel her panties instantly soaking through right there in the dirt.

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From this moment forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.

Note: These are only the ranks mentioned so far to avoid spoilers.

Body Refinement Realm

Skin Refinement / Bone Refinement / Organ Refinement

Spiritual Gathering Realm

Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation

Spiritual Core Realm

Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Spiritual Core)

Spiritual Soul Realm

Spiritual Soul Awakening / Soul Nourishing / Soul-Core Fusion

Golden Core Realm

Prime Fusion / Core Perfection / Core Destruction

Spiritual Sea Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Dao Manifestation Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Spiritual Transcendence

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??