Chapter 5: FellowDao, I’m Here to Help!
"System, you bastard! I'm not done with you!" Lordi Payne roared, his voice raw with anger. The glowing star-rating panel hovered mockingly before him, but he had no time for distractions. Instinct kicked in, and he threw his arms up, crossing them over his chest to shield his vitals.
A heartbeat later, a sickly green light erupted from Woods Tinshee's outstretched hand, streaking toward Lordi like a venomous comet.
The beam slammed into Lordi's left arm with the force of a runaway freight train. Agony exploded through his limb, a white-hot inferno that threatened to consume his senses. His body was hurled backward, weightless for a split second before—
BOOM!
He crashed into the cave's stone wall with bone-rattling impact, the rock cracking under the collision. Dust and debris rained down as a jagged dent marked where his body had struck.
Lordi slumped to the ground, a groan escaping his lips. Blood welled in his throat, its metallic tang sharp as he spat a crimson arc onto the cave floor. His vision swam, edges darkening, every nerve screaming as if his insides had been pulverized. Only years of grueling Bone Tempering Art training kept him conscious—its iron discipline anchoring him against the tide of pain threatening to drag him under.
"Cough... cough... How the fuck... The fuck could you still alive? Cough... cough..." Woods Tinshee's voice cut through the haze, laced with surprise and suspicion. He stood across the cavern, his own body wracked with violent coughs, blood flecking his lips. Yet his eyes gleamed with shock as he studied Lordi's crumpled form.
This brat bastard wasn't right.
Woods Tinshee, though gravely wounded, was no ordinary cultivator. A direct apostle of an Elder from the Abyss Pit Sect, he wielded the advanced high rank Layer of Qi Refinement Stage—a realm far beyond the common cultivator. Even his hastily conjured Five Poisons Finger should have torn through Lordi's defenses like paper, piercing his heart and ending him in an instant. After all, Lordi was just a thir -layer very Elementary Qi Refinement cultivator from backwater Deerspring Town. A nobody.
Yet here he was, battered but breathing.
Woods Tinshee narrowed his eyes, his gaze locking onto Lordi's left arm, where the attack had struck hardest. A grotesque, poison-seared hole gaped in the flesh, the skin blackened and peeling, revealing a glint of bone beneath. The wound was horrific, yet it hadn't killed him. The rest of Lordi's injuries—bruises, cuts, a battered frame—looked devastating but weren't fatal.