Chapter 117: Flee in Panic
Known across the Outer Sect for his ferocious cultivation strength, Donovan Valdez’s infamy was tied to his signature martial technique: the Bone Eroding Fist Art. Regarded as one of the most costly techniques in the Pavilion of Myriad Arts of Outer Sect, it was the bane of the Outer Sect’s foundational Bone Tempering Art. Its practitioners, dubbed "Dustweavers," earned the title for their ability to reduce enemies to crumbling husks. A single well-aimed strike could dissolve bone tissue over hours, condemning the victim to a slow, agonizing death as their skeleton disintegrated. Even a glancing blow inflicted crippling pain and lasting structural damage, nearly impossible to heal without advanced restorative arts.
Each punch or palm strike targeted vital joints and bones, unleashing a supernatural corrosive force that ate away at the skeletal structure. Unless the victim had mastered the rare high grade Jade-tier Bone in Bone Tempering Art, this malice force ensured a gruesome, inevitable end.
"That brat might still be breathing now," Zoe Wright mused and smirked, "but without Jade-tier cultivation, he wouldn’t survive more than a few hours, likely dead by dawn. Let the forest beasts enjoy what remains."
The Dominator Squad pressed upward along the rugged path toward the mountain’s peak with footwork art, soon crossing the threshold into the forecourt of the Hanz Clan Ancestral Shrine.
A broad courtyard unfurled before them, its view of the main hall blocked by a towering entrance wall inscribed with four bold characters: "Hanz Clan Ancestral Shrine."
Crimson-painted torii gates lined a stone path from the entrance to the wall, flanked by overgrown flowers and tangled grasses. The once-vibrant plants were now trampled, the earth churned into mud, their broken stems and shattered flagstones scattered across the forecourt, caked in dust and mud that clung to the torii gates and courtyard walls.
"Captain, the shrine seems empty," a male cultivator said as they approached the entrance wall. He knelt, pinching a clump of dirt and sniffing it. "The Thorn Squad was ambushed here by some powerful enemy. They scattered in all directions, fleeing just moments ago."
Donovan Valdez’s brow furrowed, but his voice remained steady. "All of them fled? Even Garrick Blackthorn?"
The cultivator closed his eyes, sniffing again. When he opened them, furry ears sprouted from his head, his eyes turning green with vertical pupils, a feral aura overtaking his face as he channeled an unknown tracking technique. After a moment, he shook his head. "I’m not certain about the others, Captain, but Garrick Blackthorn... he’s still inside the shrine hall."