The Eternal Sin

The air within the giant’s belly trembled as blades slid from scabbards in harsh succession. The metallic chorus rang through the fleshy passage while curses rained down upon Jiang Chen like stones cast into a bottomless pit.

"You dare block this path alone. Do you think you are some king of the underworld?"

"This is the Black Market, not your uncle’s bedroom. Who gave you the courage to act wild here?"

"One hundred spirit stones!? I could buy a dozen tight virgins for that price! You must be fucking insane!"

"Out of my way, you worthless dog, unless you’re tired of living!"

Jiang Chen did not make a single sound in response. He stood between his two carved lines like a statue of cold jade, his gaze as tranquil as a mountain lake in winter.

His silent indifference was more insulting than any retort. The more they tried, the more it felt like stray dogs barking outside a sealed sect gate.

A burly man stepped forward from the crowd, his presence causing the surrounding cultivators to instinctively draw back. He was tall and hairy, clad in robes stained with the blood of a thousand victims.

Several in the crowd inhaled sharply.

"That is Zhao Kun, the Bone Eater."

"I saw him earlier. He slaughtered a fifteenth layer cultivator in three moves."

"You missed the most frightening part. He pulled out the bones and began eating them. Creepy."

Many looked at Jiang Chen as if his bones were already swimming in Zhao Kun’s cooking pot.

Zhao Kun rolled his neck and grinned. "Junior, you are quite greedy. How about instead of one hundred spirit stones, I pay with one hundred broken bones?"

His boot crossed the thin line drawn upon the flesh.

Jiang Chen’s eyelids lifted.

In that heartbeat, the world seemed to stutter.

Jiang Chen’s body dissolved into a black streak of light, so sudden and absolute that it defied the senses of those watching.

Before Zhao Kun could even widen his eyes in surprise, Jiang Chen was already standing back in his original position, his hands once again clasped behind his back as if he had never moved.

The Bone Eater, Zhao Kun, remained frozen for a second, his foot still planted firmly on the hardened ground. Then a thin thread of red appeared around his neck. His head slid forward with a heavy thud, followed by his body collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, landing entirely outside the line.

The silence that followed was the silence of a graveyard at midnight.

Not a single breath was drawn as the crowd stared at the headless remains of a man they had considered a predator among predators. The speed was simply too unbelievable, a level of martial prowess that transcended their understanding of the Qi Condensation realm.

"Why is everyone so quiet? Holy heavens, the Bone Eater is dead!"

"Too fast!"

"Was that a movement art or a spatial technique?"

They stared at the headless corpse and then at Jiang Chen, as if they were not looking at a man but at a ghost.

Jiang Chen let out a light, carefree chuckle, though his eyes remained as cold as ice. "It appears my calculations were slightly off. The maintenance of this passage is more taxing than I thought. The toll has just increased by another ten spirit stones. One hundred and ten spirit stones, or one herb. Choose quickly, for I am a busy man."

The crowd erupted into a frantic murmur. Shock turned into heated discussion. They had seen his strength, and in the world of cultivation, might was the only true currency of right. With such prowess, they knew Jiang Chen had every right to act arrogantly.

However, understanding his right to be arrogant did not mean they were willing to accept the humiliation of their purses being lightened.

"Do not be fooled!" a thin faced cultivator shouted as he began rallying the mob. "He is but one person! How many can he fight? If we rush him together, his speed will mean nothing! He can kill one, ten, or even twenty, but he cannot kill us all! A swarm of locusts can strip a mountain bare!"

Though he said that, he stayed safely ten rows back.

The crowd, however, did not seem to mind and cheered in agreement, their voices rising in a crescendo of bravery.

"If we attack together, he will surely fall!"

"With so many of us, we can breach the walls of heaven. What is this single person!"

"Brothers, attack! Kill that son of a bitch! Grind his bones to dust!"

Voices rose in agreement as killing intent blazed through the air like an untamed inferno.

But then the cheers slowly died down.

A strange phenomenon occurred. Not one person was willing to move. The front row looked to the second, and the second looked to the third. Each man’s heart was filled with selfish thoughts.

Why should I be the first? If I step first, then I die first. You go ahead and fight him. I will follow when he is exhausted.

The people here were a collection of vultures. This was not a righteous sect where the elders preached the glory of sacrifice and the heroism of the fallen. In this den of devils, there was only the "I" and the "me". If a person died here, his companions would not mourn him. They would quickly loot his storage ring before his blood even turned cold.

In this place, selfishness was applauded.

Jiang Chen understood this mentality with crystalline clarity.

But he was not fully betting on it, for he knew that even this hesitation was temporary, and soon enough the pressure of the crowd or a few strong willed individuals would force a confrontation.

So what he had to do was erase the very thought of an alliance from their minds.

He threw back his head and laughed. "By all means, group up! That is the very nature of you weaklings, is it not? You huddle together like sheep in a storm, hoping the wolf will be too full to eat you all. You are no different from those righteous path dogs who hide behind their numbers when they lack the spine for a fair fight. But let me remind you of one thing. That thing in the sky is not merely a decoration."

He raised a finger.

Hundreds of eyes instinctively followed Jiang Chen’s pointing finger toward the massive, hill sized eyeball levitating high in the giant’s belly.

Since the market had opened, the overseeing eye had remained indifferent, gazing into the distance with divine apathy.

At this moment, as if responding to Jiang Chen’s intent, the great eye rolled slowly and fixed upon the gathering below.

A wave of primordial dread swept through the passage. Every cultivator felt his heart go cold, as if an icy hand had squeezed thier very soul. The Overseer’s gaze was a divine warning from a power that could erase them all as easily as brushing away dust.

Jiang Chen continued to laugh arrogantly, though internally he felt cold sweat prickling along his spine.

’Fuck... it triggered this early?’

Jiang Chen truly did not expect the Overseer to respond so promptly, but the timing was a gift from the heavens.

His plan had always been to use the threat of the eye to deter a mass riot. A few small skirmishes were expected in a den of devils, but a massive organized force would disrupt the entire flow of the market, which the Overseeing Eye was bound to prevent.

The heat of the conflict cooled instantly, as if a lake’s worth of freezing water had been poured over the fires of their rage. The thin faced cultivator who had been rallying the crowd was the first to slip away, disappearing into the shadows of the nearby muscle.

Many others followed, deciding that the treasures within the intestine were not worth the risk of being vaporized by the Eye or decapitated by the person collecting the toll.

However, many others were determined to enter and possessed the stones to do so. These individuals began to approach Jiang Chen with sudden, forced politeness.

"Lord, your herbs. If I purchase one, can I really... pass?" a rogue cultivator said, his voice trembling slightly as he handed over a pouch of stones.

"Naturally. I am a fair person." Jiang Chen, with a grace that bordered on the courtly, rolled out his setup and began to conduct business.

A middle aged cultivator crouched. "This Thunder Cloud Grass. How much?"

"Twenty spirit stones."

"Too high."

"Then you may pay the toll of one hundred and twenty and pass empty handed."

The man’s face twitched as he muttered something and tossed twenty stones forward.

Business followed.

Compared to handing over a flat fee of one hundred and twenty spirit stones, buying an herb was a far more palatable pill to swallow. Jiang Chen properly arranged the items ranging from six spirit stones to sixty seven. The cultivators quickly realized that the faster they acted, the cheaper their entry would be. As the low cost herbs began to vanish, the urgency to buy increased.

As more people bought, resentment softened.

Everyone was suffering the same extortion, and strangely this shared misery made them more willing to comply. If everyone was being robbed, no one felt uniquely cheated. Such was human nature, whether demonic or righteous.

Jiang Chen’s hands moved in a blur of efficiency, collecting stones and handing out stalks of herbs. He even encountered a few traders who needed certain stocks in bulk, which he sold with a satisfied smile.

Jiang Chen could almost hear the spirit stones clinking into his storage ring like steady rain.

Time flowed.

Business was not entirely without blood. There were still those who arrived late or whose pride was larger than their brains. A tall youth who had not witnessed Zhao Kun’s death lunged suddenly with a spear. Jiang Chen sidestepped and pierced his throat before the spear tip reached him. Another hurled a talisman. Jiang Chen’s figure flickered, and he appeared behind the man, striking his back with a palm and shattering his heart.

About thirty times, individuals or small groups attempted to breach his line by force. Nine of these battles had been somewhat troublesome, involving cultivators with strange techniques or hidden treasures. But Jiang Chen was a storm that could not be weathered. With movement talismans boosting his already terrifying speed to impossible levels, and Qi Nourishing Pills keeping his spiritual reservoir overflowing, he moved through the fray like a reaper through wheat.

Whenever he took a grazing blow, the Wool Surgeon’s Needle within his sleeve stitched his flesh in an instant. He felt as though he could fight for another fifty rounds without breaking his stride.

Right now, Jiang Chen’s boot was planted firmly upon the shoulder of a young woman who lay sprawled on the ground. She had tried to use a seductive charm technique to cloud his mind while her hand moved toward a poisoned dagger hidden in her silk sash. Jiang Chen’s response had been cold and ruthless. There was no lust in his eyes.

He applied force, the sound of her shoulder blade grinding into paste echoing in the quiet air. She shrieked, a high pitched cry of pure agony. As Jiang Chen’s eyes darkened and his Qi gathered for the finishing blow, she clawed at the earth, screaming, "I will pay! Two hundred spirit stones! I will pay double! Forgive me, Lord! Forgive me!"

Jiang Chen paused. He withdrew his leg with an indifferent shrug and waited for her to toss a heavy pouch toward him. Once the stones were counted, he kicked her body across the second line. "Pass. But if I see your face again, the price will be your head."

He took a moment to reflect as the flow of people slowed.

’Things have progressed satisfactorily to this point. There are roughly three hours remaining before we are expelled. I have liquidated ninety percent of my inventory and amassed over sixty three thousand spirit stones. The remaining stock consists of costlier items. People will be reluctant to buy these just for an entry.’

As if in answer to his thoughts, a group of figures emerged from the darkness of the inner tunnels. Their auras were terrifying, cold as mountains of ice, and they were walking directly toward him with hostile expressions.

’They look unhappy. I sure hope they are not coming for me,’ Jiang Chen thought, a faint smile playing at his lips.