The Eternal Sin

Four figures stood several meters away from Jiang Chen, their gazes piercing and filled with bone deep hostility. Even without an exchange of words, the intent to shed blood was palpable.

The surrounding cultivators sensed the change in the air and quietly withdrew. No one wished to be caught between tigers fighting over territory.

Jiang Chen clasped his hands behind his back as he surveyed the four with calm disdain. "What are you glaring at with your ugly mugs? Do you not see that I am conducting business here? Scram! You are blocking the passage for my customers."

The expressions of the four twisted at once into facades of malevolence that would have sent a weaker man into cardiac arrest.

From the left, a man with a pig belly stepped forward with a jiggle. He possessed three heads upon a single swollen neck. The left head snorted. The right head spat a gob of dark phlegm onto the ground. The middle head spoke in a rough voice.

"We are blocking the way...? Hmph! Foggy bastard, from the way this seat sees it, it is you who have become a tumor in this passage. You truly do not know the height of the heavens or the depth of the earth!"

Beside him stood a short woman adorned in bone ornaments from scalp to ankle. Each bone had been polished smooth and strung with red thread. Her skin was pale as funeral paper. When she moved, the ornaments clattered faintly like wind chimes in a graveyard.

"We are conducting business inside. Your little toll has cut our profits cleanly in half. Do you know how much effort we put into attracting customers? How will you compensate us?"

The other two beside them did not speak. One was a youth whose skin bore faint scales that shimmered like snake hide. His pupils were vertical slits, cold and calculating. The last was a middle aged man with greying hair and crystal blue eyes. He had no eyebrows. His face appeared perpetually calm, yet those eyes were oozing vile intent.

’These old foxes are finally showing their tails,’ Jiang Chen sneered internally.

One might imagine that with Jiang Chen setting up this toll section, the ones who suffered most were these people with stalls inside. Without customers passing through, who were they supposed to sell to?

In the beginning, it was not so bad because people were still coming in. Jiang Chen’s toll even filtered customers for them. Those who came merely to sightsee were discouraged. People willing to pay the toll were more likely to buy items.

’A gatekeeper who charges a fee is a gatekeeper who guarantees the quality of the guests,’ the three headed cultivator had mused in those early hours, his middle head nodding in silent approval.

Because of this, they even made an effort to secretly fan rumors that the person guarding the entrance was extremely strong, which he was, though they greatly exaggerated it. They also spread word that the goods inside were too legendary to miss. This strategy attracted only interested buyers.

However, as the wheel of fate turned and herbs became more expensive, people hesitated to spend more than fifty spirit stones just to enter.

The number of customers sharply declined.

Their earlier act of spreading rumors backfired because of his strength and the reputation of that strength. People now grew too afraid to challenge him. With the Black Market soon coming to an end, these four had no choice but to step out and deal with Jiang Chen themselves, or they would go home with much of their stock unsold.

Jiang Chen’s voice grew colder as a thread of blood curdling killing intent began to leak from his body. "Compensate? Sure. Why not? I am a man of great charity. How about I bury your bodies here as compensation?"

Boom!

As if a dam had burst, the collective auras of the four figures exploded outward in a violent wave of spiritual energy. Jiang Chen felt a heavy force descend upon him from four directions. It was like standing at the foot of four mountains at once.

Jiang Chen’s heart tightened.

He was not blind to reality. If this fight broke out, he did not believe he would come out on top. These people were not nobodies. Each had undergone bloodbaths and a hundred betrayals.

Even so, Jiang Chen did not retreat. Golden light blazed in his fists. In a land of demons, one must be fiercer than demons.

The snake skinned youth lowered his stance. Fangs protruded and scales hardened. The middle aged man’s crystal blue eyes gleamed coldly as frost like spiritual pressure spread silently from his body. The bone clad woman raised her hand as a faint poisonous chill gathered around her fingers. The three headed man cracked his neck. His three mouths grinned at different angles.

At any moment, the battle would erupt.

The four figures were also calculating. They did not truly wish to waste time and effort in a fight, nor put themselves at risk. Ideally, they had hoped Jiang Chen would retreat from the threat of their combined power, which a sane person should have done. But the man before them was too overbearing. With his arrogant attitude, there was no longer room for compromise.

They would have to fight.

Just as the snake youth was about to lunge, a stern voice cut through from behind Jiang Chen.

"Fifth Brother, you truly disappoint me."

The words were not loud, yet they carried unquestionable authority. They rolled through the passage like distant thunder across the mountains.

Jiang Chen jerked his head around, his eyes widening as four new figures emerged. Their bodies were shrouded in a layer of obscuring dark mist that fully concealed their features.

"Eldest Brother? You... what are you doing here?" Jiang Chen stammered, his voice a blend of surprise and trepidation.

The expressions of the four opposing cultivators shifted instantly. The air, which had been heavy with their intent to kill, was suddenly sucked out of the passage.

’He is not alone.’

This thought struck them like a hammer.

The implications were staggering. This youth, who had single handedly dominated the passage and extorted hundreds of cultivators, was merely the Fifth Brother. If the fifth in line possessed such overbearing strength and audacity, what of the four stood with him? What kind of monstrous sect or hidden force had spawned these fearsome devils?

Dread began to sprout in the hearts of the four stall owners. They were a loose coalition who had come together because they had a common enemy. There was no loyalty here, no brotherhood to bolster their courage in the face of an unknown and superior force. Their auras, once like erupting volcanoes, began to deflate like punctured bladders.

The foremost figure within the dark mist stepped forward. This was the clone, using the Enchanted Teeth treasure within its mouth to lend it a voice.

It placed a heavy hand on Jiang Chen’s shoulder. "Fifth Brother, you have passed Master’s test during this visit. You have shown the necessary skills and ruthlessness. But..."

"Please, Brother, let me explain," Jiang Chen stammered.

"Hmph! You allowed yourself to stand in a situation where you were about to lose. That should not have happened. We, your elder brothers, should not have had to reveal ourselves to kill such trash for you. This is weakness. Weakness must be punished."

With a sudden nonchalant flick of its wrist, the clone pushed Jiang Chen. Whose body became a blurred streak, flying backward nearly a hundred meters and smashing through a section of hardened flesh. He hit the ground rolling, coughing up mouthfuls of bright crimson blood.

The watching cultivators inhaled sharply.

The clone did not even look back. It turned its gaze toward the four trembling cultivators, its eyes cold and pitiless. "Look at what you have forced me to do. Because of your insolence, I had to lay hands on my own brother. Do you know how much this pains me? My master taught me that blood must be repaid with blood. I can only wash away this pain by gifting him your corpses to use as cultivation furnaces. Kekeke!"

The stall owners felt their hearts chill.

This was a lunatic. This was a man who would break his own brother’s ribs for a minor error. What would such a demon do to an enemy? The demonic cultivators felt their spines grow cold. Their first thought was to run, but that idea was quickly dismissed. They did not even have the confidence to flee. They had witnessed Jiang Chen’s terrifying speed, and as for this so-called elder brother, they did not dare imagine it.

In the end, they chose the only option left to them: begging.

"Oh Lord, please! It was never our intention to trouble the young Lord!" the three headed man cried out, all three of his heads now bobbing in frantic pleading. "This is a misunderstanding of cosmic proportions! I actually came here to ensure no one was bothering the Fifth Lord. In a way, I was his guardian!"

The bone clad woman fell to her knees, her ivory ornaments clattering like teeth. "Indeed! I was struck by the Fifth Brother’s heroic bearing. I was merely trying to find a way to introduce myself. I wished to bear his children and join your noble house. Please do not strike me. I am practically your sister in law!"

The snake skinned youth, unable to find words, simply collapsed and began to writhe on the ground, hissing a pathetic and groveling prayer for mercy.

Meanwhile, the blue eyed cultivator stood dead still, as if he were paralyzed with horrifying fear, unable to even utter a plea.

’These people really are shameless,’ Jiang Chen thought as he slowly dragged himself up from the rubble, wiping blood from his chin. ’I really need to improve my acting. Their skin is thicker than a city wall.’

Suddenly, a voice echoed directly in Jiang Chen’s sea of consciousness.

"Quite the performance, kid."