238: Chapter 238 Blood Slaughter Spying, Undercurrents Surge

The sound of a broken twig still echoed at the edge of the forest; debris drifted down slowly, landing on the soil with barely a sound.

Thirty zhang away, at the edge of a collapsed cavern, a fissure slowly cracked open amidst a pile of rotting leaves.

A pair of eyes opened, blood-red like congealed gore, pupils constricted to pinpricks, staring fixedly at the direction of the forest entrance.

Blood Butcher crouched in the shadows, his spine arched like a beast that had been dormant for many years.

He did not move, his breathing suppressed to the lowest level; only his tongue tip occasionally darted out to lick his dry lower lip, leaving a wet trail that slowly dried again.

He saw them.

Two figures were walking toward the forest, their steps steady—one in front, one behind.

Though their faces were not yet visible, the sense of vigilance they carried could not be hidden—shoulders not relaxed, waist not slumped, feet landing so lightly it was as if they feared startling the insects underground.

"Heh..." A muffled laugh rolled from his throat, extremely faint, like a snake's tail sweeping across withered grass.

Fat sheep.

Not ordinary Cultivators, but people from the Chen family.

With the Bloodline of the Eastern Wasteland Alliance family head, their bodies were full of Spiritual Qi, their muscles and bones firm; one look revealed they were built from years of training and life-or-death combat.

Especially the one walking in front, with a steady gait and his right hand constantly pressed against his waist, clearly in a stance ready to draw his blade at any moment.

Blood Butcher's eyeballs turned slightly, staring at the person's back, his mind already beginning to calculate.

Kill one, and the essence blood entering his body could sustain the operation of the Blood River Demonic Art for half a month; kill two, and he might be able to force a resonance of blood Qi, directly breaking through a small Bottleneck.

If he was lucky, and managed to scavenge some Magic Treasure or mecha fragments... tsk, this deal would be a huge profit.

He licked the corner of his mouth; this time it wasn't out of dryness, but excitement.

The Chen family had risen too quickly in these past few years.

The Technology Workshop worked day and night, mecha patrol squads flew everywhere, and even the Yao Race had suffered heavy losses.

The old rules of the Cultivation World had been smashed to pieces by them; things like "Spiritual Root supremacy" and "Bloodline honor" all became jokes in front of the Chen family's iron contraptions.

Ridiculous.

And they deserved to die.

Blood Butcher did not fear chaotic times; he only feared peace.

When it was peaceful, no one died, and he couldn't absorb essence blood.

Yet the Chen family insisted on creating a "New Order"—everyone had a way to survive, every race could trade, and they didn't even kill Yao Race captives, locking them up to do hard labor instead.

Mercy? Bullshit.

That was cutting off his livelihood.

He had lived for over three hundred years, and he had relied solely on killing.

After his wife died, he had sworn an oath: of all the righteous sects, not one would be spared.

Later, having killed so many, his Dao Heart became twisted, and he simply trained the Blood River Demonic Art to the extreme—for every person killed, he refined a weapon with blood, fed a soul to a Talismanic Incantation, and nurtured a Gu with flesh.

Now, what flowed within his body was not blood, but blood plasma brewed from countless dead souls.

Therefore, he loved chaos, loved war, and loved nights splattered with fresh blood.

And the Chen family was that lamp attempting to light up the dark night.

They must be destroyed.

Blood Butcher's fingernails slowly dug into the soil, his knuckles turning white. He did not rush to strike.

Now was not the time.

The two had not yet entered the depths of the forest; the surrounding terrain was too open, and if there were an ambush, he would only alert the enemy.

He had to wait.

Wait for them to go deeper, wait for them to relax, wait for the moment they thought they were safe, then burst out from underground and bite through their throats.

He imagined that scene: a blade slicing open an artery, warm blood spraying onto his face, flowing down his chin into his collar, the fishy sweetness carrying Spiritual Qi exploding on his tongue.

That long-lost feeling of being alive would make his whole body tremble.

"What fat prey..." He finally spoke, his voice as hoarse as a whetstone scraping against bone, "Chen family, your doomsday has arrived."

As his words fell, he bent his knees, his body shrinking backward like a snake, slowly retreating into the cavern.

Deep within the cavern fissure, several dark red lines were faintly visible, resembling blood vessels, or perhaps Talismanic Incantations, glowing slightly in the darkness.

He did not go far.

He merely changed positions.

With a twist of his body, he slid into a hidden fissure underground, and the soil automatically closed up, leaving no trace.

Only a few rotting leaves on the surface trembled slightly, then returned to stillness.

The wind rose again.

Carrying dust and withered leaves, it swirled along the forest path.

A leaf swept past the place where Chen Wuwang had just stood, gently sticking beside the interrupted trail of claw prints.

No one knew that just a moment ago, a pair of eyes had already locked onto every one of them from the darkness.

The camera pulled back, overlooking the entire dense forest.

The forest canopy was like ink, dead silent and soundless.

Sunlight barely pierced through the clouds, casting a few slanted beams onto the treetops, as if plating this land of death with a layer of false gold.

And on the west side of the forest, near the foot of the mountain, an extremely thin black line was slowly moving.

It clung to the surface, appearing and disappearing from time to time, like a trail left by some crawling creature.

It did not walk in a straight line, but circled the outskirts of the dense forest, bit by bit flanking toward the rear flank.

That was Blood Butcher's stealth route.

He was not in a hurry to approach the target; he was setting up a formation.

He was looking for the best angle for a surprise attack—one that would allow him to kill with a single blow and retreat unscathed.

He knew the Chen family had early warning Systems, a Sword Intent network, and mecha support. A direct confrontation wouldn't work; he had to use underhanded tactics.

So he chose the underground.

Underground there were fissures, insect tunnels, and abandoned branch tunnels of mineral veins.

In these places, Spiritual Qi was chaotic, and Mechanical Prosthetic Eye scans easily missed details.

As long as he didn't use his spiritual power or release Killing Intent, he could move like a shadow.

He had already mapped it out in his mind: cut in from the western fissure, sneak to ten zhang below the heart of the forest, wait for the two to go deep, then burst out from the ground, kill the one in the back first, then pounce on the one in the front.

If any mecha activated, he would immediately detonate the pre-buried blood Talismanic Incantations to interfere with the control System.

The plan was solid.

But what he didn't know was that the two had absolutely no intention of scouting the path easily.

The one in front had his right fingertips twitching slightly—that was a bodily reaction during high alert.

And the one in the back, although full of Battle Intent, would unconsciously glance at the ground every five steps—he was memorizing the path and guarding against ambushes.

But what they knew even less was that, at this moment, it wasn't just Blood Butcher's pair of eyes watching them.

Higher up, above the clouds, in a dimension invisible to ordinary people, another gaze was quietly overlooking all of this.

That was not human.

Nor was it a demon.

Its form of existence could not be described in words; it could only be perceived as a kind of "gaze."

It watched Blood Butcher sneaking, watched Chen Wuwang step into the forest, and watched the forbidden book Bai Ling left in the medicinal garden glowing slightly.

It had no actions, no emotions, only a desire to observe that was nearly indifferent.

Just like a scientist watching cell division under a microscope.

And in some corner of this continent, at the top of a black tower, Mo Yuan stood before the broken remains of a Puppet, slowly opening his thirteenth Mechanical Prosthetic Eye.

He was not looking at the battlefield.

Instead, he was looking toward the underground fissure on the west side of the dense forest.

The corners of his mouth curled into an eerie smile.

Blood Butcher thought he was the hunter.

Yet he did not know that he, too, was a chess piece.

The wind stopped.

The dust settled.

At the edge of the forest, that broken twig lay quietly on the soil, its tip still stained with a bit of purple-gray moss.

Deep underground, Blood Butcher had completely hidden himself.

His body merged with the shadows, his aura locked down to the extreme, even his heartbeat nearly disappeared.

He was like a venomous snake, coiled in the cave, waiting for the moment to strike.

The Killing Intent was hidden.