A dim moon hung in the sky. Lu Qingshan stood on the roads leading to the Liu family manor, the heir in question by his side. Multiple groups of the kingdom's soldiers and the royal guards were patrolling the entire area. Sneaking in would normally be difficult, even with the reduced amount of personnel.

  But there were still visible holes in their patrols. Today, he had taken Qin Ye and Liu Yingting with him in favor of a smaller team. Li Fanghua was working hard to cultivate while staying with her family, and Meng Zhang was continuing to oversee the local forces. It wasn't impossible for a small team like theirs to get in and get out without anyone noticing.

  He had the desire to slaughter his way through. But the Blood Seas Inner Force method relied more on absorbing power from experts, not weaklings barely able to reach the Flesh Tempering stage. Wanton massacres would only alarm the city for no real benefit.

  Lu Qingshan's flies spread around the area. Over the past half-year, their numbers had swelled even more, though none of them had truly reached the Marrow Tempering stage. Instead, each new generation grew more physically durable. He believed they would have a breakthrough eventually.

  In the night, torchlight was easy to spot. Their patrol patterns emerged in his mind and Lu Qingshan came up with a simple plan. Tonight, the royal guards would have the greatest gap in their defenses, and walking in was finally feasible for the first time in months.

  Qin Ye kept his attention ready to conceal them if necessary. The three of them slowly tread across the fields, hiding themselves in the foliage once they saw a patrol coming their way. Every step brought a mixed look in Liu Yingting's eyes as he remembered the smell of home.

  A stick cracked. A wandering patrol member emerged from the darkness of a nearby bush, cursing at the surprise. He lit his torch to wave it in circles around himself.

  "Thought I heard footsteps," he muttered. "Must've been the wind."

  As the man disappeared, Lu Qingshan kept going. Halfway through the fields they encountered three sets of patrols quietly whispering to one another. Eager to hear rumors, Lu Qingshan crept closer and eavesdropped.

  "Do you think Marquis Zhou will be satisfied with our precautions?" one of them asked.

  "No. That man is never satisfied," another muttered. "We can only hope a month is enough to fulfill all his demands."

  "I don't have a good feeling about all this," a woman's voice said. "Stay alert, everyone, and make sure you don't slack off. Tonight feels wrong."

  They nodded. The conversation dissolved after a few minutes of light talk. Lu Qingshan waited until the torches were facing away before the three of them silently dashed through the center.

  Marquis Zhou was a general highly-regarded for his military exploits. Coming from a military noble family, he had made a great amount of contributions for the kingdom, and was rumored to be nearing the Innate realm. His iron demeanor and powerful aura enabled his army to conquer a lot of land from neighboring kingdoms. As the general most often in the limelight, he also received the most rewards.

  His arrival would bring many changes to the city. Lu Qingshan was still waiting for the spark that would ignite open conflict among the city's forces, and perhaps Marquis Zhou would be the primary fuse. After all, the man exemplified the kingdom's principles. Rooting out the corruption in the kingdom had been one of his primary tasks other than conquest, when he first began to gain fame.

  Lu Qingshan arrived at the Liu family manor gate without much trouble. But the royal guards standing here were far more alert than the other patrols. They almost discovered Liu Yingting's profile while he was still deep in thought, staring at the gate. Lu Qingshan had to pull him away.

  "They almost saw you," he hissed. "Stay focused."

  "Sorry," Liu Yingting apologized, a hint of grief in his eyes. Then the cold hatred returned. "Can't we just kill them?"

  "We can, but not now." Lu Qingshan's flies saw one of the men still staring at where Liu Yingting had been. Did he see a flash of clothing?

  The man eventually returned to his usual pose, staring dead into the distance like a statue. He didn't speak a word to his companion on the other side of the gate. After Lu Qingshan took a breather to make sure everything was fine, he let his flies try to find a way into the manor grounds.

  Other than the gate, two damaged spots in the defensive perimeter would allow others to sneak in. Those too had people guarding them, and Lu Qingshan's flies discovered the royal guards were also standing inside the manor grounds. It wasn't the end of the road just yet.

  "Where is it?" Lu Qingshan whispered.

  "It's inside the main family complex." Liu Yingting took a long, deep look at the ruined houses that could be seen by the gate. He sighed. "We need to visit a small house first, and take the item inside the grave. Then we use that to open the secret inside the main house."

  "Which small house?"

  "Try to find a grave with one of our names on it," Liu Yingting said. "I'll tell you if it's the correct one."

  Lu Qingshan slowly considered each one through his fly swarm's senses. The blurriness of their connection made it more difficult to see the exact contents, but the landmarks were there. Each of the Liu family buildings were slightly personalized in their own way depending on who lived there.

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  "It might be that one," Liu Yingting replied when he heard him describe a small hut surrounded by fields of flowers. "I've never been there myself, but it matches the description."

  His flies swarmed the area and made sure nobody was around. Such a small place wasn't worth placing guards there. Lu Qingshan brought the three of them over, and Liu Yingting entered the house, exiting with a shovel.

  "It's a fake grave," he explained, digging away. After a few swings of the shovel, Liu Yingting stopped for a moment, his shoulders trembling.

  Lu Qingshan did not say a word. Neither did Qin Ye.

  Liu Yingting eventually managed to finish the task, picking up a book from the hole. It was not the stench of a corpse that appeared, but the fresh smell of flowers. He then placed the book beside Lu Qingshan without looking up and started shoveling back the dirt.

  The book looked simple, and untitled. Lu Qingshan refrained from browsing through it until Liu Yingting finished his task. It was as if the man was burying his past deep within himself, and once the dirt had settled, looked back towards him with a calm gaze.

  "Let's go," Liu Yingting said.

  Through the flies, Lu Qingshan saw the main building. It was also where most of the remaining guards were concentrated. They needed to get into the building while avoiding being spotted to allow Liu Yingting to do his thing.

  The Bloodseeker Flies were instrumental to their success. It was a breeze for the three of them to access the main house by climbing into one of the damaged windows on the upper floors. There simply weren't enough people to watch the entire perimeter once Lu Qingshan had discovered their pattern. Qin Ye quickly concealed the window's appearance, and the next patrol failed to spot them through the window.

  Liu Yingting took the lead from this point onwards. They snuck through the house's large rooms, passing by bedrooms stained by spots of blood. The corpses inside the manor grounds had long been disposed of by the kingdom's army. They hadn't bothered cleaning up the area, though.

  The first instance that something had gone wrong appeared when they spotted a patrol group lying on the floor. At first, they thought the group of four were sleeping. Then they drew close enough to see their chests punctured and their hearts missing from the cavity. They were beyond dead.

  Lu Qingshan immediately had everyone stop. He scanned through his closest fly swarms' vision, but found nothing of note. In confusion, he ordered them all to enter a small, enclosed room, and continued watching.

  "There's nobody alive here," he said after a while. The flies had indeed detected flesh, but the meat they found were all corpses of the royal guards who should've been patrolling the place.

  Qin Ye frowned. He waved his hands, and a shimmer sprang through the room. "Someone has been here," he whispered.

  Lu Qingshan frowned as well. So did Liu Yingting, who began looking at everything very closely. In the corner was a closed box which they carefully opened.

  A half-eaten human head greeted them. Qin Ye's spell broke momentarily, and the head was replaced by a rotten apple for that brief moment.

  "What is this?" Lu Qingshan muttered.

  "An illusion," Qin Ye whispered. "Similar to what I did by hiding us from onlookers. But this one's more controlled."

  Lu Qingshan was tempted to say this was the work of demonic cultivators. But his instinct told him it might've been something else. Something that he'd never encountered before. At least, the demonic cultivators didn't seem to resort to direct cannibalism, especially not the brain.

  "Be careful," he said. "Qin Ye, how many times can you dispel illusions?"

  "I don't know," the boy admitted. "This one was already harder than I expected. If an actual illusionist appeared in front of me, I'm not sure I can handle them. And there's a lot of space to cover."

  Lu Qingshan weighed the benefits and risks. "What is in the inheritance anyway?" he asked Liu Yingting.

  "Martial arts manuals, secret medicines and elixirs, rare materials, and money. Easily transportable things that are enough to restart the family in case of calamity," the man said. "I think we really do need it."

  Was the human-eating monster watching them? Lu Qingshan became slightly paranoid. His flies weren't detecting anything, but he knew they were still relatively weak compared to a spiritual insect. He was tempted to send out the Bloodsense Bug, though there was a high possibility he'd end up losing the insect instead.

  "I need its blood," Lu Qingshan murmured. The bug drank from the human head, confirming it was truly a head and not an apple. It seemed to lead him into a direction deep into the forest. But to follow the sensation was likely a mistake.

  Lu Qingshan was less worried about himself compared to the squishy immortal cultivator boy beside him. This monster at a minimum carried the power of a Marrow Tempering martial artist since all the guards were dead, including their leaders. Staying inside the mansion was by far the most popular task as well.

  If Qin Ye met the monster unprepared, he wouldn't stand a chance. Perhaps the monster might even target him first due to some special senses for cultivators. Lu Qingshan knew what a delicacy their flesh could be, as the Bloodseeker Flies could attest to.

  "Could it be...." Liu Yingting whispered all of a sudden, then stopped before finishing. Lu Qingshan gave him a look. "Ghosts and demons," he squeezed out.

  "Have you heard of something similar?"

  The man nodded. "I always thought they weren't real, but with immortal cultivators appearing, why can't they?" Liu Yingting motioned for them to gather closer. He spoke in hushed tones about all he knew about the two categories of myths.

  Demons were animals who had gained intelligence and a penchant for human flesh. They often wandered the wilds, pretending to be other things including other humans, only to transform into predators once their prey was helpless. Meanwhile, ghosts were the spirits of resentment, appearing in sites of great human grief.

  He didn’t know the difference between demons and the monster beasts he encountered in the forested mountain ranges. None of the Qi Refinement animals sounded like demons to him. Maybe an immortal cultivator had a different perspective on things. But he was sure a ghost wouldn’t keep a half-eaten skull around as food.

  To deal with the demon, Lu Qingshan had no good solution. He could try leaving the two here while he opened up the treasure room himself. But that was just as likely to get them killed compared to taking them with him.

  Whether or not the demon already knew they were here, or how strong it was, no longer mattered. He needed to take the risk. If a martial artist never took any risks, could they truly call themselves a martial expert? Lu Qingshan didn’t think so.

  “Let’s continue with what we were doing,” he said. “But don’t use your powers, Qin Ye. Keep that sword ready.”

  The three of them silently creeped out of the room, and Liu Yingting took the lead again.