Chapter 36

"Cough, hrm, you shouldn't be here." a calm, warm and smiley sounding voice came from the behind the team of Andrew, William and Eliza.

"Fuck!" "Shit!" "What the - "

Andrew's alloy sword shining in golden light, William's barrel full of pellets infused with air elemental power and Eliza's flying dagger coated with an orange layer all struck at the direction of this voice at almost the same time. As fierce as their attacks were, the man in a weird monkey mask still looked unwavering.

Blocking the air-infused pellets with his right hand palm, holding the alloy sword with only his thumb and index finger, and catching the dagger with his teeth, Jianmen stomped on the floor and unleashed a concentrated shockwave, which knocked all three of the assailants back on their backs and dissipated immediately so as not to disturb anything else in this tunnel.

"Freeze!" Jianmen spit out the dagger and locked down the movement of all three people with the mere utterance of a mandarin word: "Don't resist and don't panic, I am not here to hurt you. Stay calm." Then he threw the alloy sword back at Andrew.

"Who are you!? " Eliza asked while trembling, "Did Mr. Theon send you here as well?"

"Relax, Eliza. I am not here because of whoever hired you." Jianmen said, then he removed the shackle spell on the three super powered individuals on the ground.

"How do you know my name?"

"Simple answer is that your target slash enemy here already knows your name and he - she - it already wrote your names all over the realm and couldn't wait to suck you dry and turn you into little minions." Jianmen knelt down and said: "Names are powerful things. It's best you leave now, you have no idea what you are contending with."

"What? And you do?" Andrew picked up his sword and tried to stand up, "Do you care to explain why? Without ambushing us first?"

"Let him explain first." William looked at Jianmen examiningly while pointing his shotgun at the ground, "Please enlighten us, will you?"

"You are being corrupted right at this moment. By the speed your powers will be half useless when you reach it." Jianmen explained with a tad impatience, "Among the three of you, only Eliza here has the foresight to try to protect herself against the corruption. This space is corrupted, every breath you take, every sense of motion you feel and even every color you see will contaminate you. The monsters you fought on your way here? You will become one of them if you don't leave."

"What? What are you talking about? How do you know?" Eliza was perturbed by the answer she heard.

"No time to explain, just stay outside, Okay?" noticing the darkness around these three was closing in, and small locks of hair-like darkness started extending towards them Jianmen became even more impatient, "If you want proof of kill or anything, I'll bring it to you. But for now you'll need to get out."

"What the fuck!? Who do you think you are!?" Jianmen's attitude rubbed Andrew in such a wrong way, that even though he knew he was not able to gain any advantage in a fight, he still held his sword against Jianmen.

"Wait, wait, wait. Andrew!" William grabbed Andrew by the arm to stop him from acting more hot-headed, "I think we should listen to him, this place does not feel right. It is … rotten."

"Good choice of word." Jianmen nodded: "Now, out, while you still can."

"Did Mr. Theon hire you? You didn't answer me." Eliza asked.

"No. No one hired me. I am here because I need to. You can say I am a karmic janitor." Jianmen pushed all three of them toward the direction he came from: "This way's safe. Go!"

"What's your Bondsmen number?" before they left, William turned around and asked: "So that we can let the broker know that you took over the bounty."

"What's with this yippy-yappy bullshit?" Jianmen started yelling: "Are you fucking deaf? OUT! NOW! "

All Andrew, William and Eliza saw the next moment was Jianmen's right palm and the blinding orange and golden light, before an unstoppable gust of wind swept them from their feet and sent them through a long way in the tunnel, to a position where they could almost see the exit.

The darkness that was extending towards the three and the black smoke surrounding them got ignited and burned off by the orange and golden light, the foul smell in the air was almost all washed away by the strong wind.

At this point, Jianmen could no longer remain as low profile as he hoped to, so he just decided to stop trying to maintain his stealth, and headed straight to the core of this area of Karmic corruption.

The palm strike he unleashed earlier to send the three clueless super powered individuals out of danger did alert the creatures deep in the tunnels. Countless different creatures started flooding out from the depths towards Jianmen, their claws, fangs and tails with spikes ready to tear up the human intruder, just like they did with so many before.

What greeted their presence, hunger and bloodlust was nothing but another palm strike.

The callused measly human palm from the left hand, no doubt made of flesh and blood and bones, looked just like any other they tore up and devoured. Yet this moment, the momentum and pressure unleashed by this palm caused such a shock to the creatures' systems, it was as if the space they resided in was cracking, crumbling and disintegrating right in front of them.

The creatures closest to the palm became pulverized; the ones that were slightly deeper in the tunnels were reduced to burning, tiny pieces of debris, flying back at extremely high speed and penetrating the creatures after them; the creatures that were furthest away had the brief moment to try to turn back but they were knocked into the air, before they could even process what was going on, their bodies had already shattered and turned into ashes and small pieces of stone.

Before the dust settled, Jianmen showed up at what appeared to be the core of the underground nest: a spacious underground station with a high dome shaped ceiling. A "tree" of sorts resided in the center of the station, connecting both the floor and the ceiling.

Its surface was made of animal and human tissue, with many flattened faces still remaining on it. Four giant cocoon shaped flesh bags were hanging from the ceiling surrounding the tree, each connected to the tree with a tube made of flesh and blood and covered with pulsating veins. Aside from the one flesh bag that was severely burned and torn to almost shreds by power from Jianmen's palm strike, the other three all had something incubating inside them.

"Why … why do you kill my child?"