Zhao Lingyun's Maddening Hatred

There is no doubt that Zhao Lingyun's connection to his treasure was severed; thereby ownerless and untraceable, but he simply couldn't believe it; he wouldn't believe it, he refused such a cruel notion; such an absurd reality.

Without hesitation, he activated Switch. His spit, flicked from his tongue with pinpoint accuracy, landed on a smooth rock at the water's edge. In an instant, his body traded places with it, now positioned right where the saliva had landed. The technique worked flawlessly—no spiritual ripples, no energy fluctuations, just pure displacement.

"Now, let's mask my exit entirely."

He knelt, pressing his palm to the wet stone. Heaven Sundering spread outward, dissolving any residual trace of his energy, severing even the faintest connection to his escape route.

Back at the scene of the theft, Zhao Lingyun staggered, coughing another mouthful of blood. His eyes burned with unrestrained wrath.

"Impossible! The connection… is completely gone?!" He clenched his fists until his knuckles cracked, his fury growing with each passing second. "What kind of monster could sever my imprint so perfectly!?"

His spiritual sense swept through the area again, but all he found was silence. A void where the treasure should have been. It was as if it had never existed in the first place.

Zhao Lingyun's eyes darkened. He turned toward the sleeping teenagers, his gaze filled with cold intent. Someone would pay for this. Whether or not they were the culprits, he needed an outlet for his rage.

"Wake up!" he roared.

The terrified teenagers jolted awake, confusion and panic in their eyes as they beheld the furious Rank 2 cultivator standing before them.

"Who stole my treasure?!" Zhao Lingyun's voice thundered like a storm. "Speak now, or I will carve the answer out of your bones!"

The teenagers glanced at one another, their faces ashen. None of them had an answer. One of them, bolder than the rest, stepped forward.

"S-Senior, we—"

Before he could finish, Zhao Lingyun's palm struck like lightning. The teenager's body was sent crashing into a nearby tree, blood spraying from his mouth.

"Lies!" Zhao Lingyun snarled. "You were the last ones to have it! Where is it now?!"

"These fuckers better have an answer where my treasure is and just which little shit ran off with it." Zhao Lingyun said both nervously and furiously in his mind.

Trembling, the remaining teenagers could only shake their heads in desperation. But Zhao Lingyun wasn't interested in their denials. If no one could provide answers, then their lives would serve as compensation.

He violently and mercilessly rummaged through their minds using mind search which was a much weaker version of soul search that can look into the last 3 to 20 days of the victims memories depending on the users cultivation level, but soul search allows one to completely see all the victims memories, but only immortals (a minimum of rank 4) can use this ability.

After he brutally searched through their minds by force and without any care or patience the victims minds collapsed and exploded soon after.

Once Zhao Lingyun realised they really knew nothing and he truly had 0 traces so far and essentially no hope of catching the thief and retrieving his treasure the aura of bloodlust surrounding him doubled, tripled and then grew thirty-fold in size; it terrified the surrounding animals and those that had no wings ran away; those that had wings flew away in a frenzy.

"If only I had a flying sword, a teleportation spell or one of those expensive talismans that would enable me to temporarily teleport or fly... Had I known things would've turned out this way I wouldn't have been so confident thinking using my tunnelling spell would have been more than enough to catch these thieving vermin, I would've even brought my rank 3 peak stage elder brother." He thought to himself in utter disdain and he directed all this anger and energy at Haji channelling it to one day get his sweet revenge.

Meanwhile, Haji had already crossed the ravine, his small figure merging seamlessly into the night.

"Looks like he's taking his rage out on them," Haji mused, a hint of amusement in his tone. "Serves them right. They stole it first, after all."

His avatar chuckled. "Poetic justice at its finest. But let's not linger. We have bigger plans ahead."

Haji nodded. The treasure in his grasp emanated a strange warmth, its glow flickering ever so slightly.

"Time to find out what makes this thing so special."

With that, he vanished into the shadows, leaving behind only whispers of the storm he had set into motion.

Zhao Lingyuns eyes narrowed as he completely destroyed all the plants and trees in a hundred foot radius using 3 of his offensive spells combined into one hoping deep down the thief was still nearby and was hiding somewhere near there, but once he realized it was only him and ashes that used to be the teenagers corpses near him he roared with tremendous bloodthirst at the sky "You thieving bastard! I'm going to find you! Capture you! Skin you alive, break every single one of your bones and then douse you in acid!!!"

"All traces stop here." He said in his mind as his cold eyes gleamed profoundly, radiating an ancient immemorial sense of majesty. 

Because Haji is beyond cautious there should be an entirely new word to describe Haji's caution for it far exceeds the limits and pre-conceived notions.

It can be said without a shadow of a doubt that Haji makes even the greatest prodigal geniuses seem ordinary, who would go this far? Who would think so far ahead? Haji erased all his traces; yet that wasn't enough for Haji.

Meticulous so insanely scrupulous that he didn't even spare soundwaves that might linger in the air or be brought back through some sort of spell or skill by another cultivator especially those at higher ranks.

Which is why Haji ingeniously decided to keep thinking to himself or talking to his avatar in his mind and he wouldn't speak to anyone outside his mind unless he absolutely had to and even then he wouldn't ever let a single sliver of his identity be exposed he would effortlessly change his entire character his entire personality, he would put on a mask that cannot be seen through.

Indeed Haji was multi-talented to begin with; in his previous life at his oldest he was merely 23 years old before he died in that rift, but his soul unwavering and immovable simply couldn't be destroyed.