Chapter 31: An Autopsy of Power

The oppressive auras of two enraged Core Formation cultivators crashed down upon Jian Feng, churning the air in the desolate canyon into a vortex of killing intent. Elder Bao's power was thick and heavy like grinding stone, while Abbot Kasyapa's was a chilling, insidious darkness that seemed to leech the very warmth from the world. Against this combined might, any other Qi Gathering disciple would have been crushed into paste before they could even scream.

Jian Feng remained perfectly still, his expression as placid as if he were observing a mild shower.

"Insolent child!" Elder Bao roared, taking the first action. He stomped his foot, and the very ground obeyed his will. A dozen sharp, heavy spears of rock, each imbued with immense kinetic force, erupted from the canyon floor, converging on Jian Feng from all sides in a deadly cage.

Simultaneously, Abbot Kasyapa attacked the mind. He made no grand gesture, but a wave of invisible, malevolent energy washed over Jian Feng. It carried with it feelings of absolute despair, futility, and a soul-crushing weariness designed to make a man give up his will to live.

This was their combined assault: one to annihilate the body, the other to extinguish the spirit.

It was a masterful attack. It was also utterly useless.

Against the physical assault, Jian Feng's Star-Chart had already mapped the trajectory and internal structure of every earthen spear the moment they began to form. He moved with an inhuman grace, his steps weaving between the projectiles in a path that should have been impossible. As he moved, his fingers danced through the air, delivering a series of light, almost casual taps to the sides of the spears. Each tap, powered by a minuscule wisp of Origin Qi, struck a precise, inherent stress fracture in the magically-formed rock. Instead of a powerful collision, the earthen spears simply crumbled into sand and dust around him, their power completely and silently nullified.

As for the Abbot's spiritual attack, it was even less effective. The wave of despair washed against Jian Feng's consciousness and broke apart like water against a diamond cliff. His mind, honed by a decade of focused cultivation and tempered by the logic of a past life, was a perfectly ordered fortress. The Abbot's chaotic, emotional energy could find no purchase, no crack to seep into. Jian Feng analyzed the 'curse' as it hit him, deconstructed its principles, and dismissed it as crude and inefficient.

The two Core Formation masters stared in disbelief, their most confident attacks having failed without so much as a sound.

"Impossible!" the Abbot hissed, his benevolent mask now completely gone, revealing the face of a cornered fanatic. "My Soul-Wearying Curse has broken the minds of men ten times your strength!"

"Your control over the Dao of the mind is imprecise," Jian Feng stated calmly, offering a clinical assessment that was more insulting than any taunt. "You throw a net, when a needle is required."

Enraged, Kasyapa and Bao coordinated, preparing a far more powerful, combined assault. But Jian Feng did not give them the chance. It was his turn to act.

His target was Bao. He flicked his wrist, and a small, smooth stone—a simple, mundane object—shot towards the stout elder. It was a clear distraction. Bao instinctively raised a rock shield to block it. In that split second of diverted attention, Jian Feng moved. He crossed the ten-meter distance in an instant, his form a blur. His finger, glowing with a pure, white light, jabbed forward and tapped Elder Bao once on the forearm, precisely on a critical meridian responsible for circulating earthen Qi.

Bao felt a numbing sensation and stumbled back, his own energy flow seizing up in a momentary, chaotic backlash.

At the same time, Jian Feng threw one of his pre-made formation disks at the Abbot's feet. It shattered, releasing a wave of pure, concentrated life-aspected Qi—the very essence he had practiced drawing from the forest. It was the natural antithesis to the Abbot's power. When Kasyapa tried to channel his dark, death-aspected energy for his next attack, it reacted violently with the pure life force in the air around him. His own power turned against him, and he cried out as a searing pain shot through his meridians.

With his two opponents momentarily reeling, Jian Feng delivered the final, decisive blow. But it was not a physical one.

"It seems you are both having trouble drawing upon your power," Jian Feng observed coolly. "Perhaps you were hoping for a lifeline? A little boost from your array back in Sector 07?"

This statement hit Elder Bao with the force of a physical blow. In his panic and pain, he instinctively reached out with his spiritual sense, trying to activate the emergency protocol that would draw power directly from the Flesh-Vessel Array. It was the move Jian Feng had been waiting for him to make.

He activated the link. He found only silence. Then, a violent, catastrophic feedback shuddered through his soul.

Miles away, deep within the mountain, the sabotaged Flesh-Vessel Array, instead of sending power, tried to draw it from its own corrupted heart. The feedback loop was instantaneous. With a deep, subterranean groan that shook the entire Western Spur, the great, fleshy formation imploded, consuming itself in a silent, spiritual fire that vaporized the entire cavern and its contents.

Elder Bao screamed, clutching his head as the symbiotic link shattered, his spirit suffering a grievous wound.

"Your power source is gone," Jian Feng announced into the ringing silence. "Your nest has been sterilized. Your conspiracy in this territory is over."

The Abbot stared, his face a ruin of disbelief and horror. Their entire operation, decades of careful planning, dismantled in a single day by a sixteen-year-old boy. He let out a final, desperate roar and lunged, his body wreathed in black flames in a suicidal, last-ditch attack.

Jian Feng met him head-on. Threads of pure, white Origin Qi shot from his fingertips, weaving into a net that enveloped the Abbot. The dark flames sizzled and died as they touched the pure energy. The net tightened, striking every major pressure point and spiritual node on the Abbot's body. Kasyapa's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed, unconscious and completely sealed. Jian Feng then appeared beside the spiritually wounded Elder Bao and dispatched him with a single, precise chop to the neck.

He stood alone in the silent canyon, over the bodies of his two defeated, higher-realm opponents. The local branch of the Umbral Hand had been decapitated. He had the prisoners, the knowledge, and the victory. Now came the difficult part: the cleanup, and deciding how to present this impossible achievement to a clan that was not yet ready to understand the true nature of its Young Lord.