Heavenly Slaughter Valley

And once I confirmed that the spiritual energy leaking out of me was being swallowed up into the inventory linked to my innate talent, I opened it at once — and found the culprit immediately.

Right — even while she was sitting in the inventory, her possession effect alone had been applying Spiritual Energy Recovery Rate -500% and Stamina Recovery Rate +200%.

Until now I hadn't had any spiritual energy, and I hadn't been Core Formation either, so none of it had been triggering at all.

"Hey. You conscious yet? You're siphoning my spiritual energy and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I can't recover. Answer me before I pickle you into vegetable side dish and eat you."

"Eat me… or don't…!"

?

She actually talked? Monster prisoners who aren't neutral NPCs aren't supposed to have dialogue interactions in the first place. Ah, right. This fucking Reality Patch.

"You swallowed the petals of the Heavenly Dao with no preparation whatsoever?! That's why a Heavenly Tribulation dropped from the Upper Realm! I nearly died too, you know!!!"

"Oh-ho."

An NPC raising her voice at me?

I took the doll-sized prisoner form of Cheon Nan-cho, small enough to fit in my palm, and stuffed her headfirst into my mouth. A sharp, grassy scent flooded out, but I didn't flinch — I just bit down.

"Ghk—!"

"Kyaaah!"

Fucking prisoner mode with zero goddamn flexibility!

"Y-you actually tried to eat me! You savage—!"

I pulled slaughter energy around her and wrapped her tight. Out of the corner of my eye, a system message flickered on the right side of my vision asking whether I wanted to destroy an owned item, and I turned a question on Cheon Nan-cho, who had gone quiet all of a sudden.

"You. The second you saw me, you surrendered. Why? Back then I was weaker than you."

"Because I was scared! Of what sits above you!"

I looked up.

Nothing but the bare ceiling of a cave.

What the hell was she talking about.

"No! I mean! You've got an innate talent, don't you? I don't know what it is, but it's something huge! Otherwise a star would never be watching you!"

Innate talent? Star?

"Innate talents… are created by stars?"

"Most of them?"

For a moment a surge of pure rage nearly swallowed me whole, and I barely forced it down. Breathe. Calm. Calm down. This is just background lore dumped by a neutral NPC I happened to take prisoner. Just skip it. Skip it. As if I could skip this—!

"Bullshit—you fucking absolute piece of shit—!!!"

Dark crimson slaughter energy erupted out of me.

I'd thought my spiritual root had twisted and that was how the Status Window — my innate talent — had come into being. But what if it had been created by whatever twisted the root in the first place?

The base emotion prompt [Rage] stacked in rapid succession, and the world in front of me flooded red. Friend/foe identification went offline, skill use locked out with it, and in proportion the body stats soared — hot breath tore out of my mouth like I was vomiting it.

And still — still — I didn't climb to the next stage of [Rage], because I couldn't. There was nothing to be angry at. Cheon Nan-cho was a prisoner under item classification, and I'd dug so deep into the valley that there wasn't a single living thing nearby either.

"…Huu…"

"D-did you calm down?"

She'd taken a full faceful of dark crimson slaughter energy head-on and, being treated as my owned item, hadn't taken a single point of damage — just a full load of terror. Her voice was enough for me to claw back the last thread of reason.

For now, I needed to keep talking with this useful neutral NPC — probably — who could rattle off the background lore of this fucking Reality-Patched xianxia mode.

"About the stars, then. Tell me more."

"Even if you ask, stars are beings of the Upper Realm, and I grew up in the Lower Realm. Local information I can do — detailed information on the stars, I can't. All I know is that stars look upon talented children of the Lower Realm, and that a Lower Realm child under a star's gaze comes to possess an innate talent."

I filed away the useless setting that early-map lore was still locked, and looked up again at the cave ceiling that held nothing but dark.

"Huu."

"But I know a lot of other things! The one I rooted myself in was a great cultivator who died in the Upper Realm, returned in the Lower Realm, and climbed all the way back to Golden Core! He died to a Heavenly Tribulation from the Upper Realm, but the information that remained in the Golden Core fragments was passed on to me!"

Cheon Nan-cho was dumping unsolicited deep-cut background lore at a speed that made me flinch, so I handed her a pile of spirit stones from the inventory and a stack of spiritual-energy recovery consumables I'd crafted in the production window.

"Recover with these and stop draining my spiritual energy for about two weeks. I barely made Core Formation and if I can't recover spiritual energy I'm going to die, okay?"

"…This isn't enough."

"I'll give you more when you run out. Just get back in for now."

Once Cheon Nan-cho went into the inventory, I checked the Status Window's debuff timers — the ones that had only been climbing — and finally saw them start to tick down, slow and steady. I could breathe again.

"What the hell."

I only checked the map after weathering the mid-event Eok-kka misfortune and finally clearing the debuffs — and frowned at the bizarre map name as I opened the details.

An event that converts a low-level map into a same-level map, then.

There were also events that turned a same-level map into an even lower low-level map, or — if Eok-kka hit — into a map at least twenty levels higher. This didn't seem to be that, so I was lucky.

Field monsters had scaled to same-level, so hunting them would yield more experience — but how much more, really.

"I'm going to swallow every last scrap of killing intent in this place."

Sitting still in a cave and running Double Speed Mod alone would burn lifespan and time, farm ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠experience, raise stats, train the innate talent, and stabilize my realm. Best option available!

Killing intent is included in slaughter energy.

So is slaughter energy included in killing intent?

I can say with confidence: no!

Because I was about to die of indigestion right now!

I still had plenty of slaughter energy, but I'd refined it into the spiritual essence of slaughter energy for Core Formation, and most of what I'd newly absorbed was pure killing intent — so every technique of mine built on slaughter energy felt tighter, denser, more jammed.

Too many impurities, maybe. Even the basic qi circulation that should have been running on its own now that I'd formed a core was filthy slow and grinding.

Exactly like indigestion!

"Uweeeegh…"

"A girl does not go around vomiting in the middle of the road!!"

"Uweeeeeegh…"

The nausea only got worse. What was this freeloading inventory parasite even saying.

I'd been walking the cultivator's path for close to a hundred years now, and the only things I'd eaten in that time were monster blood and flesh, so of course what I was throwing up was the absolute lowest-grade killing intent you could call an impurity.

It was no different from skimming the scum off a beef broth — just spitting out the rotten, garbage killing intent that was causing indigestion inside my body.

"…Uwek."

And only after the slaughter qi I'd vomited had coated the cave floor thick enough to be sticky did I wrap a thin layer of killing intent around myself and, on the back of a monstrous Body stat of 500, dug the cave even deeper.

Mm. Now I could throw up more!

Every time I filtered out impurities the indigestion eased, and control over the slaughter energy not only returned to normal but started feeling purer — so stopping would have been stupid.

"The stupid one is you!"

Shut up, prisoner. Seriously.

I couldn't even skip her dialogue, and mute didn't work either — why the hell not. She was treated as an owned item, so destroying her would just free her from prisoner status. Would that make her a neutral NPC, or a monster?

She'd left her zone — her home map — so neutral NPC, obviously.

And after I'd finally stabilized my realm, thoroughly refined the killing intent, and sucked it dry for everything it was worth, I stepped out of the cave ready to test the power boiling under my skin — and there were no monsters on the map.

"…?"

What the fuck. Is this some high-production hidden-camera prank.

Shut up!

"Minimap!"

I checked the map now that terrain scouting was done. Weirdly, there were almost no markers on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it at all.

All that showed were a single instant dungeon marker and a few neutral NPC markers scattered here and there… ah. One just vanished.

Wow. Neutral NPCs dying in real time!

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

What the fuck.

"What is this."

"People are dying around here — is this a feng shui hotspot for suicide?"

"What even is that."

Yeah, I don't know either. I watched the neutral NPCs drift toward the center of the map and vanish one by one, shook my head, and lifted myself lightly on spiritual energy to head for the next map.

Mm. Without a proper mount, a movement-speed item, or a skill, I really wasn't getting any speed.

No choice.

"Hup."

Floating in midair, I wound slaughter energy around my body and gave the empty air the lightest kick — and with a thoom, I tore through the sky like a missile. Yeah, this was definitely fast! Stamina running out? Slaughter energy would just top it back up!

This — this was the power of Body stat 500!

"…From where I'm sitting, you're the one who looks more like a yosu."

"What's a yosu."

"A demon cultivator."

"Then what does that make a human cultivator — an insu?"

"Ugh."

This freeloading background-lore vending machine. I couldn't even hit her.