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Whoosh!

Li Mu landed on the ground.

The tiny and peaceful little hamlet that he had been staying in for the past few months was gone. Now utterly razed to the ground.

Li Mu surveyed the dead bodies scattered everywhere and recognized the fatal wounds on the bodies: they were caused by strokes delivered using sabers.

The faces of the slain villagers were twisted tapestries convoluted with terror and frustration. Some were killed trying to shield their loved ones and more were killed when they were begging for mercy. Yet none were shown to these defenseless peasants. All of them were murdered most savagely.

Li Mu looked like he had just fallen into a bottomless abyss, plummeting so quickly and so deeply that he doubted that he would ever recover.

“Someone must still be alive.

“Please. Let there be someone.”

Frantic and disoriented like a madman, Li Mu began ransacking the village.

In his anxiety, he did not even remember to use his spiritual senses.

But all he saw were bodies. Cold, hard bodies and frozen puddles of blood at every single inch around the purgatory that was formerly the tranquil and happy little village called Oststern. Death was in the air and with it, the sporadic clucks of chickens and the mournful woofs of dogs.

Li Mu’s final hope lay with Feng’s house. The house he once stayed in.

“Feng…”

Li Mu groaned, his voice breaking.

There was Feng, dead with a broken saber in his grasp. Rage was written all over his face as he lay dead trying to defend his wife. Someone had blasted a hole straight through them in one stroke and even in their deaths, their opened eyes illustrated their resentment and disbelief.

Li Mu ignored the throbs on his skin from the chilly winds and slowly closed their eyes.

“Feng… Mrs. Feng… Everyone…”

Li Mu muttered under his breath as he panned his gaze to take in the macabre sight of death and destruction that has engulfed the whole village.

“I’ll teach them! I swear! They’ll pay for doing this to you all! Hmm!? WHO’S THERE!? SHOW YOURSELF!” Li Mu was about to collect the bodies to bury them when he picked up signatures of human presence approaching from outside. His snarl sent waves of shock sweeping across the town, felling trees and collapsing shacks.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Figures flitted into view.

Dozens of men appeared. The signature claret light armor of the Drakonid Cohort indicated that these were Drakonid Prefects and they already have Li Mu surrounded.

A flare snaked up the sky and erupted thousands of meters high above, blossoming into a bright-red dragon with a pearl lodged between its jaws. The image shifted and moved like it was a real dragon.

Li Mu did not need to be told what it was: the Drakonid Cohort signal.

The cascades of heavy footfalls rumbled from outside Oststern as Drakonid regulars poured in from everywhere. They had been lying in waiting out there in the wilderness for him to appear.

“Surround him! Don’t let him escape!”

“Who goes there!? Speak your name!”

“Stop and surrender! Do not think of resisting!”

Carefully, the Drakonid Prefects slowly closed in on Li Mu, ready to pounce on him if need be.

Li Mu cast a cursory glance at them.

“Drakonids?”

But he ignored the threat.

Li Mu had realized something else.

In his search through the whole village, there was one person whose dead body he did not find: Feng’s little daughter Feng Xingyan.

A tiny sliver of hope crept into Li Mu.

With any regard to the advancing enemy champions, Li Mu audaciously calmed himself down in spite of the threat and projected his spiritual senses to search the whole village.

“WHO ARE YOU!?”

A Deity-Realm champion in a Drakonid general’s light armor suit demanded, glaring at Li Mu.

Before Li Mu could proffer anything resembling an answer, a Drakonid Prefect of regular appearance, stature, and girth immediately marched up to the general and whispered into the latter’s ears.

“You’re Li Mu?! That Traitor of Man?!” The Deity-Realm general who looked like he was in his mid-thirties squinted his slit-like eyes at him. Despite his fair visage, he hardly exuded any warmth or friendliness. If anything, the gaze he cast upon Li Mu was one a predator directs upon its prey.

“A Traitor of Man, eh?”

Li Mu remained unfazed.

“How long have you been here?” Li Mu countered with a question at the Deity-Realm general. “You appear so quickly. That means you’ve been here all along, no? Surely you’ve seen who did this? Got a name?”

In his haste to get here, Li Mu did not even check if an ambush had been lurking around Oststern.

Originally believing that it was that bald old man called Master Ming who murdered the villagers, Li Mu discovered that the villagers were killed by sharp force trauma, or more specifically, strokes caused by sabers. Whoever the murderer—or murderers—were, they were skilled and were at least in the Upper King Realm. At any rate, Li Mu was certain that the murderers did not use any lightning elemental attacks.

Master Ming might have masterminded the massacre, but he did not personally carry out the deed.

But to Li Mu, all perpetrators of this crime—either directly or indirectly—deserved death.

“Hahahahah! Li Mu! You dare demand answers from me, a general of the Military of Man when you’re a Traitor yourself?!” The pale-faced general smirked as soon as he recovered from his initial shock at Li Mu’s sudden question. “Is this your way to mask the atrocities you did? You came back here and you killed the villagers! How could you, you ingrate and monster!”

Li Mu was about to speak when another Prefect announced loudly, “General! We’ve found a survivor!”

“Bring em’ here!” The first Drakonid Prefect from before barked.

A cadre of Drakonid regulars came back with a little girl.

Li Mu looked and he shuddered. He would recognize that little girl and her roughspun clothing anywhere. That was Feng’s little daughter Feng Xingyan. But she looked utterly petrified by terror, shaking and wincing with fright even at the slightest stimulus. That was not all; a strip of cloth was tied over her eyes and dried scarlet red lines trailed from her eyes.

“This is the only survivor. We found the girl in the grain storage,” barked one of the Drakonid regulars. “She should know who the murderer was, but she was hurt and now she’s blind.”

...

“What?!”

Unable to rein in his shock and apprehension, Li Mu knocked aside anyone in his way and was about to storm toward her.

“Insolence.”

The pale-skinned general was the only one to first react. He channeled his power, his fingers wrapping around the hilt of his sheathed sword in a backhand grip, and ripped the weapon out of the scabbard. The sword’s blade peeked out of the sheath, its steel gleaming with glowing light. The general aimed his blow at Li Mu but all he heard was a ringing clangor followed closely by a searing pain that began in his knuckles before shooting up the whole length of his arm. As it grew numb, his sword was gone—flung into the air by the impact before he even knew it.

By the time the whirling blur that filled everyone’s sights was gone, Feng Xingyan was safely in Li Mu’s arms.

“You monster! Let the child go!”

“Don’t you ever do anything to her!”

A couple of Drakonid Prefects charged at him, oblivious of how dangerously foolhardy such an act was.

With disdain, Li Mu snorted, releasing a blast of shock wave and sending these Prefects tumbling to the ground.

“Xingyan, can you hear me? It’s me, Li Mu. I’m back…” Li Mu said softly to the shivering little girl now still petrified by shock.

That only made Xingyan shudder even more violently. “Y-You! You murderer! You killed Daddy and Mummy! I hate you!”

...

“What?!” Li Mu’s face fell, “It’s me! I’m Li Mu! Have you forgotten me!?”

“I won’t forget your face!” Still trembling, Xingyan squealed, her face replete with terror and despair, “I saw you! Why?! Why did you kill everyone?! Boohoohoo! Why! Mummy, Daddy! I want Mummy and Daddy!”

The little girl’s wails pierced the otherwise silence that pervaded the site of the brutal massacre.

Li Mu understood at last.

This was a set-up.

That explained why the villagers were all killed using sabers.

Champions oftentimes possess the means to disguise themselves and someone had done just that. By pretending to be him, the imposter had killed everyone in Oststern, leaving only little Xingyan alive. The person caused her blindness and used her to be the sole witness to the massacre just so that the Drakonids would arrive and hear her claims to ensure the frame-up.

Most people believe that children are pure, and their words hold no lies.

Nothing works better in a set-up than the sorrowful wailings of a victim who is a sobbing little girl.

Despite the inconsistencies that peppered this whole set-up, the one behind it thought that this would be enough to set in stone Li Mu’s status as a Traitor of Man.

“You wicked monster, Li Mu! What else would you say to that!”

The pale-faced general roared triumphantly, his face still rosy-red from being hurt as his right hand gradually healed.

“Quick! Send word to the camp! Summon the Justiciars for help!” The regular-bodied and wide-faced Prefect snarled at his underlings. He drew his weapon, a pair of deer horn knives. “Well, what are you waiting for?! We might die here, but we must stop this monster! Think of the poor villagers who were slain by him!”

Joined by other Prefects and Drakonid champions, all of whose faces were fraught with sanctimonious rage, they threw themselves at Li Mu.

Li Mu stomped a foot to the ground and waves of gold rippled at a three-meter radius from where he was standing. Aureate runes shimmered in a wall of light he conjured that conjoined and formed a long column that tunneled upwards into the sky, keeping the space inside detached from the outside world. The Drakonid Prefects and champions did all they could, but nothing they tried could not so much as scratch the barrier one bit at all.

This was another technique he learned from Molderad, Combat Craft – Column Barrier!

“Listen to me, Xingyan. It’s me, Li Mu. That monster who killed everyone in the village, that’s not me.”

Li Mu placed Xingyan on the ground and he knelt before her. Holding her hands, he released his spiritual senses, using its warmth to soothe her nerves and calm her anxiety.

Xingyan slowly recovered from her panic and her face relaxed.

“I’ve been here for months, Xingyan. Don’t you recognize me? People can pretend to be me, Xingyan, but I know you can feel me. Think about the monster you saw. Do you think he looks like me? Do you think that other than my face, the monster is no different from me?”

Li Mu kept his voice low and soft so as to not frighten her again.

The little child’s face tensed and she winced as she relived the horrors that took place.

Her tiny little self shook again like a shriveled leaf fluttering in the wind.

“Don’t worry, Xingyan. Take your time… I’m here with you…” Li Mu injected spurts of Natural Qi of Easterly Vitality to cure her eyesight and reduce the pain, all the while speaking to her softly.

Outside the Column Barrier, the Drakonids tried everything they could to destroy the golden magical ward.

Li Mu ignored them.

Whatever noise that came from outside, nothing could get inside the Column Barrier.

Li Mu and little Xingyan were cut off from the world outside.

And Li Mu has not the slightest interest in proving himself to the Drakonids outside.

All that mattered was Xingyan’s trust in him. He could care less about anything else at the moment.

Little Xingyan weathered the fear and panic in her. With Li Mu’s encouragement, she finally spoke. “Q-Quite the same… Except… Shoulders… He looks tilted to one side… Li Mu doesn’t look that way…” she muttered hesitantly with some doubt.

Li Mu was overjoyed.

“The set-up is not perfect after all, eh?”

“Think, Xingyan… Li Mu was all the time in Lauffeuer city all the time yesterday… Lots of people saw me… You need to trust me on this…” Li Mu took her hand, “I swear, I’ll heal your eyes, then I’ll avenge your Daddy and Mummy and everyone who was killed. I will make them pay. Believe that I’ll do that.”

Xingyan shuddered. After a beat of uncertainty, she dove into Li Mu’s arms, hugging him tightly, “I believe you, Li Mu! I believe you! Daddy was saying that that wasn’t you… Mummy too! Many people did not believe that it was you… They were crying for help… They wanted to know who the monster was… Boohoo!”

The little child wept furiously.

Li Mu lifted her and carried her in his arms.

He looked at the Drakonids outside the Column Barrier. They were still trying to get in.

Some looked genuinely enraged, under the impression that they were doing this for justice, and the rest were saboteurs.