Without thinking too much, Liu Xing let his body move. He summoned his shield and descended as if he too were a lightning strike aimed at the little girl. He accelerated faster and faster, moving at maximum speed, the world blurring around him. In an instant, he landed right in front of the girl. As he landed, the ground below him cracked.

The little girl behind him startled, but Liu Xing focused his entire attention on the lightning strike hurtling toward him, channeled qi into his right hand and slapped the incoming lightning aside. When his hand made contact, it felt as if it had been plunged into stinging water. The lightning deflected off his hand and struck a large boulder the size of a small car. A deafening crack echoed as the bolt struck the rock. The accompanying flash momentarily bleached the world white before the gloomy light, filtered through impenetrable dark clouds, returned.

Seeing the charred spot on the boulder, he inhaled deeply. A smile threatened to bloom on his lips, and he couldn't help puffing out his chest. To think that he could chase and deflect a lightning strike—he had truly become fast and strong! But a whimper from behind made him turn. He found the little girl, eyes wide, and face pale as a corpse.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" he asked.

The girl was bigger than he had first thought, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, with short brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Looking closer, he saw mud splattered on her hair, face, neck, and clothes with leaves and twigs clung to the fabric. She was also drenched and her trembling brown eyes looked at him with a terrified expression, as if he were a spirit beast that threatened to eat her. Soon, Liu Xing realized that the girl wore no shoes or even socks; instead, from the ankle down, her feet were covered in mud, leaves, and blood.

Instantly alert, Liu Xing recognized the signs that she was in trouble. He remembered her crying—tear tracks mingled with mud still streaked her face—and stretching her hands toward the distant sea, trying to grasp something beyond her reach. He snapped his head in that direction and saw a dark silhouette far out on the water.

"What happened?" Liu Xing said, his eyes serious.

The girl's face, once trembling with fear, suddenly snapped into focus. With a trembling voice, she pointed to the dark silhouette. "M-my mom and sister, h-help them!"

Liu Xing clenched both fists, focused his mind, and nodded. "Wait here for a bit."

He kicked the ground and launched himself toward the dark silhouette. He flew straight as an arrow above the rolling waves. As he flew toward that silhouette—a ship, probably a pirate ship—he could not help but think about how common this situation was. Almost every time he came out from the sect to complete a mission, he encountered robbers, some trying to ambush him, others preying on innocents. This was his first encounter with pirates, but the scenario was familiar. Liu Xing gritted his teeth, suddenly remembering Wang Miau. He recalled Wang Miau's words about mortals having no protection against cultivators and realized how true his words were.

As the ship grew larger in his vision, he focused on sensing the qi emanating from it. When he could sense it, his brow furrowed. He could sense there were three cultivators inside that ship and each of them even emanated heavy qi, indicating they were at the Core Splitting realm.

The girl was a mortal, making the situation odd. Why would a group of pirate cultivators raid a mortal village? If they were merely low-level cultivators, he could understand, but these were not. It was like a lion purposely hunting a squirrel. Still, his curiosity about their motive was irrelevant for now. His task was clear. Save the kidnapped people. Unlike Mo Yan, Han Zhong, and Pu He, these were cultivators who posed a real threat if he grew careless. He needed to strike hard and fast and prepared to spill some blood.

Nodding grimly, he summoned his gun, aimed it toward the ship, and willed invisibility to cloak him. Moments later, he was completely invisible. Without his shield to maintain acceleration, his speed gradually decreased, but his momentum still carried him steadily toward the ship.

Gliding above the waves, he observed the large ship moving leisurely. The ship was dark, almost black with its dozens of sails catching the wind. He felt qi emanating from the vessel itself—it was a treasure, but a weak one. He was sure his Thunderstrike Gauntlets—which he never removed—were far more valuable.

He focused on the qi signatures aboard, inhaling sharply when a cultivator moved to the ship's railing and scanned the sea in his general direction. The man wore a black cultivator robe. His skin was deathly pale, and his black hair hung so long it almost completely obscured his face. What little he could see revealed corpse-pale skin stretched over sunken cheeks, shadowed by dark bags beneath the eyes, but he couldn't see the eyes themselves, though he imagined them scanning the area for him. After all, he had just turned invisible. A decent cultivator might have sensed his presence emerging from the dark clouds moments before, so his sudden disappearance would naturally arouse suspicion.

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Liu Xing angled his gun skyward. Instead of firing, he encased the gun with his qi and willing it to lift him higher. Gliding this way wasn't fast, but it should help him evade detection.

Ascending higher, he saw the long-haired man point toward where he had been moments before. From this higher vantage point, he noticed subtle, dark red patterns on the robe's sleeves, like old blood stains that refused to wash out.

As the man pointed, he felt a subtle shift in his qi. A black ball, looking disconcertingly like a clump of hair, materialized before the pointing finger. The man shot the projectile. It whistled through the air before hitting the water with a small splash.

He briefly wondered if it was a detection technique, but then hundreds, then thousands of black strands erupted from the water where the ball had struck, growing longer and denser by the second. Soon, a small island of writhing hair floated on the waves. Individual strands swayed and wriggled, reaching out blindly as if searching for something unseen. Liu Xing was now high above the main sail. If he fell, he'd land near the middle of the deck, far away from the outstretched mass of hair.

"What's wrong? Why did you suddenly attack?"

A man emerged from below decks. He wore the same black robes with faint blood-red patterns. His black hair was short, held back by a black headband whose tails fluttered behind him like ribbons.

"I felt something there," the long-haired man—whose hair reached his ankles—said, pointing toward the island of hair.

"Me too," a man suddenly materialized beside them. His materialization was striking—a brief conflagration of black fire that resolved into his form. This one wore his hair in a bun and had a golden medallion dangling on his chest over similar robes. "I felt a strong presence, but it suddenly vanished."

The three of them were Core Splitting cultivators, and by their appearance and presence, they had probably come from a sect. Which made the situation more questionable. Even loose Core Splitting cultivators would likely consider kidnapping mortals beneath them; for members of a sect, it seemed utterly weird. There was no way sect disciples would spare time for this kind of thing, which led his mind to the only likely scenario: this was a mission. If the rewards were substantial enough, perhaps it made sense. Although the situation was still quite absurd. They were Core Splitting cultivators. In the Purple Moon Sect, they would be either inner disciples or senior outer disciples, but in a lesser sect, they would be more valuable.

As Liu Xing pondered their motive, his gaze swept the deck. He saw only lower-realm cultivators managing the ship—likely using its built-in qi formations—but no sign of the victims. He could, however, sense their presence and faintly hear muffled whimpers and ragged breathing from deep within the vessel.

The man with short hair and headband pinched his chin. "Brother Jiulao, I want you to try to detect everything in a kilometer radius from us. If there's someone hiding nearby, we need to find them."

The man who had materialized from dark fire nodded, but the man with ankle-length hair protested. "Why do you ask him, Senior? Aren't I the one who detected him first?"

"Your detection was indeed superior in long range, but Brother Jiulao is better at short range." The short-haired man narrowed his eyes slightly. "This mission is important. The sect leader gave it himself. So we can't make a simple mistake merely for a petty grudge."

Jiulao shot the man with ankle-length hair a smug look, which made the long-haired man clench his right fist tightly. It was obvious the three of them did not have well-oiled teamwork, a detail that he could use. But this detail was overshadowed by their conversation.

A sect leader ordering the kidnapping of mortals? That was mighty suspicious. Are they from a demonic sect?

Jiulao stood mid-deck and cycled his qi. He didn't know Jiulao's detection method. If it relied purely on sensing qi, his invisibility might hold. But there was always a chance it could be pierced.

Heart beating faster, he inhaled deeply and planned his next move. He was strong and fast, but the three of them felt quite strong and their presence heavy. He suspected at least they had four cores, with their leader having five cores. It was quite high for a place so far away from Purple Moon Sect, and perhaps they were even elders. Still, he knew he had a chance to kill them. After all, his strength was ridiculous for a Core Splitting cultivator who only had two cores.

Jiulao activated his technique. Instantly, ripples distorted the air around him, accompanied by a low humming, like a disturbed beehive. The ripples washed over Liu Xing's invisible form. Seconds ticked by, his heart pounding against his ribs. Then, Jiulao smirked.

"Found him," he said.

Liu Xing tensed, ready to move, but his instinct screamed at him to wait and he held back.

"There's a little rat swimming under our ship," Jiulao continued.

Upon hearing this, Liu Xing raised his eyebrows. He was not below the ship. In fact, he was right above them. It took a moment for him to understand that the one Jiulao had found was not him, but someone else. For a moment, he wondered if this was someone with a similar motive as him. But he reserved judgment. There was a chance that whoever they had detected was also his enemy.

He silently landed on a small platform high on the main mast and peered down. The long-haired man leaped into the sea. Moments later, he jumped back onto the deck, dragging a young man with striking red hair and equally red eyes. The captive glared hatefully at the three Core Splitting cultivators, a look so hateful as if they had just massacred his family, which perhaps was what had happened.

The youth was barely a cultivator, yet Liu Xing felt a flicker of intrigue. After all, strapped to his back was a gleaming white spear that radiated a powerful presence. This spear made Liu Xing want to check his token. He strongly suspected that this spear was one of the treasures that needed to be retrieved.

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