My Clan Cultivation System: Only My Clan Can Cultivate

Chapter 85: Willpower

​"I think this should be enough. Don’t you also think that?" 10 asked cheerfully, looking down at Emily.

​She was barely able to keep her one remaining eye open. Her face was completely covered in dark red blood, and a front tooth was missing from her trembling jaw. Her left arm had been cleanly severed just below the shoulder, and thick blood was still heavily pulsing from the stump. She had absolutely no energy left to even scream.

​"To think I actually had to activate my Aura just to cut your arm off," the old man mumbled, casually picking up her severed limb from the dirt and wrapping it carefully in a dark cloth. "But there doesn’t seem to be anything else that is completely fascinating about your biology inside. It’s just your skin."

​"I will be taking these. Maybe that guy could find something else in them. And this also..." he said, casually grabbing the left eyeball he had gouged out, the bloody tooth, and a lock of her hair, wrapping everything up into a small bundle.

​"Thank you for your generous cooperation! Actually, I didn’t think you would just willingly go along with whatever I wanted. And for that, I’m gonna keep my word and let you live," he said, turning his back to her. "But I really don’t think you will be able to survive the night with how badly you are bleeding out."

​He the suddenly glanced through the iron gates toward the direction of the estate. He could hear the faint sounds of moving. "Mmmm... well, it may seem I stand corrected. Maybe you do have a slim chance of surviving after all."

​He then quickly glanced down the dark dirt road leading away from the estate, the exact direction where Melly had fled with Emma. "I really should go and catch up to that young maid of yours. I absolutely can’t have her run away with my target."

​But the very moment he took his first step, he felt a weak, trembling hand tightly grab his ankle.

​"Where... do you think you are going... you bastard," Emily rasped in a very low, gurgling voice.

​"..." 10 just stared down at her in absolute shock. "Your willpower is even more commendable than your skin! To think that after all this torture and blood loss, you still have the sheer physical strength to pull my leg... and with your completely broken arm, at that. Don’t you feel pain anymore?"

​"...I just... don’t want my sister... to die..." she breathed. Her lone eye finally fluttered shut, her grip loosened, and she completely lost consciousness in the dirt.

​"I knew the drug was strong, but the excessive blood loss really should have forced her to faint a long time ago..." he muttered, easily pulling his leg away and totally ignoring her limp body. He suddenly covered his entire body in his suffocating red Aura.

​"Did you honestly think I didn’t know that you were only playing along with me just to buy time so your sister could escape? But too bad for you... the maid of yours carrying your sister seems to be a bit on the slow side."

​SWISH!

He suddenly vanished, rushing with blinding speed into the dark woods in the exact direction of Emma.

​...

​"Is he finally gone?" David whispered, trembling violently as he asked Ivory. They were both hiding perfectly still behind a thick stone wall just inside the estate courtyard.

​"Yeah... it seems so," Ivory breathed, her face pale with terror.

​"Then go and grab that burning torch by the guardhouse door! Hurry!!" David urged, rushing out from behind the wall and sprinting directly toward Emily, who was lying unconscious and bleeding out in the dirt.

​Ivory frantically rushed over, grabbed the flaming torch from its iron sconce, and sprinted back to David.

​"I am so sorry for this, Young Miss..." David gritted his teeth, grabbing the torch and forcefully lifting her bleeding shoulder stump.

​HISS! "Aaaaaaah!!!!" Emily screamed in her unconscious state as David violently pressed the roaring flames directly against her severed flesh, desperately trying to burn the wound closed to stop the heavy bleeding.

​"I absolutely told you this wouldn’t have happened if we had just stepped forward and helped her! Maybe she wouldn’t have suffered that painful torture!" Ivory cried, tears welling up in his eyes, his face twisting into a grim expression as he listened to Emily’s agonizing screams.

​"And what the hell did you expect us to do then?!" David snapped angrily, keeping the torch pressed. "That crazy bastard killed Dion! I’m incredibly angry too! Do you honestly think I’m enjoying watching this?! And if Emily—who is much stronger than all of us combined—was tortured like this, what do you think would have happened to us?! If we had actively interfered, we would all be completely dead right now!"

​He finally pulled the torch away from her cauterized shoulder and pointed toward the estate wall where Dennis was lying motionless. "Go and actually check if Dennis is alive instead of just crying and complaining to me! Be incredibly thankful that you are even alive right now! I’m pretty sure that old monster noticed us hiding there a long time ago but just didn’t care!"

​Ivory stopped crying, looking at David with a deeply pissed-off expression.He turned and rushed over to Dennis to check his pulse. "It seems he is still alive... but barely. That heavy kick must have completely fractured his internal organs."

​"But you know..." Ivory asked in a low, trembling voice as he carefully helped David lay Emily’s body flat on the ground. "How are we supposed to tell the Young Master about this? How are we going to tell Ian that as we hid behind a wall, his little sister was brutally tortured and mutilated by a crazy old man?"

​"We don’t," David said bluntly.

​"What?!"

​"We don’t tell him we hid," David said, a dark, serious look crossing his face. "We can just tell him that we arrived late and found them lying on the ground exactly like this, if he asks."

​"I see..." Ivory whispered, looking away guiltily.

​...

​Ian, Isaac, Zena, and Sarah were riding their horses rapidly down the dark dirt road, surrounded by the eerie silence of the night woods. Ian was leading at the front, keeping a relentless pace, while the others closely followed behind.

​"Hey, Zena. Do you feel it?" Ian suddenly asked, breaking the heavy silence.

​"Yeah... at first I honestly thought I was just mistaken. But they are actively maintaining a very specific distance and are definitely following us," Zena replied, glancing over his shoulder into the pitch-black trees. "But I’m honestly a bit surprised you could casually tell that there are people following us. I thought you weren’t supposed to be able to feel mana?"

​"It’s not mana I’m feeling," Ian said coldly, keeping his eyes forward. "It’s just that I can clearly feel three people’s intense bloodlust locking onto us."

​"Bloodlust..huh? But there are four of them, not three," Zena corrected him, narrowing his eyes.

​"That just means there is a highly skilled person in their specific group who is fully capable of hiding his bloodlust from us," Isaac said, seamlessly joining the conversation.

​"Wait... you can feel their presence too?!" Zena asked, looking at Isaac in surprise.

​"It’s really hard to explain my specific situation, I can’t tell where they are exactly. " Isaac said seriously, gripping the reins tighter.

​’Maybe our skin is not just incredibly hard, but also highly sensitive to environmental pressure and murderous intent,’ Isaac theorized internally. ’Is it because my own cultivation is not high enough yet that I can’t pinpoint their exact location whilst Ian’s cultivation which is higher can tell? All I feel is that I’m being watched.’

​"Anyway, what are we supposed to do about them?" Ian asked, his grip tightening on his sword hilt. "I don’t normally care about people following me, but right now is absolutely not the time for this."

​"Don’t worry, guys. Did you completely forget that you have a highly capable Mage riding with you?" Sarah said, a smug, confident look forming on her face in the dark. "I’ve got a really nice plan."