The First Legendary Demonic Scholar

Chapter 117: Chapter 117: Creature Of Habbit

He clamped it firmly over her nose and mouth from behind, one arm looping around her shoulders to hold her still before the blade in her hand could finish its arc.

Lin Xia’s eyes went wide with shock, her body thrashing violently against his hold, qi surging outward in a desperate attempt to throw him off.

Her Ninth Stage cultivation rattled the walls of the small shed, her blade slashing backward on pure instinct, catching only empty air as Shen Yuan shifted his weight in perfect rhythm with her struggle, staying just outside the reach of her strikes while never once loosening his grip.

She couldn’t turn her head far enough to see his face.

That suited him fine.

Shen Yuan leaned in close instead, lips near the shell of her ear, voice dropping into something soft, almost gentle, utterly at odds with the iron grip holding her in place.

"Could you be more predictable?"

Her struggling faltered for half a second, some distant part of her mind registering the words even through the rising haze of the cultivator style chloroform already spreading through her system.

"You think I’m getting in your way," Shen Yuan continued, unhurried, each word measured and deliberate. "That I’m somehow gunning for your job, or your master’s favor, or whatever petty little hierarchy you’ve built your whole identity around."

Her breathing grew shallow, ragged, her thrashing weakening by the second as her limbs began to lose their coordination beneath her.

"Believe me," he murmured, "you are so wrong."

The blade slipped from her fingers, clattering uselessly against the floorboards.

"YOU are the one in MY way," Shen Yuan said, his voice slowly rose with an emotion that he had not even realized he had been suppressing in from the start of his mission. "Not the other way around. But not anymore."

Her knees buckled.

Shen Yuan adjusted his hold, keeping her upright, keeping the cloth pressed firmly in place as her vision surely began to blur, the edges of the room darkening around her.

"Remember my voice as the light fades from your sight," he said softly, almost tenderly, the words settling into her mind with deliberate, lingering weight. "Because it will be the only thing you ever remember."

Her body went completely limp in his arms.

Shen Yuan held her a moment longer, ensuring the compound had fully taken hold, before lowering her carefully to the floor, silver eyes flicking toward the still-open door and the quiet, unaware courtyard beyond.

’Ninth Stage Qi Condensation, and she went down without a single wound.’

He glanced down at her unconscious form, expression settling into something cold and considering, the faint ghost of a smile finally allowed to surface now that no one remained to witness it.

’Now,’ he thought, already reaching for the length of spirit-conductive thread Gu Ren had gathered for him weeks ago, ’let’s see exactly how you will cover up your secrets now, Bang Fo.’

...

Shen Yuan knelt beside Lin Xia’s unconscious body for a moment, silver eyes tracing over her slack, unguarded features with the same clinical detachment he gave everything else.

He slowly touched her face with the same calm cynical look on his face, like he was admiring some art.

Whatever fire had driven her to plant a marked scroll in his chest, whatever fear had made her reach for a blade rather than simply walk away, none of it remained now. J

ust an unconscious woman, breathing shallow and slow, utterly unaware of how little time remained to her.

Taking his hands off of her face, he reached into his inventory and took out something.

A thin sheet unfolded in his hands, its surface was weird.

Smooth as glass, yet pliable as silk, and when he tilted it experimentally, the thin sheen of moisture clinging to his fingers simply slid off its surface without leaving a trace behind.

He’d found it weeks ago tucked in some corner of a store where in some stranded corner of the outer sect. Over the time he had been in the outer sect, Shen Yuan had been stocking up things in his inventory, as much as he could gather without any reserve.

He would change his appearance to gather them every time so no one would link it all back to him.

’This will be the first time I get to use this.’

He spread it beneath her carefully, working with the same unhurried precision he brought to every technique he’d ever practiced, before drawing the remaining fabric up and over her and covered her completely.

Shen Yuan paused only once, silver eyes flickering toward the closed door and the silent courtyard beyond, senses stretching outward to confirm what he already suspected.

There was no one nearby, no servants stirring, the estate’s surveillance technique still comfortably dormant in its nightly lull.

It seemed like she had used some sort of noise canceling formation to prevent others to notice what was going on here.

’Clear.’

He knelt beside her, hands settling with practiced steadiness against her jaw and the base of her skull, like he had done this a thousand times.

Crrack!

With a sharp, crisp motion, he twisted her neck.

The sound of bone giving way echoed briefly through the small shed, swallowed almost instantly by the thick silence pressing in around them.

Shen Yuan held perfectly still for a moment afterward, taking in the sight before him.

Lin Xia, lying in a plastic like wrap, her head titled in an unnatural way. She looked so peaceful in that moment, like she was not even dead.

But he knew it. She was...

Gone.

The strange sheet beneath her had done exactly as he’d hoped—not a single drop had escaped its surface, no dark stain spreading across his floorboards.

He had been so efficient that he had cleanly snapped her neck without making her bleed even a little.

Shen Yuan rose to his feet, looking down at her still form for a long moment, something distant and unreadable passing behind his silver eyes.

’You built an elaborate trap out to take me out’, he thought, the words settling with quiet, cold finality. ’I simply made sure it collapsed on you instead.’