I am Villain Cultivator
Chapter 67: Arrival of The Tattooed Reaper

Chapter 67: Chapter 67: Arrival of The Tattooed Reaper

Kaal, after calming Amelia, knelt in the center of the hidden chamber. From a cloth satchel sewn discreetly into his tattered sleeve, he retrieved several fire crystal ores salvaged during the chaos of the rebellion. Each shard pulsed faintly with dormant energy.

He moved with careful precision, placing the ores in a star-shaped pattern within a larger circle scratched into the stone floor. Then, he positioned three of the crystals in a triangular formation at the heart of the layout. With a piece of chalk-like mineral, he drew thin connecting lines between them, etched grooves forming the foundation of an old, rudimentary array.

It was a basic Qi-Gathering Formation. Crude, yes, but functional.

With a soft hum, the formation flickered to life.

The fire crystals began to glow, faint red light leaking from their jagged edges. Raw Fire Qi surged outward, tendrils of heat swirling through the air before piercing into Kaal’s mortal meridians.

His body tensed instantly.

Without a dantian or proper Qi pathways, the energy had nowhere to settle. It surged through him like wildfire, brief and agonizing, but in that fleeting moment, he reached the strength of a Rank 1 Warrior.

Just enough.

Kaal gritted his teeth and moved quickly.

He retrieved another fire crystal shard and began laying out a second pattern, this time, more complex. A five-pointed star enclosed within the circle, interlinked with fine markings and runic curves known only to practitioners of the Kilvish Clan. His hand shook slightly as he completed the outer ring and drew the glyphs required to finish the enchantment.

Amelia, who had been watching in silent awe, finally stepped closer.

"Arthur... what are you doing?" she asked hesitantly, her eyes flickering between the glowing formation and her brother’s sweat-drenched face.

Kaal didn’t look up. His lips moved in soft murmurs as he activated the final glyphs. The runes pulsed, and a faint ripple of energy spread through the chamber like a wave on still water.

The formation was complete.

The Shadow Veil Formation is a Tier 2 defensive array of the Kilvish Clan, designed to conceal all presence within it from a cultivator’s spiritual sense. No ordinary spiritual probe could detect them now.

As the formation settled and the glow dimmed into invisibility, Kaal collapsed forward, breath ragged. His body, already worn thin from overuse, could bear no more.

"Big sister..." he whispered, eyes half-lidded. "I’m casting a protection magic... The Sage taught it to me in my dream... to keep us safe."

Amelia hurried to his side, kneeling beside his collapsed form.

She gently wiped the sweat from his brow with her tattered sleeve and smiled, tears misting in her eyes.

"My little Arthur... has become so knowledgeable."

She wrapped her arms around him and held him there, as the air inside the hidden chamber grew still.

Amelia glanced at the bundle of food, clothes, and water carefully laid out on the cold stone floor. Her voice was small but steady as she asked, "Arthur... are we staying here?"

Kaal, still catching his breath from the strain of activating the formation, nodded weakly.

"Yes, big sister," he said, adjusting himself into a more comfortable position against the chamber wall. "Outside... the miners are fighting the Silversong Tribe. But they’ll lose." His voice was low but firm. "And if we’re found with them, the Silversong warriors won’t spare us. They’ll kill us all."

Amelia sat down beside him, her thin hands folded in her lap, worry clouding her young face.

Kaal tilted his head slightly, his expression unreadable. "Big sister... do you want to know how that devil David died? And the other guards, too?"

Amelia’s eyes widened with interest. She nodded quickly. "Tell me, Arthur."

Kaal leaned forward slightly, voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. "They died... because of a curse. A curse was cast by the Sage in my dream. He said their cruelty had angered the heavens. That their blood was demanded as payment."

Amelia gasped softly, her eyes lighting up not with fear, but with childlike awe.

"They deserved it," she said with a clenched jaw, her small hands balling into fists. "They killed Aunt Mao and Uncle Ren just because they refused to work. That day... I’ll never forget it."

Kaal’s gaze lingered on her. There was no need to tell her the truth that he had poisoned the guards using a compound that wouldn’t even exist until eight thousand years after this trial’s timeline. That the poison would spread like a curse among the Silversong cultivators, one by one, until the entire tribe collapsed from within.

No. She didn’t need to know.

He offered her a faint smile instead, one filled with quiet reassurance.

"We just have to hide for two weeks," he said gently. "The Sage told me that. If we stay quiet, if we survive... We’ll be free."

Amelia nodded with fierce determination. She believed him. She wanted to believe.

Two days passed in silence.

In the hidden chamber, the air grew heavy with anticipation. Amelia occupied herself cleaning their tiny space, whispering hopeful prayers to the Sage she had never seen. Kaal, meanwhile, preserved his strength, his ears always attuned to distant footsteps, his mind racing with contingency plans.

Then, on the morning of the third day, the silence outside was broken.

A storm of footsteps. Shouted orders. The crack of a whip. And the heavy thrum of spiritual pressure that made the very walls tremble.

Kaal peered through a narrow crack in the rock.

A new force had arrived.

Dozens of Silversong cultivators had marched into Mine One. Their armor gleamed with polished bone plates. Their faces were grim. But it was the man at the front who made Kaal’s gaze narrow.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. A long black snake tattoo coiled across his face like a living brand. His presence was suffocating, his aura sharp as a dagger’s edge.

Kaal’s heart slowed.

That man... he’s the real enforcer.

The commander of the Silversong reinforcements had arrived.

And from the way he stood, his hawk-like gaze sweeping across the ruined mine with calm fury, Kaal could already sense that this man wasn’t here to investigate.

He was here to punish.

----(Mine One – Outer Layer)-----------------

The air was thick with smoke and fear.

A man stood at the edge of the blackened clearing, his presence colder than the bloodstained soil beneath his boots. A long, jagged tattoo curled across his cheek like a serpent, its head coiled beneath his eye. Those eyes as sharp as a hawk’s swept across the sea of kneeling slave miners with merciless precision.

Silence.

Then, his voice rang out, sharp and commanding.

"I know most of you are innocent," he began, "and perhaps many among you had no part in this rebellion..."

His lips twisted into a thin smile, devoid of warmth.

"But eighteen warriors of the Silversong Tribe are dead."

He let the words settle like ash. The slaves did not move. Did not breathe. Hope had been crushed beneath smoldering tents and blood-soaked soil.

The man stepped forward, boots crunching against debris.

"So tell me..." he said, voice now quiet, almost casual, "...if any of you know something, anything, now is the time to speak. Do so, and I may spare you and your families."

No one answered. They knew better.

After a moment of silence, the tattooed man threw back his head and laughed a deep, mocking laugh that echoed off the burnt walls of the shattered mine.

"Good. Good..."

His laughter died instantly, and his eyes hardened.

"Do you truly not understand the gravity of the situation?"

He raised a hand and gestured toward the kneeling crowd.

"You." His finger pointed like a blade. "The man at the front."

Two armored warriors stepped forward at once, responding with silent obedience. Their grip was like iron as they seized the chosen slave and dragged him through the dust and blood.

"No! Please! I didn’t do anything!" the man screamed, his voice cracking with terror. "I swear I’m innocent!"

But his pleas fell on deaf ears.

The warriors threw him to the ground at the feet of the tattooed man. The slave coughed and trembled, tears streaking the dirt on his face as he clasped his hands together in a final, desperate prayer.

The kneeling slave sobbed uncontrollably, begging for mercy.

The tattooed man looked down on him with the cold indifference of a viper.

And then...

With a swift motion, he raised his leg and kicked.

The slave’s skull burst like an overripe watermelon, blood and brain matter spraying out in a gruesome arc.

Schlick.

But not a single drop touched the tattooed man.

A translucent wall of Qi shimmered into existence before him, catching the explosion of gore in midair. The blood sizzled harmlessly against the invisible shield and slid down to the dirt, leaving the man’s robes pristine and untouched.

His boots gleamed.

His snake tattoo coiled slightly as he turned his hawk-like gaze back toward the trembling line of slaves.

He smiled.

A slow, deliberate smile.

But to those kneeling in the dust, that expression wasn’t human, it was the grin of a devil, one that crawled out of the deepest pit of hell wearing a human face.

His voice was like poison-coated silk.

"Now... you know what happens if you ignore my question," he said smoothly, his hands folded behind his back. "So I’ll ask you again "

His gaze swept across the crowd like a blade.

"Which one of you knows anything about the death of my tribe’s warriors?"

Silence.

The slaves were frozen in place, their eyes wide, some shaking so hard their knees rattled against the stone floor. None dared to meet his gaze. None dared to speak.

He chuckled, low and amused.

It was the sound of death playing with its food.