I am Villain Cultivator
Chapter 68: The Third Trial’s Truth

Chapter 68: Chapter 68: The Third Trial’s Truth

The man’s boot lingered where the slave’s head had once been. Crimson painted the dust around him. Not a single word dared rise against the silence his violence had forged.

His name wasn’t spoken aloud, but in hushed whispers across border towns and frightened camps, he was known only as "Vernox the Black Fang," a name mothers used to hush children and warriors whispered with clenched teeth.

Now, he stood in Mine One, amidst the ash and carnage, and the air itself seemed to shrink around him.

"I am a generous man," Vernox said, breaking the silence. His tone was light. Calm. "I give chances."

He looked down at the corpse near his feet.

"One," he raised a finger.

Then, he looked at the trembling slaves.

"Now, I wonder. Do I need to give a second?"

He let the question hang like a blade in the air.

A few slaves glanced sideways, but none moved. None answered.

And so, he walked slowly, deliberately down the line of kneeling figures. His polished boots crunched over loose stone, and his serpent tattoo seemed to shift and curl as he moved, like it was alive.

When he reached the middle of the line, he stopped before a woman.

She was perhaps thirty. Skin sunburnt, lips cracked. Her hands clutched a rosary of wooden beads more a habit than faith. Her eyes were closed, whispering silent prayers to a god who had never answered.

Vernox crouched.

"Speak," he said gently, like a man coaxing a child from the dark.

The woman didn’t respond.

"Where did the Curse come from?" he asked again. "Who led the riot?"

Still silence. She opened her eyes.

Not in defiance. But in defeat.

"I don’t know," she whispered.

And that was enough.

He stood, not angry, not offended. Just... precise.

With a flick of his wrist, a curved blade slipped from the sleeve of his robe, shimmering like glass.

She gasped only once before the weapon arced clean through her throat. Blood spilled down her chest in a hot wave as she collapsed forward, clutching her beads even in death.

Vernox wiped the blade against her rags and turned, his expression unchanged.

He looked toward his men.

"Ten more," he said simply. "Start at the ends and work in."

The Silversong warriors moved like hounds unchained. Screams erupted briefly and blood-choked, as blades met flesh.

Some begged. Others ran. But none escaped.

"Torture adult slaves and women, but spare the children, we can’t ruin our future tool but show them what happens to the adults so that they never think of rebellion in the future," Vernox murmured, and turned to his Elders. "Send a squad to sweep the lower levels. And take a Spirit Scryer with you. I want every rat flushed out by nightfall."

"Yes, Chieftain," said the warrior. As the warriors moved,

Vernox, the Chieftain of the Silversong Tribe, and the only one with cultivation of the Opening Realm. His gaze drifted toward the horizon beyond the mine’s edge.

Something about this rebellion didn’t sit right with him.

’ This rebellion is too organized. Too clean. And the Curse that killed only cultivators?

That wasn’t the work of desperate slaves. That was the work of something far more dangerous.

"Who are you?" he muttered under his breath, as if the mountain might answer.

Vernox narrowed his eyes, standing still as stone, while waves of his spiritual sense rolled out like invisible tides. They slithered through every crevice of the ruined mine searching, peeling back shadows, brushing the skin of every frightened soul still breathing.

But nothing.

No ripple. No fluctuation. No hidden Qi signature. The silence beneath the surface was too clean.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath.

Then came the crunch of bone-staff against gravel.

The sound grated against his ears.

A hunched figure approached, hunched and shrouded in furs, bones clinking around his neck like teeth of fallen beasts. The man’s eyes were milky with age, but they gleamed with conviction. In his hand, he held a crooked wooden wand, wrapped in sinew and teeth, the carved tip glowing faintly with runic ink.

"Chieftain Vernox," the old man rasped. His voice was cracked but carried across the mine like an incantation. "I have examined the warriors’ bodies."

Vernox didn’t reply, merely shifting his gaze toward the old man, his expression unreadable.

The Shaman stooped beside one of the corpses, the charred husk of a Silversong cultivator, mouth frozen in an eternal scream. He turned the man’s head aside, revealing a deep red mark etched beneath the skin of the neck. It wasn’t natural. Not a wound. Not a blade’s gift.

It was a curse mark. The flesh around it had decayed faster than the rest.

"A red omen," the Shaman said solemnly, raising a thin, bony finger toward the sky. "The heavens are displeased. Their wrath flows like poison into our tribe."

He rose slowly and turned to Vernox.

"We must perform the Sacrificial Rite," he said. "If the heavens are not appeased... more blood will follow. Not from slaves but from us."

Vernox’s jaw twitched.

He didn’t believe in curses. He didn’t believe in rites or rituals or the phantom gods that the elders clung to like children clinging to night-lamps.

But he believed in politics.

The Shaman was no fool. Every tribe had men like him, half-priest, half-power broker. Manipulators disguised as mystics. And while Vernox had power, he didn’t have the tribe’s faith. Not like this shriveled old vulture.

So he swallowed his disgust and nodded.

"Fine," he said. "Take what you need."

He waved his hand at the line of captured slaves still trembling near the storage crates.

"Pick a few. Perform your rite. Then we return to the mountain."

The Shaman nodded as though he had received divine permission. He raised his wand and began chanting low, guttural syllables as several Silversong warriors moved forward, yanking terrified slaves to their feet.

Some cried out. Others were too broken to scream.

Vernox turned away. His hand clenched tightly behind his back, but he said nothing.

He had no use for more corpses. The trail was cold. Whoever was responsible... they had vanished into the stone like ghosts.

{ Below In the Hidden Chamber }

Kaal sat perfectly still.

For hours, he had not moved a muscle.

He had felt the brush of powerful spiritual sense scouring the tunnels, probing like an invisible knife. A single breath, a single noise, and they would have found him and Amelia.

But now, the pressure was gone.

He let out a breath, slow and careful, as if even exhaling too quickly might summon it back.

"They’ve left..." he whispered, sweat clinging to his temple.

His eyes flicked toward Amelia, curled under the blanket, eyes closed in exhausted sleep. She hadn’t even stirred. The Shadow Veil Formation had done its job.

He closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts.

’ Eighteen warriors dead. The poison has begun to spread. This Chieftain does not know that they are corrupted by slow-acting Qi corruption poison. Now they’re retreating. Perfect, they will all soon die. ’

( Two weeks passed in silence. )

Hidden away in the chamber, Kaal and Amelia survived on dry rations and shared warmth, their days marked by whispered conversations and the dim flicker of fire crystal light.

They were eating together, seated cross-legged on the cold stone floor, Amelia nibbling at a piece of stale bread, and Kaal chewing methodically on dried mushrooms, when suddenly, something changed.

The dry bread in Kaal’s hand turned to ash.

He blinked.

The crumbly morsel disintegrated between his fingers, scattering into the still air like dust in the wind. Across from him, Amelia’s lips parted perhaps to ask a question, but her words never came.

Her body began to shimmer.

Like a flame caught in a gust, she flickered and then began to crumble.

"Arthur?" she whispered, eyes wide, voice trembling.

And then she was gone.

Kaal lurched forward, but his arms met only empty air.

Before he could even think, the world around him shattered.

The walls of the mine peeled away like parchment curling in fire. The cracked stone ceiling dissolved into mist. The dirt underfoot vanished, leaving him suspended in nothingness.

Then came the voice.

{ The player has passed the Third Trial.}{Trial complete. Calculating rewards...}{Rewards will be granted upon leaving the Recorded Room.}

The system’s voice echoed with a hollow finality, then fell silent.

Kaal stood alone in a vast white chamber. There was no floor, no ceiling, no horizon, only an infinite sea of glowing pale light. Suspended in the center of it all was a single crystal shard, hanging midair like a frozen tear of the heavens.

It pulsed once.

Then again.

With the third pulse, the air itself seemed to tremble.

From the crystal, a figure emerged.

There was no thunderous entrance, no explosion of light. He simply appeared, as though he had always been there, waiting. His presence carried no overwhelming Qi, no oppressive spiritual pressure. Yet something about him bent the space around him, as if reality itself acknowledged him as its superior.

He had hair like drifting snow, a long beard that fell neatly over a simple black tunic. His eyes, deep, worn, and ancient, shone with the weight of time. Though he wore no crown, bore no grand insignia, his posture alone exuded power.

Kaal knew immediately.

Kilvish Arthur.Founder of the Kilvish Clan.

But not the proud, young image from the Second Trial. This was an older man. A weathered man. One who had lived with choices that would never stop echoing.

The projection didn’t speak at first.

Lines of golden text flowed across his irises, reflections of memories and data recordings of every action, every lie, every drop of blood Kaal had spilled in the Third Trial.

He was watching it all.

Then, softly, almost like a sigh to himself, the old man murmured, "So this... this is another way I could have saved Amelia."

Kaal stiffened.

’ That name Amelia. Did he just...? ’

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