Mystique Soul: A Cultivator's Flame
Chapter 123: Answers

Chapter 123: Answers

Warning: Extreme violence on this Chapter. If you are below 18. I suggest you don’t read this Chapter and move on to the next part immediately. Especially if you can’t handle violence.

The scholar’s body lay slumped, bound tightly to a cracked pillar of stone deep beneath the ruined streets. The underground chamber was silent, save for the occasional drip of water echoing off moss-slick walls. He stirred slowly, consciousness dragged back into place by the sting of cold air and the seeping ache in his limbs.

His once-refined robes were tattered now, stained with blood and ash. One eye had swelled shut. The other blinked blearily, until it met hers.

Feng Jiao Xue stood just outside the circle of torchlight, her presence cloaked in shadows. Blood still painted one side of her face, dried and cracked. Her black eyes gleamed with an unnatural calm. There was no anger. No desperation.

Only methodical silence.

Her right hand pulled her sword free with a soft shhlick, the sound unnaturally loud in the chamber. She let it rest on her shoulder. In her left hand, she held a small, corked vial, black glass and faintly glowing.

The scholar’s eyes flicked to it, his breath catching.

"I see you recognize this," Feng Jiao Xue said softly. "Fire-root extract. Refined with spiritbane oil."

His jaw clenched.

"It burns" she continued. "But the pain lingers. The oil ensures the wound continues to sear long after the flames are gone."

He sneered, shaking. "Pain won’t break me."

She didn’t respond. She simply uncorked the vial.

Then she called forth a small flame, hovering just above her palm. a controlled flicker of crimson-white.

"Hold still." she murmured.

Without waiting, she poured a trail of the liquid across his arm, from wrist to elbow. The scholar jerked at the cold slickness but before he could protest, the flame dropped onto it.

The reaction was instant.

The oil ignited, flaring into a brilliant burst of fire that clung to his skin. The scream he let out echoed through the chamber, long and ragged. Flesh sizzled. The fire crept along his nerves, eating at muscle.

He thrashed in his bindings, agony overtaking resistance.

Feng Jiao Xue watched in silence. No twitch of expression. No flicker of hesitation. When the flames burned low, she poured the second half of the vial over the wound.

The scholar shrieked again, this time deeper, broken. The oil soaked into the wound, reactivating the pain like fresh embers pressed into raw skin.

"I’ll ask once" she said coolly. "Your name."

Tears streaked down his face, mingling with ash and sweat. But still, he shook his head.

Feng Jiao Xue crouched down, gaze sharp. "Shall we continue?" she asked, stepping on the burned flesh.

His eyes rolled back slightly. But he was still conscious. Still breathing.

"Wait- wait!" he gasped. "Zhao Yun... my name is Zhao Yun!"

She nodded once. "Better. Now, what are you doing to the cultivators you take?"

Without warning, she raised her hand, and a cluster of thin, silver needles burst from her qi, shooting through the air like guided wasps. They embedded into the scholar’s arms and legs, sending sharp convulsions through him.

He choked on a scream.

"Those needles are coated in a rare paralytic," she said softly. "Your heart will keep beating. Your mind will remain clear. But everything will feel like it’s on fire."

The scholar’s jaw tightened, sweat beading at his brow. His lips trembling.

"Alright! alright! We feed them!" he shouted, eyes wild. "To the Dark Angel’s Bloom!"

Feng Jiao Xue narrowed her eyes. "Explain."

Zhao Yun coughed again, spit red. "It’s... a flower. Cultivated in secret beneath the city. We feed it blood... their qi. Especially those of high-quality cultivators. It nourishes it. Helps it bloom."

She remained still. Watching. "Why?"

"When it blooms, if harvested correctly, it can be refined into a pill. A rare one. It can forcibly raise a magician or cultivator’s rank. Temporarily... or permanently, if lucky."

A pause. He swallowed.

"Most of the victims die. Horribly."

Feng Jiao Xue’s grip on the dagger tightened, but her face betrayed nothing. "And who runs this?"

Zhao Yun’s eyes darted to the ground. "...I can’t."

Feng Jiao Xue leaned closer, whispering coldly into his ear. "I wonder how a magician will be able to cast, without fingers to hold a staff or medium?" she sadistically wondered.

Feng Jiao Xue toyed with a dagger and without warning, it flashed, his middle finger hit the ground with a wet slap. She didn’t give him the chance to rethink his answers to make him understand, she isn’t willing to stand around. Not with Mo Tianze in danger by the minute.

Zhao Yun howled, convulsing in agony, blood seeping down his wrist in thick streams.

"I’ll burn them closed if you answer now," she said. "If not, I’ll move to the ring finger."

"No, please! I can’t!" He cried desperately. "I can’t. If I tell you... If I tell you the city lord will kill my treasures!" He cried desperately making Feng Jiao Xue pause.

"And why should I care about that?" She asked coldly.

"Your a righteous cultivator right?!" Zhao Yun’s eyes where like that of a desperate, cornered beast, wide and frantic trying to grasp his last straw. "It’s the orphanage! Please! I- I didn’t want to do it! I never wanted to do anything for him but he pays good deal. I needed the money for the orphanage! Please! If I tell you, he will kill them!"

Feng Jiao Xue didn’t show any outward emotion but her finger twitched slightly. Observing his ques for any sign of lying. He averted his eyes when he said he didn’t want to do it. While his expression turned off when he talked about the pay.

The rest of his sentence may be true, but being forced to work for the city lord? Feng Jiao Xue scoffed. It’s clear he was more than willing for money.

"And I should care why?" She asked without an ounce of pity. "Either you tell me and I kill him before he could massacre the orphanage or..." Feng Jiao Xue stared at him straight in the eyes. "...I attack and make it clear, it was you who aided me"

Zhao Yun’s eyes looked at her hopelessly. He knows, either way, he will be doomed. "It’s the City Lord..." he helplessly revealed. "He oversees it all! It was his doing!"

Feng Jiao Xue’s breath slowed.

"Even I don’t know how deep it goes," Zhao Yun whispered. "But the nobles... they buy the pills in secret. The everyone in the knows looks the other way."

"And the Blood Moon?" she asked coldly.

She have been curious about that. How could a moon turn a different shade in a single city while not to the rest of the world? It would not be possible unless the truck lies on the city itself.

"It’s not... not the moon," Zhao Yun wheezed. "The flower secretes a red fume. Its the flowers way in securing a food source out in the wild. But, with it being fed, it only does so when its sack is full. The fume rises to the city and made the moons light appear red... the people think it’s natural, but it’s just the flower feeding. Once or twice a year. Always after... after a large batch of sacrifices."

So it was just as she’d suspected.

A moon could not turn red above only one city.

"Disgusting," Feng Jiao Xue muttered. "Using lives as fertilizer for selfishness"

The scholar collapsed against the pillar, shivering uncontrollably, blood pooling beneath him.

She forced Zhao Yun to sit. He crumpled like a broken doll, wheezing.

"We’re not done yet" she said.

Zhao Yun groaned, curling slightly. "What... what do you want now?"

She knelt before him, her voice deceptively calm. "Everything. I want to know how to tear the city lord apart piece by piece. And I want to know how to get Mo Tianze out."

Zhao Yun swallowed. "You don’t know what you’re walking into."

"I don’t care," she replied. "Speak."

He stared at her a moment, then sighed, knowing resistance was useless.

"The City Lord’s mansion sits at the city’s core, behind a perimeter of three walls. The outer wall is manned by standard guards. Not cultivators. But they’re enough to delay intruders. The second wall is protected by formation stones, an illusion array that disorients and splits groups apart."

Feng Jiao Xue narrowed her eyes. "How do I bypass it?"

"The formation is linked to four anchor points. Statues of heavenly beasts, stationed at each corner. Destroy one, and the illusion weakens. Destroy two, and it collapses."

She memorized the details swiftly. "What of the final wall?"

Zhao Yun flinched. "That wall... is guarded by magicians under contract. Spirit-bound. They draw their power from the mansion itself. Ancient sigils are carved into the stone, fed by blood."

"What kind of blood?"

"Beast blood. Some... some of the defectives the flower doesnt want. Their deaths power the defense."

Feng Jiao Xue’s fists clenched harder. "So, they could have used beasts instead of humans" she hissed. Not that it makes it any better by that point.

"It- it takes too much man power to keep hunting and people... people might wonder what we do with them"

Feng Jiao Xue’s expression didn’t flicker. But her aura spiked, a cold, sharp force that made the scholar whimper.

"What’s inside the mansion?"

"Several levels. The top floor is the city lord’s residence. But beneath it... are chambers. Like dungeons. The flower grows beneath the mansion, entwined with the roots of the city. That’s where they’d likely take him. Mo Tianze."

"Traps?"

"Many. Magical, mechanical. And the lord keeps two enforcers at his side. One a beast tamer, the other a blood mage."

Feng Jiao Xue stood, mind racing.

"His schedule?"

"He hosts rituals at night. Disguised as noble gatherings. They wear masks. Pretend it’s theater. But it’s bloodletting. Every full moon, a sacrifice. The bloom feeds during these times."

"When’s the next one?"

"Tonights. A night after the blood moon. To make sure the products are fresh. But... they prepare a day before. The city’s under heavy patrol the closer it gets."

She turned toward the shadows, considering. "Any weaknesses? Hidden paths?"

Zhao Yun hesitated. "There’s a smuggler’s tunnel beneath the east garden. Used during the war decades ago. It’s collapsed in parts, but if you clear it, it leads beneath the inner wall. Close to the ritual chamber."

Feng Jiao Xue met his gaze, cold and unblinking. "You’ll guide me."

He shook his head, frantic. "I’ll be killed the moment they see me!"

She drew her blade and let the tip hover over his throat. "Then don’t let them see you."

He whimpered.

"Tell me about the City Lord. What kind of man is he?"

"Not a man. A monster. He used to be a cultivator, decades ago. He aged slowly. But he gave it up... traded his core for a pact with the Bloom. The flower sustains him now. He’s part of it. I don’t even know if he can die."

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