A Waste of Time

Chapter 81: Coiled Paradox

Elder Ping smiled charmingly behind the cover of her pale jade Fan, the delicate ribs clicking softly as she tapped it shut and open again — a habit whenever her mind spiraled deeper than her calm mask betrayed. So this is the mortal boy they whisper about in the back halls... A Physique like tempered iron, no Spirit Roots to speak of, yet he dares to pull Lightning from thin air and wield Fire like a seasoned Smith. She scoffed inwardly, flicking her gaze across the open clearing just beyond the Nie’s Smithy. The midday sun beat down with a harsh glare, stirring waves of heat above the forge’s chimney — curls of faint smoke rising to blur the sky’s clear blue.

She felt the lingering Qi, the faint traces of scorched Metal Essence clinging stubbornly to the anvil’s surface. No ordinary mortal leaves such marks... or forges a Sword with Lightning and Fire without paying a price. Her eyes narrowed as they landed on Daemon’s slight frame amid the ring of onlookers — Nie Family apprentices and a swelling crowd of villagers, their eyes wide with raw wonder at the chance to witness real Cultivators draw blades and test their might in the open daylight. Murmurs rippled through the gathered mass, the hush broken only by sharp intakes of breath and the occasional gasp when someone dared to imagine what power might clash next.

Behind the fan, Elder Ping’s lips curled. If he’s faking, I’ll peel him open myself to see what secrets are tucked inside that mortal shell.

She lowered the fan just enough to murmur, her voice silken but edged like a honed Blade.

“Since all of you are so eager, step forward. Claim the first cut if you can. Just remember — you stand for the face of Ten-Thousand Beast Mountain. Prove you are worthy of its name.”

Her eyes swept the six Inner Disciples standing at respectful attention. One shifted his stance, swallowing hard. Another flexed his fingers around the hilt of his Sword, sweat beading at his temple despite the dry noon air.

For a fleeting breath, Elder Ping wondered — Why do I feel it? This prickle down my spine. Since when does a mortal child make me doubt our whole Sect’s pride? She fluttered her fan shut, the snap loud as a whip. Show me, boy. Show me why you dare stand alone.

Finally, the tallest of the four young men stepped forward, his shadow spilling long across the sunbaked clearing. He moved with the patient ease of a predator certain of his strength — bronze skin glinting with a faint sheen of sweat that only emphasized the solid ridges of his muscular frame. Thick eyebrows cast a sharp shadow over his steady brown eyes, which never left Daemon’s face for a heartbeat.

His hands flexed inside a pair of Gauntlets stitched from coarse black Fabric, the knuckles and wrists reinforced by overlapping bands of brown Leather, glinting green Scales, and polished slivers of silver Metal layered artfully to guard the joints without stealing freedom of motion. Along both forearms, stretching all the way up to the elbows, a pair of heavy Greaves of dull iron encased the muscle beneath — hooks and jagged edges catching the noon sun like fangs waiting to tear flesh and bone.

Ten meters away, Daemon stood perfectly still, the village murmurs fading behind him until all that remained was the dry rustle of wind stirring the leaves at the clearing’s edge. The young man cracked his knuckles, the sharp pop echoing like a casual warning. This kid’s my prize,

he told himself, rolling his shoulders. I’ll be the one to drag him back. The mission will be done — and the credit will be mine alone.Yan Jia stood a few paces behind Daemon, arms folded beneath her chest, a subtle heat dancing in her eyes as she studied the approaching Inner Disciple. Yan Ru, beside her, spared her a questioning glance. He’d tried to sense the man’s Cultivation himself, but all he felt was a blank wall that swallowed his senses whole — a bitter reminder that his own Fifth-Stage was far too shallow to measure a Cultivator like this.

“He’s the same level as Xue Lian,” Jia murmured softly, her lips barely parting. “Don’t waste your Concentration, brother — he’s in the Eighth-Stage.”

Ru swallowed, tightening his grip around the hilt of his incomplete Sword. He watched the way Daemon tilted his chin, eyes glinting like dark coals beneath the bright sun — so calm, so unreadable. A shiver threaded down his spine despite the heat.

He’s really going to face that monster barehanded?

The Inner Disciple stepped forward until he stood no more than five paces from Daemon, boots grinding dry soil underfoot. He cupped his fist with a practiced motion, the Gauntlet plates clicking faintly as they pressed together across his knuckles.

“I am Chu Ren of Ten-Thousand Beast Mountain — Ironheart Beast Guard,” he drawled, voice just loud enough for the villagers pressing at the clearing’s edge to hear every word. “You stand alone now, boy. There’s no shield left for you — both your so-called guards are useless, one even burned her Martial Spirit to defy Sister Xue Lian. That alone should have finished you.”

Daemon’s lips curved into something close to amusement, but the cold flicker in his eyes betrayed no warmth. He tilted his head slightly toward Yan Jia without fully taking his gaze off his opponent.

“She should count herself lucky,” Daemon said evenly. “If she hadn’t been quick enough to pull her Weasel back into her Dantian the instant that Phoenix’s Hellfire roared, she’d be ashes by now. Severe wounds are kinder than total annihilation.”

A faint ripple of gasps swept through the villagers as they traded wide-eyed glances. The wind rattled the sparse branches above, carrying the sharp tang of churned earth and the distant echo of hammer strikes from the forge behind them.

Lucky indeed, Daemon thought grimly. Because now I’m stuck with this mess. Inwardly he couldn’t help but groan. The Asura’s Buff still ticked down inside him, time bleeding away like water through a cracked jar. [12:29:42] — that’s all he had left after wasting precious minutes forging Yan Ru’s Sword. He clenched his fists tighter, feeling the hum of caged strength vibrating beneath his skin. And Elder Ping was still here too, her fan idly tapping against her palm as she watched. Sooner or later, we’ll clash. She knows it. I know it. I need to keep my teeth hidden until then.

The Inner Disciple raised an eyebrow at Daemon’s silence. “What, no name in return? No final introduction before I send you crawling back to the Sect for punishment?”

Daemon rolled his neck, the bones popping like dry twigs. “No need,” he said, voice low enough that only the Inner Disciple heard the first word. Then he looked up, his tone cutting through the murmurs. “This ends quickly. That’s all you need to know.”

A short, disbelieving laugh tore from the young man’s throat, spreading to a chorus of chuckles from the other Inner Disciples and nervous titters from the villagers. A few even began whispering bets about how long the mortal boy would last.

But before another breath passed, Daemon shifted his stance — and vanished.

One heartbeat he was there, feet planted firmly on the sun-baked earth; the next he was gone, faster than the Weasel had fled the Phoenix’s Hellfire. Even the gathered Inner Disciples leaned forward instinctively, eyes darting, searching for a trace of movement — but his afterimages splintered in every direction, too many to follow, too sharp to pin down.

Only Elder Ping’s eyes widened slightly behind her fan, her Spirit Sense barely catching the slipstream of raw Vitality and the sudden, roaring Aura of Physical-Superiority and Might that exploded from Daemon’s flesh like a shockwave. A thin breath escaped her lips, so soft no one heard it over the villagers’ sudden roar of awe.

Chu Ren’s heart slammed against his ribs the moment Daemon vanished. The smirk he’d carried a breath before was gone — replaced by a clenched jaw and the quick, shallow draw of air through his nostrils. He dropped into a wide, anchored stance, knees bent low, boots grinding deep furrows into the churned clearing. His eyes flicked left, right, then over his shoulder, pupils dilated as he searched the sunlit dust for even the ghost of his opponent’s shadow.

Speed. He hated speed. He trusted his toughness — his iron bones, his layered defenses, the brutal force in his arms — but speed was poison. It made him taste panic at the edges of his tongue, like copper and bile.

Had I known he was this fast, Chu Ren cursed inwardly, I would have waited. I would have let one of those soft-lunged brats test him first. But there was no retreat now, not with the villagers gasping, the other Inner Disciples watching, and Elder Ping’s gaze drilling cold lines into the back of his neck.

He sucked in a breath and flared his Qi, pushing it into the pair of Spiritual Treasures bound to him by years of harsh training. The Gauntlets pulsed with muted light as he extended his arms, fingers splayed wide. The earth around him shuddered, scorched dust swirling as jagged slabs of compacted soil erupted in a rough circle. Walls rose up, flanking him on either side and sealing off his back — a crude fortress of scorched earth meant to choke the angles of Daemon’s assault.

Limit him. Box him in. Force him to come at me head-on, Chu Ren thought grimly, bracing himself as the roar of the villagers fell into a tense, breathless hush.

Daemon drifted around the edge of Chu Ren’s crude fortress like a whisper of dust on the wind. Even at only seventy percent of his full speed, he was nothing but a blur of flickers and faint footprints in the churned earth. For the villagers packed behind the clearing’s edge, there was nothing to see — only the rising haze of heat and the low hum of the boy’s presence darting too fast to follow.

But Elder Ping’s eyes, half-lidded behind her fan, twitched with each slip of his silhouette. She can still track me, Daemon noted with a faint, inward sigh. Even with a heartbeat of delay, that’s annoying. A fight with her will be worse than I thought.

Inside the ring of scorched walls, Chu Ren’s brow gleamed with sweat. He twisted in place, heavy boots pivoting, arms held wide as he forced his Qi into his Gauntlets and the ring of hardened earth. Stone groaned and cracked under the strain as he reinforced the walls, trying to funnel Daemon’s angles tighter — easier to defend, harder to breach.

Daemon’s voice slipped into the clearing like a cold wind:

“Seeing you raise these slabs of soil… you must be an Earth Cultivator like Qi Ying, right? But you’re stronger than him. I should thank you, actually — you’ve given me a very good idea on how to handle you.”

His words came from everywhere at once — above Chu Ren’s shoulder, behind his back, then whispering near his ear so close that the man jerked away with a startled curse.

“I’ll be polite, though. I’ll give you two choices. Would you rather I defeat you using Gon’s Method in his fight against Hisoka… or do you want me to use my own Method?”

A shudder ran down Chu Ren’s spine. His eyes darted between the slabs of earth, searching every flicker of shadow for the boy who was now a ghost in his mind. A single bead of sweat slipped down his jaw, disappearing into his collar as he bared his teeth.

Beyond the walls, Yan Ru and Yan Jia exchanged a look. A resigned smile tugged at Ru’s lips; Jia only shook her head, her eyes bright with the spark of familiarity. When our Young Master gets like this, they both thought, someone’s about to learn what real wildness looks like.

Chu Ren finally snapped, voice cracking the hush like a whip:

“Enough games! Come out! Face me with your own Method if you dare! I’m no coward — don’t you dare skulk like a ghost!”

Daemon’s voice rang out again, drifting through the clearing with a note of dry, almost playful cynicism:

“As you wish… It’s your funeral, buddy.”

A heartbeat later, he materialized inside Chu Ren’s crude fortress — so close the bigger man could have reached out and crushed his shoulder in a single squeeze. Chu Ren’s pulse spiked as he lunged, thick arms snapping forward like iron bands to grab the boy and stop him from slipping away again.

But Daemon only smiled, head tilted back just enough for his sharp eyes to meet Chu Ren’s widening ones.

“This was a bad mistake.”

A flicker of silver-blue light snapped into being around Daemon’s frame — a crackling Lightning-Cocoon that swallowed his shape in a dome of searing arcs. The air shivered with the raw bite of burning ozone. For a moment, the villagers could only see a sphere of coiling sparks where the boy had been.

Chu Ren’s scream split the clearing. It wasn’t just the roar of a man struck — it was a guttural cry torn straight from his deepest nerves as the surge burrowed through flesh and bone. Muscles locked, eyes bulged wide. Within a single heartbeat, the proud Ironheart Beast Guard was frozen in place — paralyzed from the inside out by the storm dancing through every vein.

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