Complete Victory

1,156 words

Han Li unceremoniously stowed away all three items he had obtained, even though none of them could be used immediately.

He then rose to his feet, brushed the dust from his clothes, and cast a look at Jia Tianlong and the others of the Wild Wolf Gang, a half-smile playing on his lips.

“Are you going to sever your own meridians, or shall I send you on your way myself?” Han Li’s tone was polite, but his words left the members of the Wild Wolf Gang with no room for negotiation.

When Jia Tianlong heard this, he felt a deep chill run through him, a cold so intense it froze his entire face stiff.

He kept telling himself to stay calm, that there had to be a way to deal with this man, yet he couldn't help wiping his hand across his face, only to find his forehead drenched in cold sweat. Jia Tianlong gave a bitter smile, knowing that without even looking in a mirror, his expression at that moment could not possibly be good—it must be utterly ugly.

He turned his neck with difficulty and looked at the others around him. They were all pale-faced, their expressions ones of panic and dread, as if a great calamity had befallen them. They stood stunned and helpless, without a trace of fighting spirit.

Feeling a surge of dejection, Jia Tianlong looked toward the Seven Mysteries Sect. There, his sworn enemy, Wang Juechu, was staring at him with the cold eyes of one already dead. The others too mostly wore expressions of anticipated vengeance.

Jia Tianlong’s heart was lost. His gaze unconsciously drifted outside the arena, toward the men who should have been his loyal followers. Their expressions were a mixed bag. Some looked anxious, some indifferent, but a large number actually wore delighted looks, gathered in groups whispering to each other, their faces full of barely concealed schadenfreude.

“No, I absolutely cannot die here! I must survive, and go on to complete my grand ambition.” The expression of someone—he didn't know who—seemed to strike a nerve in Jia Tianlong. A maddened glint suddenly flared in his eyes.

“Men! Iron Guards, front and center! Prep the crossbows! Everyone else, ready your concealed weapons!” Jia Tianlong bellowed, pouring all of his internal energy into the roar.

Jia Tianlong was indeed the leader of a gang. His roar, infused with internal power, jolted the paralyzed men inside the arena out of their stupor. Whether they were members of the Wild Wolf Gang or experts from the smaller and mid-sized gangs, they all suddenly found their center again, rolling up their sleeves and squaring off for a fight to the death.

Han Li furrowed his brow slightly and gave a soft snort. He then walked slowly toward Jia Tianlong, his hands clasped behind his back.

“It seems I’ll have to exert a little more effort after all,” Han Li mused wryly to himself.

“Loose!” As soon as Han Li entered the range of the crossbows, Jia Tianlong licked his dry lips and gave the order without the slightest hesitation.

Instantly, several hundred crossbow bolts, gleaming a dark, poisonous blue, shot toward Han Li in a dense swarm, completely sealing off the small space before him.

What happened next was astonishing. Jia Tianlong watched as the young man facing the flying bolts showed not a trace of fear. Instead, he gave a strange smile, and then his figure began to blur. The bolts that reached him passed straight through without any obstruction, flying off into the distance. For that single instant, his body seemed to have no substance at all. Then, the man flickered a few times in broad daylight and vanished without a trace.

Jia Tianlong’s face turned ashen. He was just about to order his men to be careful when Han Li reappeared, less than a dozen paces away from them.

This time, Jia Tianlong didn't need to give the order. The crossbows of the Iron Guards fired another volley, mixed with flying knives, sleeve arrows, and other hidden weapons from the rest, all of which shot toward Han Li in a chaotic mess. To their utter bewilderment, the man vanished again before their very eyes.

Just as a mix of terror and fury washed over Jia Tianlong, two blood-curdling screams erupted from behind him. Startled, he quickly turned his head.

He saw two Iron Guards, standing close together not far away, had suddenly turned into human torches. The vanished youth was just withdrawing his palms from their bodies. In the instant his hands left them, the two Iron Guards had already been reduced to ash. On the young man’s receding palms, Jia Tianlong vaguely caught a glimpse of a red glow flickering at the center, though what kind of miraculous technique or secret art it was, he could not tell.

What Jia Tianlong had witnessed was a perfect demonstration of Han Li fusing spells and martial arts. The red glow held in his palm was a small fireball from the “Fireball Technique.”

The magic power in Han Li's body flowed slowly, replenishing the fireball, which had shrunk from use, back to its original size. Then his figure vanished once more, only to reappear instantly at the other end of the crowd, turning another man into a blazing inferno.

And so it went. Han Li flickered in and out of sight among the throng, and with each reappearance, there was a victim. No matter which part of his body his hand touched, that person would immediately ignite and vanish completely from the world.

Jia Tianlong stared blankly ahead. The light had gone out of his eyes, and his face had become a dead, ashen gray.

In that brief span of moments, more than half of his men had been destroyed. The survivors were all terrified, scattering in every direction to flee. But against Han Li's phantom-like movement technique, they were each reduced to ashes in turn.

By the time his last subordinate had perished in the flames, Jia Tianlong was completely numb.

He knew that the reason he was still unharmed was that the other party had deliberately spared him. But now that he was the only one left, he knew the fire of death would soon visit him as well.

Han Li did not keep the leader of the Wild Wolf Gang waiting for long. After finishing off his last subordinate without a moment's hesitation, he flashed behind Jia Tianlong and, as a special courtesy, sent the great Chieftain Jia on his way with a full-powered “Fireball Technique.”

After Jia Tianlong had departed this life, Han Li clapped his hands together and murmured softly to himself, “Seems like killing a few more people isn’t really all that hard. I told you to do it yourselves. Wouldn’t that have been better? No pain at all. Having to do it myself… the taste of being burned alive isn’t exactly pleasant.”

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Reading Guide Decoding

The Cultivator's Asymmetric Warfare

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

Welcome to the Immortal-Mortal power gap, xianxia style. This chapter is the textbook definition of "courting death." Jia Tianlong, a mortal warlord with a general's mind for logistics and politics, makes the fatal mistake of assuming his army of trained killers and advanced steel crossbows can threaten a being who has begun to touch the fringes of the Dao. He is wrong.

The Fireball Technique (火弹术) is classified in the novel as a "basic spell," one of the five fundamental techniques a Qi Condensation cultivator learns. However, Han Li's display here breaks the mold. He doesn't just hurl a fireball from a distance; his "partial casting" melee application—holding a small, concentrated fireball in his palm and using physical touch as the delivery mechanism—is a tactical innovation born from his martial arts background. This shows that even a basic spell can be turned into a terrifying weapon of mass destruction with the right mindset. Forget the grand, incinerating pillars of fire; the scariest weapon is the one that fits in your palm and can touch a thousand throats in an hour.

Also, note the Smoke Step (罗烟步) evolution. While originally a mobility technique, Han Li now uses it to achieve a near-physical intangibility, a side effect of pushing it to its absolute limits. This is a classic xianxia trope: a low-tier technique, when pushed to perfection by a genius, can temporarily mimic the effects of much higher-tier arts.

Qi Condensation (炼气期)

The first and lowest realm of cultivation, where a practitioner refines ambient qi into their own energy system. Even this low level is enough to make a mortal army helpless.

Dissolving Cultivation (散功)

The voluntary destruction of one's own cultivation base to revert to a mortal state, often done to save one's life from the side effects of dangerous techniques or poisons.

Smoke Step (罗烟步)

A high-speed mobility technique from the Seven Mysteries Sect. Han Li has pushed it to a level where his body can briefly become intangible, allowing him to pass through physical attacks.

Chapter Overview

Holy smokes, folks. The power scale just tilted so hard it nearly cracked the axis of the cultivation world. This chapter is a masterclass in what happens when a cultivator stops playing by mortal rules. Han Li, having just concluded the Shadow Valley showdown, finally drops the act and shows the Wild Wolf Gang exactly what a Qi Condensation cultivator can do to a Jianghu army. This isn't a fight; it's a systematic, one-sided extermination performed with the casual air of a man clearing out a pest nest. Jia Tianlong, a brilliant warlord, is reduced from smug victor to a trembling victim in the span of a few breaths. Get ready for pure, unadulterated, asymmetric violence.

Key Plot Points

After collecting his spoils, Han Li faces the cornered Wild Wolf Gang and Jia Tianlong, offering them only the choice of how they wish to die: suicide by severing their own meridians, or death by his hand.
Jia Tianlong, mentally cracking, manages to rally his men with a roar, calling on his personal Iron Guards and the smaller gang experts for a desperate last stand.
As the crossbows fire, Han Li demonstrates a terrifying new level of mastery over the Smoke Step, allowing his body to become intangible and letting the bolts pass through him harmlessly before he vanishes from sight completely.
Han Li then unleashes his true power, using the Fireball Technique in an innovative, melee-oriented way. He blinks in and out of the crowd, and every touch of his hand incinerates a man to ashes instantly.
In less than a minute, Han Li systematically exterminates the entire combined fighting force of Jia Tianlong's alliance. He saves Jia Tianlong for last, executing him with a full-powered fireball.
The chapter concludes with Han Li casually musing on how easy killing has become, cementing his psychological shift away from the mortal world.

Reading Guide

This chapter is a major payoff moment that re-contextualizes Han Li's entire journey. It answers the question: "Why is Han Li so paranoid and obsessed with power?" Because this is the kind of world where a single superior being can erase a coalition army without breaking a sweat. His paranoia is not a flaw; it's the only rational response to the world he lives in.

Jia Tianlong's portrayal here is crucial. The incremental rules remind us he is a calculating, pragmatic warlord with a general's mind for logistics and politics, not a brute. His plan to use hostages and bribery was sound by mortal rules. His mistake was failing to grasp the qualitative difference a single cultivator represents. His stunned, terrified silence after watching his elite forces be turned to ash serves as the reader's proxy—this is how a competent mortal is supposed to react when facing a being from a higher realm. Han Li’s victory is not earned by a clever trick, but by simple, overwhelming, vertical power.

Pay attention to Han Li’s closing monologue. He doesn't gloat; he lectures. He offers a perfectly logical, if terrifying, business proposal for a cleaner solution. The Dissolving Cultivation option he'd discussed earlier with Li Feiyu would have been the kind way out. He chose the efficient, illustrative way. This chapter solidifies that in the A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality, power isn't the goal—it's the only viable currency for survival.