Chapter 4 Reversing Fate, Shocking the Town

Logan returned to the broken shack.

The two thugs he left behind were still standing outside in the mud, shivering. The moment they saw Logan carrying a leather sack stained with Gordon’s fresh blood, they fell to their knees.

"Y-Young Master Vanguard... nobody entered! We swear on our souls, no one disturbed Lord Julian!" they stammered, their foreheads hitting the wet ground.

Logan ignored them. He pushed past the curtain into the damp room.

Julian Vanguard was just beginning to stir. He groaned, the deep-seated lung illness causing him to cough violently as he forced his eyes open.

"Logan..." Julian croaked, looking around frantically. "Gordon... did they come? You must flee, my boy, I can hold them off—"

"Father, it is over," Logan said softly, walking over to the bed. He opened the leather sack, pouring out five hundred gleaming high-grade gold coins onto the dirt floor.

Julian froze. His eyes went wide as saucers. "This... where did you get this much gold?!"

"I visited the Iron Tiger Sect," Logan replied casually, as if he had just gone out to buy groceries. "Sect Master Gordon was very generous. He decided to donate his entire treasury to the Vanguard family before disbanding his sect."

Julian’s breath hitched. Disbanding his sect? Generous? He looked at the blood on Logan’s sleeve and realized the terrifying truth. His sixteen-year-old son had single-handedly annihilated the biggest criminal organization in Blackstone Town in less than an hour.

"Now, Father, do not move," Logan ordered gently.

He pulled out the rare Three-Leaf Crimson Ginseng. Logan crushed the glowing herb with his bare palm, extracting a vibrant, crimson liquid that radiated intense life energy.

Logan pressed his hands against Julian’s twisted, crippled legs. He closed his eyes, activating the Nine Heavens Tyrant Script. A blinding, golden primordial qi erupted from his palms, forcing the medicine straight into Julian’s broken bones and blocked meridians.

CRACK! CRACK!

Julian gasped, his eyes bulging as the misaligned bones in his legs were violently broken apart and stitched back together by the golden energy. The black, dead blood inside his veins was instantly vaporized.

"Argh!" Julian gripped the straw mat, sweat pouring down his face. But within seconds, the agonizing pain turned into a soothing, explosive warmth. For the first time in ten years, he could feel his toes. The crushing weight on his lungs vanished.

"Stand up, Father," Logan said, stepping back.

Trembling, Julian lowered his feet to the ground. He pushed himself up. His legs didn't buckle. He stood perfectly straight, his posture firm and sturdy. His pale, sickly face was flushed with a vibrant, healthy color.

"My... my legs... my cultivation..." Julian whispered, tears streaming down his face as he realized his destroyed meridians were entirely repaired. He was healed.

Before Julian could embrace his son, a cold, arrogant voice boomed from outside the shack, amplified by powerful Qi.

"Logan Vanguard! You reckless bastard, crawl out here this instant!"

Logan’s eyes narrowed into slits. A chilling smirk played on his lips.

Another fly has arrived.

Logan stepped out of the shack. The street was now packed with hundreds of townspeople who had gathered to witness the aftermath. Standing in the center of the road was a middle-aged man dressed in luxurious official silk robes, flanked by twenty armored soldiers carrying heavy crossbows.

This was Mayor Silas, the highest authority in Blackstone Town. He was also secretly a low-level lackey sent by the Capital to ensure the Vanguard family stayed broken and oppressed.

Silas looked at the two kneeling Iron Tiger thugs, then glared at Logan with deep disgust. "Logan! You dared to murder and pillage the Iron Tiger Sect, disrupting the peace of my jurisdiction! By the laws of the Empire, your entire family is sentenced to execution!"

The townspeople whispered in fear. The Mayor was an elite cultivator at the Early Silver-Bone Realm—a level far superior to the Iron-Skin tier.

Logan didn't draw a weapon. He didn't even take

Mayor Silas smirked, raising his hand to signal his crossbowmen. He had been waiting for an excuse to wipe out the Vanguard bloodline for years to earn a promotion from the Emperor. "Do you have any final words, peasant trash?"

Logan didn't draw a weapon. He didn't even take a defensive stance. He simply looked at Silas as if looking at a piece of dirt.

"Execution?" Logan murmured, taking a slow step forward. The golden qi inside his body began to hum violently, vibrating the very ground beneath Silas’s feet. "Silas, who gave a dog like you the right to judge a Vanguard?"

Silas’s face contorted with rage. "You arrogant brat! Crossbowmen, shoot his legs! Let him crawl before me!"

Twang! Twang! Twang!

Twenty heavy steel bolts tore through the air, carrying enough force to punch clean through brick walls. The townspeople shrieked, closing their eyes to avoid seeing Logan turned into a human pincushion. Mei gasped from behind her window, her heart dropping into her stomach.

Logan didn't even blink.

He didn't dodge. He didn't run. He simply raised his right hand and casually made a sweeping motion through the air, as if shooing away an annoying swarm of mosquitoes.

WHOOSH!

An explosive barrier of golden primordial qi erupted from his palm. The sheer atmospheric pressure formed a miniature vortex. The twenty lethal steel bolts didn't just stop—they froze in mid-air, floating precisely three inches away from Logan's outstretched fingers, their tips vibrating violently against an invisible wall.

The entire street fell into a deathly, horrifying silence. A soldier accidentally dropped his extra ammunition, the clinking sound echoing loudly in the stillness.

"What... what kind of sorcery is this?!" Silas stammered, his elite Silver-Bone composure completely shattering. His eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his skull. "Catching crossbow bolts with bare qi?! That's impossible for an Iron-Skin cultivator!"

"Your understanding of martial arts is as shallow as a puddle, Silas," Logan said, his voice dripping with bored amusement. "Since you went through the trouble of gifting these to me... You can have them back."

With a flick of his wrist, Logan sent a pulse of primordial qi into the floating projectiles.

SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!

The twenty steel bolts reversed direction at twice their original speed. They didn't hit the soldiers' chests; instead, they precisely targeted the heavy iron crossbows.

BANG! CRACK! SHATTER!

Twenty high-grade military crossbows exploded into splinters simultaneously. The violent recoil sent all twenty armored soldiers flying backward, crashing into the mud in a messy heap of tangled limbs and broken armor. Not a single soldier was killed, but their hands were so badly bruised and bloody that they couldn't even lift a spoon, let alone a weapon.

Silas stood completely alone in the mud, his luxurious silk robes suddenly feeling very cold. He looked at his elite guard groaning on the ground, then looked up at Logan, who was casually dusting off his sleeves.

"Now then," Logan smiled, a terrifyingly polite expression that made Silas's knees turn into jelly. "You mentioned something about execution, Mayor? Why don't you come over here and show me how it's done?"

Silas’s jaw practically hit the mud. His silver-infused bones, usually dense and unyielding, felt like brittle chalk under the weight of Logan's intense gaze. His pride as a government official sent by the Capital was the only thing keeping him from wetting his expensive silk trousers right there.

"You... you rebel!" Silas shrieked, his voice hitting a high-pitched octave that made several townspeople chuckle. He desperately drew his silver-etched longsword, his Early Silver-Bone Qi flaring up in a frantic, blinding white light. "I am the hand of the Empire! To strike me is to strike the crown itself!"

"The crown?" Logan echoed, his voice dropping into a register so dark it seemed to pull the heat straight out of the noon air. "The crown belongs to me. Your Emperor is just a squatter."

Before Silas could even process the blinding heresy of that statement, Logan vanished.

Whoosh!

A violent gust of wind whipped through the street. Silas blinked, his sword raised, swinging at empty air.

"Looking for me, dog?"

The voice whispered directly into Silas’s right ear. A cold sweat erupted across the Mayor's body. He tried to spin around and slash backward, but his movements were painfully sluggish compared to a former Supreme Commander.

Logan didn't even use a weapon. He simply raised his right hand, his palm coating itself in a dense, shimmering layer of golden primordial qi.

SMACK!

The sound of the slap resonated across Blackstone Town like a thunderclap.

The sheer force of the blow shattered Silas’s white Silver-Bone defensive aura instantly. The Mayor spun around like a broken top, his body completing three full mid-air rotations before crashing face-first into a particularly deep puddle of mud.

Splat!

"Pfft—bah!" Silas coughed, spraying out mud, muddy water, and five of his front teeth. The right side of his face immediately swelled up to the size of a ripe melon, turning a deep, angry shade of purple. His luxurious silk robes were ruined, coated in filth.

The surrounding townspeople couldn't contain themselves anymore. Someone in the back row burst out laughing, and within seconds, a wave of muffled snickers and chuckles rippled through the crowd. The terrifying Mayor, who had extorted them for years, was currently face-down in the dirt like a drowned rat.

"Young Master Vanguard... please! Have mercy!" Silas wailed, his silver-bone pride completely dissolving into pure, unadulterated terror. He didn't even try to stand up; instead, he scrambled backward on all fours, desperately trying to put distance between himself and the teenager. "I was only following orders! The Capital... the Capital forced me to monitor your family!"

Logan walked forward with slow, measured steps, his boots leaving perfectly clean imprints in the mud. He stopped right in front of the crawling Mayor, his shadow completely engulfing the man.

"Orders?" Logan raised an eyebrow, a cold, mocking smile playing on his lips. "Then tell me, Mayor. Whose orders? And what exactly did they want you to do to my family?"

Silas shook violently, his eyes darting to his broken crossbowmen, who were pretending to be unconscious just to avoid Logan's wrath. Realizing he had zero cards left to play, Silas blurted out the truth to save his own skin.

"The Imperial Inspector! Lord Vance!" Silas gasped, choking on his own blood. "He... he is coming from the Capital! He will arrive in Blackstone Town in exactly three days! His mission isn't just to monitor your father... his secret decree is to completely execute the remaining Vanguard bloodline so the Emperor can sleep peacefully!"

From the doorway of the shack, the curtain parted. Julian Vanguard stepped out, his legs perfectly straight and his eyes flashing with a sharp, dangerous light that hadn't been seen in a decade. "Vance... that spineless rat is still alive?"

Logan didn't look back at his father. He kept his eyes locked on the pathetic Mayor.

"Three days," Logan murmured, his golden qi humming with anticipation. He looked up at the sky, his gaze piercing through the clouds toward the distant Imperial Capital. "Good. Tell your Lord Vance to bring a larger coffin. The Vanguard fire is back, and I need a few more twigs to keep it burning."

With a casual flick of his foot, Logan kicked Silas square in the ribs, sending the Mayor rolling down the muddy street like a barrel of trash.