I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 391: I’m Killing All Of You
The Bloodshade Hunting Grounds sprawled before Victor like an open wound in the world.
Even at the outskirts, the air carried a faint metallic tang, as though blood had soaked so deeply into the land that it could never truly be washed away. The ground was a cracked mosaic of crimson-brown stone and blackened soil, threaded with veins of dull red crystal that throbbed faintly.
Victor slowed only slightly as he crossed the boundary marker.
Immediately, the noise hit him.
Shouting cultivators.
Clashing steel.
Bestial roars echoing from deeper within.
Groups were everywhere.
Some were clearly players with names floating above their heads, calling out system prompts and loot distributions mid-fight. Others were native cultivators with hard eyes.
Victor walked alone.
His aura was fully concealed, folded inward so tightly that it barely leaked beyond his skin. To outside senses, he appeared no stronger than a mid Core Formation cultivator which was quite unremarkable.
That was intentional.
As he passed through the outskirts, voices called out.
"Group forming! Need one more for Yellow Zone sweep—spirit beast payout split evenly!"
"Looking for a wind cultivator! Fast clears, quick profit!"
A tall man with a heavy blade slung over his shoulder glanced Victor’s way and scoffed.
"Solo? You’ve got guts, kid."
Victor didn’t respond.
Another group laughed openly as he passed.
"Hey, look at this one," a woman with braided hair said loudly. "Walking like he owns the place. Bet he doesn’t last an hour."
"An hour?" her companion snorted. "I give him twenty minutes."
Victor kept walking.
The Bloodshade Hunting Grounds were lawless by design. No sect authority. No imperial enforcement. The only rules here were simple:
Survive.
Or don’t.
Beasts weren’t the only danger.
Cultivators killed for less.
Victor knew that better than most.
He stepped past a shattered ribcage of some massive creature half-buried in the ground with its bones stripped clean. Nearby, a group of three cultivators argued heatedly over a glowing core with one of them bleeding from a split lip and the other two clearly ready to escalate.
Victor didn’t spare them more than a glance.
He moved deeper.
Time passed strangely in Bloodshade.
The farther one traveled, the more distorted the sense of distance became. Landmarks twisted. Paths that should have looped instead stretched on endlessly. Victor relied on memory more than sight, letting instinct guide him.
Eventually, the air changed.
The metallic tang sharpened. Qi thickened, pressing faintly against the skin.
A translucent notification appeared before his eyes. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
> [You have entered: Bloodshade Hunting Grounds – Yellow Zone]
[Warning: Increased Spiritual Pressure Detected]
[Spiritual Pressure Canceled — Reason: High Cultivation Realm]
[Energy Expenditure: Normal]
Victor didn’t even blink.
So this was the Yellow Zone again.
He remembered it well how even standing still here once felt like running uphill through mud as qi bled away with every breath.
Now it felt... neutral.
Almost quiet.
The terrain reflected the shift. Rough crystal spires erupted from the ground at odd angles with their surfaces dulled by age and conflict. Some were shattered, others half-melted as if struck by ancient techniques too powerful to leave clean edges behind.
The ground bore the scars of history.
Cratered fields where lightning had once struck again and again.
Burn marks etched permanently into stone.
Collapsed formations whose purposes were long forgotten.
Victor passed an ancient statue, cracked from shoulder to waist and its face eroded beyond recognition. Faint inscriptions ran along its base—names, perhaps, or oaths—most of them worn away by time and blood.
Further in, the carvings changed.
Beasts Victor had never seen before from multi-limbed serpents with halos of fire to winged constructs made of crystal and bone, towering humanoids wielding weapons that looked more like concepts than steel.
A past age’s war.
Victor felt no reverence.
Only assessment.
Groups clashed around him.
A pack of cultivators surrounded a horned spirit beast, activating powerful techniques as it roared and charged. Another group dragged a massive carcass across the ground, laughing as they argued over how much it would fetch back in the city.
Further ahead, two cultivators fought each other instead—both wounded, both desperate, neither willing to back down.
Victor walked past them all.
No beast dared approach him.
Even those that did paused as their instincts told them something was wrong, before slinking away into the shadows.
After a while, the crystal spires thinned.
The land ahead darkened.
The air grew heavier.
The end of the Yellow Zone.
Victor slowed—not out of caution, but recognition.
The Red Zone lay beyond with small clouds of red mists seeping out.
Behind him, faint footsteps stopped.
He didn’t turn.
He’d felt the presences a while back. They were careful but not careful enough. They’d tailed him since the outskirts, drawn by the quality of his robes, the calmness of his stride and the way he never once joined a group.
Predators, mistaking another predator for prey.
When Victor took another step forward, toward the Red Zone boundary, they finally moved.
Four figures leapt out from behind shattered crystal formations with their weapons already drawn while unleashing their cultivation auras.
Two late Core Formation.
One peak Core Formation.
One... early Nascent Soul Realm, barely stabilized.
Their leader who was a scarred man with a hooked spear, grinned broadly. He had the highest cultivation at mid Nascent Soul Realm.
"Kid," he said while spreading his arms, "we noticed you’ve got a death wish."
The others chuckled, fanning out slightly to block Victor’s retreat.
The early Nascent Soul cultivator eyed Victor with open disbelief.
"You’re really heading into the Red Zone like that? Alone?"
Victor stopped and slowly turned around without saying a word.
The men stiffened.
There was something about his expression that made their smiles falter. He was too calm...
"We won’t stop you," the leader continued, forcing confidence back into his voice. "But before you go throwing your life away, how about you hand over anything valuable you’re carrying?"
He raised his spear, while surrounding it with qi.
"Consider it... a mercy."
Victor looked at each of them in turn and smiled.
"I was starting to wonder," he said calmly, "when you were going to show your ugly faces."
The air shifted.
The rogue cultivators felt it immediately—an instinctive tightening in their chests, as though something vast had stirred just beneath the surface.
The Nascent Soul cultivator’s eyes widened.
"...Wait."
Victor took a single step forward and the ground creaked like a structure suddenly bearing weight far beyond its design.
"You followed me this far," Victor continued with a low voice. "because you thought I was weak."
His aura still read as Core Formation but the assailants realized that something was obviously off.
"You mistook restraint for vulnerability."
The leader barked a laugh, trying to drown out the unease crawling up his spine.
"Big words for someone about to die!"
He lunged forward and the others followed.
Victor didn’t move.
He didn’t draw his sword.
He didn’t even raise his hand.
He simply released his aura partly.
The pressure slammed outward like an invisible tidal wave.
This section of the Yellow Zone trembled.
The rogue cultivators’ weapons shattered mid-strike with their metal screaming as it twisted apart. The two late Core Formation cultivators were driven straight into the ground with their bodies embedded up to their shoulders as the earth collapsed beneath them.
The peak Core Formation man dropped to his knees with blood spraying from his mouth as his meridians screamed in protest.
The Nascent Soul cultivator felt his soul tremble.
He felt how utterly outclassed he was.
"How—" he gasped in terror as Victor stepped forward.
The leader’s knees hit the ground with a dull, hollow thud.
Just the sheer, overwhelming weight of Victor’s presence pressing down until the man’s body could no longer support itself.
The hooked spear slipped from numb fingers and clattered uselessly against the ground.
Victor stood before him with hands at his sides and robes barely stirring in the turbulent qi he himself was generating.
His expression was calm—almost detached—but his eyes were cold in a way that made the air feel sharper.
The other four weren’t doing any better.
The two half-buried cultivators were trembling violently now with blood bubbling at the corners of their mouths as they struggled just to breathe. Their bones creaked under pressure that wasn’t even fully directed at them.
The early Nascent Soul cultivator was on all fours, shaking like a leaf caught in a storm. His soul trembled inside his body, screaming at him that this was a predator far beyond anything he should have crossed.
Victor looked at them and for the first time since stepping into the Bloodshade Hunting Grounds, his thoughts shifted to people.
As he had come to know, Ascendant Realms wasn’t a game with NPCs and scripted encounters.
This was a real world.
Which meant these men hadn’t just intended to rob him.
They had done this before.
How many had walked this path alone?
How many had been weaker?
How many had begged?
Victor spoke with a low voice.
"I’m killing all of you."
