The Woodcutter's Fatal Miscalculation
By @john1208
For three centuries, Cang-Jue butchered his way to the apex of the Jiu-Gou Expanse. Exhausted by the endless slaughter and paranoia, he deciphered the Primordial Stele, learning that only absolute pacifism could spare him from the impending cosmic event known as the Heavenly Cleansing. Faking his death, he retreated to the lethal Blood-Pine Basin to live as a humble woodcutter. To avoid accidental kills that might ruin his pacifist karma, he manipulated a dying, seventy-year-old beggar named Ma-Duo into doing his manual labor, teaching him an "ergonomic" chopping method that was actually a supreme assassination art. But Ma-Duo refuses to chop wood forever. Believing his cold master is suffering from a crippling curse, the elderly disciple enters the Iron-Bramble Pavilion’s brutal death-matches to win a cure. As Ma-Duo effortlessly decapitates arrogant young prodigies with a rusted hatchet, the cultivation world is thrown into terror by this geriatric monster. Meanwhile, Cang-Jue watches in cold sweat, terrified the Heavens will smite him for his disciple’s body count. Will the paranoid sovereign realize his translation of the Stele was fundamentally flawed, and his pacifism was actually a death sentence?
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