Ultimate Villain's Return as a Doctor in the Cultivation World-Chapter 223- The Prayer of a Devotee

The crowd’s ambient sound stopped.

The fat man’s belt-undoing fingers stopped.

Everyone looked up.

The sky above the town’s open space was doing something.

The specific, brightening, focal-point-forming, light-concentrating thing the sky did when a cultivator with significant altitude was descending and was not managing the output of their descent.

He was not managing his output.

He was coming down with the flat, present, full-output, completely-unmanaged, intentional-atmospheric-disturbance descent of someone who had decided that the arrival should be visible.

The light.

The flat, full, warm, gold-amber-and-sky-blue, Nascent Soul Mid Stage cultivator’s ambient field at full, unmanaged, point-blank broadcast — the specific, enormous, light-from-the-sky quality of something coming down.

The crowd went to its knees.

Not all at once — the specific, sequential, domino-fall, front-to-back, involuntary kneel of a mortal crowd receiving the ambient pressure of a cultivation senior at full, unmanaged output at close range.

First the front row.

Then the second.

Then the fat man.

His belt was still undone.

He went to his knees with the specific, involuntary, cultivation-pressure-receiving, can’t-resist-this keel of a mortal man whose legs had received information that they were not equipped to process upright.

The slave traders.

The tall one still had the whip.

He went to his knees.

The whip fell.

The fat man from the gold-coin bid.

He went to his knees.

Everyone.

Everyone except her.

She was already on her knees.

She had her face down.

She had not seen him come.

She had heard the thunder.

She had heard the crowd go quiet.

She had felt the pressure — the flat, enormous, warm, ambient, present pressure of something massive arriving in the vicinity — and had received it the way someone who has been in the position she was in for as long as she had been receives an inexplicable change in the environment: by looking up.

She looked up.

He was above her.

Not directly — the specific, five-meter, slightly-to-the-front, fully-visible, morning-light receiving him from every angle hover of a Nascent Soul Mid Stage cultivator who had finished his descent and was standing on the air above the crowd.

She looked at his face.

She had never—

The specific, present, face-receiving, wide-eyed, completely-occupied look of a woman who was looking at a face and was not able to look at anything else.

He looked at the crowd.

At the slave traders.

At the fat man.

At the whip.

"Enough," he said.

His voice.

The flat, present, cultivator’s full-broadcast, no-effort, every-syllable-backed-by-the-qi-architecture-of-someone-who-had-been-refining-this-for-three-thousand-years voice at moderate volume.

At moderate volume, it reached every person in the square at the specific, personal-address clarity of a voice that was speaking directly to each of them individually.

"Mortals," he said.

He looked at the slave traders.

At the fat man.

At the crowd on its knees.

"How dare you sully my devotee."

The flat, present, completely-assembled, God-complex delivery.

He noted, with the internal, flat, private amusement of someone who was watching himself do a thing he had decided to do and finding it proceeding as planned: this was working.

The crowd was in the specific, full-present, completely-occupied, receiving-every-word attention of a group of mortals who had a Nascent Soul Mid Stage cultivator above them at full ambient broadcast and had just heard the word ’devotee.’

The slave traders: on their knees. Not moving. The specific, cultivator-pressure-receiving, can’t-stand, full-weight-down position of mortals in the blast range of an unmanaged Nascent Soul Mid Stage field.

She looked at him.

He looked at her.

The specific, present, full-detail, coming-into-focus look of a man at five meters doing the final close-range Eye of Truth assessment.

What he saw: the lineage.

The specific, warm, yin-dense, near-manifestation, pre-final-expression lineage depth he had been thinking about since the abandoned sect.

Confirmed.

He also saw: the finger marks.

The flat, warm-brown-skin, dark-finger-shaped marks at her wrists where the tall slave trader had held her. At her shoulders where other hands had been. The specific, present, honest, skin-level evidence of everything that had happened in the square this morning.

He saw her face.

Not what he had expected.

He had been thinking ’lineage’ and ’cultivation-genetics’ and ’near-manifestation physique’.

He looked at her face.

She was — not the yin-ghost quality of her daughter, not the pale, translucent, power-having quality of a physique-carrier. She was the warmth underneath it — the specific, warm, dense, full-present, thirty-something reality of a woman who had been alive in a cultivation world for three decades and whose face carried the specific, warm, full-boned, amber-eyed, present quality of someone who had built something and had it taken and was still here.

She was crying.

Still.

But now — her hands were clasped.

The specific, present, both-hands-together, full-contact, everything-available prayer-clasp of someone who had just received what she had asked for from whoever she had asked it from.

"God," she said.

The flat, one-word, completely-sincere, I-meant-it delivery of a woman who had said ’please’ to the air ten seconds ago and had received an answer.

He looked at her.

He descended.

The flat, present, final-two-meters, step-onto-solid-ground, sky-blue-robe landing of a man whose feet found the square’s surface and stopped.

He looked at her face.

He stretched his hand.

She looked at his hand.

She looked at his face.

The specific, full-present, closest-she-had-been, no-more-five-meters, here-in-front-of-her reality of a face that was — she was noting this, he could see her noting this — a face.

She looked at him with the specific, wide-eyed, present, involuntary, honest expression of a woman who had been in the situation she had been in and had looked up and had found something she had not expected to find.

He let her look.

"Tell me," he said.

The flat, present, physician’s delivery.

He looked at the square.

At the crowd on its knees.

At the fat man.

At the slave traders.

"Do you want to see my justice fall on them," he said.

He looked at her.

"Or do you simply want the end you asked for."

She looked at him.

She looked at the slave traders.

At the fat man with the undone belt.

At the crowd.

At the whip on the ground.

She looked back at him.

Her hands were still clasped.

Her face was still wet.

She breathed.

"Please," she said.

The flat, present, third ’please’ of the morning — this one different from the previous two, different from the square’s ’please’ and different from the air’s ’please’, the specific, present, direct, to-him ’please’ of a woman who had decided she was asking a specific person and was asking them specifically.

"Help me," she said.

"My lord."