In the darkness of the night, Murong Xiaoya's face was pale as snow, her eyes like cold still water, and the black hair she had once had was now entirely crimson. Loose strands brushed against her cheek, and the killing intent that stirred around her in the wind rose like crashing, towering waves.
The elderly man in the brocade robe caught sight of this and a flicker of surprise crossed his eyes, yet his hand did not pause for even an instant. He pressed harder, driving more martial True Qi to lock down Murong Xiaoya from all sides, intent on finishing off this surviving remnant of the Murong family with a single blow.
But Murong Xiaoya's face held no expression. She paid no attention whatsoever to the elderly man's attack.
The molten gold vortexes lit up in her eyes, wind and fire coiling around her. The palm strike the elderly man in the brocade robe had sent down crashed into the ruins beneath her and drove them several feet into the ground, leaving an enormous pit in the shape of a palm print.
Yet though the force of that strike passed straight through her entire body, it did not harm her in the slightest.
Murong Xiaoya stood in the air, her gaze resting quietly on the elderly man in the brocade robe and the others. Her voice was utterly flat as she said, "Tonight, I will send every one of you to the grave alongside the Murong family."
With that, she raised her right hand and closed it slowly into a loose grip. In an instant, every person present, the elderly man in the brocade robe included, felt their heart clench without warning.
The next instant, terror flooded every face.
A crack, then a burst.
In the darkness of the night, every person there, the elderly man in the brocade robe among them, had that terror frozen forever on their face as the life within them rapidly faded.
The elderly man's eyes were fixed on Murong Xiaoya hovering in the air above, disbelief in them to the last. Even in death he could not comprehend how this surviving remnant of the Murong family, someone he could have slapped dead with a single blow, had taken his life in an instant without giving him even the faintest chance to respond.
Murong Xiaoya stepped forward through the air and reached the group in a moment.
She ignored the bodies before her entirely. Visibly, the drifting clouds of blood mist condensed into threads of refined blood and streamed rapidly into her heart.
And as she absorbed the refined blood, her own aura grew stronger still.
Then she raised her hand with a casual sweep. A thin line of red-gold firelight flashed past the bodies before her and was gone.
The corpses of the elderly man in the brocade robe and everyone with him were incinerated in an instant, reduced to ash that drifted down from the air in a soft shower, leaving not a bone behind.
With all of this done, Murong Xiaoya turned and looked toward the direction beyond the Murong estate. Li Musheng and the others had already departed by carriage toward the Tianjin Guards branch office.
Li Musheng, seated inside the carriage, seemed to sense something. He only leaned back against the cushion inside the cab and let out a quiet sigh.
Murong Xiaoya withdrew her gaze and stood suspended in the night air, her wide robes stirring and billowing in the night wind.
Her figure was light as a willow branch, her features delicate and striking, and as her eyes swept slowly across the entire city around her, they were filled with nothing but boundless killing intent.
In the span of a single night, she was no longer the same girl she had been before, the one who had been too anxious around people to speak without her face turning red.
In her heart there was a wound that would never heal, and within that heart raged a hatred so vast and consuming it could not be extinguished.
In that moment, the aura surrounding Murong Xiaoya was one that warned all living things to keep their distance. Her eyes held nothing left but slaughter. She had sworn to kill every member of the four great families and Han Cuiyuan.
And in the next instant, she became a streak of light and was gone from above the Murong estate in a flash.
...
The Yuan family estate, one of the four great families of Sheng Province.
Following the destruction of the Murong family, the Yuan family had suffered no small losses of their own. Many of their disciples and martial artists had been wounded, and at that moment nearly every physician from the Yuan family's own medical hall had gathered inside the estate to tend to the injured.
At the same time, the Yuan family head, the clan elders, and part of the inner circle of the direct lineage were meeting in the family's council hall to deliberate on the aftermath, as well as how to divide the Murong family's assets among the other three great families.
"With Bai Changfeng dead, the four great families should rightly be led by our Yuan family. In this division of the Murong family's holdings, we should receive no less than thirty percent."
A clan elder who had lost an arm, his stump wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, spoke in a low, firm voice.
The killing intent from the night's fighting had not yet left him. His words carried a sharp, dangerous edge, as though if the other three families refused he would be ready to rise and destroy them on the spot.
The Yuan family head slowly shook his head, saying, "Besides the Bai family, I expect the Zhu and Cen families have the same idea as Grand-Uncle. But we have already been badly weakened. We cannot afford to turn on one another now. If we do, we will only invite other martial world powers to move in and take advantage of the void."
At those words, the Yuan family patriarch, who had been sitting at the head of the room drawing in the True Qi of heaven and earth to restore himself at a prodigious rate, slowly opened his eyes and said, "The Murong family was the foremost martial household in Sheng Province. A colossus like that, even divided equally among the four of us, would surpass everything we have accumulated over the past few decades. There is no reason to let the division sour our relations."
"Furthermore, what the family head says is sound. Above the martial world of all of Sheng Province looms Falling God Peak, a power we can see but never hope to reach. We have paid our annual tribute each year and maintained an uneasy peace, but now that the strength of all four families has been gravely diminished, there is no guarantee they have no designs on Sheng Province."
At those words, no one in the Yuan family said anything more. It was not only because the patriarch had spoken. They were none of them foolish, and they knew well enough what the right choice was in the present situation.
The Yuan family truly could not afford any further upheaval. Recuperating and restoring their strength was the only sensible course.
"Patriarch, how serious are your injuries?"
The Yuan family head looked toward the patriarch and asked with concern.
The patriarch waved a hand, saying, "The secret technique Murong Hong used at the end was truly formidable, but it was not his own power after all. We put him down without much more than minor wounds."
"In truth, before we set out, what I feared most were those two old ones from the Murong family. But it turned out that, for whatever reason, the two of them were already gone before the night even began."
The patriarch let out a cold laugh and said, "Had we known, we should have moved against the Murong family sooner. We let them put on an act and hold out all this time for nothing."
The Yuan family head nodded in agreement, saying, "If we are being candid, we owe a great deal to Bai Changfeng. If he had not insisted on pushing us to encircle and destroy the Murong family, we might never have learned the truth of what the Murong family actually was."
The patriarch's gaze shifted at that, and he said, "Speaking of which, the powerful figure who killed Bai Changfeng with a single finger seemed to have some connection to the Murong family..."
Before he could finish, the Yuan family head waved a hand, saying, "Patriarch, there is no need for concern. According to what Han Cuiyuan told us, that group is from the Great Li court. In all likelihood they will not involve themselves in the affairs of the martial world. And even if they wished to avenge the Murong family, they would have to weigh the consequences of facing all four of our families together."
The patriarch gave a slight nod and said no more.