"Let him go. I won't regret it anymore—I'll marry into the Yang family.""It's too late. I won't let him go, and you'll still marry into the Yangs!""Tang Xiangui, I—""Shut up!" Tang Xiangui's roar cut her off. "He dies today."
"Who dies today?" a mocking voice called from behind the tower.
Tang Xiangui forced a smile as an elderly man and a younger companion strolled up the steps. The younger man sneered openly at Tang Shirou. She turned her face away with a shudder—the youth was Yang Kai, the fiancé her family had chosen for her.
"Hahaha, Shirou still so tsundere," Yang Kai crowed, his grin greasy with intent. Old Master Yang barked a laugh beside him. "We'll have our fun after she's married in. Once she wears the Yang name, she's ours to train."
Tang Xiangui laughed along, and the spectacle crushed Tang Shirou anew. The leering looks from father and son made her stomach turn.
"This fight's getting interesting," Yang Kai said, leaning over the railing to peer at the plain below. "That man out there must be the scoundrel who'd been with her." He glanced at Tang Shirou with a leer. "Master Tang, why aren't your sons using everything? Are they holding back?"
Tang Xiangui barked an answer: "Not at all—this man isn't easy. If you don't finish him in ten minutes, you'll pay with your lives!" He slammed his fist down. "Firepower coverage—annihilate him!"
The Ten Sons erupted into motion. Ten pillars of energy rocketed skyward; their orders were absolute. "Die for me!"
The first to charge was Scorpion—his glove-tipped stingers flashing with cold light. Chen Xiao snorted and the Water Longsword answered: the blade, no longer sluggish, erupted in a spectral arc that split the air. With an instant crack Scorpion's assault shattered; he was hurled backward, blood spraying. [Evolution Points +110]
Next came Crocodile. He launched Death Roll, a whirling vortex that consumed sand and wind. Chen Xiao didn't back away—he planted the sword horizontally, braced, and activated Dragon's Breath. The longsword plunged into the spinning maelstrom without hesitation. The vortex collapsed with a muffled roar. [Evolution Points +120]
Two down in the blink of an eye. The command left no room to retreat, yet the slaughter was unstoppable.
Chen Xiao flashed, appearing behind a woman in black robes. "Your skill is strong, but you picked the wrong target." The woman—whose Butterfly Enchantment usually wove illusions and froze the nerves—went pale. Whatever charm she used, it did nothing to him. He pierced through the illusion and her flesh. [Evolution Points +90]
"Next." Chen Xiao's longsword pointed. Ant, one of the Ten, stepped forward and bellowed his signature: "Ant God Strike!" A talent Chen Xiao knew well—like Lü Xingji's. Chen Xiao's blade moved like a guillotine and severed Ant's head cleanly. [Evolution Points +110]
"Next!" With that cry the rest scattered, panic finally overtaking bravado. They had not expected the mission to be a suicide run against a god of death.
On the watchtower Tang Shirou watched with eyes full of worship. If she had to be given away to the Yangs, then at least—let him live. He was the only sliver of hope she had left.
Yang Kai's expression soured as he noticed whom Tang Shirou stared at. Tang Xiangui's fury deepened: four of his costly "sons" had been wiped out in an instant. That loss could not be forgiven.
"Transmit my order! Open fire! Annihilate that brat!" Tang Xiangui roared. The Yang family's artillery was to be shown in all its glory; this showing would mark Tang's ascendancy in the capital.
But then the remaining six Ten Sons broke ranks and fled—Chen Xiao didn't immediately understand why. The top of the city wall glittered with machine-gun emplacements, dozens of barrels like a crown of steel. Each muzzle pointed directly at him. The Tang family's trump card wasn't just warriors—it was firepower.
"Chen Xiao! Run!" an urgent voice cried out.
Chen Xiao's temper flared at the plea. He stomped the ground like a hammer—an enormous tremor burst outward. The earth cracked and the fissures raced like lightning, spreading into a terrifying pattern that blossomed across the battlefield. This was Chen Xiao at full force; he wanted the tower leveled, every threat crushed.
"What kind of power is that?" someone shouted. "A monster! Fire!"
A roar answered him from the battlements—an ocean of gunfire. Thousands of bullets erupted in a blinding white storm, a serried net of lead and flame. Chen Xiao's eyes went cold as he surged toward the tower: the bullets congealed into a wall before him, a choking curtain of death.
But in the instant the hail should have struck, everything changed: time seemed to slacken; space bent. The bullets, instead of shredding him, rippled outward as though he stood at the center of a disturbed pond. Each projectile threw off concentric waves, blooming like strange metallic flowers in the air.
They hung there for a breath—an impossible, suspended moment—then cascaded away in rippling arcs. Chen Xiao's figure cleaved through the distorted storm, unharmed, his silhouette a blade of night moving toward their mouths. The machine guns stuttered, their operators frozen by the sudden reversal of their own fire.
On the tower, horror painted every face. Tang Xiangui's rage turned to disbelief. The Tang family's ultimate weapon had been countered—if not for the moment, then in spirit. The spectacle had become a massacre, and the massacre had a name.
Chen Xiao's advance did not halt. The white glare of gunfire receded like a tide—and in the hollow it left, only one thing mattered: he was coming.