Beside that cloud of blood stood a white-clad figure, tall and terrifying—an executioner incarnate.
"How dare you!" Tang Hao snapped upright, his face hardening like winter ice, murder in his eyes. "What insolent wretch dares make a scene at the Tang Gate? Come—let us go see exactly what business this is!"
"Yes, Clan Head!" the Second Elder answered, and fell in beside Tang Hao as they strode toward the courtyard.
"Hubby, I should go too," Luo Qionghua said, rising with a tray of tea in her hand. She, too, wanted to see who dared defy the Tang family so brazenly.
Moments later, the party arrived at the main gate. The Fourth Elder Tang Wu, Fifth Elder Tang Zhao, and a hundred Tang scions—summoned by the commotion—had already gathered.
A short distance from the gate, the white-clad youth stood with his hands behind his back, his face as calm and still as wind-stilled water.
At his feet, just outside the Tang gate, lay a corpse—half the flesh of its face stripped away, a grisly mask of exposed bone. The sight was horrific.
When the onlookers recognized the face, a collective intake of breath froze the crowd: the body was Luo Luo.
Luo Qionghua's frame shuddered. Luo Luo was her niece, e—the Luo family's daughter. In Qingfeng C, it is a few who would dare touch her because of her status. Yet this boy had killed her. It was unthinkable.
Tang Hao forced his fury down and demanded, "Who are you to murder at my gate? Do you seek death?"
Lin Yi's voice was flat, indifferent. "I came to the Tang house to demand justice. They stopped me, so I killed them."
Tang Hao's brow tightened. Demand justice? So the boy had been wronged by Tang people—of little consequence, he thought. Many petty enemies had agitated the Tang before. If he'd come looking for death, then let him be killed.
Luo Qionghua's tone turned cold. "Husband, why speak with him? Let me go kill hiAfterwardrds we can investigate his identity and wipe out all his relatives to avenge Luo Luo."
Confident in her Meridian Clearing Realm second-layer cultivation, she expected the task to be effortless.
Tang Hao considered briefly and nodded. "Very well—handle him."
The Second Elder, Tang Tang, stepped forward with a sneer. "Why should the lady soil her hands for a mere ant? I'll take care of this." Though only at the ninth layer of the Bone Forging Realm, he was confident he could deal with some small-family youth.
At that moment, Lin Yi's cold voice cut through the air: "In a hurry to die?"
Before anyone could react, a white streak of light blurred past. The same cold voice thundered near every ear: "If that's the case, I'll kill you all now."
In the stunned silence that followed, Lin Yi's elegant figure already stood before the Second Elder Tang Tang. His fingers closed like blades and struck the center of Tang Tang's brow.
Death filled the air. Tang Tang's face drained of color—only then did he realize how badly he had misjudged this boy. He couldn't react in time; he couldn't even lift a hand.
Crack.
Lin Yi's palm cleaved through Tang Tang's brow like an edge. The elder's skull split from forehead to chin; blood gushed like a ruptured river. Life left him in an instant.
[Killed a Bone Forging Realm cultivator. Violence Points +400.][Violence Points: 11,400.]
Silence fell like a tomb. All eyes stared at the scene, unbelieving. The Ninth-Layer Bone Forging Elder had been felled in a single instant.
Luo Qionghua's scalp tingled with dread. If this youth could dispatch a Meridian Clearing Realm commander and a Bone Forging elder with such ease, then her own mastery—what had she been counting on? Her confidence evaporated.
Tang Hao's face darkened into a mask of killing intent. "Who are you?" he demanded.
Lin Yi tightened his grip on the wooden box until it shattered. Crack! The container exploded in his hand.
A severed head rolled across the ground.
When everyone saw its face, their expressions drained—minds emptied of thought.
It was the Grand Elder Tang Yun's head.
So he hadn't been merely lingering in pleasures and running late—he'd been murdered.
Then the implication hit like ice.
The youth before them—could he possibly be…?
Lin Yi said, cool and unhurried, "Now you know who I am."
Tang Hao's eyes widened with fury. He stared fixedly at the rolling head, his teeth chattering with rage. "It was you, you little bastard!"
He could not have imagined the boy's strength; not even Grand Elder Tang Yun had been his match.
"If I'd known, I should've gone to Qingshan myself and killed you long ago!" Tang Hao seethed, full of remorse.
Lin Yi merely shook his head slightly. "If you had gone yourself, the thing in this box would have been your head."
"You insolent brat!" Tang Hao laughed through his wrath. The sound was edged with killing intent. "Let's see—how would you kill me? I'm at the fifth layer of the Meridian Clearing Realm!"
At the last word—boom—a terrifying pressure far exceeding Tang Tang's burst outward from Tang Hao's body.
Meridian Clearing Realm, fifth layer.
The oppressive force made the air feel viscous and heavy. Several Tang elders and Luo Qionghua instinctively retreated a few paces, watching coldly—but without worry. In their view, Tang Hao's cultivation placed him among Qingfeng City's top powers. What chance did that boy have?
Luo Qionghua folded her arms and instructed, "Husband, go easy—don't smash his head. I want his head intact to take back to my brother."
With Luo Luo dead at the Tang estate, only the killer's skull could temper her brother's fury.
Tang Hao's voice was flat. "Don't worry. I can control how much force I use."
He readied himself to strike.
At that instant—whoosh—Lin Yi flashed forward like an arrow from a drawn bow and appeared at Tang Hao's side. His right leg coiled like a steel whip and swept across with a scream that tore the air.
It aimed straight for Tang Hao's waist.
Tang Hao narrowed his eyes, lips curling with contempt. The boy wanted close-quarters combat? Fine—let's try it. He roared and met the attack head-on, raising his right fist and surging his true qi into his arm.
Boom!
Fist met leg with an earth-shattering impact. The stone beneath their feet split; shards and dust erupted like an explosion.
Amid the dust, Lin Yi stood unruffled as a cliff—his posture rock-solid.
Tang Hao's face went ashen in an instant. A horrendous force had been transmitted through the collision, racing up his arm and flooding his whole body.
Crack!
In the stunned eyes of the Tang family, Tang Hao—their clan head and a fifth-layer Meridian Clearing cultivator—exploded like delicate pottery. His body shattered into a cloud of blood and flesh, scattering into the air; not even a scream escaped before life bled out.
[Killed a Meridian Clearing Realm cultivator. Violence Points +600.][Violence Points: 12,000.]
Silence fell—dead and absolute. Everyone stood frozen, faces slack with disbelief. The Tang clan head had been undone in an instant—how could this be?
The elders went white. Luo Qionghua hugged herself, trembling; she had assumed her husband's strength would easily crush the youth. How laughable her earlier caution now seemed.
Lin Yi drew back his foot and said coolly, "I understand your stance toward my kind. You may all die now."
Those words hit like a slab of ice. Faces went numb with hopelessness—no one had expected that offending a boy from Qingshan County would end with the Tang family's ruin.
"It's over. Completely over," Luo Qionghua whispered, shaking.
Before she could beg for mercy, an ancient voice echoed from deep within the Tang compound: "Young man, perhaps you've gone too far?"