The sun rose over the capital—slow, golden, and entirely too indifferent to the massacre it illuminated.
Beneath the scaffold, the blood from the night before had already turned into a dark, sticky crust upon the packed earth.
Passersby did not dare linger.
They scurried past with heads bowed and sleeves fluttering.
In this city, looking at the dead was the fastest way to join them.
At the Zhang Clan Manor, the silence was louder than any scream.
Zhang Wu—the "Genius of the Century"—lay upon a cold stone .
His eyes were fixed on the rafters in a permanent state of shock.
His mouth was frozen open, as if his soul had been ripped out before he could finish a plea for mercy.
Thud.
Putong, the Zhang Clan Head, collapsed.
His knees hit the stone floor with a bone-chilling crack.
"Who...?" he wheezed.
"Who dared?"
The elders behind him remained silent.
They all knew.
To kill twenty guards and a scion in a single breath was the work of a monster.
"The Yu Clan," Putong hissed, his fingers clawing into the stone until his nails bled.
"It has to be them.
I will pull their compound down stone by stone!"
Across town, the Yu Manor was in chaos of a different kind.
"Father! Father! Something has happened!"
Yu Ping practically flew through the courtyard, tripping over the wooden threshold before scrambling back to his feet.
Yu Dong, the Patriarch, sat in the high chair of the Great Hall, looking like a man who had not slept in a century.
"Ping, enough. Let your brother have some peace in the Yellow Springs."
"No! Father, listen!"
Ping was vibrating with energy.
"Brother Yu Zhou... he is not dead!
The execution failed!
All the guards were slaughtered!
The city is saying a _ Nascent soul Realm_ expert appeared out of thin air to save him!"
Yu Dong froze.
He did not breathe.
_Nascent soul Realm?_
He searched his memories.
He was the head of a falling clan; he had no gold to hire a guard, let alone the status to meet a Nascent soul expert.
"You... you are not lying?"
Yu Dong's voice trembled with a sudden, wild hope.
"The whole city saw the bodies, Father!
The Zhangs are in mourning, but we... we are reborn!"
Yu Dong stood up.
His spine, usually bent by the weight of debts, snapped straight.
"If the Heavens have given my son a protector..."
Boom!
The golden core Realm pressure slammed into the walls of the hall.
Blue qi sparked around him like a brewing storm.
"Inform the Zhangs and the emperor that the Yu Clan is done hiding.
If they want war, they can come and take it!"
Deep in the Forbidden Forest, Yu Zhou looked down at his bare wrists.
The heavy iron shackles were gone, turned to dust by that mysterious stranger's strike.
His skin was bruised and raw, but for the first time in months, his qi felt different.
It was no longer suppressed. It felt lighter and circulating.
He looked inward, into the sanctuary of his soul to check his spirit animal condition, the cause of his weakness.
He couldn't help but remember the day of spirit awakening which he was told that his spirit animal is a lizard , the mocking from his friend, the hidden smile of mockery beneath the guard and maid face, It twisted a piece of his mind.
The "lizard"—that pathetic, grey creature everyone mocked—was no longer curled in a ball.
Now that the suppression of the executioner's chains had vanished, the creature was standing tall.
Its tiny, golden eyes were fixed on the injuries around his wrist then gently lick it , a blue light was formed toward the area and healed it.
At least having a healing spirit animal is cool but the world doesn't care about a healer it needs a warrior.
Swoosh—
An arrow hissed past his ear, thudding into the bark of an ancient tree disrupting his thoughts.
Yu Zhou flinched and activated his _Spiritual Eye._
His vision blurred, then snapped into focus.
Twenty meters away, two figures were dancing through the air with wing behind them —golden core cultivators clashing over a glowing stone.
One fighter was losing, his silk robes soaked in blood.
The other was a relentless machine of destruction.
Suddenly, the losing man pulled out a crimson pill and swallowed it.
The air in the forest turned into a furnace.
The man's qi ignited, power erupting from him like a volcano.
Common sense told Yu Zhou to run.
But his soul told him to stay.
Behind his eyes, the "lizard" hissed—a sound that resonated like a grinding mountain.
It was not fear it felt—it was an _appetite_ that could swallow the sun.
That stone, Yu Zhou thought, his fingers twitching as his spirit began to glow.
_If I can get that stone, my "lizard" will feast._