The corpse lay sprawled in blood, eyes still wide open as though its owner had not yet accepted death.
Wang Chong, who had just been knocked away, dragged himself up from the ground, and froze when he heard Ye Yu's cold voice of judgment.
Was Ye Yu going to kill them?
Where was Elder Liu?
Wasn't Elder Liu here to protect them?
With Elder Liu backing them, how could Ye Yu possibly touch them?
But as Wang Chong pushed himself upright, his eyes landed on a blood-soaked corpse with its eyes wide open.
He stared at it, puzzled. "This corpse looks familiar... haven't I seen this face before?"
He leaned in for a closer look.
"Isn't that Elder Liu?!"
"Elder Liu is dead?!"
How was that possible? Who had killed him? Who among those present had the power to kill a Martial King, and the nerve to make an enemy of the Kaoshan Sect?
Then Wang Chong remembered the black-clad figure he had glimpsed before being struck down. He looked past Ye Yu and sure enough, a man in black stood silently at his back.
Thinking back to Ye Yu's cold pronouncement, and looking now at Elder Liu's corpse with its staring eyes, Wang Chong understood everything.
While he had been unconscious, the man in black had defeated Elder Liu and killed him.
And now Ye Yu had turned his blade on them.
With his mind made up to kill, Ye Yu would show no mercy. There was no way out.
"No. Absolutely not. I have to survive!"
Throwing caution aside, Wang Chong scrambled to his feet and shouted, "My brother Wang Teng has the makings of a Martial Emperor! You can't kill me!"
Wang Chong's father, Wang Long, suddenly remembered that his other son had recently been taken on as a personal disciple by the leader of the Kaoshan Sect himself. He joined in at once: "Chong'er is right! My son Wang Teng has the potential to become a Martial Emperor, how dare you lay a hand on us?!"
Father and son invoked the name with absolute confidence, certain that Ye Yu would back down the moment he heard it.
The rest of the Wang and Liu families clutched at the lifeline like drowning men. They cried out together: "Yes! Young Master Wang Teng is the greatest genius Songyang City has ever produced! He has been personally accepted as a disciple by the Kaoshan Sect Leader himself. A future Martial Emperor stands behind us, think carefully before you act!"
With Wang Teng's name as their shield, they believed Ye Yu would not dare touch them.
Bolstered by that belief, the members of both families straightened their backs once more, as though the sight of Elder Liu being felled in a single strike had never happened.
Ye Yu's lips curved into a cold sneer. "So that is what you're counting on?"
"Then know this, under these heavens, there is no mercy for you."
The moment the words left his mouth, the black-clad man behind Ye Yu released a crushing pressure that rolled out over the Wang and Liu families like a tide.
The oppressive force drove them to the ground, robbing them of breath. They felt their meridians snapping inch by inch, their bones and organs crumbling under the weight, the flame of life guttering out in excruciating, drawn-out agony.
No one could believe that Ye Yu had moved against them even after hearing Wang Teng's name.
Wasn't he afraid of a future Martial Emperor's wrath?
It was Wang Teng. A future Martial Emperor. Being marked by such a person would be a catastrophic fate.
In the crowd, Wang Chong refused to give up even as the pain robbed him of breath. He glared at Ye Yu with burning, hateful eyes and rasped, "My brother Wang Teng... has the talent of a Martial Emperor... you can't kill me..."
At the same time, Liu Ruyan, the former fiancée of the former Ye Yu, cried out, "Ye Yu, I was forced! Wang Chong forced me into all of this! Please, let me go..."
Her voice broke apart as the pain twisted her face beyond recognition, but she kept begging, kept reaching toward Ye Yu for any scrap of mercy.
He never once looked at her.
She would never know, in whatever remained of her final moments, that the Ye Yu standing before her was no longer the one she had known.
The Wang and Liu families were wiped out to the last. Every cry, every groan fell silent.
Not a trace remained. Even some of the servants lingering in the City Lord's Mansion found themselves wondering whether any of it had truly happened.
But when their eyes drifted back to Ye Yu, and to the black-clad figure standing at his back, they knew. It was real. All of it.
Every member of the Wang family, dead.
Every member of the Liu family, dead.
Even Elder Liu of the Kaoshan Sect, dead.
It all felt faintly unreal.
---
Once the matter was settled, Ye Hao turned to his son.
"Yu'er, who exactly is this senior?"
"Father, he is the guardian left to me by my master."
Ye Yu then told Ye Hao about Wang Chong's ambush, weaving in a fabrication: that he had been saved at the last moment by a powerful figure who had taken him on as a disciple, and that his inability to cultivate had never been due to a crippled body, his constitution simply hadn't awakened yet. On the verge of death, the awakening had finally been triggered, and his master had recognized his potential.
(A/N: Literally every typical eastern story nowadays. -_-)
"A special constitution? Yu'er, is that truly the case?" Ye Hao looked uncertain.
In response, Ye Yu quietly released a trace of the divine body's aura. The power poured out, and then, under Ye Yu's precise control, swept around Ye Hao without touching him.
Even so, Ye Hao felt it. It was as though the roars of dragons and tigers were reverberating through the air. The sheer pressure made his heart tremble.
Ye Hao was no great scholar of rare physiques, but his instincts told him clearly, whatever his son possessed, it was something extraordinary. Perhaps a spirit body.
He laughed with deep satisfaction and clapped Ye Yu on the shoulder. "My son is a genius after all. A spirit body, truly remarkable."
A spirit body?
Ye Yu paused, faintly amused. A spirit body was a passable talent by ordinary standards, but to him it was barely worth noting. Still, his father had drawn his own conclusions, and Ye Yu saw no reason to correct him.
Besides, if Ye Yu wished it, any physique in existence could manifest in him at will.
It was fortunate Ye Hao didn't realize Ye Yu had been simulating a divine body's aura. The shock might have been too much for him.
---
*[Meanwhile, Kaoshan Sect, Hall of Fate Tablets.]*
With a sharp crack, Elder Liu's fate tablet shattered.
The two disciples dozing on duty jolted awake.
"What was that?"
One of them looked around blearily, then spotted the broken tablet. His eyes went wide. "It's Elder Liu's fate tablet! It's shattered, go report to the Sect Leader, now!"
The other disciple was already on his feet. He sprinted from the hall and made straight for the main hall.
"Sect Leader! Something terrible has happened!"
Inside, Sect Leader Yun Yu was in the middle of a discussion with a group of elders regarding the Jade Secret Realm. The interruption drew an irritated scowl. "What is all the commotion about?!"
The disciple didn't slow down. "Sect Leader, Elder Liu's fate tablet is broken!"
The teacup in Yun Yu's hand exploded.
"Elder Liu... There is only one elder in the Kaoshan Sect by that name, Elder Liu Rong, newly promoted to Martial King and admitted to the Inner Sect not long ago."
"He's dead?!"
"How is that possible?"
"He was a Martial King!"
Even within the full breadth of the Kaoshan Sect, Martial Kings were few and precious.
And now one of them was gone.