The Night of Slaughter

Xiao Chen's decision was utterly mad. He would not merely challenge them—he would kill them all. Battle after battle. Ten consecutive battles. He would push past his limits in extreme life-or-death combat, break through into a broader realm, and achieve the transformation and sublimation of both his physical body and his divine consciousness.

But if he made even a single misstep, he might die tonight in Heavenly Emperor City.

Dusk came swiftly. The fat man and Hai Yuntian had already sent people to scout out the residences of most of his targets.

Xiao Chen stood alone in the courtyard, watching the fading glow of the setting sun. After tonight's battle, he might open the treasure gate of his body. Or he might be gravely wounded, teetering on the edge of death, like this setting sun that would not linger much longer.

He desperately needed this fight. He did not want to accomplish nothing in his limited time. Reaching the realm of Deathless Longevity by the age of forty-five—how could that be easy? He had not a single moment to waste. His finite life could not be squandered. He had to become the strongest in the shortest possible time.

Whoosh.

The air in the courtyard flowed rapidly as a streak of white light shot through the air. The small white-shelled turtle landed on the ground, its face actually full of vivid human expression. Right now, it seemed furious. It raced around the courtyard at a speed like the wind.

Then it fixed its bright black eyes on the ginseng peels scattered on the ground and crawled over slowly, its face filled with unwillingness, regret, and irritation.

Then it actually stood upright, like a little person no taller than a palm, its eyes sweeping across the faces of everyone in the courtyard—including Keke and the Little Defiant Dragon.

"Hey, a white-shelled turtle! Could this be the spirit turtle that guarded the ginseng?" The fat man stared at the mysterious little turtle in great surprise. "When I bought that ginseng, the seller said the white-shelled turtle had already been sold off separately by the digger. How could it appear here? What a pity. If I could stew that white-shelled turtle together with the ginseng, it would be a supreme tonic!"

Whoosh.

The white-shelled turtle leaped like lightning, then stood upright in the air, twisted its waist, bent its arm, and struck out two quick punches.

Thump, thump.

"Oww…"

Both punches landed squarely on the fat man's eyes. Zhuge Liang let out a wolf-like howl of pain. Enraged and mortified, he shouted, "What the hell kind of turtle is this? It knows how to punch?!"

The fat man's eyes were black and completely swollen, like a panda's.

"Damn it, I got hit by a turtle!" The fat man was truly furious. Such an unbelievable thing had actually happened to him—utterly unimaginable.

Xiao Chen and Hai Yuntian burst out laughing. The snow-white little beast Keke was already rolling on the ground in laughter. Only the Little Defiant Dragon stared fixedly at the white-shelled turtle.

"I'll stomp you!" The enraged fat man lifted his foot to stomp on the little turtle standing upright on the ground.

Whoosh.

"Oww…"

Zhuge Liang got hit again. The white-shelled turtle leaped up, swift as the wind, and swung its little fist violently, striking the fat man right on the nose.

"Dammit, I'm bleeding! I'm actually bleeding! I got punched in the nose by a turtle?!" The fat man howled in pain. He could hardly believe such an outrageous thing. He glared furiously at the little turtle, while the white-shelled turtle glared back at him indignantly. The scene was almost comical.

"You damned turtle bastard! Where the hell did you come from, you freak? I've never seen anything so bizarre!" The fat man turned his glare on Xiao Chen and Hai Yuntian. "You two are still laughing? Get over here and catch this turtle! It's a monster! Damn it, I got beaten up by a turtle, and you're not helping me?!"

"Alright, I recognize this turtle. You might have been beaten by it, but it's no disgrace." Xiao Chen knew that this was no ordinary turtle—it was a dragon!

"No way! I can't let it go!" The fat man refused to drop the matter.

Hai Yuntian found it amusing and reached out to grab the little turtle. But with two muffled thuds, his face also took two punches. The white-shelled turtle was simply too fast, blurring the eye and leaving no trace of its movement.

"A freak! A real freak! Even Hai the pretty boy got hit by a little turtle!" The fat man was at a loss for words.

Xiao Chen was also astonished. The little turtle had indeed reached an unbelievable level of speed. If it could bring its strength up to match, it would become a truly terrifying existence.

The white-shelled turtle paced angrily around the courtyard a few times, looked regretfully at the ginseng peels one last time, then glanced at the Little Defiant Dragon and Keke, and finally shot away like the wind.

With this interruption, night had fallen. Xiao Chen had already adjusted his body to its peak state. He rose into the air and flew at extreme speed through the darkness.

First target: Prince Li's Palace.

There, three outstanding young experts of Tianluo were staying: Wu Xingfeng, Li Daoyuan, and Liu Ziliang. They were the three strongest young fighters of the Tianluo Kingdom under the age of twenty-five.

Looking down at Heavenly Emperor City from the sky, layers of dragon qi seemed to shroud the land. It truly appeared to be a naturally formed imperial city. Ten thousand household lamps blazed brightly, and beneath the dragon-shaped clouds, everything was resplendent.

Moving like the wind, Xiao Chen cut through the night sky, leaving several afterimages as he entered Prince Li's Palace.

It must be said that the Zhuge family and the Hai family wielded tremendous influence—they had completely mapped out the palace's layout. Following the information he had, Xiao Chen advanced straight ahead.

He drifted down like a leaf, landing silently in a courtyard. Night-blooming jasmine wafted its fragrance on the wind, filling the whole courtyard with its scent. He plucked a petal, carved four characters onto it: Come out and fight. Then he flicked it into the brightly lit room.

Whoosh.

Almost at the same moment, a human figure shot out of the house, appearing before Xiao Chen like a ghost.

Xiao Chen shot straight up into the sky, and the shadow behind him followed closely, flying high into the air. At the same time, another figure silently rose into the dark sky from a hiding place.

Once far from the ground, a cold laugh echoed in the high sky: "Xiao Chen, have you come to seek death? Three days ago, that beam of death-light at the city gate failed to take your life. And now, three days later, you're so eager to deliver yourself to me? I was just about to go looking for you!"

The speaker was Li Daoyuan, one of the three young experts of Tianluo—an exceptionally powerful spiritist.

"Less nonsense. Today, I came to kill. I don't go back until I see blood." Xiao Chen was fighting for the sake of battle itself. He said no more, spread his Undying Wings, and charged forward like a shooting star.

His opening move was the Collapse technique. The Four Killing Moves each contained the imprint of supreme Dao—they were techniques that shook the ages, unmatched in power.

Crack…

The technique approached the Dao itself. Countless energy beams tore through the air like hundreds or thousands of lightning bolts dancing wildly.

"Hmph! Before my Death Light, all your so-called ultimate killing moves are as fragile as clay and rotten wood—they can't withstand even a single strike!" Li Daoyuan laughed coldly, his form moving like a specter as he rushed forward. "Death Light!"

In the pitch-black night sky, a blinding beam of light ripped through the darkness and swept toward Xiao Chen. This was a very rare ability—the Annihilation Light, a power that specifically drained life force, as terrifying as the Grim Reaper's scythe.

They collided without sound, and then an enormous wave of energy violently surged. The entire sky seemed to turn into churning boiling water. The heavens themselves shook, and the mighty energy wave sent both Xiao Chen and Li Daoyuan flying backward.

The blinding light in the night sky hung like a sun.

As he flew back, Xiao Chen quickly steadied himself, then merged his entire being with the broken blade in his hand. He swept across the sky, annihilating everything in his path, piercing through the layered waves of energy, and struck directly at Li Daoyuan.

The brilliant light of the blade was like the Milky Way falling from the Nine Heavens, a gigantic, dazzling cascade. The blade-light vertically descended, cleaving toward Li Daoyuan's head, as if it intended to split him in two.

Li Daoyuan was startled by Xiao Chen's speed. He dodged to one side, and the Annihilation Light erupted forth, a thick deathly aura spreading out. The sky became like a viscous pool of stagnant water that sealed space.

Xiao Chen faced it without fear. His broken blade swept in all directions with grand, sweeping momentum. Wherever the dazzling cascade passed, all the Death Light collapsed.

"No more than this!" Xiao Chen calmly uttered these four words.

Li Daoyuan showed no emotional fluctuation. At that moment, his eyes suddenly flickered with a blood-red light—his pupils and whites had vanished, leaving only two terrible red beams shining out, seeming extraordinarily sinister and frightening in the night sky.

"Power from the Netherworld Hell, merge into my body!" Li Daoyuan's voice was very low but very deep, as if echoing through the Netherworld Hell itself, unspeakably gloomy and terrifying.

Black mist rapidly converged from all directions, enveloping Li Daoyuan completely. Within the endless darkness, only two blood-red points of light shone through, coldly fixed on Xiao Chen, devoid of any human emotion. There was only the aura of destruction and deathly stillness.

Those were no longer human eyes—they were the death-eyes of hell itself!

Li Daoyuan let out a low roar, like a howling evil ghost from the underworld, and charged at Xiao Chen. Boundless nether mist wrapped around him, his entire figure already submerged in absolute darkness.

The black mist surged violently. Li Daoyuan had transformed into a corpse-fiend, abandoning all the arts of a spiritist and rushing in close like a warrior, engaging Xiao Chen in a death-grapple.

Clang! Thump! Clatter!

His body was as hard as refined steel—it no longer seemed to be flesh and blood. When his arm collided with Xiao Chen's broken blade, it produced the sound of metal striking metal.

The black nether mist swirled. Xiao Chen's spiritual perception could not penetrate it to clearly see Li Daoyuan. He could only see a pair of blood-red eyes through the mist, coldly staring at him.

This sight was bizarre. Xiao Chen could no longer sense any life fluctuations from the other man. He seemed to be only a cold corpse—a corpse from hell itself!

Clang! Clang! Clang!…

The deafening sound of blades rang out continuously. Li Daoyuan's ice-cold arm kept striking the side of the broken blade. Both of them had now reached the extreme of speed. A blurry mass of black mist and a slender silhouette kept changing positions, leaving a trail of afterimages.

Cold as a corpse!

Xiao Chen put away the broken blade and used his fists to keep colliding with Li Daoyuan. He discovered that the other man's body temperature was unimaginably low—he could not feel any blood flow. That was the signature of a corpse.

This was an evenly matched fierce battle. Xiao Chen did not care whether Li Daoyuan was man or corpse. He was only seeking a powerful opponent of the same generation. Right now, he felt no unease at the enemy's strength; on the contrary, his battle-fury burned higher and higher.

His hair flew wildly, his strikes were like lightning!

Every stretch of his arm, every lift of his leg, carried the sound of wind and thunder. The heaven and earth's primordial energy seemed to surge because of him!

Slay the Gods!

Thousands upon thousands of tiny, solid blades—each no more than three inches long—shot toward the hellish corpse in front of him.

The sky trembled, and the void itself seemed on the verge of shattering. Now, the Slay the Gods technique was far stronger than before, for Xiao Chen's cultivation deepened every day.

This was a battle-fury from the depths of his soul, entrusted into countless blades and swords.

Shriiiik…

The sound of tearing air was unending. The black mist shrouding Li Daoyuan surged violently, actually condensing into a black vortex, like an ancient ferocious beast opening its maw to devour all the countless rays of light.

Two strange lights shot from Xiao Chen's eyes. This time, he truly saw clearly. Although Li Daoyuan's movements were as fast as lightning, his joints and other parts seemed oddly uncoordinated—as stiff as an old corpse.

Moreover, the space around him was actually cracked. Fine fractures oozed threads of black qi, as if truly connected to another world—the Netherworld Hell!

What kind of ability was this, to borrow the power of hell itself? Xiao Chen could not help but be astonished. But he was not afraid. Such an enemy was truly worth his full effort in a life-or-death battle!

"Ha ha…" Laughter rang out from nearby. The shadow that had been tailing Xiao Chen and Li Daoyuan, hidden in the sky, now revealed itself. He laughed and said: "Li Daoyuan has used the forbidden move 'Hell Corpse.' It seems he's really set on killing. Xiao Chen, you're dead for sure."

Xiao Chen glanced coldly behind him and saw that it was a spellmaster—the same one who had attacked him at the city gate three days ago. This should be the third of Tianluo's three great experts, Liu Ziliang.

Liu Ziliang had no intention of staying out of it. He wiped the smile off his face, and two beams of icy light shot from his eyes. Then he viciously struck. Nine huge bolts of lightning, as thick as a bowl, roared with his incantation and blasted toward Xiao Chen's back. He attacked without mercy, aiming to kill Xiao Chen outright from the start.

He didn't feel that ganging up on Xiao Chen was any disgrace. Instead, he laughed coldly and said: "Surnamed Xiao, I've wanted to finish you off for a long time. I just never had the right chance. Now that Li Daoyuan has fully transformed into a battle-corpse, coupled with me, killing you will be as easy as killing a dog!"

Whoosh.

Xiao Chen spread his Undying Wings, faster than lightning, leaving only an afterimage. He abandoned Li Daoyuan and charged straight into the nine bowl-thick lightning bolts.

He charged through the terrible thunder!

Infinite killing intent blazed in his eyes.