The Fang Ancestral Hall had always been protected by the Crane Spirit Formation. But the masters of the Fang clan were loath to use it except in dire need — each activation consumed Dao Essence Stones, and those rare treasures were not something the Fang clan held in great stock. One stone gone meant one stone less.
Yet now, facing the notorious Swallow-Heart Human Demon, the white-haired old man dared not close his eyes even in death.
He could not bear to imagine it — if he himself had been killed in a single blow, how long could the rest of the Fang clan hold out? Would those enshrined protector-adepts the Fang clan kept truly risk their lives for them?
Within this hall were enshrined the Fang ancestors, line upon line, the very root of the family.
So even on the verge of death, he had to do something before he was fully dead.
He pinned his hopes on the Crane Spirit Formation, which had guarded the hall for so many years, to entrap Xiong Wen. At best, it would hold until the Dao Essence Stones ran dry. By then, word would have surely reached the City Lord's Mansion.
He believed that Wei Quji, though stern to the point of harshness, would not hold back in a matter of such great right and wrong.
The Fang clan would be saved!
The white-haired old man, his heart torn out, was dead. Yet even so, he stared straight at the night sky, his eyes unclosed.
Xiong Wen flew into a rage, but his mind was also reeling.
Burdened by such a fearsome reputation, he had weathered countless hunts. Randomly shifting his hiding place was his habit — for if he himself did not know where he would hide next, his pursuers would have no logic to follow.
But he had never expected that a most ordinary random shift of hiding place would meet with one mishap after another.
He had memorized the face of that sword-wielding little thief, but at this moment he finally decided to leave first. Being in Fenglin City, he could only suppress his killing intent for now.
But the Crane Spirit Formation cared nothing for his thoughts. Within its entire reach, Xiong Wen was the only one whose fierce energy blazed so brightly. The crane's phantom at the top of the clear radiance spread its wings and shrieked, driving straight at Xiong Wen.
Xiong Wen's body was instantly shrouded in a layer of blood mist.
He rose from the ground, and blood flames ignited around his fists.
Wherever the blood mist touched, the ground turned black and withered, dead leaves rotted. Where the blood flame burned, even the air seemed to dissolve.
And it was with that fist wrapped in blood flame that he met the crane's sharp beak in a savage, naked clash!
The crane's phantom shattered in an instant, and the clear radiance enveloping the hall scattered with it.
The commotion inside the hall startled quite a few people.
The first to arrive were two protector-adepts of the Fang clan, both ninth-grade Meridian Traveling cultivators, followed by the nearby Fang guards. But they all halted far off, cowed by the figure that had shattered the crane from midair, not daring to take a step.
That strongman wrapped in blood mist, his fists wreathed in blood flame, only lowered his head to glance at them — a glance suppressed, yet vicious and savage.
By his true nature, Xiong Wen would have slaughtered everyone in sight. But he could tell what was urgent and what was not. So suddenly the blood flame dispersed, the blood mist faded, and like a stone falling to the ground, he plunged into the shadows and vanished from everyone's sight.
All around the Fang Ancestral Hall, silence reigned. Even empty bluster, no one dared to utter.
Fang Zehou and his son naturally rushed to the scene as well, but they too stood silent as statues.
The Fang clan was one of the three great clans of Fenglin City, with a face and a presence of their own. Yet to a strongman like Xiong Wen, they were fragile as dried grass. He had broken into their ancestral lands and hall, killed their hall keeper, shattered their guarding formation — and all they could do was watch.
The night was so disgraceful. Stretches of ink-black dragged across the sky, and everyone stood quiet as a backdrop in a play.
A spark of fire appeared.
It was faint, like a single ember that bursts forth when a log in a hearth fire gives a crackling pop. But it brought light to this night.
Then, only then, came the deafening roar.
Only now did the crowd see that the spark was not a spark at all, but the very tip of a spear.
The whole spear pierced through the darkness, its tail held in a long, powerful hand, attached to a man whose black hair scattered like ink and whose face was so sharp one dared not look upon it directly.
Whether it was the spear carrying the man, or the man hurling the spear, man and spear together crashed to the ground with an air of tearing the night apart.
The shadow shattered.
Xiong Wen, the Swallow-Heart Human Demon, sprang up from the broken shadow, blood mist surging around him, and said through gritted teeth: "Zhu Weiwo!"
It was him — Zhu Weiwo!
This spear was the Ember-Spending Spear, famed throughout Qinghe Commandery.
Xiong Wen let out a strange howl, and blood tears suddenly fell from both his eyes.
From Sanshan City to Fenglin City, he had exchanged blows with Zhu Weiwo no fewer than ten times. From condescension and contempt at first, to caution and vigilance later, and now even to a fear he would absolutely never admit.
This fellow's strength improved too fast — virtually every battle sent him a step higher.
Else why would he, the great Swallow-Heart Human Demon, be driven to hide and skulk?
Now that Zhu Weiwo had forced him out with a single spear thrust, he too chose to risk everything at the first moment.
The blood tears fell. The blood flame that had covered only his fists suddenly surged, blanketing his whole body.
But Zhu Weiwo only answered with a dazzling smile: "Got you!"
His body leaned forward slightly, his right hand gave a light flick, and the spear tip buried in the ground swept upward.
Starting from his spear tip, cracked ground, bricks, and dirt surged up like a straight line, like a great earth-dragon rolling over.
Xiong Wen walked on the empty air within the shroud of his blood flame, ignoring the earth-dragon that writhed toward him. Every bit of broken brick and dirt was corroded to nothing on contact with the blood flame.
The soul-devouring blood flame of the Blood River Sect was indeed that sinister and tyrannical. Its most terrifying aspect, of course, was devouring souls. And Xiong Wen had now boosted it with the desperate secret art, the Cuckoo Weeps Blood, adding seven-tenths more power!
Face to face with Xiong Wen's full-bore eruption, Zhu Weiwo did not dodge, did not evade.
His hand flicked, the spear tip aimed at Xiong Wen, his body facing him directly.
"That fine thing called the Cuckoo Weeps Blood, and you howl it out so ugly!"
He charged instead!
In an instant, flame erupted with the spear tip at its center, and a sea of fire was born beneath the night sky.
Zhu Weiwo advanced, bringing the sea of fire with him.
Blood flame and sea of fire collided. Spear tip and fist clashed.
Zhu Weiwo and Xiong Wen struggled with all their might!
Xiong Wen stood west, facing east. Zhu Weiwo stood east, facing west.
Xiong Wen dove from above, downward. Zhu Weiwo drove up from below, thrusting upward.
Opposed to the death, resolved to settle it in one strike!
Victory was decided in an instant.
The blood flame was "quenched" by the sea of fire, and the entire sea of fire was, in turn, corroded by more than half on a single touch.
But the outcome was set regardless.
This clash's ending had been preordained from the moment Xiong Wen first chose to flee.
The sea of fire rolled forward swiftly, and Xiong Wen retreated at full speed.
Scorched by the flame, his black robe was burned away for the most part, revealing that glaring bald head.
Blood seeped from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth — all seven orifices. It made his already vicious face even more hideous and ghastly.
He put all his strength into retreat, yet kept his eyes fixed on Zhu Weiwo's.
There was no way he would dare turn his back now.
When he had run amok in Sanshan City and shaken off the Office of Inquiry, he had already been badly wounded. Yet this fellow, alone with a single spear, had locked onto him.
After a few exchanges, sensing something amiss, Xiong Wen had resolved to slip away and heal. But Zhu Weiwo stuck like a bone to one's flesh, impossible to shake off.
From Sanshan City onward, he had fled, and fled, with no time to heal at all. His old wounds barely closed before new ones were added, until at last he was in such grave condition.
He resolved that if he escaped this time, he would cast aside all pride, forget all thoughts of freedom, and beg the boss to save his life. And then he would bathe Fenglin City in blood, exterminate every generation of Zhu Weiwo's ancestors, and also that cunning sword-wielding little thief — he would butcher their entire households!
His thoughts churned like a storm, his hatred too deep to dissolve, Xiong Wen stared straight into Zhu Weiwo's eyes.
In those eyes, bright as spear light, he saw a thread of purple.
Purple Qi from the East!
The Son of Heaven rises and draws his sword, and the purple qi comes from the east; all the feudal lords gaze westward!