Yun Family vs. Chixiao Sect: Settled with One Move

"Beast King Valley..." The hand Yun Qinglan used to grip her sword trembled slightly. The webbing between her thumb and index finger had split open, and blood trickled down the hilt.

She gritted her teeth and glared at the two groups of people in front of her. Her voice was hoarse from the depletion of her spiritual energy. "How dare you make a move against my Yun family!"

The burly man in red armor leading them—the deputy hall master of the Chixiao Sect's Beast Taming Hall, "Red Wolf"—smiled savagely.

"Yun Qinglan, if you want to blame someone, blame yourself for taking something you shouldn't have. Today, this 'Mist-Hidden Forest' will be your burial ground!"

"Eldest Miss Yun," the one-eyed old man said sinisterly.

"Hand over the Heavenly Star Jade Marrow, and I can let you all die a quick death."

Hearing these words, Yun Qinglan's face suddenly turned deathly pale, and the knuckles gripping the sword hilt turned white.

This Heavenly Star Jade Marrow was obtained after the Yun family expended countless manpower and resources, pulling numerous strings just to get the information from a mysterious intelligence broker.

The Yun family had been stuck at the Nascent Soul Realm for many years, with no one able to break through to the Soul Formation Realm. They were entirely counting on this Heavenly Star Jade Marrow to nurture a Soul Formation grand cultivator, allowing the Yun family to rise to the next level.

For this matter, the entire family kept it strictly confidential, terrified that leaking even the slightest rumor would attract the covetous eyes of other factions.

Little did they know, the intelligence broker had not only sold the information to the Yun family but also to the Chixiao Sect.

"Chixiao Sect!" Yun Qinglan suddenly looked at the one-eyed old man, her eyes full of shock and anger.

"Acting like this, aren't you afraid that my Yun family will use the strength of our entire clan to seek revenge in the future?!"

Elder Ghost Eye threw his head back and laughed loudly, his laughter full of mockery:

"By killing you all and destroying the corpses, even if the Yun family wants to investigate, it will take them quite some time. Once I get the Heavenly Star Jade Marrow and go into seclusion to break through to the Soul Formation Realm... what can your Yun family do to me?!"

A greedy light flickered in his single eye.

Peak Nascent Soul. He had been stuck at this realm for forty-seven years. With less than a hundred years of lifespan remaining, if he couldn't break through soon, he would turn into nothing but a pile of yellow earth.

Therefore, when the intelligence broker sold the news of the "Heavenly Star Jade Marrow" to both the Yun family and Beast King Valley at the same time, he decided almost without hesitation—to rob them!

The reason he dared to take this gamble was that, after observing for some time, he found that the Yun family kept the matter of the Heavenly Star Jade Marrow extremely secretive, not daring to make any public announcements from beginning to end.

He was certain that to maintain secrecy, the Yun family would absolutely not send powerful experts to escort it, but would only send an inconspicuous person to quietly retrieve it.

The Yun family actually only sent out Yun Qinglan, an Eldest Miss at the early Nascent Soul stage, accompanied only by a group of ordinary guards. There wasn't even a late Nascent Soul expert among them.

Truly foolish to the extreme!

What was even more ridiculous was that this group of people vainly hoped their token to summon the family's experts would work.

But he had long since set up an isolation grand array. Let alone the summoning token having any effect, even a mosquito shouldn't dream of flying out of this Mist-Hidden Forest.

"Alright, I won't waste any more words with you." Murderous intent flashed in Elder Ghost Eye's eyes.

"Since our goals are the same, then—"

He struck his walking stick forcefully against the ground.

"Thump!"

The dull sound of the impact was like a strike directly on everyone's heart.

Thick black smoke surged from the eye sockets of the skull at the top of the stick. The black smoke writhed and expanded as if it were alive, transforming in the blink of an eye into a black tide that swept toward the Yun family group.

The burly man in red armor nodded and blew his beast flute.

"Awooo—!"

Three red wolves lunged forward first. They were as fast as lightning, their sharp claws tearing through the air as they pounced directly at the Yun family guards.

"Form the array!"

A middle-aged guard roared.

The remaining guards gritted their teeth and channeled their spiritual energy, deploying a faint golden light barrier around themselves.

But under the dual attacks of the spiritual beasts and chains, the light barrier shook violently, threatening to shatter at any moment.

Yun Qinglan gritted her teeth, pressing the tip of her tongue against her teeth, about to bite down and execute the Yun family's secret blood-burning technique.

This technique could instantly raise her cultivation by a minor realm, but the price was losing all her cultivation for three years and damaging her foundation.

Just as she was preparing to risk her life—

"Tap."

A soft sound.

It was very light, so light it was almost drowned out by the sounds of the slaughter.

But Yun Qinglan heard it clearly.

Because she saw that at the top of the faint golden light barrier—a place that should have been completely empty—a foot had appeared at some unknown point.

The owner of the foot stood steadily on the light barrier, as if it wasn't a shield formed of spiritual energy, but a solid stone floor.

The light barrier didn't even ripple in the slightest, as if the person's weight didn't exist at all.

Yun Qinglan was stunned.

All the guards were stunned.

Even the burly man in red armor and Elder Ghost Eye were stunned.

Because none of them had noticed when this person had appeared.

There were no spiritual energy fluctuations, no spatial fluctuations, not even the slightest sound of wind.

It was as if he had always been standing there, and everyone had only just noticed him.

It was a young man wearing a black robe. His black hair was casually tied behind his head, his face was handsome, and his eyes were calm.

He stood with his hands behind his back, looking down with lowered eyes, as if he were enjoying an insignificant farce.

Elder Ghost Eye was the first to react, shouting sternly:

"Who are you, sir?! This is the Chixiao Sect and Beast King Valley conducting business. Idle people should retreat immediately, otherwise—"

"Kneel down."

Gu Changyuan spoke.

He only said two words.

His voice was not loud; it could even be called gentle. But the moment those two words left his mouth, heaven and earth seemed to freeze.

"Boom—!!!"

The moment his voice fell, an extremely terrifying pressure suddenly erupted from Gu Changyuan's body. Like a towering building collapsing, it instantly enveloped the surroundings.

The people of the Chixiao Sect and Beast King Valley didn't even have a chance to react before they were ruthlessly pressed into the ground by this pressure.

When the words "Kneel down" fell, the skull walking stick in Elder Ghost Eye's hand cracked with a snap.

Unbelievable terror surged in that single eye. He wanted to resist, wanted to circulate his spiritual energy, but his body simply wouldn't obey.

From his knees came the groan of bones unable to bear the heavy burden.

"Bang!"

Elder Ghost Eye's knees smashed into the ground, forming two deep craters.

His entire body was firmly pinned to the ground, his face pressed against the dirt, unable to even lift his head.

Within a radius of a hundred zhang, apart from the inside of the light barrier where the Yun family was, every living creature—whether human or beast—was forced to kneel on the ground!

Silence.

Deathly silence.

The wind blew through the woods, rustling the leaves.

But no one present dared to make a sound, even breathing cautiously.

Yun Qinglan and the guards stood dumbstruck.

They looked at the enemies kneeling all over the ground outside the light barrier, and then at the black-robed youth still standing on top of the barrier. Their minds went completely blank.

What happened?

What did this person say?

"Kneel down"?

And then... everyone knelt?

Without even a struggle, without any room for resistance, it was just like... like a monarch issuing an order that his subjects had no choice but to obey.

The next second, Gu Changyuan took a step forward.

Without using any spiritual energy fluctuations, his figure instantly crossed a distance of several meters from the top of the light barrier and landed steadily on the ground.

"No—!"

The one-eyed old man let out a miserable scream of despair, but before his voice could even fade, he exploded with a bang, turning into a cloud of blood mist.

The others also exploded and died one after another under this pressure, filling the air with a bloody mist.

Only bloodstains remained in the clearing, along with...

"Swish, swish, swish—"

Over twenty streaks of light soared from the bloody mist. These were the storage bags and storage rings previously carried by the deceased.

As if possessing a sentience of their own, they traced elegant arcs through the air, flying over to hover in a neat row right before Gu Changyuan.

Gu Changyuan gave them a casual glance.

With a mere sweep of his divine sense, the contents within the storage spaces were laid entirely bare to him.

Frowning slightly, he gave a dismissive wave of his hand, tossing the storage bags into his own storage space as if they were nothing more than garbage.

He had plundered far too many treasures in the Ruins of Disorder over the past millennium. In his eyes, these items were no different from common pebbles on the side of the road.