Chương 106: Return to the City

Duan Zhonghua's face was a mask of sickly pallor as he watched the receding figure. He spat a glob of bile-flecked phlegm onto the dirt, his eyes burning with a venomous hatred before he turned and vanished in the opposite direction. Half an hour later, he touched down within the secluded confines of his medicinal garden. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he reactivated the surrounding restrictive arrays, sealing himself off from prying eyes.

Only then did a flicker of manic excitement break through his somber expression. He opened his palm, revealing a translucent jade slip that shimmered with a faint, ethereal light.

"Tonight at midnight, we speak in the Yellow Flower Forest." His divine sense swept through the slip, finding only those ten brief words, yet they were enough to ignite a fire of pure ecstasy in his chest.

"Reyn... this time, I will watch you rot in the dirt!" Duan Zhonghua's fingers tightened, his cultivation base surging as he crushed the jade slip into a fine, sparkling dust. His gaze turned glacial, and a thin, cruel smile curled his lips, eventually devolving into a series of jagged, hideous laughs that echoed against the garden walls. Three thousand miles away, a contingent of Xuanxiao Sect cultivators departed under the reverent and envious gazes of the mountain-guarding disciples.

Reyn led the formation, his azure robes snapping like a battle-standard in the high-altitude winds. He moved like a whetted blade carving through the heavy cloud banks. Two figures trailed closely behind him. One was Senior Brother Ma—the man who, a year ago, had been tasked with assigning Reyn that derelict medicinal garden. Ma had since successfully established his Foundation and ascended to the rank of Sect Elder.

He had always treated Reyn with a calculated courtesy, never looking down on him despite his lowly status as a registered disciple. Recognizing Ma's smooth social maneuvering, Reyn had chosen him to be stationed at Thunder Abyss City. The second was Elder Sun, a withered old man with a jaundiced complexion and a skeletal frame. Despite his frail appearance, he was a cultivator at the peak of the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, possessing a terrifyingly refined pool of True Essence.

Further back, eleven Qi Condensation disciples followed in a rigid formation. Among them was Lei Tianqi, huddled at the very rear of the group. His face was gray and sunken, his spirit broken like a stray dog that had narrowly escaped the butcher's block. A year ago, on the Ascension Path, Reyn had kicked him into the abyss. By all rights, he should have been reduced to a pulp of bone and meat.

Yet, through some twisted stroke of luck, he had snagged onto a withered vine on the cliff face, hanging there for three days and nights until a passing herb-gatherer rescued him. Upon returning to the sect, he hadn't dared to utter a word of the truth, claiming he had simply slipped. He had spent the last year gasping for air as a lowly registered disciple, a position bought only by the heavy bribes his father had sent.

Now, with Reyn's star rising like a scorching sun, a single flick of Reyn's finger would be enough to send him into eternal damnation.

"Brother Tianqi is truly blessed to share such a deep bond with Martial Uncle Reyn. Your future is surely paved with gold."

"Indeed. Martial Uncle Reyn is currently the rising sun of our sect, and his talent is nothing short of monstrous. Forming a Golden Core in the future is a certainty. With his protection, it will be hard for Brother Tianqi not to stand above all others."

"The Lei Clan of Thunder Abyss City, under the aegis of our Xuanxiao Sect, will surely flourish for a millennium. All of this is thanks to Martial Uncle Reyn. To have such a brother... we are truly envious."

"We hope Brother Tianqi won't forget us when he rises. If you could say a few kind words to Martial Uncle Reyn on our behalf, we would be eternally grateful." The sycophantic flattery buzzed in his ears like a swarm of persistent flies. Lei Tianqi's facial muscles twitched, his fingernails digging so deep into his palms that they drew blood. Once, he was the pampered scion of the Clan Leader, viewing Reyn as nothing more than a maggot in the mud.

Now, the maggot had ascended as a dragon, and he was merely a worm shivering beneath its claws. He stole a glance at the azure-clad back ahead of him. Reyn never once looked back, appearing entirely indifferent to the fawning voices. But Lei Tianqi saw it—he saw Reyn's right hand, hanging at his side, the knuckles white with a suppressed, bone-deep tension. It was killing intent. A cold, pressurized malice that felt like a dam on the verge of bursting. This book's true home is on another platform.

Check it out there for the real experience. Lei Tianqi shuddered and buried his face deeper into his collar, trying to become invisible. Aside from Lei Tianqi, the lowest cultivation among the group was the 6th level of Qi Condensation. Their flight speed was incomparably faster than the desperate, foot-bound flight Reyn had taken a year ago. The fifteen hundred kilometers between the Xuanxiao Sect and Thunder Abyss City vanished beneath them, and soon, the jagged silhouette of the city appeared on the horizon.

The closer they drew, the colder the aura surrounding Reyn became. Senior Brother Ma and Elder Sun exchanged a glance, both seeing the same grim realization in each other's eyes—this was not a traveler returning home. This was a wolf catching the scent of blood, slowly baring its fangs.

"Elder Lei," Ma ventured cautiously, "we are nearly at Thunder Abyss City. Perhaps you would like to go on ahead?"

"No need," Reyn's voice rasped like sandpaper over rusted iron.

"We go together." His light suddenly imploded, and his body plummeted toward the city like a falling star. Ma and Elder Sun scrambled to follow, the disciples behind them struggling to maintain their formation in the sudden wake of his descent. Above Thunder Abyss City, leaden clouds hung low and heavy. Reyn hovered just beneath the cloud layer, staring down at the familiar sprawl. The streets, the taverns, the pawnshops, the sprawling Lei Clan estate...

everything looked the same, as if the bloodbath from a year ago had never occurred. But he could see it—he saw his mother's brains splattered against the stone lion, he saw his father's head rolling into the snow with eyes wide in shock, he saw the spray of blood as Lei Wanjun's boot kicked that very head aside. His expression remained unreadable. A faint, ghost of a smile even touched his lips, as if he were watching a farce that had nothing to do with him.

But Senior Brother Ma instinctively took a half-step back. He noticed that the snowflakes falling within three feet of Reyn's azure robes were silently vaporizing into mist before they could even touch the fabric.

"Thunder Abyss City," Reyn whispered, his voice so soft it was almost a sigh.

"I am back." In a flash of blue light, he dived straight for the heart of the Lei Clan estate. Inside the Great Hall of the Lei Clan, two factions were locked in a lethal stalemate. Lei Wanjun was slumped in the high seat, his face a jaundiced yellow, his lips crusted with dried blood. To his left stood Lei Wanhe, his right arm bound in a makeshift sling against his chest, clearly shattered.

A group of clan disciples stood in a ragged semi-circle, clutching staves and kitchen knives, their bodies trembling as they shielded their leader. Their pupils were blown wide with terror, reflecting the figure standing before them as if they were staring at a demon god. Cheng Ergui. The Third Elder of the Jinshan Sect, a Foundation Establishment cultivator. He leaned casually against the doorframe, stroking a goatee that looked like a rat's tail.

With his yellowed teeth and shifty, rodent-like eyes, he looked like something that had crawled out of a cesspit. Yet, no one dared to laugh. A flicker of ghastly green flame danced on his fingertip, radiating a heat that made the air in the hall shimmer and burn.

"Lei Wanjun," Cheng Ergui said, digging into his ear with a pinky and flicking a glob of wax toward the floor.

"My patience is wearing thin. I'll give you ten more breaths to hand over the Thunder Astral Scripture and the Thunder-Veined Tiger Tally. Otherwise—" The flame on his finger flared, transforming into a serpent of fire that coiled around the hall's support pillars, "everyone in this room becomes a roasted pig." Lei Wanjun's throat bobbed, a fresh trickle of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.

"Elder Cheng, my Lei Clan has no grievance with your Jinshan Sect. Why must you do this?"

"No grievance?" Cheng Ergui barked a laugh so hard he nearly singed his own beard. He suddenly cut his laughter short, his face twisting into a mask of malice.

"Lei Wanjun, are you still playing the fool? Twenty years ago, by the cold pond, who do you think pushed your father in? A year ago, in this very courtyard, who do you think orchestrated the death of your sister-in-law and the decapitation of your second brother?" Lei Wanjun's pupils shrank to pinpricks, his entire body convulsing.

"You! How do you know this?"

"Because I arranged it all!" Cheng Ergui slapped his thigh, his yellow teeth gleaming with a lecherous light.

"Lei Wanjun, let me tell you—from start to finish, the Jinshan Sect has been pulling the strings! Do you really think a useless waste like Lei Wanren would have had the guts to do it on his own?" A deathly silence fell over the hall. The wound on Lei Wanhe's broken arm split further, blood soaking through the bandages, but he didn't seem to feel it. He stared at Lei Wanjun, his eyes bulging as if they were about to pop from their sockets.

"Brother... is what Cheng Ergui says true?" Lei Wanjun's skin twitched as if thousands of insects were burrowing beneath it. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

"Of course it's true!" Cheng Ergui clapped his hands, the fire serpent above his head blossoming into an eerie green flower.

"Lei Wanjun, the stupidest thing you ever did was believe you were the one in charge. You were never more than a dog for the Jinshan Sect! Now that the dog is useless, the Sect Master has sent me to collect. The people, the gold, and every scrap of legacy the Lei Clan owns now belongs to us!"

"And if you refuse—" Cheng Ergui flicked his finger, and the fire serpent lunged toward a young girl in the crowd!

"Caiyun!" Lei Wanhe roared in despair. The girl froze, the green flames reflecting in her wide, terrified eyes. She couldn't even find the breath to scream. The fire serpent stopped three inches from her nose, frozen in mid-air. It was as if an invisible hand had clamped down on its throat. Cheng Ergui's smirk vanished instantly. He whipped his head around toward the entrance of the hall. A youth in azure robes stood there, his eyes as dark and bottomless as an abyss.

"Keep talking," Reyn's voice rang out, cold as an ice pick striking a jade platter.

"I'm listening."