I Am a Crane in the Mortal World

At that moment,

Atop the Cloud-Watching Tower,

Another battlefield!

"My son! Xuanxing!!"

Xiao Qian, both legs severed and trapped there by Master Fu's forbidden technique, let out a heart-rending scream.

Her scream sounded as though her very organs were being squeezed out through her throat...

She lay on the eaves, staring toward the flooded walkway, her eyes wide. She had already screamed and shrieked countless times, until her mouth was full of blood!

From her high vantage point, she had seen the deaths of all thirty-five Xiao Clan geniuses with perfect clarity.

The view was enough to pierce her very organs.

By the end, Xiao Qian was in such agony that she nearly bit through her tongue!

"No!!"

The moment Xiao Xuanxing discarded the Shimmering Star Armor and Qi Lin cleaved him in two with one stroke, her eyes nearly split apart!

Bleurgh!

She lost her voice on the spot and vomited blood mixed with fragments of her organs all over the place.

"Xuan... Xuan... xing..."

She stretched out a hand, trying to grasp her son.

Her eyeballs had nearly fallen from their sockets!

In her eyes, everything about her son from the past thirteen years seemed to play out.

From his first cries at birth, to his first babbled words, to the accomplishments of his youth.

She had stayed by his side, raised him, and cared for him in every possible way. He was a piece of jade she had held in her palm and painstakingly carved to this day.

A lustrous, precious jewel.

Untouched by a speck of dust.

She had spent so many years painstakingly carving a son like him.

He was her other life...

And now, before her eyes, that one life had become two halves.

"Uh, uh..."

Even Xiao Qian's loose hair was trembling. She could not speak.

She did not know why this had happened.

From her perspective, Qi Lin's swordsmanship was somewhat stronger, but there was little else special about him.

Why, then, had the geniuses of her Xiao Clan been so afraid, so lost in confusion, that they performed so poorly? And at the end, why had they lain on the ground like cabbages, waiting to be chopped down?

Why?

Why!

The Shimmering Star Armor she had bought at such a great price!

Why had her son thrown it on the ground?

What on earth had gone wrong with their minds, that someone their own age from Mystic City had turned the tables and killed them?

The more bewildered she was, the more she suffered.

Such deaths were too stifling, too bitter, too disgraceful.

Xiao Qian could not imagine what a sensation this would cause throughout the Great Cang Kingdom once word got out!

How badly would her Xiao Clan's face be torn apart in an instant?

Thirty-five elite Xiao Clan geniuses from the Divine Strategy Manor had surrounded one person to kill him, only to be wiped out!

If an Earth Yang Realm expert had killed them, there would have been nothing to say.

A group of geniuses had been wiped out by a thirteen-year-old at the Mystic Sea Realm Second Layer!

And they had died in terror...

"No, it shouldn't... be... like this..."

Blood flowed from Xiao Qian's eyes, nostrils... all seven orifices, a measure of how badly her heart had been torn apart.

Her son!

He had been her sole hope for the rest of her life.

Gone.

Dead in the most humiliating way.

As gleefully as she had laughed in the Hall of Law Enforcement, her pain was now just as intense.

Ten times!

At least ten times!

"Re... revenge!"

Only at that moment, amid her extreme agony, did she recover a shred of her senses.

She turned her head with difficulty!

"Zhao... Zhao Jianchen! Your son is gone..."

Xiao Qian used every ounce of strength she had to shout those words.

Not far behind her,

The man in black-and-red robes had long since stopped!

"Hah, hah-"

He gasped heavily, his face deathly pale.

He had seen it too!

In fact, he had seen it long ago!

He had long wanted to go to their rescue too!

But that damned Fu Yun had kept him entangled, and he had been unable to break away.

And so the tragedy had happened!

He was furious enough to explode, yet powerless to do anything.

He had thought that with the Shimmering Star Armor, his son would be fine even if everyone else died...

At that moment, Zhao Jianchen's heart had been pierced by ten thousand swords!

He had married into the Xiao Clan, so the others' deaths did not hurt him as much as they hurt Xiao Qian.

But!

Seeing his own son die so miserably had filled him with towering rage.

Boom!

His Heavenly Dominion Realm Third Layer True Essence erupted, making heaven and earth rumble.

Hatred!

Towering hatred.

"Fu Yun!!"

He first unleashed all his rage on one person.

He had to kill Fu Yun before he could go down and kill Qi Lin!

After all, Xiao Qian was still here with her legs broken...

"Heh heh heh..."

Across from Zhao Jianchen, Master Fu could barely stand, propped up on his two black-and-white Demon-Slaying Blades.

His body was covered in sword wounds, riddled with holes!

He was already badly injured.

There was no helping it. The Fourth Division Saint of the Demon-Slaying Headquarters was a whole realm layer above him!

That he had lasted this long was already beyond Zhao Jianchen's expectations.

"Die!"

Hearing that Fu Yun still dared to mock him, Zhao Jianchen's fury blazed even higher.

Suddenly!

Master Fu struggled to straighten up and raised his head, his disheveled hair flying in the rain.

"I'm just laughing at how you're always so full of yourselves, treating others like pigs and dogs. And in the end, you dropped a great big turd yourselves, stinking up the whole Great Cang Kingdom. Hahaha..."

He laughed wildly, laughed madly.

"Die!!"

Zhao Jianchen charged straight at him with murderous force, his black-and-red Demon-Slaying Blade in hand.

At that instant, Master Fu's eyes suddenly sharpened amid his wild laughter.

"Still so arrogant..."

As he murmured, an endless chill suddenly burst from his eyes.

Xiao Tang...

I'm sorry. It's already too late, and I can hardly bring myself to say it.

But there's still something I want to say...

I'm certain to die next!

But... I'll do everything I should do, and come to see you with my head held high!

Wait for me...

He poured out all those words in his heart.

In his eyes, Zhao Jianchen, that perfect man, was drawing ever closer!

Time seemed to slow.

Master Fu's face suddenly turned as cold as an ice cavern.

"The Great Cang Kingdom Law must not be insulted!"

As he spoke, he suddenly pulled a thick book from his robes.

Hum!

He flung it forward, and the book suddenly came apart, becoming countless sheets of paper that scattered through the sky!

Every sheet was covered in densely packed black characters.

The words that appeared most often were fairness and justice!

The characters and pages seemed to have already died, dim in the rain.

But at that very moment!

Master Fu gave them life!

"Forbidden technique..."

Mist suddenly churned in his eyes.

"Mortal World Crane!"

The instant those words rang out, Soul Essence abruptly surged through the scattered pages!

The black characters and white sheets curled together, suddenly transforming into black-and-white immortal cranes!

Hundreds of sheets, hundreds of black-and-white immortal cranes!

Hum!

The instant the black-and-white cranes formed, they rushed toward Zhao Jianchen like a torrent of wind and clouds, swallowing him in an instant!

"A high-grade Three Lives forbidden technique!!!"

Zhao Jianchen's eyes widened, his face changed drastically, and he cried out at the top of his lungs.

Only someone at the peak of Heavenly Dominion could possibly learn it!

To master a forbidden technique like this, one would absolutely have to stare at one thing and practice diligently without rest for more than ten years.

How could Fu Yun be worthy of knowing it?

The instant Zhao Jianchen met Master Fu's eyes, he suddenly understood.

For more than ten years, Fu Yun had never fought with anyone. He had only quietly done two things.

Watered flowers.

Read the Great Cang Kingdom Law.

One night, and then another.

That devotion night after night became a torrent of wind, clouds, and immortal cranes in this instant, charging into Zhao Jianchen!

The torrent of immortal cranes in the pouring rain was so unearthly, so breathtakingly beautiful...

As though immortal light had opened up the mortal world and torn apart the gloom of heaven and earth!

"No!"

In that instant, Zhao Jianchen did everything he could.

Forbidden techniques, sword techniques, essence artifacts—he used them all.

All shattered and fell apart!

"Zhao Jianchen, I spent a year carving into this book of kingdom law, just to kill people like you!!!"

Master Fu, too, was like an immortal crane, mingling with the torrent of cranes.

Rip!

As the black-and-white immortal cranes tore through everything Zhao Jianchen had, the black-and-white Demon-Slaying Blades in Master Fu's hands cut him in half at the waist!

"Don't!!"

Zhao Jianchen's lower body crashed down from the Cloud-Watching Tower, while his upper body slammed down beside Xiao Qian!

"Aah-!!"

Watching it happen at such close range, Xiao Qian shrieked so hard that she tore her own throat apart!

One of her eyeballs had already twisted out of its socket, leaving her with only one eye to look at the man beside her of whom she had been proudest...

Zhao Jianchen's breath was faint, his face deathly pale and full of terror!

He was not dead yet!

Like a madman, he reached for his lower body.

But there was nothing there.