Three pairs of scarlet bat wings, each with a span of over fifteen meters, unfurled. A dense stench of blood mixed with sky-piercing evil and billowed outward. Yin Xuege and the Yin Clan marquises beside him felt their vision go black. It was as if they had been submerged in viscous blood plasma, while a heavy, foul stench was forcibly pouring in through all seven apertures, causing them unbearable agony.
Sander and Fennice fared even worse. Yin Xuege and the others possessed the Blood Demon Physique, giving them a powerful innate resistance to all kinds of bloody, sinister forces. Although Sander and Fennice possessed certain formidable bloodlines and controlled the marvelous power of natural elements, their reaction to the evil blood force was far more intense. This sinister demonic power inflicted far greater damage upon them.
Their bodies swayed several times where they stood before they collapsed limply to the ground.
The evil blood force invaded their bodies. The blood within them was rapidly rotting and decaying, like blood plasma left for decades in a damp, filthy sewer, with all kinds of mold and bacteria multiplying wildly. The vital aura was rapidly draining from their bodies. In no more than fifteen minutes, they would die once their life force was completely exhausted!
"The Curse of Aging!" one Yin Clan marquis shouted sharply. "Which family do you belong to? Are you trying to provoke a war with the Yin Clan?"
"A family war?" The old man in the middle of the three Blood Demons who had appeared out of nowhere shrieked sharply. "We don't care anymore! A family war? Ha, there can't be any family war anymore! You despicable Yin Clan—back then, we should have summoned the Thirteen Sacred Clans and wiped you out completely!"
The old man's mouth suddenly stretched open to more than a foot wide. Two rows of large teeth glimmered with a faint light and were sharp as blades. His four canine teeth slowly grew with a strange kree-kree sound, finally becoming three-inch-long fangs that protruded from his lips.
Scarlet blood light flickered across those long fangs. The old man extended a withered black finger and pointed viciously at Yin Xuege. "Hand over this damned little bastard and let us take him away. Then every problem will be solved! I doubt you want to go to war with three powerful dukes, do you? Besides, we're all Thousand-Year Dukes!"
Yin Xuege and the eight Yin Clan marquises' expressions changed drastically. They stared at the three aged old men, unable to speak for a long while.
Before the Era of Dharma Decline, a duke of the Blood Demon Clan—merely a duke—could not be considered particularly formidable. In that age, when experts were as plentiful as clouds, a duke of the Blood Demon Clan was only a minor lord. But in the Era of Dharma Decline, in those years when the countless divine Immortals and Buddhas had completely vanished, a duke was one of the supreme experts in the world.
And the so-called Thousand-Year Dukes held an even more special meaning within the Blood Demon Clan.
These three old fellows before them were not dukes who had risen during the Era of Dharma Decline. They were old monsters who had survived from that age when powerful experts filled the world! Let alone how much power a thousand years of accumulation had allowed them to amass, their knowledge, experience, battle experience, and mastery of all sorts of strange Blood Demon secret techniques alone made them terrifying nightmares.
All the Blood Demon families unanimously acknowledged one thing: a true Thousand-Year Duke could easily annihilate more than five newly promoted dukes!
With these three Thousand-Year Dukes joining forces and taking advantage of the barrier they had already established, they could even effortlessly annihilate twenty ordinary duke-level experts who had risen during the Era of Dharma Decline!
"Why have you come here instead of sleeping in your own lair?" A Yin Clan marquis struggled to withstand the terrifying sinister force radiating from the three old monsters and forcefully took a step forward. "Even if you are Thousand-Year Dukes, can you truly withstand the Yin Clan's wrath? You should know the power our Yin Clan possesses!"
"The Yin Clan's power!" A trace of wariness appeared on the three old fellows' faces. They roared angrily, and then the old man displaying his fangs slowly walked down the hillside. He staggered toward Yin Xuege step by step, gnashing his teeth as he said, "We can't worry about that much, and we never intended to offend the Yin Clan!"
"Hand this little bastard over to us, and every problem can be properly resolved!" The old man advanced step by step, his Natal Bat Wings beating forcefully behind him in reverse, whipping up gusts of bloody, stench-filled wind. The wind made several marquises beside Yin Xuege lose their footing and stumble backward again and again!
These marquises were also newly promoted, their strength having risen over the past century. Their power was worlds apart from that of a duke, let alone enough to contend with a Thousand-Year Duke—an ancient immortal who had lived for a millennium. Faced with the formidable power released by this old man, they were even deprived of the strength to launch an attack.
An invisible restraint clamped down firmly on Yin Xuege's body, leaving him utterly unable to move. He could only watch as the old man approached him step by step, then seize his chin with a withered black claw and turn his face left and right, examining it carefully.
Yin Xuege felt as if the old man were sizing him up like a stray dog. His gaze was filled with contempt, mockery, and inexplicable superiority. Yin Xuege truly saw boundless malice in that gaze. In the old man's eyes, he was even beneath a dog!
"Look at that—a pretty little pretty boy!" The old man let out a khee-khee cackle. "He's still young, but once he grows up, he'll certainly become a scourge just like his damned slut of a mother! Let me think. How should I destroy this loathsome pretty face?"
Opening his mouth and continually spraying bone-chilling air mixed with a nauseating, bloody stench, the old man brought it close to Yin Xuege's ear and sneered in a low voice. "Little fellow, what do you say—shall I peel off your face? Then perhaps I'll consider giving you a slightly uglier face. Don't worry, I'll patch it up flawlessly, as if you were born that ugly!"
His five fingers clutched Yin Xuege's chin and throat with deadly force. Yin Xuege's throat rattled as he was strangled. He felt suffocated, his face flushing crimson, while the terrifying sinister force radiating from the old man suppressed him and left him unable to breathe. His body jerked and twitched like a fish just hauled from the water.
The old man seemed to notice the fury and confusion in Yin Xuege's eyes and laughed with both venom and smugness.
"You find it strange, don't you? Why would the three of us old fellows come looking for trouble with you?"
As he asked this, the old man slightly loosened his fingers, and the sinister aura around him also receded somewhat.
Yin Xuege felt the pressure around his neck ease. He gulped down great breaths of air, then began coughing violently. He glared furiously at the old man, eyes wide, and asked word by word, "How... did you... find me?"
The several Yin Clan marquises struggling in the bloody hurricane all shuddered at once. They, too, came to their senses. They had led an army into battle to carry out the Startled Insects plan, a secret plan formulated by the upper echelons of the Yin Clan. Why had these three old men come straight here instead of searching for Yin Xuege at the Yin Clan estate? How had they known Yin Xuege was with this army? How had they pinpointed his location so precisely?
"Ah, what a clever little fellow! Under these circumstances, your thoughts are actually this clear!" The old man widened his eyes in astonishment, then turned to glance at his two companions. "What monstrous talent this little fellow has, just like his mother. It makes one want to cut him into a thousand pieces and torment his soul forever in the flames of hell!"
"You came looking for me because of my mother?" The more dangerous the moment, the clearer Yin Xuege's mind became.
Perhaps the twenty drops of blood essence from Farnburg had helped as well. That blood essence had not only greatly enhanced Yin Xuege's life origin; it also contained traces of Farnburg's countless experiences and insights. After fusing with Farnburg's blood essence, Yin Xuege had, in a sense, witnessed a magnificent stretch of Farnburg's long life.
Thus, in recent days, whether considering problems or analyzing situations, Yin Xuege had grown ever sharper and more perceptive!
"Because of my mother?" Yin Xuege coldly watched the old man holding him. "Then you're from the Brianburg Family? What happened? Did my mother do something bad to your family? No, no, it's not just that!"
The other two old men also slowly approached Yin Xuege. They looked at him with venom, then let out heavy sighs.
"A Sunwalker, a being of legend! In all our long lives, we have never once seen a Sunwalker with our own eyes!"
"But you happen to be that woman's son! Because you exist, our family has been humiliated before the Thirteen Sacred Clans! And now your mother has committed an unforgivable act! You and your mother both deserve to be burned alive!"
Yin Xuege let out repeated cold laughs. He raised his head and lightly touched the hilt of the Blood Spirit Sword with his finger.
"What exactly did my mother do to make three Thousand-Year Dukes travel thousands of miles to cause me trouble? If she did something wrong, with your strength, you could punish her however you pleased! But you did nothing to her and came after me instead. Could it be that the power she possesses now is beyond even your control?"
"You!" The old man gripping Yin Xuege's throat suddenly turned cold with fury. He shrieked sharply, "That's right—you guessed it! Your mad mother, she—she—she actually! Damn it, she committed a crime our entire Brianburg Family can never forgive! She must be punished! But you are her only weakness. At least, we believe you are her only weakness!"
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