Gravely Injured

Towering buildings stood here—the core area of the Yin Clan, and the residence of its important members.

A lovely young girl held a jet-black sword, four feet and two inches long, no wider than a finger, and thin as a cicada's wing, respectfully presenting it before Yin Jiwu. As she moved, the sword gave a slight bounce. A thread of azure light faintly flickered along its blade, sending out ripples of a thin halo that fully displayed the sword's extraordinary flexibility.

Yin Jiwu, whose handsome face resembled that of a man in his twenties, whose gaze was as sinister as a venomous snake's, and whose body was shrouded in a layer of yin energy, gripped the hilt in reverse and casually swung the sword. A tall, brawny red-haired man standing behind him gave a muffled snort, pulled out a metal pillar as thick as a foot from his side, and struck heavily at the blade.

With a crisp sound like slicing fruit, the slender sword cut through the solid alloy pillar a foot thick in a single stroke. One section of the pillar dropped heavily to the ground with a dull boom. The cut surface was smooth as a mirror, and Yin Jiwu had not felt the slightest resistance from the edge. Clearly, severing that metal pillar had been effortless for the blade.

"A fine sword!" Yin Jiwu nodded repeatedly in satisfaction.

"It's just too expensive!" The red-haired brute widened his emerald-green eyes and muttered in a muffled voice, "That old fellow is too greedy!"

Expensive? Yin Jiwu gave a few scornful laughs, too lazy to explain further to his trusted subordinate behind him. Though Ur had served him for nearly a century, in Yin Jiwu's eyes, the red-haired giant was merely a violent thug, merely his slave, one of the countless vassals of the Yin Clan. Many things simply did not need to be explained to him.

A top-grade Magic Artifact personally forged by Huo Luxiu, an elder of the Sword Forging Sect in the Eastern Cultivation World—how could the value of such a divine weapon be judged by whether it was 'expensive'? For his son, for his bloodline, Yin Jiwu was willing to pay any price.

Shaking his head with a chuckle, Yin Jiwu waved at Ur, signaling that he need not accompany him. Carrying the sharp weapon that had not yet been named, with a satisfied, showy smile, Yin Jiwu slowly left the small courtyard where he lived and headed toward the Children's Hall.

He was going to find his son, his pride, Yin Xuejiao—the youngest Star Warrior in the history of the Children's Hall! Before so many stewards and children of the Children's Hall, he would present this precious sword to Yin Xuejiao as a gift!

He wanted his son to become the object of those children's envy. His son, Yin Jiwu's son, ought to have been a heaven-blessed prodigy in the spotlight! This treasured sword from the Eastern Cultivation World, tailored specifically for Yin Xuejiao, would accompany Yin Xuejiao's growth and become a powerful aid to him.

At the same time, he wanted those children to know, and those stewards to understand, just how formidable Yin Jiwu's strength and connections were!

Only he could obtain such a divine weapon from the Eastern Cultivation World. No matter the price, only he could acquire such a treasure! Not even his elder brother, his rival—that damned fellow—could accomplish such a thing!

Those children, those stewards, and the people behind them—especially the people behind them—once they saw this sword, they should understand his meaning! This was no ordinary sword. It was a weighty bargaining chip, a chip with which to win the Lineage's hearts!

"Xuejiao, well done!" As he strode briskly toward the Children's Hall, even Yin Jiwu's sinister gaze became much warmer. This was his son, his pride! Having just turned fourteen, he had broken through and become a Star Warrior! This was an unprecedented record in the Lineage. His son's brilliant achievement was enough to greatly increase Yin Jiwu's influence within the Lineage!

Though several other children had also broken through to become Star Warriors last night, they were all much older than Yin Xuejiao! In terms of age, Yin Xuejiao was the most outstanding genius in the entire history of the Yin Clan!

Yin Jiwu remained in high spirits until he arrived outside the hall where his son attended class. Along the way, Yin Jiwu had smiled and greeted every steward of the Children's Hall. He had never been so amiable before, leaving many stewards standing there in stunned silence.

But the moment Yin Jiwu reached the entrance of the hall where Yin Xuejiao was, he saw Yin Xuege spring up and viciously slash open half of Yin Xuejiao's neck with a single sword stroke! Blood surged out like a fountain. Yin Xuejiao let out a hoarse, miserable scream, convulsed all over, and collapsed to the ground. Blood gushed from his neck, pooling on the floor.

With half his neck cut open and an instant loss of massive amounts of blood, Yin Xuejiao could not, like Yin Xuege, draw the blood from his wound back into his body. This was not an ordinary flesh wound. His head had nearly been chopped off. Even with the abnormal recovery power unique to Blood Demons, Yin Xuejiao would need to remain bedridden for at least a month before fully recovering!

"You wretch!"

A chill, sinister blood aura rushed into Yin Jiwu's mind, and his pupils abruptly turned blood-red. In a fit of furious rage, he let out a roar and charged into the hall, forgetting everything. He did not attend to his son. Instead, he fiercely slapped a palm toward Yin Xuege.

An oppressive stench of blood suddenly spread through the hall. The children's hearts pounded violently, and the blood in their bodies began flowing madly beyond their control. Their vision turned red in waves as blood rushed into their eyes, turning their pupils an unnatural crimson.

Yin Jiwu's palm turned scarlet. A faint blood mist shrouded it, and a strange Demonic Script Talisman on his palm flashed with a dazzling red light. As it shone, the blood in the children's bodies flowed faster and faster, until they could all hear the rushing sound of blood scraping through their veins.

Nearly a hundred children spat blood at almost the same time. All that blood rapidly gathered toward Yin Jiwu's palm. His scarlet palm was like a black hole, swallowing every trace of the flying blood mist, before it crashed heavily into Yin Xuege's back.

Yin Xuege had sprung up and gravely injured Yin Xuejiao with one sword stroke. But even in his dreams, he had not expected Yin Xuejiao's father, Yin Jiwu, a man who wielded real power within the clan, to disregard his status and attack him directly! Even more inconceivably, Yin Jiwu had actually launched a sneak attack from behind on Yin Xuege, a child of only eleven!

Yin Jiwu, nearly two hundred years old, had brazenly used Blood Demon secret techniques to sneak attack Yin Xuege from behind!

"Truly shameless!" Even Yin Jiying, who likewise bore ill will toward Yin Xuege, could not help widening his eyes at Yin Jiwu's actions. But very quickly, Yin Jiying's eyes flickered, and then he let out a heart-rending cry.

"Second Brother, this is the Children's Hall! The Children's Hall has its own rules!"

As Yin Jiying cried out, a dull thud rang through the hall. Yin Xuege opened his mouth and spat out a spray of blood. His thin body was sent flying dozens of meters by Yin Jiwu's palm strike. A clear handprint appeared on the clothes covering his back, while countless scraps of fabric fell away, exposing a huge blood-red palm mark on his back.

The sword in Yin Xuege's hand fell to the ground with a clang. A strange, icy aura burst into his body, squeezing his internal organs, heart, blood vessels, and every part of him like a juicer. He vomited blood in great mouthfuls, the blood spraying out like cheap spring water. Before long, nearly half the blood in his body had been expelled.

After that, Yin Xuege could no longer spit out even a mouthful of blood. Starting from the spot on his back where he had been struck, the cold aura began freezing his body. His heart turned ice-cold, and its beating slowed abruptly by dozens of times; his blood vessels rapidly shrank under the invasion of that cold aura, soon becoming as thin as hairs; his internal organs convulsed violently, bringing him agonizing pain that nearly killed him.

An unprecedented pain struck him. Even after enduring several years of hardship in the Children's Hall, even after having his body cut open countless times by Soft Swords, Yin Xuege had never experienced pain like this!

It was an empty pain, yet one that felt as though a huge millstone were grinding him madly.

At the same time, Yin Xuege could feel that Yin Jiwu's palm had shattered every bone in his back. Driven by that icy aura, the bone fragments ground and crushed against one another. The nearby nerves and meridians gave off taut, cracking sounds, and the pain made Yin Xuege's vision repeatedly go dark.

He desperately wanted to faint so that he could escape this pain, but that icy aura had frozen his soul, keeping him awake every moment.

The Blood Demon Physique of the Yin Clan possessed immense recovery power, but after Yin Jiwu struck him, Yin Xuege's body seemed to have been sealed within ice. All his regenerative abilities had been frozen. He could not move or make a sound. He could only lie stiffly on the ground and helplessly endure that mad, endless pain.

"You wretch!" Yin Jiwu's body flickered, and he arrived beside Yin Xuege like a ghost. He swung the treasured sword in his hand and prepared to stab it into Yin Jiying's heart. The only fatal weak point of the Yin Clan was the heart. Once the heart ruptured, death was certain!

Yin Jiying, who had been rushing forward, suddenly stopped. He had been loudly shouting about the so-called 'rules of the Children's Hall,' but when he saw Yin Jiwu, overcome by rage, truly intending to kill Yin Xuege, Yin Jiying immediately halted and tightly shut his mouth.

"Kill him! Kill that little bastard!" Yin Jiying trembled all over with excitement. Kill Yin Xuege, kill him! Yin Jiwu, weren't you used to running rampant through the Yin Family, summoning wind and rain, wanting to fight Eldest Brother for power and profit? Then kill Yin Xuege! Kill him! Yin Jiying was very curious—if Yin Jiwu truly killed Yin Xuege, what would those sleeping, secluded elders do?

This was the shame of the Lineage! Yin Xuege was the one who had brought endless shame and enormous trouble upon the Yin Clan!

And Yin Jiwu? His power in the Yin Clan was blazing hot. Could he kill Yin Xuege? Would he dare kill Yin Xuege?

The black sword stabbed silently toward Yin Xuege's heart, without stirring the slightest glimmer or shadow. A flash of blood appeared. The sword pierced Yin Xuege's clothes and entered his flesh, passing between two of his ribs. It was just about to touch his heart!

But Yin Jiwu suddenly raised his head and gave Yin Jiying, standing motionless where he was, a deep look.

Cold sweat rapidly poured from Yin Jiwu's back. He suddenly thought of Yin Xuege's mother! His wrist stiffened, and the sword tip stopped almost against Yin Xuege's heart. After a brief pause, Yin Jiwu slowly withdrew the sword, cast Yin Xuege a cold glance, then kicked him so hard that he slid across the ground.

Yin Xuege spat out another mouthful of blood. His body convulsed violently, while the scarlet palm print on his back radiated a bone-chilling cold. The terrible pain made him wish he were dead, and Yin Jiwu's added kick was something he barely felt at all.

The Children's Hall was deathly silent. Yin Jiying looked at Yin Xuege lying on the ground with great regret—why had Second Brother stopped?

The children lowered their heads, not daring to look at Yin Jiwu, whose yin energy surged toward the heavens like that of a ghostly demon. With low, heavy footsteps, Yin Jiwu slowly walked to Yin Xuejiao's side. After all, Yin Xuejiao was a descendant of the Yin Clan. Though half his neck had been cut open, the bleeding had stopped, and the wound was slowly beginning to close.

"Remember this sword stroke today!" Yin Jiwu lowered his head and looked down at his gravely wounded son.

"I had thought you would be your father's pride. That is why I specially asked an old friend in the East to forge this divine weapon for you!"

Shaking his head regretfully, Yin Jiwu stuffed the sword into the sleeve of his robe. The four-foot-two-inch sword immediately vanished from sight. He let out a sigh of frustration at his son's failure to live up to expectations, then tucked both hands into his sleeves. "Three months from now, at the Yin Clan's annual Martial Arts Grand Tournament, if you can ultimately claim victory, this sword will still be yours!"

He cast a resentful glance at the son who had made him lose face. At that moment, Yin Jiwu truly wanted to kill him!

He had originally come to the Children's Hall to take advantage of Yin Xuejiao's breakthrough and flaunt his connections and influence before the clansmen, to show off his outstanding bloodline and so on. Yet Yin Xuejiao, who had broken through to become a Star Warrior, had actually lost to Yin Xuege, who was three years younger and had not even broken through yet. How could Yin Jiwu possibly save face?

"Remember, three months!" Yin Jiwu looked coldly and mercilessly at Yin Xuejiao. "Three months from now, if you are still this useless!"

Yin Jiwu did not say what would happen if Yin Xuejiao was still so useless three months later. But Yin Xuejiao's face, already pale from excessive blood loss, now became nearly transparent. He looked at his father in terror and fear. He knew exactly what kind of person his father was! Thus, he began trembling in fright.

Just then, a series of hurried footsteps sounded.

A man who looked seventy to eighty percent like Yin Jiwu—equally handsome, equally sinister, equally surrounded by biting cold—quickly entered the hall with dozens of Yin Clan members. The moment he entered, the man began shouting harshly.

"Second Brother, the Children's Hall has its own rules. This is a vital place where the Lineage trains its children and passes on its bloodline. You came here to cause trouble—are you not afraid of the family laws?" Before Yin Jiwu could speak, an enormous accusation had already been slapped down upon his head.

Yin Jiwu's face darkened. Dense blood-colored mist surged from his body, condensing behind him into a flickering blaze of blood. He stared coldly at Yin Jihuang, the acting patriarch of the Yin Clan and Yin Jiwu's elder brother, who had barged into the hall with a large group of clansmen, and sneered repeatedly.

"Eldest Brother arrived at quite a coincidence, didn't he? Normally, you never set foot in the Children's Hall!"

With his hands behind his back, Yin Jihuang walked step by step to Yin Jiwu. He looked at Yin Xuejiao, who was clutching his neck and struggling to stand, then at Yin Xuege, who lay unable to move in a corner of the hall, the blood handprint on his back especially glaring. Suddenly, he grinned.

"I merely happened to be passing by. I heard that Second Brother was disciplining the younger generation here, so I came in out of curiosity to take a look."

The two brothers glared at each other for a while. Then Yin Jihuang suddenly reached out and lightly patted Yin Xuejiao's shoulder.

"Xuejiao, you are the youngest genius in the history of the Yin Clan to break through to Star Warrior! Your eldest uncle is very curious—who in the Children's Hall could wound you to such a degree? Could it be that you were careless for a moment and lost?"

Yin Xuejiao's face instantly turned incomparably ugly. He looked at Yin Jihuang, then at his father. Fury surged to the heavens within him, yet he did not dare show even the slightest hint of it. He could only lower his head respectfully and obediently listen to Yin Jihuang's mockery.

Yin Jiwu was even more enraged. He swept a glance over his son and stomped heavily. Ignoring Yin Jihuang, Yin Jiwu transformed into a black shadow and abruptly shot out of the hall.

Yin Jihuang gave a strange, tight-lipped smile, then his expression suddenly turned incomparably cold again. He glanced at Yin Jiying standing to the side and said calmly, "Children's affairs should be settled by the children themselves. We need not meddle too much!"

With a cold snort and a heavy flick of his sleeve, Yin Jihuang raised his head. Without saying another word, he walked out of the Children's Hall.

Yin Jiying let out a heavy breath and grinned mockingly. Children's affairs should be settled by the children themselves? That sounded nice. If the one beaten today had not been Yin Xuejiao but someone else, Yin Jihuang probably would not have said such a thing, would he?

His crimson tongue licked his lips as Yin Jiying said in a sinister voice, "Then shall the practical combat class continue? In the battle between Yin Xuejiao and Yin Xuege, Yin Xuejiao lost and Yin Xuege won. Shall I record that in your grade books?"

Yin Xuejiao clutched his neck without speaking, but his complexion alternated between green and white. Blood light flickered in his eyes, and his gaze was resentful and terrifying, like a venomous snake whose tail had been stepped on and which was about to madly devour someone.

Yin Xuege did not make a sound either, nor did he move in the slightest.

He lay in the corner of the hall like a corpse, quietly enduring the boundless pain within his body.

Pair after pair of children began fighting. Yin Xuege remained lying there, and no one paid him any attention. Only after that day's practical combat class ended did Yin Jiying summon an elderly Blood Servant to send Yin Xuege back to his residence.

Lying stiffly on the crude bed inside his small building, Yin Xuege did not make the slightest sound.

Only after night fell and the Blood Mist Barrier was withdrawn did a ray of moonlight pass through the window and shine upon Yin Xuege.

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