The bloodstains on the bluestone slabs had yet to dry when a young girl's cries of struggle tore through the morning mist.
Two Li Clan cultivators pinned her arms down with all their strength, their rough palms yanking at the collar of her brocade robe. The sharp rip of tearing cloth was especially grating.
"Let me go! You animals!" The girl's eyes were red-rimmed, tears mingling with mud as they streamed down her face. She was none other than Long Qingyao, Long Mingyuan's legitimate granddaughter, who had narrowly escaped Black Ship Sea.
She was the most gifted child of this generation of the Dragon Clan. Not yet eighteen, she had already entered the Dao Palace Realm and should have been the Dragon Clan's hope. Yet now, she was pinned to the ground like merchandise.
"Animals?"
The cultivator tearing at her clothes sneered. His fingers slid lewdly across her neck. "When you were the Dragon Clan's eldest young lady, you never spared people like us a glance. And now? Aren't you still at our mercy, to be kneaded round or flattened as we please?"
The other cultivator laughed even more obscenely. "I heard the Dragon Clan's eldest young lady was pure as ice and clean as jade. Today, we'll see whether she's truly as precious as the rumors say."
Filthy words splashed over her like sewage. Long Qingyao's brocade robe was torn to tatters, exposing the snowy skin of her shoulder. She bit her lip so hard her teeth nearly sank into flesh, while tears of humiliation surged forth.
"Stop!"
Long Mingyuan roared and lunged forward, his cane carrying a faint spiritual glow as it smashed toward the two cultivators.
But he was badly wounded. After taking only two steps, a streak of Sword Qi swept across his knee. With a