Chaos

Closed spaces always had a way of making people feel intensely oppressed.

Li ChunJun shut the door, sealing off the inside from the outside. The many wealthy and powerful people in the main hall immediately grew restless.

Even though people were still coming and going outside, and the noise of chatter, car horns, condolences, and funeral music kept pouring in, lending the place a bustling air, it did nothing to dispel the unease in their hearts.

"Thud, thud, thud!"

On the second floor.

Martial artists hurried down the stairs or vaulted straight over the railing, quickly forming a protective ring once more.

"One chance."

Li ChunJun glanced at the dozens of guards rushing down from the stairwell. "Leave now, and you can live."

His words stirred those who had already begun to feel afraid.

Everyone's gaze turned involuntarily toward their respective bosses.

"Go! We're leaving!"

Several wealthy and powerful men, unwilling to risk their precious lives, hurriedly spoke up.

More than a dozen others were also itching to follow.

But they still didn't declare themselves.

"You can't."

Li ChunJun spoke calmly.

Everyone admitted to the Jin Family Courtyard was a close associate and honored guest of Jin Guangming.

They had surely all lent their support to the Wanted Order issued by the four allied forces.

The sight made everyone's hearts sink.

Seeing this, Jin Guangming, who knew he couldn't possibly escape the same fate as the others, quickly said, "If he had the strength to deal with the guards you brought, would he waste time standing here talking to us? Would any of you let prey you'd already caught slip away?"

He spoke rapidly. "That proves he's at the end of his rope. He's exhausted and only holding himself up by sheer will, trying to scare some of us into retreating so he can make sure nothing goes wrong. If we stand together and fight, killing this criminal is within our grasp!"

But his words did not stir any sense of shared enmity. Instead, the wealthy and powerful grew resentful of Jin Guangming and even the entire Jin Family.

If the Jin Family hadn't left loose ends, how would they have ended up in this mess?

And even if trouble had arisen, they shouldn't have dragged everyone else into it!

Still, now that those who could afford to disregard the Jin Family had hurried away, the wealthy and powerful who remained clearly didn't dare openly criticize the Jin Family's incompetence.

"We're screwed... We're screwed..."

Just then, a series of rapid alarms rang out from beyond Hengguang Garden.

At the sound, Jin Guangming's eyes lit up.

"Reinforcements from the Garrison Department are here!"

He shouted, "With an incident this serious, Fang Lieyun, the Garrison Department's top expert, will surely come in person with his men to handle it. With him here, how could this criminal keep running wild? We only need to hold out until then, and Li ChunJun is as good as dead! After this is over, the Jin Family will prepare a generous gift for everyone!"

He waved to the guards. "Every one of you here will receive at least one Red Sun Pill! I promise a whole bottle of Red Sun Pills to whoever kills the criminal!"

The wealthy and powerful were unmoved, but the guards they'd brought with them began breathing heavily.

"Red Sun Pills!?"

"The top body-tempering pills passed down by the immortal sect, the Red Sun Sword Sect!? They say that with enough Red Sun Pills to aid your cultivation, even someone with ordinary talent can achieve Internal-External Unity and circulate energy through the heavens!"

"The Jin Family's eldest daughter joined the Red Sun Sword Sect. She definitely has the means to get Red Sun Pills! This promise is highly credible!"

They looked at one another.

In just a moment, greed had overwhelmed fear.

Of course, they still had some sense. They knew that charging in before Li ChunJun's strength was completely spent would mean certain death, so not one martial artist struck first.

Buy some time.

Once the Garrison Department's reinforcements arrived, they'd have a better chance of picking up the scraps.

Unfortunately...

Li ChunJun clearly had no intention of letting them stall.

"I was the one wasting time."

Li ChunJun admitted his mistake.

The next instant, he surged forward again, sword in hand, and launched his attack. "Today, every member of the Jin Family will die."

"Big words! With nowhere left to hide, how can you fight all of us at once? One slash from each of us will chop you to pieces!"

"Kill him!"

"The Red Sun Pills are mine! Ten years from now, I'll be one of Guang Province's martial masters!"

Seeing Li ChunJun charge at them with his sword, the guards had no choice but to meet him head-on, shouting as they rushed to attack.

But...

A closer look would have revealed that the older guards, the ones shouting loudest, were noticeably slower to move.

Instead, caught up in the fervor, some of the younger guards recklessly charged ahead to face Li ChunJun head-on.

And then...

Blood sprayed through the air.

They were corpses almost as soon as they met him.

Still, just as the more perceptive martial artists had thought that Li ChunJun couldn't hold back swords thrusting at him from every direction in the relatively open hall, the young guards' lives paved the way for the others to close in. The guards behind them spread out and charged from all sides, seeming intent on relying on their superior numbers to hack him to death.

But just as their encirclement was about to close, Li ChunJun leaped.

He didn't head for the stairwell to recreate the scene from before.

Instead, he attacked the corner where Jin Guangming and more than a dozen wealthy and powerful people were gathered.

The sight left those people pale with terror.

"Li ChunJun, settle your scores with whoever's responsible! This has nothing to do with us!"

"Master Wang! Get over here!"

"Damn it! I should've left with Mr. Zhou and the others as soon as things started going wrong. Why did I stay? Was I afraid the Jin Family would hold a grudge? What does that matter if I'm dead?"

The dozen or so wealthy and powerful people screamed as they crowded toward the nearest rooms.

At that moment, all their earlier elegance and impeccable manners were gone. They were no different from ordinary people caught in danger.

Panic-stricken and utterly chaotic.

"Li ChunJun! I'm your opponent!"

"Stop!"

"President Wang, look out!"

The guards who had been surrounding Li ChunJun could no longer maintain their formation. At the wealthy men's shouts, they rushed to protect them instead.

Everything fell apart.

The scene descended into utter chaos.

The wealthy and powerful were the guards' true weak point.

By attacking the people they had to protect, Li ChunJun plunged the entire hall into chaos.

In fact, most of the disorder was caused by the wealthy and powerful themselves. Compared to them, the battle-hardened guards were far better disciplined.

And once chaos took hold...

The forty-odd martial artists left could no longer coordinate an effective attack on Li ChunJun.

Li ChunJun darted through the wealthy and powerful, using them as shields and forcing the guards to split their attention.

"Shhk! Shhk! Shhk!"

Swordlight flashed as he slaughtered them left and right!

Blood sprayed everywhere.

The overpowering stench of blood and the terror of watching one "friend" and "companion" after another fall beside them only made the chaos worse.

Many fled toward the windows under their guards' protection.

Others ran for the other rooms.

The guards, who had managed to maintain some semblance of organization, quickly became scattered and fought on their own. Li ChunJun then picked them off one by one.

The moment Li ChunJun charged toward the wealthy and powerful, the fight had all but turned into a one-sided slaughter.

Ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five...

People kept falling as they fled.

Some did manage to leap through the windows and escape with their lives.

But with Li ChunJun deliberately pursuing the escapees first, fewer than two dozen truly made it out of the villa.

Terrified cries!

Pained groans!

Death throes!

Countless sounds blended together, echoing through the villa.

Together with the funeral music playing outside, they formed a requiem for life. It sounded...

so lively.

On the day Madam Jin and Jin Haoxuan were laid to rest, nearly a hundred people accompanied them.

What a grand funeral!