Xiao Sheng and Cao Bao hung blankly in midair, watching the two "mighty figures" tear through space one after the other and vanish over the horizon. For a long while, neither of them could recover.
"B-Brother... what... what just happened?" the young Xiao Sheng stammered. The excitement had vanished from his face, replaced by bewilderment and lingering fear.
When the yellow-robed Daoist had chased after the other man, the burst of pressure he unleashed—the pressure of a Saint—had lasted only an instant, but it had still made the two brothers feel as though they had fallen into an icy abyss. Their souls had nearly frozen.
A Saint!
They had just attacked and knocked a magic treasure from a Saint's hands!
At the thought, Xiao Sheng's legs went weak. He nearly tumbled from the clouds.
Cao Bao's face was deathly pale, too. He was steadier than his junior brother, but even he was a tangled mess of nerves.
Forcing himself to stay calm, he analyzed the situation. "Junior Brother, I think... I think we've gotten ourselves into terrible trouble."
"That yellow-robed Daoist was definitely a Saint! And the one he was chasing... was that Daoist Randeng of the Sect of Explanation?" Cao Bao asked uncertainly. He had once seen Randeng from afar at a gathering of the Ten Thousand Immortals.
"Th-Then what do we do now?" Xiao Sheng was on the verge of tears. "We've offended a Saint. Will he come back and settle the score with us?"
"He... probably won't, right?" Cao Bao wasn't sure, either. "He's busy chasing Randeng and fighting over the magic treasure. He might not think of us for a while. We should get out of here before we get caught up in anything else!"
As he spoke, he prepared to drag his junior brother away.
But just then, his gaze accidentally swept over the sea rocks below, battered almost beyond recognition.
Someone lay on the rocks.
A man in an Interception Sect Daoist robe, his hair disheveled, his body drenched in blood, and his aura so feeble it was nearly gone.
It was Zhao Gongming, whom Zhunti had gravely wounded and whose mind had been thoroughly thrown into disarray by Randeng's sudden appearance.
"Huh? Brother, look! There's someone down there!" Xiao Sheng had spotted him, too.
Cao Bao's eyes flickered.
A bold idea surfaced in his mind.
"Junior Brother, wait here. I'll go take a look."
Suppressing his excitement, he slowly descended and landed before Zhao Gongming.
Zhao Gongming was half unconscious.
His magic treasure had been taken, he had been struck by a Saint's pressure, and then Randeng had stabbed him in the back. That string of blows had shattered his Dao Heart.
Now, he had lost all hope and wanted only to die.
Cao Bao watched him and cautiously extended a sliver of his divine sense.
When he sensed the distinctive aura of the Interception Sect on Zhao Gongming, along with the cultivation that, though weakened, was still at the Grand Unity Golden Immortal level, Cao Bao's breathing quickened.
Interception Sect!
Grand Unity Golden Immortal!
Connecting that to what had just happened, a startling guess appeared in his mind.
This man had to be Zhao Gongming, the Interception Sect's God of War, who had recently caused a huge stir throughout the Primordial Era and been unrivaled in the limelight!
And a Saint had beaten him into this state!
Greed and murderous intent flashed in Cao Bao's eyes at the same time.
A gravely wounded Grand Unity Golden Immortal, on the verge of death and stripped of his magic treasures!
He was practically a walking treasure vault!
Even without his magic treasures, the fruits of his countless years of cultivation, his physical body, and his primordial spirit were priceless treasures to rogue cultivators like them!
If they could refine him, perhaps the two brothers could break through to the Great Unity realm in one fell swoop!
Fortune favored the bold!
They had already offended a Saint, which seemed to spell certain death.
But if they could gain an enormous advantage here, they might still have a chance to survive!
"Junior Brother! Come down!"
Cao Bao shouted up at Xiao Sheng.
Not knowing what was going on, Xiao Sheng flew down as well.
"Brother, what is it?"
"Kill him!" Cao Bao pointed at Zhao Gongming on the ground, his eyes shining with madness. "He's Zhao Gongming of the Interception Sect! If we kill him and refine him, we can ascend to greatness!"
"What? Zhao Gongming?" Xiao Sheng was startled, but then greed appeared in his eyes, matching his senior brother's.
Men died for wealth, just as birds died for food.
Faced with enormous profit, fear was temporarily pushed aside.
"All right, Brother! Let's do it!"
The two exchanged a glance and made up their minds.
"What... are you trying to do...?"
Zhao Gongming on the ground seemed to sense their murderous intent. He struggled to open his eyes and asked weakly.
"What are we trying to do?" Cao Bao sneered. "Fellow Daoist Zhao Gongming, you were a hero all your life. Who would have thought you'd end up falling to the likes of two nobodies like us?"
"Blame your bad luck! Today, we brothers will send you on your way!"
He said no more. Raising his flying sword, he drove it viciously toward Zhao Gongming's head!
"Die!"
Xiao Sheng attacked at the same time, channeling his magic power into a ray of divine light and striking toward Zhao Gongming's heart.
"No..."
Watching the two attacks bear down on him, Zhao Gongming's eyes filled with endless sorrow and despair.
He, Zhao Gongming, had roamed the Primordial Era and defeated three great experts of the Sect of Explanation. He had even dared to contend with Saints.
He had never dreamed that, in the end, he would die at the hands of two rogue cultivators who weren't even Golden Immortals.
What bitter irony! What humiliation!
He wanted to fight back, but his magic power was long depleted, his immortal body was on the verge of collapse, and he didn't even have the strength to move a finger.
All he could do was watch as the flying sword and divine light grew larger and larger in his pupils.
"Master... little sister... I... I'm not ready to die..."
Those were the last words he left in this world.
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
The flying sword pierced his head, and the divine light shattered his heart.
The Interception Sect's eldest outer disciple, once renowned throughout the Primordial Era and hailed as "the greatest beneath the Saints," died an inglorious death at the hands of two unknown rogue cultivators.
A wisp of his True Spirit rose leisurely from his shattered immortal body. Carrying boundless regret and resentment, it turned into a streak of light and shot off toward a destination hidden in the unknowable distance.
Inside the Investiture of the Gods Space.
Shen Zhaochi quietly watched it all unfold.
From Zhunti's arrival, to Randeng's seizure of the treasure, to Xiao Sheng and Cao Bao delivering the final blows.
Everything had gone according to his script, without the slightest deviation.
"Using one blade to kill another, killing three birds with one stone. Perfect."
Shen Zhaochi's face remained expressionless.
The first blade was Zhunti. He used a Saint's power to shatter Zhao Gongming's Dao Heart and take his magic treasures, stripping him of any ability to fight back.
The second blade was Randeng. He had Randeng seize the treasure and draw Zhunti's attention, creating the perfect opportunity and circumstances for the final killing blow.
The third blade was Xiao Sheng and Cao Bao. He had two insignificant nobodies end the life of this "hero," giving him the cruelest mockery fate could offer.
And Shen Zhaochi himself had been nothing more than a director watching coldly from the sidelines.
No one could ever connect Zhao Gongming's death to him.
To everyone else, Zhao Gongming's death was the result of a chain of accidents.
Zhunti's greed, Randeng's betrayal, and Xiao Sheng and Cao Bao's treachery in pursuit of profit had all combined to bring about this tragedy.
"Rest in peace, Zhao Gongming."
Shen Zhaochi watched the True Spirit fly into the Investiture of the Gods Space and spoke softly.
"Your death wasn't without purpose."
"Your death will be the spark that ignites the Sanxiao sisters' fury, a crucial step in dragging the Western Teachings into the fray, and the most important piece on the board as I... throw this tribulation into utter chaos."
Before you continue