The next day.
The dawn of Luoxia City was awakened by a heavy, thick scent of blood that refused to disperse.
As the sky just grew bright, several early-rising cultivators passing by the street outside the City Lord's Mansion were the first to catch that nauseating stench in their nostrils.
At first, they thought it was just blood from some butcher shop that had spilled over,
yet the closer they got to the City Lord's Mansion, the thicker the smell of blood became, so dense it felt as though it was about to condense into a physical substance.
It seeped outward in wisps and threads through the door gaps and window lattice.
"Something's wrong..." An elderly Xiantian Realm cultivator stopped in his tracks, frowning as he looked toward the tightly shut vermilion-lacquered doors of the City Lord's Mansion.
"At this hour on any other day, the gates of the City Lord's Mansion would already be open. Why is it so quiet today?"
Beside him, a middle-aged cultivator also nodded, his voice carrying a trace of unease.
"That's right, I don't even see the guards at the gate... And this smell is way too bizarre."
Several daring cultivators gathered together and, plucking up their courage, pushed against the gates of the City Lord's Mansion.
The heavy wooden doors that normally required two guards to push open
were easily pushed ajar with a single creak at this moment.
Beyond the gap lay hell.
Morning light slanted through the crack into the mansion, illuminating the corpses covering the ground.
The bodies of over three hundred guards lay sprawled across the courtyard and steps,
each with a thin streak of blood left at the neck, eyes wide open, and their faces frozen in extreme terror.
Fresh blood dyed the bluestone pavement red, converging into winding rivers of blood that cast an eerie red glow under the morning light.
"Ah—!"
A shrill scream pierced the peace of early morning.
A female cultivator turned pale, her body collapsing limply to the ground out of control, and the sword in her hand slipped powerlessly away as blood spatters stained her white dress.
"People are dead! People in the City Lord's Mansion are dead! All of them have perished!"
Fear spread rapidly like a plague.
The news spread as if it had grown wings, reaching every corner of Luoxia City in an instant,
and even traveling toward the other cities of Qingzhou.
Low-tier cultivators no longer dared to approach the City Lord's Mansion, gathering only far away in the street corners and alleys to whisper to each other, their faces as pale as paper.
"Heavens! The City Lord's Mansion had over three hundred guards, plus three Grandmaster personal guards. How could they all lose their lives overnight?"
"Those are Grandmasters! Grandmasters who can shatter a small mountain with a single punch! How could they die so easily?"
"And what about Lord City Lord? Lord City Lord is a powerhouse of the Void Glimpse Realm! How is he now?"
Just as the cultivators of Luoxia City fell into panic,
several figures descended from the sky like flying birds, landing steadily before the gates of the City Lord's Mansion.
The few individuals slowly walked inside the Luoxia City Lord's Mansion.
"Hiss, such intense killing intent. It seems the Luoxia City Lord is unlikely to escape this disaster," an intelligence agent said.
They saw that the interior of the City Lord's Mansion was in utter disarray, with everyone inside having their throats slit by a single sword, and some still retaining a deep look of terror on their faces even in death.
Upon seeing this scene, these intelligence agents felt as though they had plunged into an ice cellar, turning cold all over,
and had they not been seasoned veterans with vast experience, they probably would have been scared out of their wits by this terrifying spectacle long ago.
The leading intelligence agent's Adam's apple bobbed heavily, and his voice trembled: "Th-Three Grandmasters... Three hundred elites... didn't even have the slightest strength to fight back?"
Beside him, another intelligence agent stared intently at the hair-thin sword mark on the ground, his expression as dark as iron:
"How... how sharp is this sword, and how swift are the sword moves! A single sword pierces the throat, leaving no power to resist!"
The last intelligence agent swept his gaze across the center of the courtyard, his pupils abruptly contracting as he let out a startled cry: "Look! That is..."
His face was as pale as paper, his eyeballs bulging.
The several individuals simultaneously discovered that the fresh blood on the ground had converged into the three characters "Misty Rain Tower", resembling a blooming blood-red flower.
"This Misty Rain Tower is truly ruthless and Emotionless. How could we have never heard of this faction before?"
"To slaughter the Luoxia City Lord's Mansion to the last man overnight—"
"Indeed, judging from the tragic state here, the Misty Rain Tower is by no means an ordinary faction, and its power is unfathomable."
"I have actually heard of this faction; news spread in Qingzhou City a few days ago, stating that it is an assassin organization."
One of the intelligence agents said.
"Oh? An assassin organization? That being said, someone must have bought the life of the Luoxia City Lord."
At this moment, an intelligence agent saw the headless corpse, noting that the cut at the neck was flat and smooth, clearly having been decapitated by a single sword strike.
His pupils shrank abruptly, and he cried out in shock:
"It seems the Luoxia City Lord has indeed met with disaster."
"This body is presumably the remains of the Luoxia City Lord. It's just that his head is nowhere to be found."
Hearing this, everyone looked toward the headless body.
"To be slain with a single sword, the person who made the move was far superior in strength to the Luoxia City Lord, otherwise it would have been utterly impossible to succeed in one strike."
"I surmise that his head must have been taken away by the Misty Rain Tower to collect their reward."
"This Misty Rain Tower is truly bold. Knowing full well that the Luoxia City Lord has backers, they dared to completely disregard the forces behind him and directly wiped out his mansion."
"It looks like the Eastern Region is about to experience a storm."
Everyone spoke up.
"I take my leave."
An intelligence agent said, and then left the City Lord's Mansion. Having gathered all the information now, he needed to rush back immediately to report this incident to the faction behind him.
Before you continue