Slaying Qin Sihai

"Is this... the Blood Origin Technique? You're from the sect. I don't know you. Why are you trying to kill me? Who sent you?"

"Even if I lost Baishui Town and caused the sect losses, I've still worked hard in Lianshan City all these years, even if I have no great merit. My crime doesn't warrant death."

Qin Sihai's pupils contracted slightly as he spoke.

He truly could not understand it.

He had only lost a Baishui Town.

Why had the sect sent someone to kill him?

Besides, even if they truly meant to punish him, they would not have someone do it so furtively. They would send sect enforcers to take him back for judgment.

"No comment."

A smile appeared at the corner of Chen Xuan's lips, but there was no warmth in it. It was like a blade freshly tempered in icy water.

With a light flick of his wrist, the Hanfeng Sword gave a clear hum. The blood-colored light flowing across its blade suddenly flared, transforming into a shrill streak of light that tore through the night and shot straight at Qin Sihai's face.

Passing off the fake as real.

The Huanri Technique truly deserved to be called an Ultimate Art created by a Grandmaster who had blazed a new trail from a Divine Art. It could deceive the heavens and cross the seas, passing off the fake as real.

Even Qin Sihai, a Zhuqi Realm expert of the Blood Fiend Devil Sect, could not see that the Blood Origin Technique Chen Xuan wielded was fake.

Chen Xuan was still using the Nine Shadow Killing Sword for this strike, but what powered it was the simulated Blood Origin True Qi.

The sword shadows were no longer golden, but blood-red.

Forty-five blood-red sword shadows bloomed in the night sky at once, like a blossoming lotus of blood—bewitching and deadly.

Wherever the sword shadows passed, the air was ripped apart with piercing shrieks.

"This is... the Nine Shadow Killing Sword!" Qin Sihai's expression changed drastically as he demanded, "Who exactly sent you?"

He recognized the sword art.

The Blood Fiend Devil Sect's Nine Shadow Killing Sword might not have been an Ultimate Art, but it stood among the finest superior martial techniques. Anyone in the sect capable of reaching the second level, producing forty-five shadows with a single sword strike, could never be an unknown nobody.

Why would such a person come to kill him?

Qin Sihai had no time to think further and retreated at top speed.

His toes touched the ground, and his whole body drifted backward like a fallen leaf swept up by the wind. At the same time, his hands crossed rapidly before him, his ten fingers forming hand seals like butterflies flitting among flowers. A blood-colored barrier of True Qi condensed from thin air, like a translucent wall of blood-colored glazed crystal standing between him and the forty-five sword shadows.

The technique he cultivated was also the Blood Origin Technique. He had opened thirty apertures; once he opened thirty-six and linked them to his qi sea, he would reach the Fifth Layer of Qi Casting.

Thirty apertures were enough to look down upon all others in a small place like Lianshan City. Yet before the blood-red sword lotus cutting toward him, he felt a long-forgotten shudder rising from the depths of his soul.

Because Chen Xuan's "Blood Origin True Qi" was fundamentally simulated from Huanri True Qi.

Although his Huanri Technique had only reached the Qi Casting Realm Second Layer, opening one hundred and eight qi channels, and was still some distance from the one hundred and eighty qi channels of the Qi Casting Realm Third Layer, the Huanri Technique was an Ultimate Art-level internal cultivation method. Its True Qi was inherently far purer and more condensed than the Blood Origin Technique's, so the simulated Blood Origin True Qi was of even higher quality than Qin Sihai's.

Bang—

The blood-red sword shadows crashed down upon the True Qi barrier like lightning falling from the ninth heaven.

A muffled boom exploded through the hall, and the air shook into visible ripples.

The blood-colored barrier lasted less than a breath before shattering under the sword shadows' assault. It dissolved into specks of crimson light that scattered through the air like shattered rubies.

Blood surged wildly from Qin Sihai's mouth as he flew backward like a kite with its string cut, smashing heavily into the bluestone wall behind him.

Boom—

The wall was instantly covered in spiderweb cracks, and broken stones pattered down. Qin Sihai slid from the wall to the floor, his knees hitting the cold ground. His face was pale as paper, and blood dripped from the corner of his mouth down his chin, splashing into shocking crimson blossoms across the bluestone slabs.

"You... who exactly are you?"

Qin Sihai struggled to raise his head, using the last of his strength to force his eyes open as he watched Chen Xuan approach step by step.

His voice was hoarse and trembling, his eyes full of fear and unwillingness. Like a trapped beast driven into a dead end, he wanted to struggle, yet knew clearly that there was no road left for him.

"I told you, who I am isn't important." Chen Xuan stopped before him and looked down at him. "The dead do not need to know too much."

Chen Xuan said no more. With a turn of his wrist, the Hanfeng Sword drew a graceful arc through the air. Blood-red Sword Qi swept lightly across Qin Sihai's throat like a thread, raising a fine spray of blood mist.

That sword was too fast—so fast that Qin Sihai did not even feel pain.

He only felt a chill at his neck. Then his vision began to spin, and the world turned blurred and distant.

Qin Sihai's eyes widened round, his mouth opening and closing like a fish hauled onto shore.

He wanted to say something, but could only make hoarse, gurgling sounds—the sound of air passing through his severed windpipe, hollow and despairing.

His body slowly fell, his head tilting to one side as his pupils gradually lost focus.

There was no more sound.

The hall was terrifyingly quiet. Only the rustle of wind stirring the window paper remained, along with the drip-drip of blood from Chen Xuan's sword falling onto the floor.

"G-Gang Leader!"

Qin Sihai's confidant in the hall finally came to his senses.

Or rather, he had been frightened awake.

He stood rooted to the spot, his legs as heavy as though filled with lead, every cell in his body trembling.

His mind was blank, with only one thought echoing over and over.

The Gang Leader was dead.

The Gang Leader at the Fourth Layer of Qi Casting was dead.

Who was Qin Sihai?

He was the Blood Fiend Devil Sect's steward in Lianshan City, the Gang Leader of the Blood Wolf Gang, a figure on equal footing with Sun Tianxing of the Red Sun Gang and Wan Zhenshan of the Iron Sword Sect.

In this city, his name was a protective talisman, an imperial sword of authority, enough to make countless people turn pale at the mere mention of it.

But now, he was dead.

Killed by two sword strikes.

The first sword shattered his defenses and gravely wounded him.

The second took his life, clean and decisive.

From beginning to end, it had taken no more than three breaths.

That confidant stood frozen in terror, like a statue struck by lightning, forgetting even to breathe.

"Take me to the treasury."

Chen Xuan wiped the blood from the Hanfeng Sword on Qin Sihai's robe, sheathed it, and then looked toward the man in the hall who had been frightened senseless.

His tone was as calm as if he were merely asking for directions. There was no threat, no intimidation, not even the slightest excess emotion.

Yet it was precisely this calmness that made the confidant even more terrified.

Someone who had just killed a man could speak so calmly.

Such a person was either a cold-blooded madman or a true expert long accustomed to life and death. Whichever he was, neither was someone the confidant could provoke.

"Y-Yes... h-hero, this way."

The confidant finally came back to himself, but his words trembled, and his legs shook as though they might give out at any moment.

He did not dare refuse. He did not even dare entertain the thought of running.

Even Gang Leader Qin Sihai was dead. In the other man's eyes, he probably did not even count as an ant—one finger would be enough to crush him easily.