Empty the Zhao Family, Not Even a Single Piece of Paper Left!

Lin Feng crouched down and searched Zhao Wannian's corpse.

On the left hand was a white jade ring, its surface carved with intricate spatial storage runes.

A high-tier storage ring.

Priceless!

Lin Feng slipped the ring off and put it on his own finger.

He probed it with his Psychic Power—the space was sizable, and there was quite a bit inside.

Three bottles of Foundation Establishment Pills, a B-Rank Short Sword, a stack of bank drafts, and a palm-sized token.

He flipped the token over. The back was engraved with the character "Zhao," and the front bore a complex runic array pattern.

Probably something like the Zhao Clan Head Token.

Useless. Toss it.

Lin Feng casually dropped the token on the ground and stashed all the valuables into the ring.

Then he swept through the remaining contents of the treasury.

He'd already moved most of it, but there were still a few cabinets in the corners he hadn't opened.

He pried them open one by one with Mountain Splitter.

First cabinet: two boxes of top-grade Energy Recovery Pills, labeled "Qing Prefecture Pill Workshop Exclusive Supply."

Second cabinet: a stack of loan contracts from the Zhao Clan Bank. Lin Feng flipped through them—crammed with borrowers' names.

Eight hundred thousand.

Six hundred thousand.

One million two hundred thousand.

Every entry was marked with a terrifying monthly interest rate.

"Fucking bloodsuckers."

Lin Feng stuffed all the contracts into the ring.

Once he burned these later, the people crushed by the Zhao Clan Bank would finally be free.

The third cabinet held a black ore. It was heavy in his hand and emitted a faint energy fluctuation.

A system prompt appeared.

[Detected rare material: Abyssal Refined Iron (A-Rank forging material)]

[Can be used to upgrade an A-Rank weapon to S-Rank]

Lin Feng gripped the ore in his palm and weighed it.

Could it upgrade Mountain Splitter?

This thing might be worth more than the entire treasury combined.

Keep it safe.

He did a final check of the safe.

Bank deposit slips, land deeds, shop contracts, a list of assets under the clan's name.

Just how vast the Zhao family's holdings were in Qing Prefecture was clear from these paper numbers alone.

There were over twenty bearer drafts alone, ranging from one million to twenty million each.

Lin Feng did a rough calculation—total value exceeded one billion.

He collected all the paper documents into the storage ring.

Not a single sheet left behind.

Done with that, Lin Feng stood up and swept his gaze over the empty treasury.

The weapon racks on the walls were bare, all the cabinets were smashed open, and the floor held only Zhao Wannian's two halves of a corpse and the shattered fragments of the Red Copper Inner Armor.

Time to clean up the scene.

Lin Feng channeled his blood energy into his palms and punched each of the four walls of the treasury.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

All the load-bearing walls collapsed, and the building structure above began to cave in.

He wasn't in a hurry. He slipped out through the treasury's ventilation shaft and surfaced above ground.

No one alive remained in the Zhao Family Manor.

Lin Feng found a bucket of lamp oil from the back courtyard kitchen and splashed it along the corridor.

The front courtyard, middle courtyard, and back courtyard—all drenched.

Finally, he lit a fire at the main gate.

The flames spread quickly.

The old manor's wooden structure caught fire the moment it touched, and within minutes, the entire Zhao Family Manor was engulfed in flames.

The night sky east of Qing Prefecture was dyed a dark red.

In the distance, the sirens of fire trucks wailed.

Lin Feng wrapped himself in a black cloak he'd found at the Zhao estate and walked along the alley toward the city outskirts.

No one noticed him.

Everyone was watching the fire.

Once out of Qing Prefecture, Lin Feng called up the System Panel.

code
[Host: Lin Feng]
[Spirit: First-Rank Psychokinetic Master (260/1000)]
[Realm: Martial Ancestor, Second Stage (0/20000)]
[Art: Heavenly Gale Body-Forging Art (4400/10000)]
[Martial Skill: Mountain-Breaking Slash (Mastered), Lost Trace Step (Mastered)]
[Talent: Steel of the Blade (500/500, Maxed)]
[Martial Path Points: 4500]

He slung Mountain Splitter back over his shoulder and headed north.

Back to the Northern Territory.

He took the high-risk wilderness route.

That route had plenty of Exotic Beasts—perfect for farming.

On the first day of travel, three Iron-Armored Poison Rhinos blocked his path.

C-Rank Exotic Beasts, three of them lined up side by side, blocking the middle of the canyon passage.

Lin Feng didn't even slow his pace.

Mountain Splitter swung three times.

Every strike was a critical hit.

The three Iron-Armored Poison Rhinos turned into blood mist where the blade passed, not even having time to scream.

code
[Killed C-Rank Exotic Beasts: Iron-Armored Poison Rhino ×3, gained Martial Path Points ×1500]
[Note: Steel of the Blade has reached its limit; kills no longer stack layers.]

"Mm."

Lin Feng stepped through the scattered flesh and continued forward.

Deep in the wilderness.

A hidden cave.

Lin Feng dumped everything from his Storage Ring onto the ground.

The cave floor was instantly covered in a mess of bottles, jars, Magic Cores of various sizes, plus stacks of paper documents and bank drafts, spreading out in a thick layer.

He sat cross-legged and sorted through them one by one.

Magic Cores.

Three B-Rank Magic Cores, each worth over two million on the market; forty-seven C-Rank Magic Cores; one hundred and twenty-three D-Rank Magic Cores.

Just the Magic Cores alone were worth over twenty million.

Pills.

Thirty-two top-grade Body Tempering Pills, twenty-six top-grade Energy Recovery Pills, nearly a hundred Foundation Establishment Pills.

All these pills were hot commodities on the Black Market, with a total value of at least twenty to thirty million.

Weapons.

One B-Rank Short Sword, two C-Rank spears, and over a dozen miscellaneous D-Rank weapons.

The only valuable one was that B-Rank Short Sword, which could sell for five or six million.

Paper assets: twenty-three unregistered bank drafts, totaling one billion one hundred forty million.

Plus the Zhao family's property deeds, shop contracts, mining rights certificates, and so on—these things were actually worth more, but they couldn't be liquidated.

The Zhao family seal had been burned. Who could these contracts be cashed with?

Lin Feng thought it over and put away the property deeds and mining certificates.

These might come in handy later.

If not, he'd toss them—they didn't take up space anyway.

The most valuable thing was actually that piece of Abyssal Refined Iron.

A-rank forging material, enough to upgrade Mountain Splitter from A-rank to S-rank.

An S-rank weapon.

The number of S-rank weapons you could count across the entire Northern Territory would fit on one hand.

But upgrading a weapon couldn't be rushed—he'd need a master-level blacksmith.

He'd save it for now.

Inventory done, Lin Feng stashed everything back into his Storage Ring.

Then he closed his eyes and pulled up the System Panel.

[Current Martial Path Points: 6000]

He'd killed a few Exotic Beasts along the way, stacking up some more points.

Without hesitation, he dumped all his points into Heavenly Gale Body-Forging Art.

[Consumed Martial Path Points × 5600]

[Skill Heavenly Gale Body-Forging Art has reached Perfection! (10000/10000)]

[Physical body strength increased tenfold! Breakthrough side effects significantly reduced!]

A surge of kingly aura exploded from his dantian, flooding every inch of bone and cell in his body.

A faint golden luster surfaced on his bones.

Muscle fibers were restructuring.

His skin grew tighter, coated in a barely visible sheen of gold.

Lin Feng clenched his fist.

The ground beneath was crushed into a half-foot-deep depression by the force of his punch wind.

He hadn't even thrown a punch.

It was purely the pressure of qi and blood leaking out when he made a fist.

"The art is perfected."

Lin Feng stood up, rolling his shoulders and limbs.

Every joint in his body let out a faint series of cracks.

Bone density, toughness, and hardness had all been fully upgraded. Paired with his Martial Ancestor, Second Stage cultivation, even without a blade, he was confident he could take a full-force blow from a Martial King, First Stage head-on.

[Remaining Martial Path Points: 400]

Not much, but no rush.

Back on his own turf in the Northern Territory, there were plenty of Rifts to farm.

Lin Feng cleaned up the traces in the cave, slung Mountain Splitter over his back, and continued on his way.

The next morning.

The walls of the Sixth Defense Line appeared on the horizon.

Lin Feng quickened his pace, reaching the camp gate ten minutes later.

The atmosphere in the camp was off.

Everyone was fully armed.

Soldiers lined the walls, heavy firepower positions were all opened up, ammunition crates stacked everywhere.

Patrol density was more than triple the usual.

A soldier recognized him and snapped to attention with a sharp salute.

"Sergeant Major Lin!"

"What's going on?"

The soldier's face was full of anxiety.

"A new Rift was discovered on the front lines! B-rank!"

Lin Feng's steps faltered for a moment.

A B-rank Rift.

A den for Martial King-level Exotic Beasts.

He didn't ask any more questions, striding straight toward the command center.

He pushed open the door and slapped his leave slip onto the table.

"Commander Li, reporting back from leave."

A dozen people sat inside the command center, all senior officers.

Every single one turned their heads in unison.

Li Zhenguo sat at the head, his single eye fixed hard on Lin Feng.

His expression shifted.

Not surprise—shock.

The aura around Lin Feng was completely different from a few days ago.

Martial Ancestor.

A few days ago, he was still a Martial Master. He went out to request leave, came back, and turned into a Martial Ancestor?

Captain Zhao froze with his water cup halfway to his mouth, spilling all over the table.

"You..."

Li Zhenguo opened his mouth, held it for two seconds.

"What did you go do on leave?"

"Rest."

"And resting turned you into a Martial Ancestor?"

"What else would it do?"

Li Zhenguo slammed his hand on the table with a crack.

Hurried footsteps sounded from outside the door.

Zhang Qian burst through the conference room door, his face deathly pale, clutching a piece of encrypted intelligence in his hand.

"Commander Li! Something huge has happened!"

Everyone turned to look at him.

Zhang Qian gasped for two breaths.

"The Zhao Family of Qing Prefecture was wiped out last night! Family head Zhao Wannian, a Martial King, died a brutal death! The treasure vault was looted clean, and the entire estate burned to ashes!"

The air in the conference room instantly solidified.

Over a dozen officers exchanged glances, cold sweat trickling down their spines.

The Zhao Family? The Zhao Family of Qing Prefecture?

A Martial King realm family head was killed?

That was a Martial King!

In the entire Northern Territory, Martial King level experts numbered only a few hundred!

Who did it?

What kind of monster could annihilate a family guarded by a Martial King?

Li Zhenguo's single eye slowly shifted to Lin Feng.

The Zhao Family had come looking for trouble with Lin Feng before.

Lin Feng had taken seven days of leave.

The Zhao Family was wiped out last night.

Lin Feng came back today.

And his aura had jumped from Martial Master to Martial Ancestor.

The more Li Zhenguo thought about it, the more shocked he became.

But he didn't ask.

Some things are better left unasked.