Close the Doors! Leave No One Alive!

"You little brat whose feathers haven't even grown in, and you dare spout such bullshit in front of your Uncle Qin?"

"I'm a Soul Grandmaster, a level 22 Soul Grandmaster!! Do you know what that means?"

Qin Aotian's smile abruptly vanished, and a trace of savagery appeared on his face.

"Fine, I'll tell you."

"This land was approved by the City Lord's Mansion. Construction started before the New Year."

"As for those dead people's bones..."

"Maybe they're buried beneath this very ground right now, trampled by thousands upon thousands of people?"

Qin Aotian licked his lips and revealed a cruel smile.

"Rumble!!!"

Lightning split the night sky, its ghastly white glow shining through the window and illuminating Jiang Ming's face.

"Fine."

Jiang Ming said only one word.

Qin Aotian suddenly felt that something was wrong.

This boy's reaction was far too calm.

So calm that it made his scalp crawl.

"You..."

Before Qin Aotian could finish speaking, he saw...

Soul Rings!

Four Soul Rings slowly rose from beneath Jiang Ming's feet.

Yellow!

Purple!

Black!

Black!

The last two black Soul Rings glimmered with an icy, eerie light amid the darkness of the rainy night.

"Ten... Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings?"

Qin Aotian's pupils contracted sharply, and his smile froze on his face.

A youth who looked no older than fifteen possessed two Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings?

What kind of concept was that?

Although Qin Aotian was merely a two-ringed Soul Master, he was not ignorant.

He knew what Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings represented, and he knew how terrifying Soul Masters capable of absorbing them were.

Not to mention, those were not merely two Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings!

They were...

Yellow, purple, black, black!

One had to know that Xiao Chenyu's Soul Rings were only white and yellow!

A yellow, purple, black, black Soul Ring configuration had already utterly shattered everything he knew!

Was that possible?

Impossible!

Absolutely impossible!

Such a thing could not possibly exist in this world!

"You... you..."

"Your third Soul Ring is black? Ten thousand years? That's impossible! How old are you?"

Qin Aotian stared fixedly at the Soul Rings surrounding Jiang Ming, trying to find some flaw in them.

There was no flaw!

The pressure belonging to Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings was real.

It crushed his soul as though it had substance.

Qin Aotian thought of his older sister, the City Lord's Wife.

That sister had once told him something!

In this world, some things were more important than power.

For example, fists.

And the boy before him, who looked no more than fifteen, possessed a fist capable of crushing him into pieces.

"You... what do you want?"

"This... this is the City Lord's Mansion's territory. Even if... even if your Soul Rings are impressive, do you dare oppose the City Lord's Mansion?"

Qin Aotian was still making his final struggle, bringing up the City Lord's Mansion as a banner in an attempt to salvage the situation.

Jiang Ming did not answer.

He merely stood there quietly, rainwater streaming down his cheeks.

There was no emotional fluctuation in those eyes, calm as a pool of stagnant water.

That calmness made Qin Aotian even more terrified.

He had seen many Soul Masters—unyielding ones, furious ones, hysterical ones.

But he had never seen anyone like this.

That calmness was not cowardice, but a lofty indifference.

Like a person looking at ants.

"Where are my parents' remains?"

Jiang Ming's voice was not loud, yet it clearly pierced through the roar of the rainstorm.

"Back then... they were... crushed... into pieces..."

Qin Aotian stammered out those words.

"Crushed into pieces?"

Jiang Ming raised his head and looked toward the mountaintop.

The downpour poured relentlessly, and the night was black as ink.

That lavish pavilion traced a blurry silhouette against the summit.

Like a thorn lodged in his eye.

His expression remained calm, but the air around him began to distort.

Rings of silver-gray ripples spread outward.

The raindrops outside the window seemed frozen in time, hanging motionless in midair.

Qin Aotian felt that terrifying power.

It was an oppressive force he had never experienced in his life, ten times stronger than when facing the Soul Ancestor-level City Lord!

"It has nothing to do with me!"

"It was the City Lord's Mansion's order! They said that piece of land had good feng shui, and they wanted to build a scenic area to attract tourists!"

"I was just a laborer! I don't know anything!"

Qin Aotian finally broke down and dropped directly to his knees.

"I gave you a chance, but you didn't cherish it!"

Jiang Ming glanced at Qin Aotian.

"You... you..."

Qin Aotian's pupils constricted violently, and his entire body went limp as though all the bones had been pulled from it.

Jiang Ming raised his right hand.

The movement was slow, as though brushing a fallen leaf from the hem of his clothes.

The pitch-black fourth Soul Ring suddenly lit up.

The black light was not dazzling, yet it devoured the surrounding light inch by inch.

The raindrops outside were still suspended in midair.

Space Compression!

Qin Aotian heard a sound.

It was an extremely faint sound, like shattering glass, coming from inside his own body.

No...

It was not shattering!

It was compression!

He lowered his head and saw his fingers changing.

His five fingers seemed to be slowly clenched by an invisible palm, the gaps between his knuckles disappearing bit by bit.

Skin, muscles, blood vessels, bones...

Everything was contracting toward the same central point.

The pain came slightly later.

But when it arrived, Qin Aotian finally understood what true hell was.

"Aah—!"

His scream tore through the rainy night, yet it could not travel even three steps away.

Even the sound was imprisoned by that force, twisted, folded, and ultimately dissipated within the silver-gray ripples.

Qin Aotian watched his palm turn into a thin layer, like a sheet of paper that had been flattened.

He could still feel the excruciating pain transmitted by every nerve ending, but that hand no longer resembled a hand.

Then came his arm.

After the bones shattered, flesh and blood were compressed further, seeping from the cracks, only to be flattened into a thin layer by that horrifying spatial force in the next instant.

Jiang Ming's expression did not change in the slightest.

He simply watched Qin Aotian's arm turn from three-dimensional into a flat surface.

He watched the eyeballs bulging outward from that face, twisted to the extreme by terror and agony.

"No... no... spare me..."

Qin Aotian's plea had become incoherent.

He felt that force spreading upward, from his shoulders to his neck, from his neck to his chest.

His ribs broke one after another, compressed, flattened. His internal organs warped under the immense pressure, ruptured, and were then forcibly pressed into thin layers.

Breathing was no longer possible.

His lungs had been compressed into two overlapping membranes.

His heart struggled to beat twice within the cramped space of his chest, then was squeezed into a dark-red sliver.

Qin Aotian's consciousness was fading, yet that force strangely kept him awake to the very end.

He clearly experienced the entire process of becoming a "sheet of paper."

His abdomen, pelvis, legs, feet.

Every inch of flesh and every bone was compressed, flattened, and crushed smooth beneath that irresistible force.

The moisture was squeezed from his blood, turning it into dark-brown stains like blotches on a poorly printed page.

Finally, his head.