"Tian..."
His voice was hoarse and broken, his frail body swaying on the verge of collapse.
Qian Renxue raised her eyes, her cold gaze sweeping over the chaotic crowd without the slightest flicker of emotion. Her cool voice rang out again.
"Within half an incense stick's time, I will kill another person at random. Ning Fengzhi, think carefully."
Those eyes were cold and distant, without a shred of pity.
"Someone! Come quickly!"
Panic and despair shattered every scrap of Ning Fengzhi's composure. As though he had gone utterly mad, he screamed recklessly at the top of his lungs, his voice hoarse and anguished.
He frantically turned this way and that, trying to summon the sect's guards and elders, trying to gather enough men to kill Qian Renxue and her companions and break out of this hopeless situation.
Yet no matter how he screamed or called, the entire Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect remained silent. Not a single answer came.
The guards, patrolling disciples, and elders on duty had all vanished without a trace. A terrifying deathly silence blanketed the sect.
Just as Ning Fengzhi teetered on the brink of collapse, a languid, soft female voice slowly rang out.
Qian Renyou lightly rubbed her fingertips together, leisurely applying vivid red nail polish, tiny glimmers of light playing across her fingertips.
"Stop shouting. We killed our way here."
Beside her, Gu Yuena slowly raised a hand and gently dispelled the invisible barrier enveloping the entire courtyard.
"Everyone who dared resist is dead."
The next second, an overwhelmingly dense stench of blood, mingled with the traces of countless gruesome deaths, surged toward them like a raging tide, forcing its way into everyone's nostrils and lungs.
The bloody stench was heavy, tangled, and nauseatingly strong. It was not the scent left by one or