Yi Yang led the Pacification Guard and the Nether Spring Office's Patrol Guards through the Wu Family's main gate.
Rain pattered noisily against black armor. More than thirty Pacification Guards formed two columns, their swift footsteps perfectly synchronized as they hurried along the blue-brick path toward the Ancestral Hall in the rear courtyard.
Xu Min followed half a step behind Yi Yang, his saber already drawn, the wind sweeping raindrops off its blade.
The Ancestral Hall's doors stood ajar. Inside, all was dark, with no one in sight.
Yi Yang's Mental Power had already laid this entire area bare.
Beneath the stone slab engraved with the Wu Family Crest in the center of the floor, the auras were muddled, and the traces of disturbed earth were unmistakable.
"Xu Min."
Yi Yang's voice was quiet in the nighttime Ancestral Hall, yet carried unquestionable weight.
"Pry it open."
Hearing his name, Xu Min stepped forward with two Pacification Guards. Three sabers slid into the gaps around the stone slab in unison.
"Heave!"
The bluestone slab, so broad that several people together could barely encircle it, slowly rose with a teeth-grating scrape.
The instant that gap opened-
A long-prepared Fist Force, wrapped in a vicious gale, shot from the pitch-black opening, straight at Yi Yang's face!
The strike came without warning, its power long held in reserve.
Wreathed in a dense aura of True Astral Force, the Fist Force vaporized the drifting rain into white mist and burst from the opening with a piercing whistle.
Yi Yang already held Mysterious Abyss in his right hand.
He had been ready for this.
The jet-black blade swept across his chest, wood-nurturing astral force surging onto its edge.
Clang!
A crisp impact rang out.
The black blade split the Fist Force down the middle, turning it