Luo Tianshen

The blood palm stopped three feet in front of Xiao Yan.

It was not Xue Ku who had stopped it. At some unknown point, a ring had appeared around the blood palm, a faint, almost invisible circle of light. Only as wide as a millstone, it hung quietly in midair, enclosing the blood palm that could have smashed a house to pieces.

Inside the blood palm, those twisted faces were still roaring silently, and the bloody light was still churning wildly. Yet no matter how they struggled, the blood palm could not descend another fraction of an inch, as if heaven and earth themselves had held it in place.

Spirit Immobilization.

Xue Ku's savage old face froze at that instant. He knew this move. Over the greater part of his life, he had suffered more losses to it than all the other losses he had ever suffered combined.

Slowly, inch by inch, he raised his head. In the enormous hole Xiao Yan's Fire Lotus had blasted through the blood-red canopy overhead, sunlight poured down. At the very center of that sunlight stood a drab gray figure, hands clasped behind his back, looking down at him. The figure was thin and short, dressed in a cloth robe washed pale with age. The wind had tousled his graying hair, and several spots of dark red blood stained the hem of his robe. There was no telling whose blood it was.

Luo Tianshen!

"Old ghost," Luo Tianshen said, his voice quiet and as flat as if he were greeting a neighbor. "You stayed in seclusion for sixty years, and the moment you came out, you came to bully a junior of my family?"

The entire long street fell deathly silent in an instant. The pedestrians huddled and trembling at its edges, the Luo God Clan elders and juniors who had just charged into the Blood Domain, and Xue Li, who was locked in an evenly matched fight with Luo Yan-all of them stopped what they were doing and looked up at the drab gray figure standing in the sunlight.

Luo Feng stopped in his tracks, the hand holding his longsword trembling slightly. Something suddenly welled up in his usually steady eyes. Luo Xiao, too, stood with his mouth open, unable to close it for a long moment. At the end of the street, Luo Lan, supported by the Luo Shen Guard, saw the figure and finally could hold on no longer. His knees gave way, and he dropped to the ground, grinning as he cried and laughed. "Great-granduncle... great-granduncle is back..."

Xue Ku's expression shifted, and shock, venomous hatred, unwillingness, and all manner of other emotions flickered in turn through his sunken, dark red eyes. "You... how could you... the clan leader said he could hold you up for at least three days..."

"That tea was no good," Luo Tianshen said mildly. "By the second cup, I discovered that the cave residence where you had been in seclusion for sixty years was empty."

He raised a hand slightly and pointed to the spots of blood on his robe's hem. "Your clan leader wanted me to stay for a few more cups. I didn't give him that face."

At those words, Xue Ku's pupils abruptly shrank. Even an Earthly Sovereign traveling at full speed would need a day and a night to get from Blood God City to Luo Shen City. This old thing had fought his way out right under the Blood God Clan leader's nose!

"Luo Tianshen..." Xue Ku gritted his teeth. The blood palm fixed in midair suddenly burst apart, turning into a skyful of bloody mist. Under its cover, he shot backward. "If you dare touch me, the Blood God Clan and your Luo God Clan will fight until one of us is dead!"

"Until one of us is dead?" Luo Tianshen looked at him, and for the first time, a glint of utter coldness appeared in his cloudy old eyes. "You used the blood of seventeen Luo God Clansmen to slip into Luo River Abyss and killed two children of my clan. You held me up, came to my city, and spread your Blood Domain, intending to kill my guest and turn everyone on this entire street into blood. And now you speak to me of fighting until one of us is dead?"

He stepped down from midair. His foot landed on empty space, yet the entire long street and all of Luo Shen City trembled slightly beneath that step. Xue Ku's figure abruptly faltered with the tremor, and in the next instant, Luo Tianshen's palm was before his chest.

That palm moved slowly, slowly enough for everyone to see with perfect clarity how the thin, calloused hand pressed little by little against Xue Ku's chest. Yet Xue Ku could not evade it. He watched helplessly as the palm came down, all the Spiritual Energy in his body gripped tight as if by an invisible hand. He could not move even a finger.

"Bang."

The muffled sound was quiet, but in its wake, Xue Ku's hunched body shot backward like a piece of deadwood caught in a gale. He crashed through the blood-red canopy, through three houses at the end of the street, and through Luo Shen City's thousand-zhang-high wall. He flew several miles before slamming into the mountain west of the city, leaving an enormous, deep crater.

At that instant, the Blood Domain shrouding the entire long street shattered inch by inch like a broken mirror, turning into a skyful of bloody mist. When the sunlight poured down upon it, it dispersed without a trace.

The sky cleared.

Half a day earlier, in Blood God City, a long table of red sandalwood stood in the Blood God Clan's council hall, with two cups of steaming spirit tea upon it. The Blood God Clan leader, a kindly faced old man with white hair and beard, was smiling as he poured Luo Tianshen a second cup. He said that the clan would certainly give the Luo God Clan an accounting for what had happened at Luo River Abyss, and that the clan would certainly punish the child Xue Li severely.

Luo Tianshen held his teacup and listened without saying much, but his Soul Power had long since spread silently throughout the whole of Blood God City.

On the mountain behind Blood God City stood a cave residence that had been sealed for sixty years. A blood-red seal lay on its stone door, the very seal he had watched the old ghost Xue Ku put in place sixty years ago. The seal was still there, but beyond it, the cave residence was empty, without the slightest trace of a living person.

Luo Tianshen set down his teacup. "I can't drink any more of this tea."

The Blood God Clan leader's kindly smile stiffened slightly, and behind the screens on both sides of the hall, the presences of seven or eight Blood God Clan elders flared up almost at the same time. Luo Tianshen did not look at them. He simply stood, raised his hand, and gave a gentle sweep toward the hall's vaulted roof.

"Rumble!"

With that sweep, the half of the Blood God Clan's council hall roof made of blood jade was ripped clean off and sent flying. Fragments of jade filled the sky like a blood-red rain. By the time that rain had fallen, the red sandalwood chair across the long table was empty.

On the long street, everyone stared blankly at the drab gray figure, even forgetting to breathe. Xue Li stood opposite Luo Yan, his gaunt face now utterly devoid of color. He looked at the enormous crater in the mountain west of the city, his lips trembling violently. The next moment, he spun around, intending to flee.

"Leaving?"

Luo Tianshen did not turn around. He merely raised a finger and casually drew it through the air in Xue Li's direction. A faint flash of white light came and went, and Xue Li's body jerked to a halt. Then an arm shot into the air amid a spray of blood, tumbled several times, and landed with a smack on the street's bluestone paving. A piercing scream rang out across the entire long street.

"This arm is for Luo Shi," Luo Tianshen said mildly. "I haven't forgotten what you owe for Luo Wen. I'll settle that account with you another day. Scram."

Clutching his bleeding stump, Xue Li was as pale as paper. He did not dare utter a single threat, but fled in a sorry stagger toward the mountain west of the city.

Only then did Luo Tianshen slowly turn around and look west. He took a deep breath and spoke. His voice was not loud, yet it was as if heaven and earth themselves were speaking. It rolled out over Luo Shen City, across the city wall and the mountain, into the deep crater, and west toward Blood God City. "From this day forth, any member of the Blood God Clan who sets foot within Luo Shen City's territory shall be killed without mercy."

After that day, the superficial peace that had lasted for many years between the Luo God Clan and the Blood God Clan shattered completely. Many years later, when the elders of the Luo God Clan spoke of their feud with the Blood God Clan, of the blood that had been shed and the grudges that had been born, they always mentioned that year, a long street in Luo Shen City that had been burned into magma, and a young man from a Lower Plane covered in blood.

Those words, however, were always spoken only within the Luo God Clan's own walls. Outsiders knew only that the Luo and Blood clans had fallen out that year; few could say who the young man was.

On the long street, Luo Tianshen walked over to Xiao Yan and crouched beside him. Xiao Yan lay there with his eyes tightly shut and his body covered in blood. His pale face had not a trace of color, and the rise and fall of his chest was so faint it was barely visible. Luo Tianshen placed two fingers on his pulse, and after a moment, his brows drew into a deep frown.

His sea of Dou Qi was empty. The last bit of the young man's foundation that he had brought from the Lower Plane had burned down to a spark the size of a grain of rice. At the bottom of that empty sea, it flickered faintly, brightening and dimming, liable to go out at any moment. Luo Tianshen was silent for a long while before murmuring, "Foolish boy."

He reached out and gently lifted Xiao Yan, his movements as careful as if he were holding a piece of porcelain that would shatter at a touch. Luo Feng, Luo Xiao, Luo Yan, and the Luo God Clan elders and juniors silently made way for him. Holding Xiao Yan, Luo Tianshen walked step by step toward the Luo Shen Residence.

He did not see that, within the unconscious young man in his arms, at the very bottom of his empty sea of Dou Qi, the spark surrounded by four layers of Reverse Scale suddenly brightened slightly as he took his third step.