Breaking the Household

"The sky isn't falling. Get up before you speak." Jin Huohua had always treated the people around him well, so his words were half reproach, half reassurance.

"Immortal Master Zhang went-went into the inner residence! He ran into Second Grand Master's wife. We couldn't stop him, and Guard Geng lost his life!" The servant did not dare rise, his voice growing even more tearful.

At that, Jin Huohua's expression changed drastically. All trace of his composure in the face of trouble vanished as he rushed toward the inner residence in great strides.

In the Jin Household's inner residence, a white-haired elder with eyes as calm as still water stood in the way of a middle-aged man in Daoist robes. Unafraid of the man's lecherous gaze, he shielded a beautiful woman whose lovely face had gone pale with fright.

"Immortal Master Zhang, you mustn't!"

"Old bastard, your Jin Household begged this Daoist master to come! What's the meaning of this now?!" Immortal Master Zhang's expression was ugly too.

"The Jin Household will naturally serve you with all its heart, Immortal Master, but how could we hand our own family over for you to abuse?" The white-haired elder forced down his anger. Despite suffering such humiliation, his tone still carried a note of pleading.

Mother's! I, Jin Qi, the Jade Blood Sword, was a martial prodigy too. Ever since becoming a Martial Ancestor at fifty, I've slain who knows how many invading enemies for Gongxing Stockade. When have I ever swallowed such humiliation?!

"You ignorant old bastard! Your Jin Household doesn't have even this much sincerity, yet you talk of serving me with all your heart! You're disturbing this immortal. It would be quieter if you were dead."

As Immortal Master Zhang spoke, he pulled out a yellow talisman and flung it into the air. Pointing at the elder from afar, he cried, "Obey!"

A fist-sized fireball hurtled toward him. Jin Qi hurriedly reached behind himself and pushed the young woman aside. He narrowly dodged it himself, then drew the longsword from his back and turned to thrust straight at Immortal Master Zhang's face.

If the sword landed, not even a cultivator's head could withstand it.

"Hmph!" Immortal Master Zhang's heart ached when the inferior Fireball Talisman, sold six for two Spirit Stones, failed to hit.

"Clang!" Jin Qi's longsword struck a Golden Light with the ring of metal against metal. A splitting pain shot through his wrist, and he leaped back.

An inferior Golden Armor Talisman, five for two Spirit Stones! Immortal Master Zhang's heart was bleeding. He would make the old man pay for this!

"Go!" Two blade-shaped Talisman Artifacts appeared in Immortal Master Zhang's hands. He formed a spirit seal, and the two artifacts became streaks of light, one high and one low, shooting straight for two of Jin Qi's vital points.

This is a true immortal's marvelous art! Jin Qi marveled. How could he possibly dodge in time?

"I'll take the one above!" Hearing this, Jin Qi immediately relaxed and left his upper body wide open, swinging his sword diagonally to block the lower Talisman Artifact. Weapons shattered above and below him at the same instant.

"Jade Blood Sword? Gale Saber? Jin Huohua, two generations of your Jin Household have such grand reputations for mastery of sword and saber, but this is all you amount to."

Immortal Master Zhang looked at the fragments of the two Martial Ancestors' weapons and recalled his two Talisman Artifacts, letting them circle above his palm. An amused smile appeared on his face.

Protected by the Golden Armor Talisman, he had no fear of injury and began to toy with them like a cat with mice.

The two Martial Ancestors held their broken blades, their expressions grim. Their weapons were both "divine weapons" passed down for generations, yet they had not even survived a casual attack from this wicked Daoist.

Jin Huohua had not come alone. A hundred or so people arrived one after another, filling the rear courtyard. Among them were many skilled fighters at the Blood Refining and Bone Refining Realms.

Immortal Master Zhang remained unhurried, and a sense of pleasure arose in his heart.

"At last, it's this immortal's turn to decide who lives and who dies! But with so many people, killing them will be a bit troublesome."

"Immortal Master Zhang, I'm afraid this is a misunderstanding." Jin Huohua was still doing his utmost to settle the matter. Mortal men could not contend with an immortal's methods, and he truly did not want to fight an immortal.

"Misunderstanding, my ass! That old bastard pointed his sword at this immortal master's head! Fine! Let's see how many people in Gongxing Stockade aren't afraid to die, and whether this immortal can kill every last one of them!"

As Immortal Master Zhang cursed, his two Talisman Artifacts shot out again, circling and dancing through the air. In an instant, they reaped three or four lives.

Yet they frightened few of the people there. These men had received the Jin Household's support for who knew how many generations, and had been given martial arts manuals and carefully trained. Fierce and fearless in the face of death, they continued to charge.

"Courting death!" Immortal Master Zhang watched a group of skilled fighters surround him, their assorted weapons clanging against the Golden Armor Talisman. So furious that he laughed, he formed a spirit seal.

He released his spiritual power, and the Talisman Artifacts blazed in the air, slaughtering the dozen or so people before him in one sweep.

Their blood dyed the golden armor's curtain of light red, concealing his deathly pale face from those outside for the moment.

This attack was truly ruthless. It cowed the surrounding fighters, who could not help slowly backing away.

Jin Qi casually picked up another longsword and blocked a Talisman Artifact for Jin Huohua. This time, the ordinary sword unexpectedly came away undamaged.

Uncle and nephew were both seasoned fighters. Their eyes met, and each saw surprise and delight mingled on the other's face.

They saw that although the surrounding fighters were still firmly suppressed by the two Talisman Artifacts, they were no longer being slaughtered at will as before. Guessing that the wicked Daoist must have exhausted his strength, both men were immediately heartened.

"Bring the Ten-Ox Crossbow! I refuse to believe we can't break that wicked Daoist's turtle shell."

Before long, several big, strong fighters mounted the Ten-Ox Crossbow atop the courtyard wall.

"Fire!"

Immortal Master Zhang's face filled with shock. No longer caring about the cost, he summoned two more flashes of Golden Light before him!

"Boom."

"Aah!" Immortal Master Zhang's scream rang through the courtyard. Three Golden Armor Talismans had failed to stop this mortal Ten-Ox Crossbow!

In his desperation, Immortal Master Zhang twisted aside and managed to save his torso. The ten-foot bolt only grazed his right arm, tearing it to pieces.

"Good!" Jin Qi and Jin Huohua clenched their fists and cheered in unison. The Ten-Ox Crossbow's string had come from a wild ox that was close to becoming a yao, killed by the previous Immortal Master Xie. At the time, he had said it was no ordinary thing.

But neither man had expected it to work in a single shot and so easily leave the wicked Daoist gravely wounded.

"Die!!! Die!" The immense pain from his severed arm wracked Immortal Master Zhang, and an unnatural flush gradually appeared on his pale face.

After a bout of cursing, he slapped three more Golden Armor Talismans onto himself. Then he hurled several Fireball Talismans at the Ten-Ox Crossbow, which was difficult to move.

The Ten-Ox Crossbow was blown to pieces, and chunks of flesh littered the entire rear courtyard. Yellow, white, and red made the Jin Household's inner residence far more colorful than a dyeing workshop.

"Die!" Immortal Master Zhang felt only the agonizing pain of his wound, so great that he no longer had the presence of mind to grieve over the Spirit Stones.

His spiritual power was running low, but now he was willing to swallow pills. He also threw out the gold spear, water arrow, and fireball talismans he had kept in reserve, hurling all manner of talismans indiscriminately. For a time, cries of grievance and screams soared into the clouds from the Jin Household's elegant rear courtyard, making it seem like a living hell!

Even those supported for dozens of generations could not withstand the relentless bombardment of talismans!

The slower fighters lay scattered across the ground, while the faster ones dared not advance and scattered like birds and beasts. Among them, those who felt they had received less support could not help harboring ambitions, searching important places for valuables to take with them.

As a result, screams and cries of grievance spread throughout Gongxing Stockade.

After dodging a gold spear and evading a fireball in succession, Jin Qi's luck finally ran out.

A water arrow came at him. Short of strength and half a step too slow, he could only raise his longsword and slash it cleanly down.

To his surprise, this Immortal Method could not be judged by ordinary standards. The water arrow did not fall; its head and tail continued forward with undiminished force, piercing Jin Qi's abdomen one after the other.

In an instant, a great mass of flesh tore open, revealing two horrifying holes through which his mangled organs could be seen.

There was no surviving such wounds! The great martial hero let out a scream and collapsed to the ground. Looking up, he saw Jin Huohua coming to save him, saber in hand.

He used the last of his strength to wave him back, then shouted at the top of his lungs, "Go! Go! I'm the one who brought ruin on the Jin Household! It was me! All of you, go!"

The might of a cultivator truly was beyond human strength to resist!

I brought ruin on the Jin Household. If I'd known... she was only a woman! Jin Qi felt his body gradually growing cold.

As the great martial hero lay dying, he seemed to understand why the wicked Daoist surnamed Zhang had been so angry just now.

He had begun learning martial arts at six, reached Skin Refining at seven, Bone Refining at ten, Blood Refining at twenty, and the Martial Ancestor Realm at fifty. Such talent was remarkable even among the past heads of the Jin Household in Gongxing.

Thus, he could stand proud and unbending, unwilling to hand his wife over for another to violate, even if that person was an immortal who could supposedly fly through the heavens and burrow into the earth!

It was not as though he had never fought an immortal before. That was why he had the confidence to resist. The previous immortal master supported by Gongxing Stockade had not possessed so many methods.

That immortal master had possessed a formidable wind blade Technique Method, unmatched in its ferocity, but had struggled to sustain it.

As long as they were willing to spend human lives until his spiritual power ran dry, Martial Ancestor experts like Jin Qi could close in and fight him at close quarters, with a chance of winning.

Human lives, after all, would not have to come from his own Jin Household. What was there to begrudge?

He had not expected the immortal master Jin Huohua brought back this time to be so formidable, far surpassing that mediocre fellow before him.

Yes, a figure with such great power would naturally pay no heed to the dignity of the ants beneath him! Perhaps trampling the dignity of ants like them was more entertaining than a woman.

If I'd known... only a woman, but most of those in the rear courtyard are the younger generation of my Jin Household!

Jin Huohua watched helplessly as his second uncle, who had been both teacher and father to him, breathed his last. Enough, enough. We can't fight him.

Forcing back his tears, he turned to return to his own courtyard and take a few of the Jin Household's younger generation with him before leaving.

Just as he turned, he saw an old man in gray, a short blade in hand and madness filling his eyes, creep up beside his grievously wounded, thin-browed steward and slit the latter's throat in one stroke.

"You bastard!" With nowhere to vent the anger in his chest, Jin Huohua let out a furious roar and cut the gray-clad old man in two with a casual slash. But he also drew Immortal Master Zhang's blood-red gaze.

"All of you Jin Household people will die here today!" Jin Huohua scrambled to dodge two more wind blades, but two younger members of the Jin Household beside him were cut to pieces.

There was no time to grieve. He was waiting for a gap in the wicked Daoist's spellcasting to escape when he saw a short silver hammer descend from the sky.

The wicked Daoist's several Golden Armor Talismans no longer seemed indestructible. A single blow shattered them to pieces.

The wicked Daoist himself was knocked to the ground by the aftershock. Panicking, he struggled in vain to rise, but could no longer hold on and fell unconscious.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement.