In a flash of light, Elder Adam appeared beside Riley, his robes fluttering as the air rippled around him.
His expression was grim, carved from stone, and his sharp gaze imdiately swept over the devastation that lay before them.
The acrid scent of blood still lingered in the air, and faint wisps of spiritual energy twisted and hissed like dying embers.
"You should not have done that, Riley," Elder Adam said quietly, though the weight behind his words pressed heavier than thunder.
His tone wasn’t angry — it was weary, edged with sothing that sounded like both disappointnt and inevitability.
But Riley wasn’t finished. Not even close.
"Soone should have done it long ago. Maggots should not be allowed to linger and be tolerated," he said coldly, his eyes still fixed on the group of trembling disciples before him.
His voice carried across the courtyard, low but sharp enough to cut through the silence like a blade.
Four disciples remained kneeling before him, the last of their group.
The others had already fled or lay unconscious, crushed beneath the weight of Riley’s spiritual aura.
These four looked at him now, trembling like cornered beasts, their bodies shaking so hard that even their teeth clattered.
They could feel it — the killing intent radiating from him. It was like being stared at by a predator that had already decided where to bite first.
"P–please, forgive us, Elder Disciple Riley!" one of them stamred, his forehead pressed to the dirt.
The others followed instantly, their voices overlapping in desperate harmony.
"We didn’t an it! It was Alan who forced us! We were wrong! Please, show rcy!"
Riley’s gaze didn’t soften. If anything, it grew colder.
"rcy?" he repeated slowly, the word dripping with disdain. "Tell — what would you have done if I hadn’t arrived in ti?"
No one dared answer.
The only sound was the faint whistle of the wind and the drip of blood from sowhere behind them.
Riley stepped forward, his boots grinding against the gravel.
"You would have humiliated my servants. Beaten them. Broken their dignity for your amusent." His tone lowered, each word deliberate, heavy, final. "The price for that should be paid in blood, don’t you think?"
The four disciples looked up in horror. "No, please, we—!"
But before the plea could finish, the air shifted.
From within the gathered crowd, a sword began to tremble. Its owner — a younger disciple barely in his twenties — looked down at it in confusion.
His hands shook violently as the weapon tore itself free of his grasp.
"What—!? Stop! STOP!" he cried, his voice cracking with panic.
Too late.
The sword spun through the air with blinding speed, glowing faintly with Riley’s spiritual energy.
It cut across the space like a flash of silver lightning.
SHHHHHT!
The sound was followed by four dull, wet thuds.
The four kneeling disciples fell lifeless to the ground, their heads rolling in slow, dreadful silence before coming to rest in the spreading pool of their own blood.
The crowd froze.
For a long mont, no one moved.
The crackle of spiritual energy still danced faintly in the air, and even the wind seed afraid to pass between them.
Elder Adam’s eyes narrowed, his old, weathered face unreadable.
"You’ve gone too far," he murmured, his voice carrying a trace of warning. But even he didn’t step closer.
Riley stood still, his expression calm — eerily calm — as he stared at the corpses before him.
His hair fluttered in the faint breeze, his robes stained by droplets of blood.
"They asked for rcy," Elder Adam said after a mont.
"They did," Riley replied, voice quiet but steady.
"But so did my servants when these dogs cornered them. Did anyone show them rcy then?"
Silence again. No one answered.
Riley’s eyes lifted, eting the gazes of the remaining disciples around him.
His spiritual pressure rolled outward once more, making the weaker cultivators flinch.
"Rember this," he said, his tone cold and asured. "When you touch those who belong to , your fate will be worse than death."
The air felt like ice.
Even Elder Adam exhaled slowly, his old eyes showing a flicker of sothing between pity and pride.
Above them, clouds began to gather — thick, heavy, almost as if the heavens themselves had witnessed the bloodshed and co to pass judgnt.
The distant rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.
The disciples behind him stayed frozen, still kneeling, still shaking — and as the wind swept through the clearing, the four headless corpses lay as silent witnesses to a lesson none of them would ever forget.
The silence that followed was heavy—almost unbearable.
A full minute passed, yet no one dared breathe too loudly.
Shock rippled through the gathered disciples like a wave.
Killing Alan was one thing — even those who disliked him could almost justify that much.
But to slay four more in cold blood, without hesitation or rcy... that was no longer justice. It was slaughter.
Still, Riley’s expression did not change.
His eyes remained calm, detached, as if none of this had ever mattered to him in the first place.
He raised his hand, and with a re flick of his wrist, Alan’s storage ring flew from the corpse and landed neatly in his palm.
He turned it once between his fingers, then poured a bit of spiritual sense into it.
A faint glimr of light escaped from the ring as it recognized its new owner.
Riley searched briefly, then pulled out a small, ornate box sealed with complex runes.
He muttered a few words under his breath — words that glowed faintly with spiritual energy.
The box trembled, then opened with a soft click.
Three figures erged from within — three won who materialized out of thin air, collapsing weakly onto the ground.
They looked disoriented, their eyes fluttering open as they gasped for breath, finally freed from confinent.
Confusion lasted only a mont. When their gazes found Riley, recognition struck.
"Master...! Master! Thank you!" they cried in unison, tears welling in their eyes as they scrambled to kneel before him.
The raw emotion in their voices echoed through the courtyard.
It was gratitude, relief, and a kind of reverence that ca from near-despair.
Even in their weakened state, their beauty was undeniable — enough to explain why Alan and his lackeys had coveted them.
Their faces were delicate, their figures graceful, and their every movent carried a natural allure.
The faint shimr of light from the spell still clung to their skin, giving them an almost ethereal glow.
As they bowed deeply, the loose folds of their dresses slipped, revealing pale shoulders and the soft curve of their bosoms.
The n watching could not help but avert their eyes — not from sha, but from fear that even a glance might bring Riley’s wrath upon them next.
Riley looked at them for a long mont, his eyes softening slightly — the only sign of warmth he had shown all day.
"You’re safe now," he said quietly. "No one will harm you again."
The won wept harder at those words, their tears falling freely onto the bloodstained ground.
Behind them, Elder Adam sighed deeply.
He had seen many things in his long life, but this... this was the kind of mont that divided n into heroes or monsters.
And he still couldn’t tell which Riley truly was.
The brief, stolen beauty of the scene shattered the mont a furious shout split the air.
"My son!" The roar rolled over the courtyard like thunder. In an instant a middle-aged man hurtled down from the sky, sword drawn, eyes blazing with a father’s wrath.
He landed feet-first and surged forward, every movent honed on one purpose: to cleave Riley into pieces.
Riley did not move at all.
Another blade flashed up to et the attack, tal screaming against tal.
The clash threw a violent aftershock through the clearing — a shock so vicious that many of the younger disciples lost their nerve and fled, stumbling as they scrambled for the exits.
Dust and broken tiles kicked up in the wake of the impact.
"It’s not your place to harm my disciple, Elder Harren," Adam said, his voice flat and grave as steel.
He planted himself in between, the air around him humming with restrained power.
Elder Harren’s face was a mask of grief and fury. "Elder Adam!" he spat, voice ragged.
"You stood here and let my son die! Today I will drag you and your disciple down to hell!" He bent his stance, energy coiling in his limbs as he prepared to unleash a devastating technique.
But before his power could bloom, a new presence fell over them like a cold shadow.
An amused, almost casual voice cut through the rising storm: "I sll death in the air. A good day to die, isn’t it, Elder Adam? Elder Harren?"
The effect was imdiate. Both elders froze mid-movent.
The charged air snapped taut; even the fleeing disciples halted and pressed themselves against walls, watching with wide, horrified eyes.
Sweat beaded on foreheads as everyone turned to see who had spoken — soone both Adam and Harren feared and respected enough to stop a duel in its tracks.
The courtyard held its breath.
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