Chapter 41: The Gaze of the Abyss
The thud of the late-stage Core Formation elder collapsing face-first echoed through the courtyard with a terrifying sound.
For a long moment, time itself seemed to freeze. High above the roof of the house, the Eye of Heavenly Retribution hovered in the void it had torn into the sky. Its massive pupil slowly contracted, unbothered by the absolute masterpiece of death it had just painted.
On the gilded war-chariot hovering just outside the courtyard perimeter, the remaining four elders of the Xu Clan—three at the mid-stage of Core Formation and one at the late-stage—froze like statues. Their mouths were slightly agape, their eyes bulging from their sockets as they stared down at the lifeless body.
It was impossible!
A late-stage Core Formation expert was a living calamity. To kill one usually required days of earth-shattering combat, yet, this elder—a revered pillar of the Xu Clan—had simply dropped dead. The black lightning had merely touched his crown, and his soul had been instantly erased. He had died exactly like a peasant struck by a stray rock.
"Elder... Elder Mo?" one of the mid-stage elders stammered, his voice trembling so violently he could barely form the words.
There was no response. The body in the mud did not even twitch.
Suddenly, the sheer terror of the situation shattered their arrogant composure. Panic surge of furious rage, erupted from the remaining four experts. They did not know what kind of demonic, heaven-defying artifact was hidden within that ruined house, but their instincts as apex of Azure Cloud City took over.
"It’s an ambush! A demonic array!" the remaining late-stage elder roared, his face twisting into a mask of pure hatred. He drew his profound-grade spiritual sword, his aura erupting like an active volcano. "Slaughter everyone inside! Leave no one alive! Burn this entire slum to the ground!"
The three mid-stage elders instantly followed suit. Their fear was transmuted into overwhelming killing intent. They channeled the entirety of their Golden Core qi, summoning massive fiery lotuses, condensed swords of wind, and heavy, crushing handprints, all aimed directly at the main hall where Bai Qingyue was taking shelter.
They wanted blood. They wanted to annihilate the very earth this courtyard stood upon.
That was their fatal mistake.
The Eye of Heavenly Retribution operated on a very simple law: Anyone who steps within a hundred-yard radius of this house with a single trace of killing intent directed at my wife or myself will immediately trigger its gaze.
The moment the four elders directed their murderous wrath toward the main hall, the massive eye in the sky shifted its gaze.
The abyssal vortex of its pupil violently flared, locking onto the four Core Formation experts simultaneously. Because Lin Yuan had successfully formed his flawless Golden Core miles away on the mountain peak, the upper limit of the Eye’s execution had seamlessly evolved. It no longer just targeted Foundation Establishment cultivators. It was now fully authorized to reap the souls of Core Formation experts.
The sky above seemed to groan under the sudden weight of eye.
CRACKLE! CRACKLE! CRACKLE! CRACKLE!
Four bolts of black lightning erupted from the center of the giant eye. The four elders did not even have the time to launch their prepared spells. The black lightning struck them simultaneously.
The three mid-stage experts had their active magical shields instantly bypassed as if they were made of thin paper. The black lightning dove directly into their crown chakras and violently detonated within their Seas of Consciousness. Their souls were vaporized in a microsecond.
The remaining late-stage elder, possessing a slightly stronger soul, managed to let out a single, half-formed gasp of sheer horror before his spiritual sea was completely evaporated.
The glowing fiery lotuses and the condensed wind swords instantly dissipated into harmless mist, their casters no longer alive to sustain them.
Like puppets whose strings had been abruptly severed by a cruel god, the four remaining powerhouses of the Xu Clan lost all physical tension. Their eyes rolled back into their heads, completely devoid of life. They tumbled off the gilded war-chariot and plummeted from their flying swords, raining down into the filthy alleyway outside the courtyard.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
In the span of a dozen breaths, five of the Xu Clan’s greatest warriors had been slaughtered without even managing to scratch the front door of the house.
Lying in the ruined debris of the wooden porch, clutching his shattered and throbbing right arm, Bai Chen watched the absolute massacre unfold with disbelieving eyes.
The physical agony of his broken bone was immense, but the awe washing over him completely numbed the pain. He stared up at the massive Eye of Heavenly Retribution that hovered in the dark void above them.
He remembered the day Lin Yuan had cast the spell. He remembered his Lord’s exact words: ’Anyone at the Foundation Establishment realm or below who harbors malicious intent will die instantly.’
But these men were not Foundation Establishment cultivators! They were genuine Core Formation experts!
A profound, earth-shattering realization dawned on the him. There was only one way an autonomous spell tethered to a cultivator’s power could instantly jump an entire major realm in capacity.
He broke through, Bai Chen thought, a breathless, reverent laugh escaping his blood-stained lips. Lord Lin actually did it. In just three weeks, he formed his Golden Core... Master’s Eye of Retribution spell is truly, unfathomably powerful.
While Bai Chen found twisted comfort in the absolute slaughter, another figure present at the scene was completely broken by it.
Hovering alone on the gilded war-chariot, completely surrounded by the suffocating silence of the aftermath, was the young miss of the Xu Clan.
Her heavily powdered face was now completely devoid of blood, rendering her as pale as a wandering ghost. Her knees knocked together violently, as a mind-shattering fear gripped her very soul. She stared down at the five lifeless bodies of her clan’s elders—men she had grown up believing were invincible gods of the inner city. Now, they were just dead bodies.
Slowly, her terrified, bloodshot eyes drifted upward, locking onto the giant eye in the sky.
The Eye stared back at her. It was cold, impartial, and utterly devoid of mercy.
The young miss waited for the black lightning to descend. She waited for her soul to be ripped from her body and cast into the abyss. She stopped breathing, her heart hammering so fast she felt it might burst from her chest.
One second passed. Then two. Then three.
The lightning did not come.
Tears of terror streamed down her ruined makeup. Her mind, pushed to the absolute brink of insanity, scrambled to understand why she had been spared. Why was she still breathing while five Core Formation experts were dead?
But nothing came to mind. She didn’t know that the trigger was to possess killing intent towards Lin Yuan or his wife.
Being the pampered, arrogant young miss of the main branch, she had never dirtied her own hands with murder. She had only tagged along on this expedition to mock the exiled First Miss of the Bai Clan. She had wanted to hurl insults, to see the once-proud genius grovel in the mud, and to humiliate the Bai Clan disciple. She possessed a heart full of vanity, arrogance, and cruelty—but she did not possess genuine killing intent. She had fully expected her elders to do the actual slaughtering.
That lack of murderous resolve had paradoxically saved her life. The Eye of Heavenly Retribution only punished those who sought to take the lives of its master or his wife. It did not care about insults or humiliation.
Not realizing why she had survived, the young miss felt a terror so profound it shattered her Dao Heart into a million irreparable pieces.
She let out a high-pitched shriek.
She abandoned all dignity, and didn’t even bother attempting to steer the gilded war-chariot. She scrambled over the railing, practically diving onto her personal flying sword.
With a frantic burst, the young miss fled. She didn’t look back at the bodies of her fallen elders. She simply pointed her sword toward the inner city and shot across the sky like a frightened dog, her screams echoing through the outer districts long after she had disappeared over the horizon.