Chapter 43: Gathering of Xu Clan’s Experts
Inside the cultivation chamber of the Xu Clan estate, Patriarch Xu Canghai slowly lowered his bleeding thumb. The violent, purple arcs of the Heavenly Lightning Soul-Seeking Hex pulsed through the air, tethering his late-stage Core Formation soul directly to the spiritual signature miles away.
As the absolute lock established itself, Xu Canghai’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, before a dark laugh erupted from his chest.
"Early-stage? An early-stage Core Formation rat?" Xu Canghai mocked, his booming voice shaking the dais beneath him.
The terrifying monster he had envisioned—a hidden Nascent Soul eccentric or a peerless late-stage vagabond—was completely shattered. The spiritual signature belonged to a cultivator who had quite literally just condensed their Golden Core. The aura was dense, yes, but it lacked the refined, aged stabilization of someone who had spent decades in the realm.
"You haven’t even stabilized your core, you arrogant whelp!" Xu Canghai sneered, his grief instantly transmuting into contempt. "To think I believed you possessed true strength. You must have relied on a pre-established demonic array hidden in that slum of yours to slaughter my men! Without your cowardly traps, you are nothing but a newly minted infant!"
Xu Canghai’s killing intent boiled over. Array or no array, the absolute humiliation of the Xu Clan could only be washed away with rivers of blood. He would not go alone. He would crush this rat with the overwhelming might of the clan’s remaining pillars, ensuring the boy’s soul was trapped and tortured for eternity.
Xu Canghai formed a new hand seal, channeling his spiritual energy.
"Fourth Art of the Five Thunder Arts," Xu Canghai chanted, his eyes glowing. "Thunder Sense!"
This was an enhanced variation of the traditional Divine Sense. While a normal Core Formation expert could silently project their awareness over a few miles, the Thunder Sense utilized the conductive nature of lightning to exponentially amplify the user’s divine sense range. It crackled outward like an invisible storm, sweeping over the entire massive expanse of the Xu Clan estate and bleeding into the inner city.
It delivered the Clan Head’s rage-filled voice directly into the minds of three specific individuals.
"Assemble at the central courtyard immediately! We ride to slaughter an early-stage Core Formation rat who dares to provoke us!"
In the luxurious eastern wing of the estate, the booming command echoed like a thunderclap.
Sprawled across a massive bed was Xu Zifeng. He possessed an early-stage Core Formation cultivation base, and was incredibly youthful-looking, possessing sharp, handsome features, long flowing hair, and a notoriously carefree personality.
He was currently flanked on both sides by two stunningly beautiful women, their arms draped over his bare chest. The sudden telepathic roar of the Clan Head caused the women to stir in their sleep, whimpering softly.
Xu Zifeng let out a long, exaggerated sigh.
"Just when the wine was getting sweet and the company was getting warm," Xu Zifeng muttered, running a hand through his hair. He gently untangled himself from the beautiful women, slipping out of the bed with the fluid grace of a dancer.
He threw on a loose, comfortable white tunic, leaving the chest half-open. Reaching out with a casual flick of his wrist, a wine gourd resting in the corner of the room flew into his hand.
"An early-stage rat, he says?" Xu Zifeng chuckled softly, pulling the stopper from the gourd with his teeth and taking a deep, satisfying swig. "Well, I suppose I should go see who else managed to cross the chasm. Hopefully, he puts up a fun fight before the Patriarch turns him to ash."
Xu Zifeng tossed the giant gourd out the open window. It expanded in mid-air, hovering gently. With a carefree leap, the youthful expert landed cross-legged on top of the flying wine gourd and zoomed toward the central courtyard.
In the subterranean depths beneath the estate, the second target of the Thunder Sense received the command.
Xu Lie, a middle-aged man with a thick beard and muscles like coiled steel, was standing bare-chested over a blazing spiritual forge. As a mid-stage Core Formation expert and the clan’s chief armorer, his body radiated an intense, suffocating heat. He was in the middle of hammering a profound-grade broadsword, but the moment Xu Canghai’s thunderous voice echoed in his mind, his eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.
"Provoking the Xu Clan?" Xu Lie growled.
He slammed his forging hammer down so hard the broadsword shattered into a dozen molten pieces. He didn’t care. He reached out and grabbed his signature weapon from the wall—a massive, nine-ringed halberd that weighed over ten thousand pounds.
"It has been a decade since this old bull tasted blood," Xu Lie grunted, marching out of the forge.
At the exact same moment, in the highest meditation pavilion of the estate, the third expert opened his eyes.
Xu Shan was a lean, middle-aged man with a face as cold and unyielding as a glacier. Also standing at the mid-stage of the Core Formation realm, his cultivation leaned entirely toward the his love for frost. As the Patriarch’s command echoed in his mind, the cup of hot tea resting on the table beside him instantly froze solid, shattering into fine ice dust.
"Understood," Xu Shan whispered to the empty room. He drew a pair of short swords from his sleeves, his body dissolving into a flurry of snowflakes as he flash stepped toward the assembly point.
With the mobilization of Xu Zifeng, Xu Lie, and Xu Shan, the absolute foundation of the Xu Clan was entirely revealed.
For centuries, the absolute tyranny of the Xu Clan had been built upon the backs of nine pillars. Nine Core Formation experts who enforced their will upon Azure Cloud City.
There was the Clan Head, Xu Canghai. There was the Dao Protector, Uncle Yan, who was currently recovering in seclusion. There were the four dead elders whose life slips had just shattered in the ancestral hall. And there were these three remaining powerhouses. Together, they were the Nine Core Formation experts of the Xu Clan. A force capable of leveling rival sects and suppressing millions of mortals.
Now, half their number was dead, and the remaining forces were gathering with the singular, fanatical goal of hunting down one man.
However, not everyone in the Xu Clan estate was blinded by arrogance and rage.
In a secluded pavilion, recovering from the intense psychological trauma of the auction house, sat the young master, Xu Tianyang.
He was sipping a bowl of bitter medicinal broth when the ambient pressure of the estate shifted. Through the panicked whispers of the servants and the rumbling of the Clan Head’s terrifying aura, Tianyang quickly pieced together what was happening.
His father was assembling the remaining Core Formation experts. They were marching out to hunt down an "early-stage Core Formation rat" who had crippled Uncle Yan and slaughtered their inner circle.
Xu Tianyang’s hands began to shake so violently that the bowl slipped from his grasp, shattering against the floorboard. The bitter broth spilled everywhere, but he didn’t even notice.
An early-stage Core Formation rat.
It’s him, Tianyang realized, his blood running entirely cold. It’s Lin Yuan.
His father, in his absolute arrogance, believed that Lin Yuan’s early-stage cultivation made him an easy target. But Tianyang had been there. He had looked into Lin Yuan’s eyes when the man was merely at the Foundation Establishment realm. He remembered how Uncle Yan—a veteran Core Formation expert—had his ultimate attack completely erased by a single sword strike from Lin Yuan.
If Lin Yuan was that terrifying as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, what kind of world-ending monster had he become now that he had successfully formed his Golden Core?
"Fools," Tianyang whispered, his breath hitching in his throat. "You arrogant, blind fools. You don’t know what you are hunting."
What Uncle Yan had done by attempting to attack Lin Yuan that day..... it wasn’t just a mistake. It was a catalyst for a calamity. The Patriarch believed he was marching out to restore the clan’s honor. Tianyang knew with absolute certainty that they were marching directly into an open grave. The Xu Clan was going to be completely erased from the annals of history.
Panic overtook the young master.
He didn’t run to the central courtyard to warn his father. He knew Xu Canghai wouldn’t listen. The Clan Head was too proud, too consumed by his own supreme authority to ever believe an early-stage cultivator could single-handedly annihilate them.
Xu Tianyang rushed to his hidden safe, frantically sweeping every high-grade spirit stone, medicinal pill, and valuable artifact into his spatial ring.
He kicked open the back window of the pavilion and summoned his flying sword.
As the roars of the Clan Head assembling the elders echoed from the front of the estate, Xu Tianyang shot out from the rear. He didn’t look back at the grand pavilions, the floating waterfalls, or the legacy he had been born to inherit. He flew with the desperate speed of a man outrunning a landslide, forever abandoning the Xu Clan to its inevitable doom.