Killing Wang Yin
Once again, out from under Li Ruo's feet, the forest terrain started to morph, turning from a lush green to a smoldering red landscape. A hellish scene soon ensued, where magma and lava started to overflow from the earth.
Now, in the Xiantian Great Realm, Li Ruo's domain had transformed completely. Before, she could only turn the area inside her domain into an area similar to the inside of an oven. Thankfully, the heat was so strong that trees, bushes, and shrubbery would explode into burning balls of flame, which gave her domain a hellish feel.
However, now that she was in the Xiantian Great Realm, her domain really did look like a scene only found in hell.
The ground cracked and split open, and geysers appeared, spewing out magma that was thousands of degrees hot. Trees and other shrubberies inside Li Rou's domain now don't just blow up from the sweltering heat but have transformed into their infernal counterparts.
From beneath the tree's once-brown bark, pulsating red veins appeared, giving it an otherworldly and sinister tone. The branches weren't exempt either and likewise started to burn, transforming into whips of flame that attacked Wang Yin, sealing off his escape routes.
Xue Feng wasn't to be outdone, and he also released his domain, turning half of Li Ruo's hellfire landscape into its polar opposite.
A Yin-Yang diagram was instantly created, with one side being an inferno and the other a winter wonderland.
The air froze, and the ground turned to ice as, from Xue Feng outward, an arctic terrain no different than the north or south pole.
His domain was fully released, but he didn't attack as did Li Ruo but instead waved his hand and created a full dome 10 meters high and 25 meters wide, trapping Wang Yin inside alongside them.
Usually, in a fair fight, such a move would be dangerous as it would also trap Xue Feng with his opponent, but with the overwhelming strength gap between Wang Yin and the husband and wife duo, it was perfect. Wang Yin no longer had a method of escape, and any scream for help would be forever left here inside the dome.
After being assaulted by nigh-sentient hell trees and having an arena built around him within split seconds, Wang Yin instantly sensed something was different with the Duke and Duchess.
Horrified, a certain possibility came to his mind, and his heart froze.
"Xiantian Great Realm! Xue Feng, how the hell did you break through?" Wang Yin yelled out in horror as he popped out from the shadows.
Actually, rather than saying that he popped out, it should be that Wang Yin was forced out. Li Rou had her own herb garden and spent almost all of her free time farming inside it, taking care of her medicinal herbs. So, as a result, her Fire Law had a hint of Earth Law inside of it.
This was the reason that her domain focused so much more on magma and other earthly creations than the usual inferno domain that fire cultivators would have.
Now, because of all the magma Li Ruo was forcing out from the environment underground, the shadows that Wang Yin was hiding in turned from being normal room temperature to being no different than the inside of a volcano.
He could hide inside one for a few breaths, but any longer, and he would simply turn into a scorched corpse. Wang Yin refused to die without even putting up a fight. He wouldn't be able to hold his head high in the afterlife.
Despite that, though, Wang Yin still couldn't believe his eyes.
'They have peak Yellow-grade Martial Veins! How the hell did they break through their limit? Wang Yin's mind reeled as he tried to rationalize the impossible situation he was witnessing.
"Does it matter to tell a dead man?" Li Ruo spoke coldly as she waved her hands toward Wang Yin. Following her will, the demonized trees all whipped their branches toward Wang Yin at speeds untraceable by the Domain Lord realm assassin.
'Fast!' Wang Yin thought instantly. Knowing he wouldn't be able to track any of them and dodge accordingly, he threw away his face and dove into the dirt in an attempt to dodge them altogether. But Li Ruo's new and improved strength didn't just include her domain. Her brain now worked dozens of times better than before, and she was able to predict this move.
Just as Wang Yin landed, an arrow covered in smoldering, hot flames shot through the air and flew at him.
"Dammit!" Wang Yin knew he was finished, but his pride didn't allow him to simply die without doing anything. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, Wang Yin pulled out a sword and decided to attack this arrow with all of his might.
However, as Li Rou was now much stronger than him, her arrow won, with the clash sending Wang Yin and his sword flying in two separate directions. Surprisingly, though, Wang Yin did manage to deflect the arrow, sending it into a random lava geyser a few meters away.
But that was just a casual blow from Li Rou. The arrow wasn't even an actual arrow, but rather one conjured using her understanding of the Fire Laws. Losing it didn't even change Li Ruo's expression.
Snorting, Li Rou conjured another four arrows and sent them at the miserable Wang Yin before he could even recover from the previous one.
Even without a bow, Li Ruo would struggle to miss at such small distances, and so all four arrows managed to hit their targets—each of the assassin's four major limbs, skewering Wang Yin to the tree that he landed next to.
"You bastards! How dare you attack me! Are you not afraid of a war between our dukedoms?" Wang Yin yelled out as he realized that his life was now in imminent danger.
"Wang Yin, surely you don't think that we have to dignify those words with a response, right? You came all the way from your dukedom, killed a squad leader under me, stalked my son's carriage with malicious intentions, and only now do you regret it. If you were afraid of a war, you wouldn't have come to Snowy Wind City wanting to assassinate Bai'er." Xue Feng replied as he shook his head.
Though Xue Feng didn't like to converse with his enemies, Wang Yin's words were simply too stupid not to. Did he seriously not even think before speaking?
Wang Yin, also finding his words a little shameless, blushed a little, but before he could feel embarrassed, the searing pain coming from the arrows sobered him up.
'I can't die here! No, not yet. Lord Fifth promised me that he could take me to the Central Continent and even break through to the Xiantian Great Realm!' Wang Yin thought as he tried to find some way to continue the conversation.
"Wait, Xue Feng. We can talk about this. You also hate my older brother. I can help you take him down. I know a lot of the Wang Clan's dark dealings." Wang Yin begged as he negotiated for his life.
"Husband, there is no need to converse with such a man. Demonic scum like him should be killed on sight." Li Rou spoke in a tone filled with disdain as she conjured another dozen arrows.
While Li Ruo nowadays was extremely peaceful and angelic, she was the more war-hungry of the trio of Li Huo, Xue Feng, and her. Fighting, even if it was a beatdown, had reignited that feeling she had suppressed for so long, and she wanted to keep going.
'This bitch! I'm not speaking to you but to your husband. How dare you interrupt!' Wang Yin angrily thought, but as his life was in her hands, he spoke differently.
"Duchess Li, no need to be drastic. You can brand a slave seal on my soul. I promise to be the number one horse under you two if you so desire." Wang Yin begged even more desperately after seeing Li Rou's eyes.
However, Li Ruo sensed the disdain that he barely hid in his eyes. Angered, she released the arrows that were primed just a moment ago, turning the Southern Continent's most famous and feared assassin into a pincushion.
Wang Yin was deader than a doornail.
"Whatever information you have, Bai'er already knows." Li Rou coldly spoke, wiping her hand with her robes as if killing Wang Yin had stained them.
Xue Feng, at this point, gently shook his arm and pulled Wang Yin's corpse over to them before placing it into his spatial ring. He then also dropped the dome he created to ensure Wang Yin's silent death.
The ice walls came down, showing Big Wang and Little Wang standing guard nearby, waiting.
"Wang Shu, come over here now!" Li Rou yelled out.
Already waiting for his call, Wang Shu quickly sprinted over.
"Yes, Duchess!"
"Take the carriage back home. Don't waste any time either; be just as fast as you left." Li Rou ordered, and after seeing that the twins had accepted it, she flew off. Having both her and Xue Feng be away from the Estate was never a good idea, and she wanted to be back as soon as possible.
Meeting up with Xue Feng in the air, Li Rou flew back to the estate casually as if she hadn't just killed a peak-stage Domain Lord realm cultivator a moment before.
However, unlike Li Rou's calm exterior, the Wang Clan Estate was erupting in chaos.
In the Baishen Plane, most forces would have a soul lamp bound to every one of their most influential members. The Wang Clan and Wang Yin are no exceptions.
It was simple to make, only costing a small portion of the cultivator's soul. This, of course, would hurt them a bit, but any faction significant enough to worry about the deaths of essential members was rich enough to purchase the healing medicine to fix the problem.
So, at the moment of Wang Yin's death, his soul lamp immediately lost its light and was extinguished, indicating that he had died. And as there was at least one Wang Clan member watching the soul lamps every second of the day, the second Wang Yin's soul lamp extinguished, someone noticed.
Not daring to delay the announcement of the grave news, the Wang Clan member charged to the core region of the estate to break the news to the higher-ups.
"Halt! Wang Ye, you know you can't go into the core region. So why are you here?" However, before he could go in, he was recognized and stopped by a guard.
Wang Ye, taking a moment to catch his breath, took deep breaths before he replied.
"Hurry, let me in. An elder's soul lamp was extinguished! I have to tell the other elders." Wang Ye shouted.
While he knew that the information was sensitive, Wang Yin's death couldn't be hidden for long. So Wang Ye was okay with giving away some of the details to the guards.
The two guards looked at each other gravely before letting in Wang Ye. Whether he was lying or not wasn't their business, but if he was telling the truth and they didn't let him in, they would die a miserable death, while if Wang Ye were lying, that would be his fate instead.
Deciding that it wasn't worth it to hold the man back anymore, the two guards stepped aside and let him into the core region of the Wang Clan estate.
After being granted access, Wang Ye rushed as fast as his Qi Sea realm cultivation base could take him toward the main hall.
Reaching the main hall, Wang Ye was about to ring the clan meeting bell, but just before he did, he saw Wang Yichen from afar.
"Patriarch! Something terrible happened!" Thinking it would be better to tell the patriarch himself, Wang Ye moved away from the bell and yelled as he ran over to Wang Yichen.
Wang Yichen, hearing someone call out to him, looked over in Wang Ye's direction. However, since he didn't recognize the kid, he didn't say anything and waited for Wang Ye to close the distance.
"Patriarch, something terrible happened!" Wang Ye shouted again once he got close.
"I heard you earlier, child. You don't need to repeat yourself. Speak of the terrible news." Wang Yichen spoke irritably.
From this one interaction with Wang Ye, Wang Yichen already disliked him. Not only could he not keep his composure, but he also couldn't speak directly. Such flaws made this boy destined to be normal, Wang Yichen thought.
"Patriarch, it's the Third Elder. His soul lamp went out a few minutes ago." Wang Ye quickly explained as he could sense Wang Yichen slowly losing patience just from his expression alone.
"Wang Yin? Are you sure? You know how soul lamps can sometimes flicker as if they were going to extinguish but still be lit?" Wang Yichen suddenly became serious as he spoke.
Soul lamps had a flaw. Sometimes, when a cultivator was severely injured, their soul lamp flame would fade a great deal and look like it had extinguished when it really hadn't.
Wang Yichen thought that this was the case, as he was the only person who knew what Wang Yin was doing currently.
'Perhaps he ran into trouble with Xue Feng or his wife?' Wang Yichen's first thoughts were so.
But Wang Ye just shook his head.
"I am 100% sure, Patriarch. How dare I not make sure? The soul lamp barely even flickered at all. It went directly out without any suspense." Wang Ye reiterated.
Wang Yichen's face sank and contorted into anger.
"Shit!" Wang Yichen cursed as he ran over to the main hall.
Running over to the bell, Wang Yichen rang it with all of his might.
'This is going to be ugly.' Wang Yichen groaned as he rang the bell. He could already tell that this clan meeting wasn't going to be pretty.
As Wang Yichen mentally prepared for the upcoming chaotic meeting, all of the higher-ups exited their courtyards and rushed over at the sound of the bell. While they weren't sure of what the meeting was being called for, since anyone who dared to ring the bell without proper reason would be killed, they knew that it was serious.
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