After many years of living a pampered life, Wu Liufang had long lost her youthful vigilance and reflexes.
When she finally snapped out of it, she felt a sharp pain in her neck. Her vision quickly rose, and then everything started to spin.
It was then that Wu Liufang realized.
"I'm dead."
"My head has been chopped off."
Her body on the horse remained upright, with thick blood gushing from her neck.
As her severed head spun through the air, Wu Liufang's gaze briefly landed on the figure that had killed her.
It was a slim figure dressed in blue, wielding a longsword. After beheading her, without looking back, they headed in another direction.
There, a small caravan of fewer than ten people awaited.
In Wu Liufang's mind, a name surfaced instinctively.
"Wu Mingxuan!"
At this moment, she finally understood why Wan Haipeng had repeatedly warned her not to seek revenge.
Clearly, he was implying that she should not attempt to find Wu Mingxuan.
Having worked with Wu Mingxuan for many years, Wan Haipeng had long recognized his character. Even if he was her own brother, he would not help them seek revenge.
However, Wan Haipeng probably never expected that Wu Mingxuan would be so ruthless and merciless.
As she faced death, Wu Liufang's mind flashed with many memories.
There were images of her young days when Wu Mingxuan called her "sister" with an innocent smile on his face.
There were memories of his joyous laughter when he was selected into the Tianjian Sect during his youth.
There were recollections of their growing estrangement over the years.
And finally, it all culminated in yesterday's aloofness.
"Thud!"
Wu Liufang's severed head fell to the ground, her eyes wide open, completely devoid of consciousness.
On the other side, Wu Mingxuan, dressed in his martial attire, after beheading his own sister, moved like lightning to the innocent caravan.
Amidst the panic and evasion of the people, he systematically executed them one by one.
Then, he took all their belongings, creating the illusion of a highway robbery, and vanished into thin air.
...
That night.
Wu Mingxuan arrived in Chuanjiang City.
Taking advantage of the late hour and silence of the night, he infiltrated the Wan Mansion and began a frenzied massacre.
With his innate realm strength, even if he confronted them head-on, the people in the Wan Mansion couldn't react in time, let alone hidden assassins.
Under his ruthless longsword, one person after another lost their lives in their sleep.
In a certain room.
Mi Wenjie, who had been meditating with closed eyes, suddenly opened his eyes.
"Such a strong smell of blood!"
Mi Wenjie's expression turned solemn as he picked up the long knife placed beside him and cautiously made his way outside.
Although he was supposed to be overseeing the Wan Mansion temporarily and offering protection, he didn't really think he had a role to play.
After all, in the past few days, whenever trouble arose, he had easily driven off the intruders.
Presumably, many people also knew that there were disciples of the Dalu Sect in the Wan Mansion now. So logically, there shouldn't have been anyone daring to cause trouble anymore.
But now, someone dared to disregard the Dalu Sect's reputation and directly commit murder in the Wan Mansion?
Before long, Mi Wenjie's vision blurred.
Suddenly, a figure in blue appeared abruptly in front of him, and a silver light as swift as lightning flashed in the darkness.
Mi Wenjie felt a sharp pain in his neck, and a massive amount of blood gushed out.
Instinctively, he swung his knife forward.
"Hmm? Another skilled practitioner?"
Masked Wu Mingxuan was slightly surprised, but he only paused for a moment before moving on to the next room.
Behind him, Mi Wenjie's body collapsed.
In no time, there was not a single living soul left in the entire compound.
After searching the Wan Mansion's master bedroom and study, Wu Mingxuan set fire to the entire estate.
That night, half of Chuanjiang City was illuminated as if it were daytime.
"Fire!"
Someone shouted in panic, and others rushed to extinguish the flames, while some hurried to report to the city guards.
...
At the Red Rock Mine, in a secluded courtyard.
Jiang Heng finally stopped his cultivation.
At this point, all 500 Qi and Blood Pills he had brought with him were completely depleted. His potential points had increased and decreased repeatedly, but he still had a remaining balance of 1.21 million.
His cultivation had reached the tenth level of the True Qi Realm!
Such cultivation speed was terrifying!
Keep in mind that from the breakthrough to the first level of the True Qi Realm until now, it had been less than half a month, and Jiang Heng had already reached the pinnacle of the tenth level of the True Qi Realm!
He was on the verge of breaking through to the Innate Realm.
Of course, his strength hadn't increased dramatically, given that he didn't practice True Qi martial arts. His strength had roughly doubled compared to before breaking through to the True Qi Realm.
Compared to the day when he killed the Innate Realm expert, it was less than half an increase.
It wasn't that the gap in strength between the True Qi Realm and the Fleshly Realm was small; it was because—
On one hand, Jiang Heng's physical strength was already exaggerated, far beyond any known limits.
On the other hand, cultivation was one thing, but combat effectiveness was displayed through martial arts.
It was like a video game character.
Character level and skill level were both important. If you increased only your character level but kept using basic attacks, you probably wouldn't beat low-level players.
In normal circumstances, the gap in strength between the tenth level of the True Qi Realm and the tenth level of the Fleshly Realm, under the same conditions, was at least tenfold.
And often, a one-fold difference in strength could easily handle ten opponents, and an absolute domination.
A tenfold difference in strength was enough to easily handle a thousand opponents.
But these common sense rules didn't apply to Jiang Heng.
He was well aware that this was mainly due to the extraordinary defense provided by the Golden Body Technique.
With the ability to nearly ignore his opponent's attacks, he could go all out without any worries. With this advantage, he could overcome stronger opponents.
In real battles, aspects like attack, defense, agility, and tactics were all crucial.
But if he had to choose one aspect to excel in, Jiang Heng had no doubt he would choose defense.
With strong enough defense, he would have numerous chances to recover, while his opponent, once they made a mistake, would be beyond salvation!
So, after his battle with the Innate Realm expert, Jiang Heng became even more determined to improve his physical body.
Cultivation, including future spiritual cultivation, might indeed be powerful and have various advantages, but in terms of preserving his life, it definitely couldn't compare to physical cultivation!
The defense ability of cultivation alone wasn't particularly strong. Even though he could protect himself with True Qi in an instant, in Jiang Heng's view, it was still a vulnerability.
"Physical cultivation technique..."
Jiang Heng muttered to himself.
Next, the improvement of the Golden Body Technique became increasingly difficult, so he could only rely on physical cultivation techniques to supplement it.
With his current level of cultivation, he already had the privilege of accessing more cultivation techniques. He only needed to return to the sect in about ten days to begin learning new ones.
However, the most urgent matter was to purchase cultivation resources.
Just at that moment.
"Master! Master, something terrible has happened!"
A young man rushed into the courtyard, looking extremely agitated as he stammered, "Master Mi, he's dead!"
Jiang Heng's expression hardened.