Silence.
Not the peaceful kind—but the stunned, suffocating silence that follows a massacre.
Three Grandmasters lay collapsed. One dead, one broken, one dying. Gong Heshan, feared across five cities, hadn't moved since his chest was caved in.
The lower-ranked martial artists stood frozen. Swords half-raised. Qi flickering on trembling hands. No one moved.
Even the wind seemed to hesitate.
They were facing children—but those children were standing in a pile of corpses.
Someone coughed. Someone else swallowed hard.
Still, no one attacked.
Yin Cheng wiped a speck of blood from his jaw with the back of his hand. His breathing was shallow, but steady.
Yin Xue stood perfectly still, her sword back in its sheath. Her white sleeves fluttered in the wind, speckled with blood. She hadn't even bothered to clean the blade this time.
Their presence was too strange.
Too calm.
Too wrong.
It didn't matter that they were small. It didn't matter that they looked like malnourished orphans.
They had killed Grandmasters in seconds.
Then—
"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!?"
Su Zheyan's shriek rang across the stone path like a whip.
His face was twisted with rage. His broken arm hung limp, but his eyes were wide with madness.
"That sword technique—it must have a weakness! Some kind of burden!"
"They definitely can't use it in succession! This is your chance! Don't tell me you're afraid of a pair of kids!?"
His words pierced through the hesitation like needles.
And unfortunately for the siblings, Su Chengyan actually guess right.
The crowd stirred.
One man stepped forward.
Then another.
A few raised weapons.
Their fear hadn't vanished—but greed was stronger. Immortal inheritance. Forbidden techniques. If they survived, they'd be legends.
Then a shadow moved.
Protector Zhou stepped forward.
His eyes were cold. His chest still bore healing scars from the Beast's claw. But his posture was solid, and his Qi unfurled like a pressure wave.
He didn't speak.
He just walked past the others, flexing his knuckles, his old sword drawn and humming with refined Qi.
The ground beneath his feet cracked as he stepped.
Yin Cheng stepped forward to intercept him.
Zhou didn't even blink.
His blade whipped out—too fast to see.
SLASH!
Yin Cheng's shoulder burst open in a line of blood.
He flew backward, tumbling twice before rolling to his feet. The wound was deep—muscle torn, skin hanging.
"Brother!"
Yin Xue rushed forward. Protector Zhou met her in a blink.
Their swords clashed.
No explosion. No flames. Just steel against steel, but hers bent, and his didn't.
The impact threw her back a full meter.
She spat blood.
Zhou pressed in hard.
He was a Great Grandmaster, even if wounded. His blows were precise, and every slash carried decades of killing experience.
Yin Cheng limped into the fight, bleeding from his arm, but still raised his fists. Zhou kicked his ribs. A crack echoed. The boy stumbled, wheezing.
Yin Xue tried to dash behind him.
Zhou twisted.
Backhanded her.
Her lip split open.
Still—they refused to fall.
Two minutes passed.
It was subtle.
No flash. No sound.
But Yin Xue felt it. The subtle return of strength to her limbs. Her fingers twitched on the hilt.
The Cooldown period has ended.
Protector Zhou lifted his sword again, ready to finish it.
He stepped forward.
But Yin Xue suddenly vanished from his view.
He blinked—
Too late.
"Windrazor Slash."
A flash of white.
SHHHHK—!!
Zhou roared as his right arm was severed at the shoulder.
Blood burst out in a geyser.
His sword clattered to the stones. He staggered, grabbing at the stump, his knees buckling.
Yin Xue landed behind him, body shaking slightly from the strain.
Everyone else stepped back.
Even Su Zheyan froze.
Now they weren't just facing orphans.
They were facing a sword demon and a child war god.
....
Su Zheyan's face was pale.
His injured arm trembled. His guards were bloodied. Grandmasters lay dead or crippled around him. Protector Zhou knelt, half-conscious, cradling the bleeding stump where his sword arm had once been.
Everything had gone wrong.
But Su Zheyan still had one card left.
He gritted his teeth, reached into the inner folds of his satchel, and pulled out a black silk-wrapped box no larger than a palm.
He unwrapped it with trembling fingers.
Inside lay a small golden stamp, tarnished with age but still emanating a sense of majesty. Its surface bore carvings of clouds and beasts in flight—too detailed for mortal craftsmanship.
Even now, the artifact felt warm to the touch.
He bit down hard.
Then pushed his Qi into the artifact.
The stamp trembled.
A second later—
A blinding golden light burst into the sky.
The earth trembled.
The sky turned pale gold.
All eyes snapped toward the light as it spiraled upward, forming a pillar of flame that split the sky in two. The shockwave knocked even the standing men off balance.
Yin Cheng stepped in front of his sister, arms raised defensively, but his legs shook.
Yin Xue clenched her sword, her knuckles white.
Their breathing grew short.
This... this was different from martial techniques.
It wasn't simply stronger—it was divine.
Inside the shrine, Lin Haoran shot up to his feet.
His eyes narrowed.
"That's..." he muttered.
His gaze pierced through the wooden walls and out toward the peak.
"...an Immortal Artifact."
He paused.
"And not a weak one either."
Outside, the golden light began to condense.
It spun in place, shrinking and hardening, gathering heat—until finally, a ball of flame the size of a barrel hovered in the air above Su Zheyan's hand.
The very air shimmered.
The mountain breeze vanished.
The grass withered and burn within meters.
Even Su Zheyan own skin began to blacken and blister, the heat searing his palm until he could no longer hold it. His eyes were wide, lips curled in pain, but he didn't let go.
No wonder he hadn't used it before—the artifact's activation alone nearly cost him a hand.
The ball of flame pulsed once.
Then, without warning—
It fired.
A streak of fire tore across the air faster than sound, cracking the earth beneath it.
Yin Cheng pushed his sister back. They both stared, unable to move. The pressure froze them in place. Their instincts screamed.
They couldn't block it.
They couldn't dodge it.
Despair flickered in their eyes.
And then—
It stopped.
Just before reaching them, the fireball struck something invisible.
The flame curled, bent inward.
It didn't shatter. It didn't explode.
It paused—hung in mid-air for the briefest breath.
Then—
BOOOOM!
It detonated.
But not outward.
Not in heat. Not in light.
The explosion rippled in a tight, compressed sphere, as if someone had grabbed it mid-detonation and crushed it between their fingers.
The sound twisted, sucked inward.
The flames hissed once, then vanished.
As if nothing had happened.
All fires nearby blew out in an instant, as if snuffed by a cold, invisible wind.
Silence.
No one spoke.
Not a single person dared move.
Even Su Zheyan stared blankly at the smoking ruin where the fireball had vanished, his burnt hand hanging uselessly at his side.
His lips moved. No sound came.
Then—
Creeeaaaak—
The shrine doors opened.
Every head turned.
From the darkness within stepped a boy.
No older than ten.
Plain brown robes.
Eyes like polished obsidian—cold, calm, unshakable.
He looked down on them—not as a child would look at adults.
But as something above.
Unbothered. Detached.
Lin Haoran had arrived.