The dust of the catastrophic explosion had barely begun to settle over the shattered remains of Azure City's central square when a wave of collective outrage and terror washed over the surviving cultivators.
Those who had managed to crawl out from the rubble looked upward, their eyes widening in a mixture of disbelief and searing fury.
"Which bastard is this?" a cultivator screamed, his voice cracking with rage as he clutched a shattered spirit-sword. "When a truce was already made, why was there a need to bombard us like this?"
"Damn it!" another warrior spat, coughing up a mouthful of soot. "Why don't they play by the rules? I hated Sun Liang, but now I hate this retard even more!"
Amidst the chaos, a sense of profound confusion took root. A disciple from a mid-tier sect looked up at the purple light still flickering in the sky and whispered, "But who is he? Where has such a monster been hiding for so long?"
The doubt rippled through the survivors like a contagion. Major clan members and rogue cultivators alike searched their memories until a sharp-eyed man cried out from the crowd. "I think I've seen him... umm, yes! He was with the Devil! I saw him outside the fiery mountain cave!"
"Yes, you are right!" another voice chimed in, filled with a sudden realization. "I remember him now, too. His name was Mu Chen. Yes, Mu Chen! But I never knew that creature hanging around him would also be this strong!"
As the name Mu Chen echoed through the square, all eyes turned toward the section where the Mu Clan's primary forces were gathered.
A high-ranking disciple from the neighboring Qin Clan looked at his counterpart, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Brother Mu Yan, do you recognize him?"
Mu Yan, the leader of the Mu Clan's main family group, stood amidst the carnage with a face that grew paler by the second.
He looked up at the cloud where Mu Chen sat on white cloud, the image of absolute leisure. The boy was taking a slow, appreciative sip of wine, his other hand idly feeding a piece of fruit to a golden, five-tailed cat that hopped about the cloud with an effortless, silent grace.
The stark difference between Mu Chen's heavenly serenity and Mu Yan's own desperate, blood-stained state made the Mu Clan leader feel as though the heavens themselves were playing a cruel joke on him.
Mu Yan shook his head slowly, his voice tight. "No. I think he must be from some distant Mu Clan branch."
The Qin Clan disciple let out a sharp, mocking laugh at the response, his gaze full of contempt. "No wonder. Your Mu Clan really is the weakest of all."
The meaning was a jagged blade; if a clan's true geniuses were languishing in obscure branches while the main family struggled in the mud, how could they ever hope to rise to prominence?
The insult struck a nerve. Mu Yan's face flushed a violent red, and he barked back, his aura flaring. "Bastard! How dare you call the Mu Clan the weakest? Hell, to the pits with the truce! Let us fight now and decide this between us once and for all!"
The other Mu Clan members were equally enraged. The quest for the key and the treasure suddenly became secondary to the preservation of clan honour. The Qin Clan disciples were just about to retaliate when a thick, suffocating killing intent suddenly blanketed the entirety of Azure City.
It was a physical weight, so dense and cold that even the hardened cultivators who had survived the morning's bloodbath felt a sharp, phantom pain in their souls, as if a jagged knife had been pressed firmly against their jugulars.
Sun Liang stood upon a pile of jagged rubble, his eyes spitting a coldness that could freeze the very blood in an enemy's veins. His golden robes were charred and tattered, but the aura spreading from him was terrifyingly dense—a red, bloodlust-filled mist that signalled a beast waking from its slumber.
"Good. Very, very good," Sun Liang spoke, his voice a low, lethal growl that resonated through the ruins. "You have truly angered me. Now, it is my time to teach you your place, you pathetic bug."
Sun Liang kicked the ground, the force reducing the surrounding rubble into fine dust and creating a crater even deeper than the one left by the explosion. He shot into the air like a golden arrow, aimed directly at the cloud.
Up on the cloud, Mu Chen didn't even look away from his wine. He leaned back, his eyes dancing with amusement as he glanced at Xiao Diao.
"Pathetic bug?" Mu Chen teased, his tone light. "Xiao Diao, your ancestors would be disappointed to know that a Heavenly Demon Mink is now considered nothing more than a bug."
Nibi, the golden cat, meowed in perfect agreement, flicking her tails in a gesture of dismissive disappointment that seemed to say, Truly disappointing.
The mockery hit Xiao Diao like a physical slap. His amethyst eyes flared with a violet light, and the casual, amused air he had been maintaining vanished, replaced by an ancient, predatory pride. Being mocked by Mu Chen was one thing, but being called an insect by the "livestock" below was unacceptable.
"Pathetic bug?" Xiao Diao's voice carried across the square, ancient and hungry. It was the sound of a primordial predator who had forgotten what fear felt like. "Little human, I have devoured beasts ten thousand times your size. I have shattered mountains with a swipe of my paw when your ancestors were still crawling in the mud. You call me a bug?"
Xiao Diao's fur bristled, and his small frame radiated a pressure that caused the air to hum. "Very well," he hissed. "Let me show you what happens when livestock forgets its place in the food chain."
Xiao Diao transformed into a blurred streak of brilliant purple light, shooting downward to meet Sun Liang's golden charge head-on.
The moment they collided, what remained of Azure City ceased to hold together.
The ruined square collapsed outright, and the destruction did not stop there. Wherever the two figures crossed, the city followed walls crumbling, streets tearing apart, entire sections of broken structures lifting and disintegrating under the violent pressure of their clash.
A single shockwave rolled outward, flattening everything in its wake. Debris, corpses, and shattered stone were swept into the air and scattered across the ruins as if the city itself was being erased piece by piece.
In the span of a few heartbeats, Xiao Diao and Sun Liang tore across the battlefield, their movements too fast to follow. They did not remain in one place—each exchange shifted the devastation, dragging it with them as the remnants of Azure City were ground into nothing.
The watching Golden Core cultivators felt their legs give way.
"Just what kind of monsters are they?" one gasped as he fled into the air.
"How can such a gap exist between us and them?" another cried.
From a distance, the truth became undeniable. Though both stood at the Half-Nascent Soul stage, the level of power they displayed far exceeded it—and Xiao Diao was clearly in control.
Xiao Diao laughed, the sound sharp with ancient arrogance. He vanished in streaks of purple, reappearing behind Sun Liang to deliver casual swipes that sent him crashing through what little remained of the city.
Every time Sun Liang tried to gather his strength, Xiao Diao was already elsewhere—above, below, or beside him—striking without effort.
Sun Liang had not managed to land a single hit.
Meanwhile, his own body was collapsing.
Multiple ribs were shattered, both eyes swollen shut, and his front teeth had been knocked out by a casual backhand. Blood caked his chin, and his golden robes were reduced to charred remnants.
"Come, come!" the mink taunted, his form blurring into a hundred identical afterimages that surrounded the battered Sun Liang. "Strike harder! Your grandmother hits harder when she stirs her tea!"
High above, Mu Chen nearly choked on his wine as the taunt reached him. He glanced down at the battlefield and remarked, "Looks like Xiao Diao is trying extra hard today."
Shen Xi watched the one-sided fight with quiet interest. "Looks like Sun Liang really hit Xiao Diao's nerves today," she said. Then her gaze shifted slightly to an empty stretch of sky. "But Mu Chen, what do you think? How long will that person remain hiding and just watch this battle?"
Mu Chen took another sip of wine, a faint smile touching his lips. "It depends on how much longer he wants to live."
Shen Xi smiled. "That makes sense."
Below, Sun Liang let out a final, desperate roar, gathering every remaining shred of his strength into one last strike.
Xiao Diao stood perfectly still, allowing the attack to come—then, at the final instant, he tilted his head, letting the massive golden fist pass harmlessly by.
"Too slow. Too weak. Too boring," Xiao Diao whispered.
The words shattered what remained of Sun Liang's composure. He opened his mouth to scream, but Xiao Diao's paw struck his face before a sound could emerge.
SNAP
The impact sent him flying like a broken projectile, a trail of blood marking his path. Before he could crash, Xiao Diao appeared mid-flight, his claw locking around Sun Liang's ankle.
"Let's see if you bounce," the mink hissed.
With a flick of his paw, he hurled Sun Liang downward.
The distant ruins exploded on impact, the last standing fragments collapsing as dust swallowed the site completely.
Xiao Diao landed lightly atop a slab of broken rock, stretching his limbs as if nothing of note had occurred. He waited, patient and unhurried.
After a few moments, a hand clawed its way out from beneath the rubble.
Sun Liang emerged, dragging his broken body onto his knees. He coughed, throwing up mouthful after mouthful of dark blood, his hands clutching a chest that felt like it had been crushed by a titan.
His face was unrecognizable, swollen into a purple mass that resembled a pig's head more than a human's, and his eyes had turned a solid, terrifying red.