"Two little girls, how dare you act so arrogantly here? You killed my son, so I'll let you taste what it is to lose someone you love."
It was Cheng Chuan who had slipped away the moment Liu Shan was stunned. His face was twisted with malice, and all his Dou Qi was gathered in his hand, clearly meant to unleash a Dou Technique. He laughed like a madman. "The farce ends here!"
Xiao Ling felt the Dou Qi in Cheng Chuan's hand. She gathered her own, and as he drew nearer, the two forces slowly came together. A crazed smile spread across his face as he approached her and Xiao Meng.
Suddenly, Xuan Yi's figure appeared like a ghost between Cheng Chuan and Xiao Ling. Seeing her, Xiao Ling hurriedly scattered the Dou Qi she had gathered.
"Noisy. Who said you could make such a racket?"
Xuan Yi spoke with perfect indifference, looking at Cheng Chuan as though he were an ant. As he slowly came on, she lifted her right foot slightly. The sharp heel of her shoe gleamed coldly under the moonlight.
Cheng Chuan's pupils shrank sharply, and his Dou Qi surged wildly as he tried to unleash the Dou Technique he had been building. But Xuan Yi was faster than his reaction.
Bang!
She delivered a fierce kick, with no flourish at all, simply an overwhelming suppression of power and speed.
Crack!
The heel struck Cheng Chuan's waist. A dull thud of shoe against bone rang out, along with the grating sound of shattering bone, clearly audible in the air.
Everyone watching felt a phantom pang in their own waists. Had someone switched on a pain-sharing spell? With that kick, forget about having descendants. For the rest of his life, even urinating would be difficult. It was probably a little painful.
Cheng Chuan's body folded backward under the impact. The terrible force displaced his internal organs in an instant, and fresh blood sprayed from the corner of his mouth.
"Aaargh!"
He let out an inhuman scream, and his whole body flew out like a kite with a broken string. He slammed face down onto the bluestone ground with a horrifying crunch of breaking bones.
Boom!
The bluestone cracked beneath him. Cheng Chuan lay motionless, his fingers convulsively clawing at the earth. His eyes bulged with agony, and blood gushed from his mouth and stained the stone beneath him red.
Xuan Yi drew back her leg and looked down at him with indifferent eyes. "You dared to lay a hand on them in front of me? You truly are courting death."
Cheng Chuan's body twitched a few more times. The hands that had been clawing at the ground slowly relaxed, and at last they went completely still. His eyes remained open, the pupils unfocused and drained of all color. He had plainly died with grievances, his eyes unclosed.
Had anyone swept his Sea of Consciousness with their soul, they would have found that his soul had already scattered. Xuan Yi's kick had carried a soul attack as well. As a giant of the Pill Tower, she cultivated both soul techniques and soul-striking Dou Techniques.
When the Cheng and Liu Families saw Cheng Chuan die, the whole square fell into a deathly silence. He was a Seven-Star Dou Zong, a powerful expert who had awed the entire region, and he had been kicked to death like a stray dog on the roadside. What kind of strength did that take? It was simply terrifying. Everyone present except Xiao Tian and the two girls swallowed hard.
Liu Shan was no different. Cheng Chuan, who had just been trading blows with him, was dead in the blink of an eye. He could hardly believe it. He had sensed that the woman was no ordinary person, but he had never expected her to be this powerful.
"Patriarch!"
The first to react was the Cheng Family's Third Elder, who stood closest to the spot where Cheng Chuan had fallen. He shrieked and rushed forward, only to see the Patriarch's aggrieved face and his twisted body. The Third Elder's legs gave way, and he nearly collapsed, his eyes full of fear and despair.
"This... this can't be... Patriarch... How could the Patriarch die?"
He muttered to himself, his voice wrung from deep in his throat, full of undisguised trembling. He knew that without the deterrent power of the Patriarch, the Cheng Family was finished.
The other elders and guest elders of the Cheng Family froze where they stood. Some went weak in the knees and sank to the ground. They could not accept it. Their Patriarch, as mighty as a god, had been kicked to death as if it were nothing. Their eyes were full of despair, and not one of them could summon a single thought of resistance. The strongest one in their ranks had died so quickly that any struggle from them would be pointless. They could only wait silently for death, perhaps hoping for some slim chance of survival.
Xuan Yi's gaze swept across the members of the Cheng Family, then settled on Xiao Tian, who stood on the ground, having just dispersed the Dou Qi at his fingertips. When she had made her move, she had vaguely sensed that the space in front of Xiao Ling and Xiao Meng had already been shattered. Had Cheng Chuan reached it, he would have been torn apart by it directly.
A flash of fire passed through Xuan Yi's hand, and a mysterious purplish-red flame appeared on the bodies of the Cheng Family members. In an instant, it burned them all to ashes. Even the Cheng Family's First Elder and Second Elder, both Dou Zong, could not resist and were reduced to piles of white ash. Even the man already dead on the ground...
The people of the Liu Family looked at the eerie scene with pale faces. They had never seen anything so terrifying and strange in their lives.
"Mother Xuan Yi, that kick was so cool!"
"It was so heroic and dashing! For a moment it almost captivated everyone!"
Xiao Ling and Xiao Meng fluttered their small wings and floated before Xuan Yi, chattering excitedly.
Xuan Yi, who had kept up that cold, emotionless air, was thrown into a flutter by the way Xiao Ling addressed her. She stole a glance at Xiao Tian, and when she saw him smiling faintly at her, her face turned slightly red. She pretended to be angry and pinched Xiao Ling's little face, scolding her gently, but she did not object to being called by that name.
She brought them down to the ground. As soon as their feet touched it, Xiao Ling and Xiao Meng suddenly turned aside and vomited.
Seeing their condition, Xuan Yi knew it was the aftermath of their first kill, the reaction of minds relaxing once the event was over. She hurried to comfort the two girls with soft words.
Meanwhile, Liu Shan came to Xiao Tian's side with Liu Qing and the others. Xiao Tian looked at Liu Shan, who seemed to have something to say but hesitated. "Uncle Liu, please speak freely."
Liu Qing, usually the outspoken one, spoke to Xiao Tian with a grave expression. "Xiao Tian, you must leave quickly. Burning Flame Valley will send people to investigate the fall of the Cheng Family. If they find out anything, I'm afraid it will be dangerous for you."