They knew Jiang Tian was a formidable opponent; a grandmaster of the Transformation Realm was no joke. They had been lying in ambush around Villa King One for half a month, with the goal of kidnapping Zhao Xueqing to use as leverage against him.
But when one of the Tombstones saw Jiang Tian cough up blood, they changed their plans. They decided to strike while the iron was hot—or rather, while he was weak—and go straight for him.
During their half-month of surveillance, they hadn’t noticed even a hint of cultivation from Zhao Xueqing. She had seemed like nothing more than a helpless, delicate woman.
They never expected her strength to be so terrifying—completely on par with Jiang Tian’s.
One Transformation Realm grandmaster was already hard enough to handle, let alone two. This mission was practically a death sentence!
The leader was still hesitating, wondering whether to give up, but one of the Tombstones had already turned tail and fled.
“Leave no evil unpunished, and don’t let a tiger return to the mountains!”
Jiang Tian took a sip of tea, watching his beloved wife’s slaughter with appreciation.
Hmm, she’s certainly growing fast.
In fact, Jiang Tian didn’t even need to remind her. Zhao Xueqing had already stretched out her right hand, palm open, toward the fleeing Tombstone.
A surging, pulling force instantly formed.
Whoosh!
The assassin had already reached the living room door when his body suddenly became uncontrollable, lifting into the air.
“Let me go!”
He let out a piercing scream, flailing wildly, but Zhao Xueqing had already grabbed the back of his neck.
Crack!
With a twist of her delicate hand, the Tombstone’s cervical spine snapped. His head lolled to the side, and he died on the spot.
Before the others could react, Zhao Xueqing’s hands moved in a blur, her finger beams shooting out one after another.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Thunderous roars echoed as several immensely powerful finger beams blasted out like heavy artillery.
The remaining Tombstones were sent flying, crashing to the ground, motionless.
Their deaths were utterly gruesome: some had their skulls shattered beyond recognition, some had their chests caved in, spewing blood mixed with bits of organs, others had broken bones and torn tendons, and a few had been pulverized into a shapeless pulp.
In an instant, the situation took a drastic turn.
In less than a minute, only the Tombstone leader, “Grim Reaper,” and the blood-totem user Anthony were left standing, frozen in sheer shock and terror.
“Heh heh, two Transformation Realm experts. Your flesh and blood will make excellent nourishment. Become my blood slaves!”
Suddenly, Anthony’s shock turned to delight. With a sinister grin, he clasped his hands together and murmured a few incantations.
Fangs sprouted from the corners of his mouth. Rip! The back of his clothes tore open, and two pitch-black, bat-like wings unfurled from behind him.
“Die!”
His blood-filled mouth gaped open, and with a flap of his wings, he shot toward Zhao Xueqing like a gust of wind.
The curved bone spurs along the edges of his wings glinted coldly, razor-sharp—capable of tearing through steel.
“Phoenix Feathers Everywhere!”
Zhao Xueqing let out a crisp battle cry. The aura of her Innocent Phoenix Maiden Divine Body surged higher, and two phoenix wings materialized behind her, slashing outward with a sharp ring.
Boom! Crack! The two pairs of giant wings collided, sending out towering waves of air.
In an instant, Anthony’s wings—which bullets couldn’t penetrate and could sever metal and stone—ripped apart like tattered cloth, blood gushing from the wounds.
“So strong!”
His heart pounded with fear. Activating a secret technique, a burst of blood exploded from his chest, and a dense cloud of crimson mist enveloped him instantly. In the next moment, he vanished from his spot and reappeared in the courtyard. Then, flapping his wings urgently, he rose like a giant bird and flew off into the distance.
“Even with such severe injuries, he can still pull off a blood escape—not bad at all!” Jiang Tian said with a faint smile.
“Think you can run?”
Zhao Xueqing snorted coldly, her eyes flickering.
“Blazing Phoenix Gaze!”
A stream of flame, dozens of meters long, blasted forth from her eyes.
“What is this?!”
Anthony felt a scorching heat behind him. Turning his head, he was utterly horrified.
He tried several evasive and life-saving techniques, but none of them worked.
The crimson flames engulfed him instantly.
Anthony let out a piercing scream, plummeting from the sky onto the lawn. In his agonizing cries, he struggled desperately—his hair, clothes, nails, skin, flesh, bones, and internal organs all burned from the inside out, inch by inch, until he was reduced to a pile of ashes.
Finally, when Anthony’s body had completely burned away, the flames still raged on.
A faint, reddish shadow writhed within them, as if trying to break free from the physical shell, but with another blast of flame from Zhao Xueqing, even that red phantom was extinguished.
“Is that… a blood soul?”
The Grim Reaper trembled violently, his eyes wide with terror, as fear gripped his entire being.
Zhao Xueqing’s flames were truly devastating. They not only reduced the blood clan’s body—impervious to water and fire—to ashes, but also wiped out the blood soul itself. This was the legendary “total annihilation of both body and spirit.”
When Anthony’s soul vanished, Zhao Xueqing slowly turned around, her voice icy as she asked:
“You call yourself the Grim Reaper, right? Tell me—who’s the mastermind behind the plot to murder my husband?”
“Spare me, goddess! It was a ‘dark bounty’ posted on the Dark Web. I don’t know who the real backer is…”
Overwhelmed by extreme fear, the Grim Reaper could no longer hold himself together. His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground with a thud.
Think about it—as the leader of “Tombstone,” the world’s seventh-ranked assassin organization, how powerful and proud was he?
He had slipped through FBI cordons with ease, laughed in the face of danger, and walked away unscathed. He had killed no fewer than a hundred wealthy tycoons and political figures, his hands stained with blood, treating human lives like weeds. The word “fear” had never existed in his dictionary.
But now, he was truly afraid. Not of death itself, but of dying reduced to ashes like that.
“You don’t know? Then die!”
Zhao Xueqing’s beautiful eyes turned cold. Her finger beam shot out, and the Grim Reaper’s head exploded. He collapsed to the ground, dead.
The vast lawn had become a scene from hell—littered with flesh and corpses, crimson blood seeping into the withered yellow grass, stark and horrifying against the early winter night.
Only then did the blood-red killing intent slowly fade from Zhao Xueqing’s eyes, returning to clarity. She looked around in a daze, her hands trembling uncontrollably.
She glanced down at her bloodstained hands, her voice quivering: “I… I killed people.”
“Do you regret it?”
Jiang Tian walked over, steadying her frail, swaying body. A shadow of worry flickered in his eyes as he sighed. “Actually… I do regret it a little. Maybe I shouldn’t have led you down this path…”
“No. No regrets!”
Zhao Xueqing took a couple of deep breaths, steadied herself, and shook her head firmly. “Even if time rewound, I would still kill them all.”
“Mm. You know, the first time I killed someone, I threw up for three days straight.”
Jiang Tian’s eyes brightened, and he gave her a gentle smile. “Don’t overthink it. Right now, just remember why you swung your sword, and hold firm to the conviction behind that swing. As long as your conviction is strong and righteous, your choice will be one without regrets. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself…”
——–
The next morning, Jiang Tian washed up and came to the living room to find that Zhao Xueqing had already calmed down and made a full table of breakfast.
“Jiang Tian, we should head back to Jinling now, right?” she asked with concern.
“Yeah. Shen Mange and the others should have things mostly handled, but to be safe, we need to go back ourselves.”
A cold glint flashed in Jiang Tian’s eyes as he continued: “The mastermind behind the Dark Web bounty already knows my identity. Those strong enough to covet the reward might go after the Jiang family to get leverage over me.”
Last night, he had used his divine sense to scan all of Linzhou and hadn’t detected any powerful presences. The stronger ones would likely show up in Jinling instead.
“Alright, let’s leave right away.”
Xueqing nodded. The two of them quickly packed their belongings, brought along the little monkey Qitian, hopped into the Rolls-Royce Phantom, and sped straight toward Jinling.
Sitting in the car, Jiang Tian felt a wave of frustration. He didn’t dare take a plane now.
If any of his enemies targeted the aircraft, his weakened physical body wouldn’t survive a fall from thousands of meters in the air. He’d be dead for sure.
“A frail body—this is still my biggest shackle…”
Xueqing insisted on driving, worried about his health. Jiang Tian sat in the passenger seat, watching the fleeting scenery outside the window, his brows furrowed in frustration.
Even if he forged a flying sword now, he couldn’t fly at supersonic speeds—his body couldn’t handle the strain.
Still, he planned to forge the Heavenly Court Sword into his own flying sword as soon as possible. Even if it couldn’t break the sound barrier, it would at least match the speed of an airplane, which would be far more convenient than driving.
The car sped along, and by that afternoon, they had reached Jiangsu Province. They pulled into a gas station to refuel.
“Mr. Jiang, what a pleasure to meet you.”
Suddenly, a Maserati sports car pulled up beside them. The door swung open, and a flawlessly fair, slender leg stepped out onto the ground. A stunningly seductive, blonde, blue-eyed foreign woman got out and sauntered toward Jiang Tian.
She was tall—easily 1.7 meters barefoot, and with high heels, she stood nearly 1.8 meters, like a supermodel.
Even though it was early winter and the weather was chilly, she wore a backless evening gown with a daringly high slit, revealing a long stretch of pale, shapely thigh that was utterly alluring. She instantly drew the attention of every man at the gas station.
Right behind her, two Mercedes SUVs pulled up, and five men stepped out. They varied in age and style, with different skin tones—Asian, African, Caucasian—hailing from different countries and regions. But every single one of them radiated an overwhelming murderous aura.
“In broad daylight, at a public place—you’ve got some nerve coming after me,” Jiang Tian said with a chuckle.
The woman’s blood aura was sinister and clearly marked her as a supernatural being. The men behind her belonged to different disciplines of practitioners, but all of them had vigorous, powerful auras. Their strength was at least equivalent to that of Internal Energy experts in Chinese martial arts—far stronger than the Tombstone organization.
“Can’t help it. A reward of five hundred million is just too tempting to resist.”
The bewitching woman ran her crimson tongue over her lips, a fierce killing intent flashing in her azure eyes as she closed in on Jiang Tian.
Just then, a police car pulled up with a screech.
A female officer jumped out. She was tall, with a striking, curvaceous figure—her chest straining against her uniform, a slender waist, rounded hips, and shapely thighs. Her calves were slim and toned, and she wore flat-soled leather shoes, looking every bit the dashing and capable officer.
