Seeing Zhang Yingxue’s ghastly white hands reaching for him, Xiao Chenliang immediately started screaming.
“Father, save me!”
“It wasn’t me! Don’t come for me!”
Zhang Yingxue ignored Xiao Chenliang’s pleas for mercy, her deathly pale hands already grasping his neck.
Strands of red Yin energy rapidly poured from her hands into Xiao Chenliang’s body.
“Yin energy entering the body!”
Seeing this from a distance, Xiao Gaoyuan’s eyelid twitched.
His seemingly aged body, propelled by his inner energy, transformed into a blur and vanished from where he stood.
In the blink of an eye, Xiao Gaoyuan’s figure reappeared some distance away.
In each of his hands, he held one of his sons.
As for Xiao Chenliang, Xiao Gaoyuan had abandoned him.
When Yin energy from a Calamity-grade specter enters the body, unless one is a martial artist with mastered Inner Breath or higher, death is certain!
Without pausing for even a moment, Xiao Gaoyuan’s body continued moving, dashing straight towards the main gate of the Xiao mansion.
Zhang Yingxue’s Yin energy was simply too terrifying. Xiao Gaoyuan, a martial artist at the Minor Achievement stage of the Inner Breath realm, dared not engage her in a prolonged fight.
In fact, Xiao Gaoyuan was even feeling thankful.
Zhang Yingxue’s attention was entirely focused on Xiao Chenliang, which gave him and his other sons a chance to escape.
Out of the corner of his eye, Xiao Chenliang saw his father fleeing into the distance and let out a despairing roar.
“Father!”
“Ahhh!”
It seemed Zhang Yingxue’s sole target was Xiao Chenliang. The red Yin energy from her hands continuously poured into his body.
Under Zhang Yingxue’s control, this Yin energy inflicted unbearable agony upon Xiao Chenliang.
It felt as if someone were using a sharp knife to gently scrape away at his insides, causing him excruciating pain.
What terrified Xiao Chenliang even more was that, somehow, his five senses had become even more acute than usual, amplifying every moment of suffering.
“Dammit, how did that slut undergo such a change?!”
Xiao Gaoyuan cursed under his breath continuously, only stopping when he reached the main gate.
“Father, look over there!”
At that moment, the eldest son clutched in Xiao Gaoyuan’s hand finally spoke up.
They saw that the entire outer wall of the Xiao mansion was covered in a thin layer of floating red Yin energy.
“Is that that accursed thing’s spectral domain?”
“Hmph, this damned thing wants to wipe out our entire Xiao family in one fell swoop.”
“That despicable slut!”
Xiao Gaoyuan casually dropped the two sons he was holding.
Then, clenching the five fingers of his right hand into a claw shape, he struck out at the thin layer of red Yin energy.
“Break for me!”
With the boost from his inner energy, Xiao Gaoyuan’s right hand tore through the air at tremendous speed.
Carrying an overwhelming momentum, it forcefully clashed with Zhang Yingxue’s spectral domain.
A terrifying storm of impact erupted, sending Xiao Gaoyuan’s body hurtling backward.
He didn’t stop until he had returned to his original position, and only then did the force of the rebound gradually subside.
Xiao Gaoyuan slowly raised his right hand; it was covered in frozen Yin energy frost, which sizzled and emitted wisps of white steam.
Yet the red Yin energy, which had withstood his full-force strike, remained completely unscathed.
Xiao Gaoyuan’s expression darkened. An unimaginable truth now confronted him.
The intensity of Zhang Yingxue’s Yin energy had reached the level of mastered Inner Breath.
In other words, Zhang Yingxue was now a fully mature Calamity-grade specter.
She wasn’t far from the legendary Disaster-grade specter.
“How is this possible!”
“That slut Zhang Yingxue… a fully mature Calamity-grade specter?!”
Xiao Chenliang’s distant screams echoed throughout the Xiao mansion, sending chills down one’s spine and filling everyone with dread.
Just as Xiao Gaoyuan’s expression grew grim, his two sons behind him suddenly cried out in pain.
“Father, save me!”
“Father, my feet! My hands hurt so much!”
At that moment, Xiao Gaoyuan’s body instinctively lunged forward.
In an instant, five deep gouges appeared in the ground where he had just been standing.
At the edges of the gouges, a thick layer of eerie, gleaming frost extended outward, from which strands of red Yin energy drifted.
In that brief moment of delay, right before Xiao Gaoyuan’s eyes, his two sons withered and decayed.
Finally, Xiao Gaoyuan’s eldest and second sons turned into a pile of white powder, scattering across the ground.
“That damned slut!”
Seeing his eldest son dead, Xiao Gaoyuan’s eyes burned with fury. From within his robe, he produced a bronze coin the size of his palm.
As soon as the palm-sized bronze coin appeared, Xiao Gaoyuan’s eyes were filled with pain and reluctance.
But he had no choice; at this point, he could only use this item.
This bronze coin, after all, was a legendary sacrificial artifact.
It was a protective treasure left to him by his father before he died.
A Constellation-grade, two-mark sacrificial artifact!
Only the Gang Yuan of an External Gang Grandmaster could unleash a sacrificial artifact’s true power.
For martial artists at the Inner Breath realm, they could only use it to drive Heaven and Earth’s energy and trigger another function of the artifact.
That function was to seal away supernatural specters.
But once the artifact sealed a supernatural specter, his spiritual imprint on it would be completely erased.
This meant he would lose this sacrificial artifact he treasured so dearly.
Sacrificial artifacts weren’t things you could just come by. If Xiao Gaoyuan weren’t a member of the Xiao clan, he would never have been able to obtain one in the first place.
For this very reason, Xiao Gaoyuan wished he could tear Zhang Yingxue apart limb from limb.
But at the same time, Zhang Yingxue, standing opposite him, harbored the exact same feelings towards Xiao Gaoyuan.
“Die!”
Seeing Zhang Yingxue fly towards him, Xiao Gaoyuan gripped the bronze coin tightly in his right hand and looked at her with a mocking sneer.
“Hmph, slut, just get in there obediently!”
With the sacrificial artifact in his hand, Xiao Gaoyuan no longer felt the previous fear; instead, he was filled with confidence.
As Xiao Gaoyuan continuously poured inner energy into it, the bronze coin artifact began to emit a faint, mysterious glow, radiating an awe-inspiring presence.
However, just as Xiao Gaoyuan raised his right hand, aiming the bronze coin artifact at Zhang Yingxue…
Suddenly!
A streak of purple light flashed past, moving so fast that even Xiao Gaoyuan couldn’t react in time.
“Who’s there?!”
“My artifact! My sacrificial artifact!”
“You damned scoundrel! Give me back my artifact!”
Xiao Gaoyuan roared curses while simultaneously sidestepping to evade Zhang Yingxue’s attack.
In that instant, Zhang Yingxue’s hands seized his right arm.
Strands of bone-chilling Yin energy rapidly began to侵蚀 his right arm.
With Xiao Gaoyuan’s mind in turmoil, Zhang Yingxue’s terrifying Yin energy took the opportunity to侵蚀 into his body.
“You damned… slu…”
Xiao Gaoyuan cast one last, unwilling glance at Zhang Yingxue. Then, his flesh and blood were eroded by the Yin energy, rotting and withering away, until he finally transformed into a dried-up skeleton.
In front of Zhang Yingxue, Lu Xuan’s figure gradually materialized.
In Lu Xuan’s hand was a bronze coin—Xiao Gaoyuan’s bronze coin sacrificial artifact!
“An undamaged Constellation-grade, two-mark sacrificial artifact!”
