Free Web NovelChapter 27: Chapter 27—Kill Everyone
Chapter 27—Kill Everyone
Xiao Ming stood up slowly.
Lin Mei followed close behind as Xiao Ming strode out of the chamber with firm, purposeful steps. The moment they crossed the threshold, her voice cut the air with murderous intent. "Kill everyone within sight."
The temperature of the corridor seemed to drop instantly.
Lin Mei hesitated, only a breath. "Miss—what about Mo Yong and Mo Ming?"
Xiao Ming turned her head back slightly. "Mo Yong is required for me to complete the Bizarre Rule. I still have four months. His luck is indeed pathetic—but if he were killed, I might get an even more unlucky person at random."
"I’ll protect him then—and Mo Ming," Lin Mei offered.
"Forget about Mo Ming," Xiao Ming said flatly, shaking her head. "We can find another fatherly figure for the ceremony. It is Mo Yong who matters."
"Very well, Miss."
Lin Mei’s golden energy erupted outward. Crack! Crack! Her head split and reshaped—a fox’s head emerging in place of her human face, covered in fine golden fur. Her limbs snapped backward at the joints with a grotesque crack, bending entirely in the wrong direction. She dropped onto all four reversed limbs. Six long golden tails fanned out behind her, swaying slowly.
"Celestial Fox’s Silent Steps."
Her body fragmented into afterimages, and she was gone—a blur racing across the courtyard.
Xiao Ming turned her gaze toward the sparring platform—toward the Xiao Clan Patriarch standing at its edge—and called out, her voice low but carrying the unmistakable weight of command. "Ninth Elder. Kill everyone. Lei Cheng broke the mark. Let us show humans what happens when they try to escape their fate."
The Xiao Patriarch, who had been standing at the edge of the platform with his eyes half-closed, slowly raised his head. Something behind his eyes—something that had never belonged to him—stirred awake.
He murmured in a low voice, "How dare this puny human food refuse the mark? Indeed, we have to kill everyone. To show humans our power." freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Xiao Ming nodded. "Yes, Ninth Elder. But leave that imposter in Lei Cheng’s appearance."
The old fox grinned. "Fine."
They communicated through qi transmission, making it impossible for anyone else to overhear them.
He turned toward Xiao Wan and vanished in a flash—reappearing directly behind the young man’s back. His body erupted with golden energy, and a crushing, oppressive pressure rolled outward from him in every direction like an invisible tide.
The two Bizarre Cultivators hired by the Lei Clan reacted instantly. The one hovering in the sky blazed with silver energy—two great black wings unfurled from his back, spanning two full meters each. The one seated among the audience flared with black energy, his hands warping and reshaping as lion claws emerged from his palms in place of human fingers.
"Ahhh!"
A scream tore through the courtyard. The audience exploded into chaos—people stumbling over one another, clawing toward any exit. In the blind stampede, no one stopped for anyone. A small child—no more than five years old—who had fallen was trampled without a glance. But they did not run far. The combined pressure of the two Bizarre Cultivators and the Xiao Patriarch—now fully seized by the impostor’s power—rolled over the crowd in waves. One by one, guests crumpled where they stood, knocked unconscious before they could even cry out a second time.
Thud! Thud!
Bodies dropped across the courtyard like candles being snuffed.
The three Xiao brothers shot to their feet. "Father!" they cried in unison. They flared with golden blood qi, trying to resist the pressure pressing down on their bodies.
Slash!
The elder fox drove a palm transformed into a fox claw straight through Xiao Wan’s neck from behind. Xiao Wan’s hands flew to his throat. Blood poured between his fingers. He turned his head—eyes wide open, disbelieving—and collapsed, coughing red onto the platform stones.
The moment Xiao Wan’s energy vanished, Mo Ming’s water energy surged forward instinctively, seizing the opening.
The fox did not even bother to move. He simply hummed. "Hmm."
Mo Ming’s water energy dissolved on contact. Mo Ming himself was launched into the air and thrown back several meters, slamming down hard and spitting blood. He fainted—his life and death unknown.
A single hum.
Crack! Crack!
The fox shifted into his Bizarre form—limbs bent backward, eight tails spreading behind him, standing on all four reversed limbs with his back facing the ground and his chest facing the sky. The full weight of his power poured outward without restraint.
The three Xiao brothers staggered and fell to their knees, unable to bear the pressure anymore. They turned their heads—and found Lei Feng already slumped unconscious in his seat. He was an ordinary man, no cultivation to speak of. The old fox’s pressure had taken him the moment it filled the air.
Then they noticed something that made them tremble.
Mo Yong—still sitting in Lei Cheng’s form—had not moved. He sat perfectly still, completely unharmed. A small golden fox mark glowed faintly on his chest, pulsing with quiet warmth. A golden barrier had formed around him.
The realization fell over the three brothers like cold water.
"We were used."
Xiao Yang let out a broken howl.
None of them could even find the words to deny it.
Xiao Mo—always the nonchalant one—stammered, his composed mask finally shattered entirely. "Our father and Ming’er—they were taken over by foxes long ago."
The words cracked open something in all three of them. Tears spilled freely as their vision began to dim, the pressure tightening its grip.
’When was my daughter killed?’
Xiao Lin’s thought drifted through his fading mind, tears running silently down his face. He was the first to go, collapsing sideways without a sound.
Xiao Yang followed moments later, still screaming as he fell. "Damn you biza—!"
Xiao Mo was the last—knocked out while still on his knees, his head falling forward, his body frozen in the posture of kneeling even as consciousness left him entirely.
On the platform, the bird Bizarre Cultivator landed and shouted, "You fox—when did you take over the Xiao Patriarch?!"
The lion-clawed cultivator landed behind the fox and dropped into a battle stance—lion claws raised in front, body lowered, neck bent forward in a hunter’s crouch. Right side leading, left held back.
The Xiao Patriarch impostor grinned—a wide, alien grin that had never worn that face before. "Humans," he said, tilting his head. "I wonder how you taste." He licked his lips, a predator’s hunger burning openly in his eyes now. "Do you truly believe you can fight me?"
The two cultivators responded together. "We’ll see."
The lion-clawed cultivator ignited his claws—blazing red flames curling up each talon. "Scarlet Flames."
The old fox nodded. "Oh—you fused with the Claws of the Flaming Crimson Tiger." His gaze slid to the wing cultivator. "And you, fused with the Iron Sparrow Soldier, I’d wager."
Lin Mei, watching from her perch atop a side room roof, narrowed her eyes as she observed the standoff. ’Idiots. They cannot even read the Ninth Elder’s level. Both at Level One—how do they think they will stand against Level Three?’ She tilted her head in mild disbelief.
A loud whooshing sound erupted behind her.
Boom!
She leaped to another rooftop, barely dodging a thick, long tree vine. Thud! The entire room she had just been standing on collapsed from top to bottom into dust under the vine’s force.
She spun and glanced below—and found a middle-aged Bizarre Cultivator she had not noticed before. His hair had grown and twisted into crawling tree vines, his black robes pulsing with green energy.
Her eyes went cold. She hissed softly. "Celestial Fox Illusion."
A layer of golden light washed over her, sealing her within the illusion—just as the vine cultivator bellowed across the courtyard. "Fellow Daoists—be wary of their illusion powers! Do not meet their eyes!"
He wrapped two small green vines across his own face, binding them tightly over his eyes and locking out his vision entirely to make himself immune.
"Damn it," the lion-clawed cultivator growled. "Without vision, how can we fight?"
The old fox tilted his head, a rare note of admission in his voice. "Not bad. You’ve figured out my powers." He paused. "But you cannot fight without vision, can you?"
He whispered the technique name. "Celestial Fox Mirage."
Both visible cultivators shut their eyes immediately.
The old fox let out a low, delighted laugh, "Heh, heh, heh." Then he flashed directly in front of the lion-clawed cultivator and hissed, "Celestial Twin Fox Strike."
Both fox claws came down in a violent cross slash.
Swish!
The lion Bizarre Cultivator raised his own claws to block—but he never even connected. Before his arms rose a fraction, his body had already been sliced—not once, not twice, but into multiple pieces.
Thud!
Pieces of his body fell to the ground. He was dead.
The wing cultivator opened his eyes. Cold sweat broke across him immediately. ’He is not Level One.’ Terror flashed through his eyes. He did not hesitate. He turned his back and launched himself skyward, fleeing without a word.
On the other side of the courtyard, the vine cultivator was still lashing his vines in every direction blindly—thrashing through the air in wide arcs, trying to cover as much ground as possible.
Boom! Boom!
He shattered everything around him. An open clearing formed where rooms and pillars had stood moments before.
Lin Mei watched from her distant rooftop perch with contempt. ’Idiot. Without your vision, you are completely useless.’
She turned to move—heading toward Lei Feng—when a thick vine cracked through the air and slapped her hard across the side of the head.
A vivid welt striped across her face. She spat blood as she was flung into the air.
She winced. "How?!"
