Night. The streets of Huanglong City.

"Midnight, the third watch. All is well."

"DONG—DONG, DONG!"

It was the third watch of the night.

The saying, "ghosts come knocking at the witching hour," was about this time of night.

Aside from a few spots still glowing with warm, red light, most of Huanglong City was pitch-black, especially the southern district.

Ordinary folk had no nightlife to speak of; they simply pulled up their covers and went to sleep early.

Only the patriarchs and young masters of wealthy families would still be out and about at this hour.

In the eastern district, before a grand and imposing vermilion gate, a pair of male and female stone lions stood with exceptional dominance. The culture of the Xuan Yang Dynasty was liberal, not as rigidly hierarchical as the preceding one. Under the strict rites of the former dynasty, only imperial relatives would have been permitted to use such lion-shaped drum stones.

Of course, even in the current Xuan Yang Dynasty, any family that could afford such drum stones was far from ordinary.

This was the Feng Mansion, the residence of the Feng Family of Jiangzhou within Huanglong Prefecture.

At a street corner diagonally across from the Feng Mansion, two figures were perfectly concealed in the shadows.

"Women are so damn timid,"

the shorter of the two men said with a sneer.

The "woman" he spoke of was none other than the Lord of the Soul-Chasing Tower in Ling Province.

The taller man replied, "It’s still best to be cautious. I hear many masters have met their end in Huanglong Prefecture."

Kuaidong had gone to Ling Province, and the Lord of the Soul-Chasing Tower in Ling Province had gone with him, leaving Huanglong Prefecture for these two to handle.

The two of them were the ones who had killed the previous leader of the Ten Thousand Seas Gang.

Both men hailed from the Jiangnan branch of the Soul-Chasing Tower. In terms of wealth, martial power, and heritage, Jiangnan far surpassed Shuofang, to say nothing of a place like Ling Province.

In their eyes, the backwater of Huanglong Prefecture was filled with nothing but bumpkins. The only reason the Soul-Chasing Tower had suffered such a major setback was because of Jiang Changping, the Prefect of Lingzhou, and General Dong Wanjun.

"Why isn’t the old bastard asleep yet?"

The shorter man glanced at the single lamp still lit inside the Feng Mansion’s courtyard.

That was where their target for the night was.

Right now, every power in Ling Province, local or otherwise, was required to dispatch men to escort grain shipments.

So the Soul-Chasing Tower was starting fires in their backyards, making it impossible for them to dispatch their experts for escort duty.

The Ten Thousand Seas Gang was only the beginning...

They had planned to make their move after everyone in the Feng Family was asleep, but they hadn’t expected the Feng Elder to have such stamina. He’d been going at it for a full hour with no signs of stopping.

He was supposedly eighty years old, yet his silver spear never faltered.

"Then let’s have him die on a woman’s belly!"

A vicious glint appeared in the taller man’s eyes.

"Excellent idea."

The shorter man licked his lips, as if he could already smell the sweet scent of blood.

As the saying goes, skill begets courage. They were Vice Tower Masters from a Jiangnan branch of the Soul-Chasing Tower; for them, wearing masks was a meaningless formality.

They left no survivors among the three branches of their targets’ clans, so who would be left to seek revenge?

Their steps were light, and they vaulted over the Feng Mansion’s courtyard wall with ease.

The courtyard was lit by the torches of patrolling guards, but the disparity in power was so great that the two assassins simply ignored them, making their way to the illuminated room.

Even through the walls, they could hear the fierce commotion from within.

The shorter man could no longer wait. With a flick of his blade, he skillfully pried the window open from the outside.

The old man inside, who was currently engaged with five women, was exceptionally sharp. He sensed something was wrong the instant the window opened.

But the two men from the Soul-Chasing Tower were faster!

A chain tipped with a sharp blade shot toward the old man on the bed like a silver serpent.

"AHH!"

A startled cry rang out.

The woman on top of the old man was pierced through by the chain; she wasn’t going to make it.

As an Elder of the Feng Family, the old man was naturally a formidable fighter. Despite his portly build, his movements were astonishingly fast. The instant before the chain impaled the woman, he rolled to the head of the bed and pulled a short sword from beneath his pillow.

"Damn it!"

he roared.

But immediately after his roar, he became a blur, rushing for the door.

The Feng Elder had no intention of fighting the intruders to the death, nor of avenging his beloved handmaiden.

He recognized them at a glance as masters from the Soul-Chasing Tower. The wisest course of action was to escape and return with reinforcements to deal with them.

Just as the Lord Prefect had said, there was no need for martial honor when dealing with people like this—you just had to swarm them.

But the taller man, already lying in wait at the doorway, was not about to give him that chance.

A brilliant flash of steel split the door apart and cleaved down toward the Feng Elder’s head with menacing force.

Meanwhile, the shorter man’s chain, having already reaped the lives of the other women in the room, shot toward the center of the Feng Elder’s back.

It was a pincer attack from front and back, meant to kill the Feng Elder on the spot.

PFFT!

The chain pierced his lower back, and the long saber hacked into his right shoulder.

The Feng Elder had twisted his body with all his might, barely avoiding a fatal blow. Otherwise, that attack would have killed him.

’The methods of the Soul-Chasing Tower are truly terrifying.’

But having dodged this one attack, he no longer had the strength to flee.

"Old dog, let’s see you dodge this!"

The shorter man twisted his wrist, whirling the chain as he prepared to strike the Feng Elder again.

Just then, a blade whistling with powerful energy abruptly appeared behind the shorter man.

But the shorter man’s reaction was swift. He raised the chain he held in both hands to block.

CLANG!

The heavy, powerful strike pressed the chain down onto the shorter man’s right shoulder, but the chain itself prevented the blade from reaching the bone.

After blocking the surprise attack, the shorter man retreated with the momentum and found himself staring at a square-jawed face.

"Yang Fangyu!"

He spat the name through gritted teeth, glaring at the man who had suddenly appeared behind him.

The man was none other than the Prefect of Huanglong Prefecture himself, Yang Fangyu!

As the temporary leader of the Soul-Chasing Tower’s operations in Huanglong Prefecture, he of course knew what Yang Fangyu looked like.

At the same time, two more figures appeared before the house.

Bai Yuan and Lu Yu took up positions to the east and west, forming an encirclement with Yang Fangyu around the two Soul-Chasing Tower assassins.

Yang Fangyu’s expression was grim. "You cockroaches from the Soul-Chasing Tower, die!"

He swung his long saber in a great arc, bringing it crashing down on the shorter man.

Meanwhile, Bai Yuan engaged the taller man.

The taller man used a saber, as did Bai Yuan. In the blink of an eye, they had already exchanged more than a dozen blows.

The longer the tall man fought, the more terrified he became.

The swordsmanship of this young Sect Leader of the Divine Mansion Sect was far beyond anything he had imagined.

Fast!

Too fast!

He felt his own blade was always a beat slower than Bai Yuan’s, completely suppressed at every turn. The frustration was so great he could have coughed up blood.

’All my decades of training have gone to waste!’

With a furious roar, the taller man put all his strength into his next move, changing his slash to a crushing blow.

’If I can’t beat him with speed, I’ll overwhelm him with brute force!’

CLANG!

Their blades clashed in midair.

A terrifying force traveled down the blade to the hilt, and the saber was nearly knocked from the taller man’s grasp.

The taller man’s pupils contracted.

He realized that the reason the young man’s strike was so terrifyingly powerful was, once again, his speed.

In that single instant, Bai Yuan had struck a full ten times!

The combined force of ten strikes naturally far surpassed his single one.

’How terrifying!’

The taller man was horrified.

But Bai Yuan gave him no more time for shock. A flurry of afterimages from the blade enveloped the taller man.

No one knew how many moves they exchanged, but it all happened in the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

The taller man collapsed into a pool of his own blood, his face a mask of disbelief. An assassin who lived by the blade had died by the blade. He felt utterly humiliated.

Bai Yuan turned to look at the other fight.

Yang Fangyu’s battle was also drawing to a close.

The Soul-Chasing Tower’s assassins were strong, but only when they had the advantage of surprise. Once exposed, that advantage vanished.

Yang Fangyu’s masterful Buddhist body-hardening arts excelled in head-on confrontations, and the shorter man was naturally no match for him.

Bai Yuan decisively joined the fray.

...

"Younger Brother Bai, what’s this? Don’t you trust your big brother’s skills?"

Yang Fangyu grumbled in dissatisfaction.

He glanced at the headless corpse on the ground.

Bai Yuan had killed the shorter man as well, and the feeling of not landing the killing blow himself was driving him mad.

It was like fighting a boss for ages, only to have someone else steal the kill at the last second.

Of course, Bai Yuan wasn’t about to tell Yang Fangyu he’d done it for the enhancement points.

Lu Yu sauntered over with a grin, glanced at the room full of dead women, and thought, ’What a waste.’

He had been a spectator for nearly the entire battle.

He specialized in Body Techniques and poisons, so the original plan had been for him to stand by and prevent any escape. In the end, he didn’t even get a chance to make a move.

But who could blame him, when Bai Yuan and Yang Fangyu were such beasts?

"Thank you, Lord Yang."

The Feng Elder recognized them.

He shifted his portly body, preparing to get up and thank them. After all, if the three of them hadn’t intervened, his fat ass would have been a dead one.

"Get dressed first,"

Yang Fangyu said, turning his head away.

He wasn’t one to stand on ceremony, but he had no interest in staring at the man’s blubbery physique.

The Feng Elder hurried back into the room to get dressed, then came out and thanked the three of them profusely, stopping just short of bursting into tears.

As for the women who had died because of him, he naturally paid them no mind.

At most, he would tell the Feng family servants to pick out some cheap coffins and have them buried somewhere tomorrow.

In his eyes, women were no different from objects. It was as if a few cups had been broken—hardly worth a reaction.

Yang Fangyu offered a few perfunctory words before leaving the Feng Mansion with Bai Yuan and his companions.

He had no interest in the Feng Family; saving the Elder had just been a matter of convenience.

The commotion had naturally awoken the other sleeping members of the Feng Family.

By the time Yang Fangyu and his two companions left the estate, the entire Feng Mansion was ablaze with light.

"Younger Brother Bai, that Gu of yours is truly amazing,"

Yang Fangyu praised, unable to help himself.

If Bai Yuan’s Blood Tracking Gu hadn’t detected the scent of blood here, they would never have been able to trace those two Soul-Chasing Tower assassins.

Bai Yuan said, "Lu Xiaoyu knows how to use this Gu as well."

He took the opportunity to formally introduce Lu Yu to Yang Fangyu.

Hearing this, Yang Fangyu’s eyes lit up. This way, even if Bai Yuan wasn’t around, he would still have access to a Gu master.

Yang Fangyu suddenly smacked his lips in regret.

"A pity we only reeled in two small fry,"

The three of them had only taken a few steps when they heard the sound of galloping hooves.

Indeed, to deal with the Soul-Chasing Tower, Yang Fangyu had specifically borrowed a hundred Demon Cavalry from Ling Province.

In addition to the Demon Cavalry, Bai Yuan had also contributed the Divine Mansion Army’s Firearms Team.

All these forces had been gathered to deal with the Soul Chasing Tower Lord, but unfortunately, things hadn’t gone according to plan.