Silence. A dead, suffocating silence fell upon the valley, broken only by the cold wind whistling over a field of fresh corpses. Three thousand headless bodies lay in neat rows, their blood soaking the earth into a crimson mud. The remaining seven thousand elite warriors of the Divine Sword Manor stood frozen, their swords feeling impossibly heavy, their killing intent from moments ago replaced by a primal, gut-wrenching terror. Their eyes were locked on the lone figure standing beside the blind swordswoman. Lu Feng. The despised servant. The waste of qi. He hadn’t even moved from his spot. He held a piece of a broken blade, its edge dripping with blood that wasn't there. It was pure, condensed sword-qi. An impossible feat. A nightmare made real. The Alliance Leader of the Divine Sword Manor, a man who had commanded the respect and fear of the Jianghu for fifty years, trembled. His face, once a mask of righteous fury, was now ashen. Sweat beaded on his brow, each drop a testament to his shattered courage. “What… what devil’s art is this?” he stammered, his voice cracking. “No Grandmaster can command such power! Who are you?” Lu Feng’s gaze was placid, as if looking at an insect. He took a single, lazy step forward. The sound of his boot on the blood-soaked ground echoed like a war drum in the silent valley. Seven thousand warriors flinched as one. Some took an involuntary step back, their formations wavering. “You are not worthy to know my name,” Lu Feng said, his voice flat, yet it carried across the entire valley, pressing down on every soul present. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. His very presence warped the air. He ignored the Alliance Leader’s sputtering disbelief and turned his gaze towards the terrified soldiers. “Your leader,” Lu Feng’s voice continued, cold as glacial ice, “is a pillar of justice? A paragon of the righteous path?” A bitter, mocking smile touched his lips. “Ask him about the Silent Orchid Sect. Wiped out in a single night. Not by demons, but for the Spirit Grass growing in their valley.” The Alliance Leader’s eyes widened in horror. “Lies! Slander!” Lu Feng’s spiritual pressure descended. It was not a physical force, but an absolute weight on the soul. The Alliance Leader felt his knees buckle, his breath catch in his throat. He felt an irresistible urge to speak the truth, as if his own spirit was being peeled open for the world to see. “Speak,” Lu Feng commanded. The word was not a request. It was an imperial decree from a god. Against his will, the Alliance Leader’s mouth opened. “I… I needed the Spirit Grass,” he choked out, his eyes wild with terror at his own confession. “The elixirs… for the Regent King…” The soldiers gasped. Whispers turned into a roar of disbelief. Their own leader? Trafficking forbidden elixirs? Allied with the Imperial Court? Lu Feng’s cold gaze never wavered. “Ask him about the Twin River Clan. Master smiths, annihilated by ‘river pirates’ a year ago.” “Speak.” The Alliance Leader clawed at his own throat, trying to stop the words, but they poured out like poison. “Their… their Meteoric Iron forging technique… I sold it to the Foreign Tribe… for war funds…” The revelation struck the remaining seven thousand men like a thunderbolt. Selling secrets to the nation’s enemies? This was not just a crime; it was unforgivable treason. Their faith, their loyalty, the very foundation of their sect, crumbled into dust in that single moment. “And the Crimson Shadow assassins,” Lu Feng’s voice was relentless, each word a nail in the coffin of the Divine Sword Manor. “Your personal dogs. The ones who hunted down the survivors of the medical sect. The ones who blinded her.” He gestured to Xue Feng, who stood silently by his side, her hand now gripping his sleeve. Her new eyes, clear as mountain springs, were fixed on the man who had ordered her life destroyed. “SPEAK!” This time, the word carried a sliver of killing intent. The Alliance Leader screamed, a long, tearing sound of a man whose soul was being ripped from his body. “YES! IT WAS ME! I DID IT ALL! I needed their ancient medical texts! I needed their resources! I served the Regent King’s ambition! The Jianghu is a lie! Power is the only truth!” His confession hung in the air, a testament to decades of hypocrisy and slaughter. The Divine Sword Manor was a sham. Their righteous cause was a blood-soaked lie. Lu Feng looked upon the broken man with utter disinterest. “You have served your purpose.” He lifted a single finger. The air around it shimmered. A thread of sword-qi, so fine it was almost invisible, shot forth. It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t explosive. It simply… appeared before the Alliance Leader. The old man’s eyes bulged. He tried to muster his True Essence, the Inner Qi he had cultivated for a century, but Lu Feng’s spiritual pressure held him pinned, helpless as a newborn. The thread of light entered his dantian. There was no sound of impact. Only a soft, wet pop. The Alliance Leader’s body went rigid. A scream of pure, unadulterated agony tore from his lungs. It was not the pain of a wound, but the pain of obliteration. His lifetime of cultivation, his powerful meridians, his status as a peak Grandmaster—all of it vanished like smoke in the wind. His hair turned from grey to snow-white. Wrinkles carved themselves into his face. His tall, proud frame stooped and withered, collapsing into a heap of frail, trembling bones. He was no longer a Grandmaster. He was just a dying old man, his martial arts utterly crippled, his life force draining away with every breath. The morale of the Divine Sword Manor did not just break. It ceased to exist. Swords clattered to the ground by the thousands. Men fell to their knees, weeping. Others turned and fled, screaming, desperate to escape the valley of their shattered faith. The most powerful sect in the southern territories had collapsed from within, not with a bang, but with a confession. Lu Feng turned away, his expression unchanged. The fate of these ants was beneath his notice. He took Xue Feng’s hand gently. “Let’s go.” But as they began to walk away, a gurgling, maniacal laugh echoed from the ground. The crippled Alliance Leader, coughing up black blood, pushed himself up on one elbow. His eyes were filled with nothing but spiteful, insane glee. “You win… you win today, demon…” he rasped, a bloody grin splitting his face. “But you’ve already lost! So you beat me — what of it?” He broke into a fit of mad laughter, his voice rising to a final, triumphant shriek. “Your own uncle in the Imperial Capital has allied with the Foreign Tribe, and a hundred thousand troops are about to raze the Dragon God Hall!”

Chapter 10: The Fallen Leader