As night fell, the moonlight gradually highlighted the corners of Duyue Mansion, making it look like an ethereal immortal abode. All of a sudden, a sharp rumbling came from the east of the mansion. What followed was a cacophony of shrieks and collapsing buildings. There were those who cried out in pain, and those that cried in despair. Huiyue Du and Yusheng Luo were startled as they were absorbing stellunar source to cultivate at their yard, so they hurriedly retrieved their totems and paused their cultivation.
"What's going on?!" Yusheng Luo said, startled.
"It must be that killer from yesterday! Does that animal think that the Huiyue Clan is its hunting grounds? We’ll put it to death and tear it to pieces today!" Huiyue Du turned and looked in the direction of the chaos. "Wait here, I'll go there and subdue it!"
"Be careful. The killer managed to snuff out Liu Yizhao without anyone noticing," his wife said worriedly.
"I'm no Liu Yizhao, it won't be able to escape tonight." Huiyue Du saw many other comrades heading toward the disturbance. He immediately left the mansion, turning into a beam of blue light. With his totems, he was able to travel at blinding speeds. But not long after he left, he heard a rumble from his mansion followed by Yusheng Luo's surprised cry.
"Dammit!" he roared and immediately turned back. They had just been discussing this matter during the day, and now the killer had come to them on that very same day! "Die, you beast!"
He charged toward his sleeping quarters and unleashed all five of his primalsea fiends. The blue giants wielding tridents immediately dominated the airspace around the mansion. Before even finding the offender, he had caused many parts of his mansion to collapse himself.
Then, Yusheng Luo's totems, the clouddream vines, began chaotically flailing around.
"Luo!" Huiyue Du immediately charged in her direction and saw his wife amidst the storm of flailing vines. However, she was kneeling on the ground and looking at him with a pale, despairing expression. There was a white hand on her head. It belonged to a man in a white robe disguised from head to toe and emanating an ominous aura, his hand still gripped firmly on her head. He looked just like a god of death.
"Let her go or you'll die without an intact corpse!" Huiyue Du yelled in desperation. As he charged toward the two, the man removed his hat with his other hand, revealing a bald, white jade-like scalp that made his head look like a pearl. His pale eyes and lips were expressionless, making him look like a stoic marble statue.
"Who are you?!" Huiyue Du said, shocked at the sight.
"You don't know me?" Bodhi said with a gentle voice. If not for the fact that he was crushing Yusheng Luo's head and allowing her blood to stain his robes, he would look no different from a gentle saint.
"A specter? Where’d you come from?" Huiyue Du said nervously. It was from these words that Bodhi confirmed what the moon guide had said about how nobody else would relate this matter to the Ninefold Hell apart from the moon guide himself. As long as that was the case, no matter how wild Bodhi was during his massacre, the remnants of his kin would be safe and sound. It made things much simpler.
"You still haven't realized?" Bodhi put his hat back on, which somehow made him lose his gentle aura. Now he only looked like a killing machine.
"Realize what?" Huiyue Du said, swallowing his rage.
"She's already dead." He loosened his hand, causing the body of Yusheng Luo to fall to the ground. Her head flopped back and her lifeless eyes were pointed toward Huiyue Du.
Bodhi gave the body a kick, sending it into a corner. The gigantic white wolf that had been waiting there immediately pounced toward it, knowing full well that this was the culprit that had killed her mother.
The sounds of the wolf’s jaws crunching down on the body was nightmarish to Huiyue Du. He despaired with rage and almost broke down immediately. "Luo! Luo!" he roared as he charged toward the demonic wolf. But the man in a white robe appeared in front of him and punched out.
Huiyue Du immediately engaged him with his five primalsea fiends. "Die! You must die!" He cried so hard that his voice box almost broke, yet the enemy before him didn't so much as react. He was a cold, calculating machine of vengeance.
"Ghoul Gate, open!" Bodhi said, ostensibly using an ability. He traced a golden circle in the air, which opened to let out countless strands of black hair that lashed out like venomous snakes, wrapping all around Huiyue Du and his totems. Bloody water seeped from the hair into their bodies.
Bodhi swerved ethereally and reappeared near Huiyue Du, sending a punch slamming into his body and shattering his innards. Huiyue Du's eyes widened and he sprayed blood from his mouth onto Bodhi's robe. The countless hairs had now made countless bloody holes in his body. Within a single exchange, Huiyue Du was almost dead. He wasn't even a match! His current state was a complete contrast to the time when he had slaughtered the specters with abandon. Now he despaired even more as a torrent of terror washed over his mind. "Don't kill me! What do you want?!"
"Where’s your daughter, Huiye Shi?" Bodhi asked. That question stumped Huiyue Du. Why would someone like that bother to ask about his daughter?
"Answer me."
"No, I can't!" Huiyue Du knew that the specter wouldn't forgive him no matter what. He was dead for sure, and didn't want to bring his daughter down with him.
"I'll tell you a few secrets," Bodhi said, seeing other pursuers about to reach him. "First, your son died because your daughter worked with someone on the Flameyellow Continent to kill him and blame it on the specters. Second, I want to settle the debt of blood with the divine moonrace. I want to make you all go extinct."
The manner in which he uttered the word 'extinct' almost sounded like he was talking about something plain and routine. He didn't give Huiyue Du a chance to contemplate his words, but immediately finished him off with a punch. Then he took all his treasures, including his blade.
"Even if you don't tell me, I’ll find her." While finding someone with relatively low status was harder than someone of high status in a city like this, there was still no escape. Huiyue Du collapsed dead, and the wolf soon ate him up.
"Little You, let's keep going," Bodhi said with a smile.
"Daddy…." She wiped off the blood at the corner of her mouth and leaped into his embrace. The two of them disappeared into the chaotic night.
……
Tianming and Huiye Shi were on the way back to the Shiyu Compound when all that went down. Chaotic cries could be heard all over. It appeared that several locations around Huiyue City were disturbed at the same time. Many people were flying around outside, manifesting their totems. Some were hundreds of meters tall, which was an impressive sight for Tianming to behold.
"What's going on?" Huiye Shi said, shocked.
"It must be the killer from yesterday," Tianming said.
Right at that instant, they heard more cries from a building to their left. Many totems manifested, only to dim and vanish almost immediately. One after another, the divine moonrace fell. The killer who was able to so easily take out Liu Yizhao was now on a killing spree. Yesterday, he had only killed eighteen from the middle class, but now he had killed tens of divine moonrace, indiscriminate of age, status, or gender. They all died horrid, terrifying deaths.
"That's Zhuzhu's house!" Huiye Shi immediately wanted to rush there.
"Don't go!" Tianming cried. His instincts told him that she wouldn’t stand a chance at all.
"It's Zhuzhu's family!" Huiye Shi's tears began flowing.
"Stop talking! Don't get yourself killed!" He gripped her by her cheeks and pulled her aside. Then, he looked in that direction with Plundering Eye and saw a white-robed man with a girl in his arms leaving the mansion. Soon, other members of the Huiyue Clan arrived and Tianming released Huiye Shi.
The moment she entered the mansion, she broke out in tears. Her precious friend had perished amidst the chaos. Now that the killer had gone on a rampage, he didn't even bother dealing with the corpses like the others and just killed them and left the bodies where they fell before switching to another place and continuing his slaughter. The pursuers could only follow half a step behind on a wild goose chase.
Someone so powerful to slaughter away at the Huiyue Clan's home base was enough to send the whole city into a panic. Tianming furrowed his brows. While this was the Huiyue Clan's problem and had nothing to do with him, it would definitely get in the way of his plan to settle down and find Ye Lingfeng.
"It feels like the killer's exacting revenge," Tianming concluded as he observed the aftermath.
