With cold malice, Mo Dao gave the command, enunciating each word with chilling precision: “Kill.”
Blades flashed, and blood splattered.
The old man closest to the charging soldiers groaned and collapsed, his lifeless body hitting the ground. The terrified townspeople, paralyzed with horror at the sight of blood, could no longer summon the strength to cry out for help.
Zhan Zhao bit his lip so hard that blood began to seep from the corner of his mouth. He had nothing left—no flags, no tools, no means to launch a counterattack against the unfolding massacre.
It was already too late.
With a furious roar, he leapt backward. Without turning his head, his sword rose high into the air. Sword energy surged skyward, brilliant and dazzling, outshining even the sun, which seemed to pale in comparison.
The final wave of the Storm of Pear Blossom Needles was spent, and Zhan Zhao moved faster than the deadly needles themselves.
Blood sprayed again.
The radiant sword energy in the air condensed into a single, blazing beam of light. As it wove through the chaotic scene, the soldiers attacking the defenseless townspeople collapsed one after another.
* * *
Blood had been spilled.
Tears had run dry.
The people who had escaped the peril were still paralyzed by fear, unable to shake off the nightmare they had just endured. For these kindhearted yet helpless individuals, the memory of this day might haunt them for the rest of their lives, night and day, never to be erased.
In Zhan Zhao's heart, there was no joy, no relief.
At that moment, a woman’s voice pierced the air—a sound so wrenching, so desperate, it barely seemed human. It was a scream, ragged and hoarse, as though it had risen from the depths of hell.
—“My child! Put down my child!”
A disheveled woman, hair in disarray, stumbled and crawled out of the crowd behind him. She lunged forward, dragging herself toward the center of the chaos. Beside her, a young girl clung desperately to her tattered clothing, crying with a voice no child should have: “Mother! Mother! Little Mao! Little Mao!”
The girl’s heart-wrenching sobs sent shivers even through the hardened nerves of the Iron Blood Guard.
“Mother, mother! Don’t leave Rong Rong behind! Don’t leave Rong Rong!”
Fear consumed the girl, her small hands gripping her mother’s clothing with an iron resolve, tears streaking her dirt-covered face in an endless flow.
The silent crowd had already surrounded the frantic mother, holding her back as she screamed and struggled with all the strength of her despair. Though they managed to prevent her from throwing herself at Mo Dao, they couldn’t stop the madness in her eyes or the hopeless wails pouring from her soul.
Zhan Zhao’s heart went cold. His body felt as though it had turned to stone.
He didn’t need to turn around to know. The child who had been the last to escape the Yan Mei Er formation was now in the hands of the green-robed Daoist.
—Was the child too terrified to make a sound? Why wasn’t there even the faintest cry?
Mo Dao’s voice, meanwhile, had returned to its usual chilling calm.
“If you thrust your sword toward my heart, my Five Poison Shura Palm will strike immediately. Do you want to test it?”
The veins in Zhan Zhao’s hand bulged as he gripped his sword tightly. His teeth clenched hard enough to crack.
Was he afraid to turn around? Afraid that if he looked back, that poor child would already be lifeless?
The mother’s voice had grown hoarse, her words a broken record of desperate pleas. “Daoist Master, I beg you, spare my Little Mao! I’ll do anything for you—serve you, worship your longevity plaque. We have no grievance with you or your soldiers. Please, show mercy and let my child go!”
Still, Zhan Zhao said nothing.
It seemed as though he exhaled deeply, his entire body relaxing, as if resigning to something inevitable.
At last, he turned around—to face it all.
His sword remained cold and steady in his hand, an unyielding line of resolve.
This peerless divine weapon remained as silent as it had been since ancient times.
—His "Soaring Phoenix" had now been reduced to its final strike.
Yet Mo Dao's voice was as calm as ever: “Take another step, and this child’s family will never see him again.”
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