There had been a change at the Jiang Clan recently.
A powerful cultivator—no one knew why—had appeared within the Jiang Clan and directly abducted Jiang Die, fleeing swiftly afterward.
Jiang Dingtian gave immediate chase.
In the end, he returned empty-handed, claiming that Jiang Die had been taken.
Not long after, Jiang Dingtian went into seclusion.
Hmm...
How to put it?
It was... sloppy.
Any clever person could ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) see through it at a glance. But so what if you saw through it?
There was no evidence.
And the other party was the Patriarch. What—were you going to actually say it out loud?
Obviously not.
It was just Jiang Die. Was it really worth destroying the Jiang Clan of Second Heaven over her? Every three days she babbled the same half-useless techniques—those divine abilities, the ones you could cultivate were useless, and the ones that were useful couldn’t even be cultivated. You could say she redefined the word “waste.”
Lu Ye’s figure appeared in the Ascension Pool.
A torrent of mist surged into his body. This pool was created by a Nine Heavens Great Saint—as long as one ascended, one could receive some level of improvement through the pool.
The three Jiang Clan elders began approaching.
“Don’t come any closer. Stay right there.”
Lu Ye didn’t recognize them. Didn’t know yet whether they were friend or foe.
“Daoist friend, we are members of the Jiang Clan. We’ve come here today to...”
Lu Ye blinked.
Jiang Clan, huh?
“What? I can’t hear you. Come a little closer.”
Huh?
The three elders froze for a moment. Their guard was up. They were cultivators too—how could they not hear? What did he mean, “come closer”?
Still, the three of them did approach. They were confident.
And as they approached, they kept talking.
“Jiang Die of our clan went mad, inexplicably, and targeted you, Daoist friend. As a result, our Jiang Clan’s Second Heaven branch was destroyed. We’ve already paid a heavy price.”
“We’re all cultivators. We seek the Dao, not conflict. We’ve come to make peace—what say you?”
“If you agree, you’ll be free to cultivate in Third Heaven without trouble. But if...”
Make peace, huh?
Lu Ye didn’t even let the third one finish before speaking again.
“Stop. That’s close enough.”
At that moment, the three elders’ noses twitched.
In the next second, blood red flooded their eyes.
Lu Ye...
watched as the three Jiang Clan elders pounced toward him. Peace or not—at this point, it no longer mattered.
Jiang Clan elders were a funny thing.
They were called “elders” simply for being old. Their generation was senior.
But that didn’t mean they were powerful.
The true Elders—those held real strength.
Lu Ye’s Destiny Realm cultivation exploded to the ninth layer in an instant. He threw a punch.
The Scent of the Dao was very different from corpse poison. Those who smelled it still retained a degree of consciousness and reasoning.
And upon seeing the Heavenly Venerable Fist incoming—
Well, they weren’t about to die just to eat a piece of Lu Ye’s flesh.
The three used nearly identical methods:
With a wave of their hands, a black vortex appeared before Lu Ye’s fist.
Three vortices in a line.
Lu Ye’s fist slammed into the first—and crushed it.
Unstoppable. He obliterated all three black holes in sequence and then punched one elder directly in the chest.
BOOM!
That elder’s body exploded into a mist of blood.
The remaining two lunged toward Lu Ye. One of them twisted the void into a long needle and stabbed straight toward Lu Ye’s head.
The other let out a roar—swirls formed in the air, a vortex of force hammering toward Lu Ye.
Violet qi surged, and the Human Emperor Banner burst forth. The one conjuring the vortex was blasted backward, soul shaken.
The void-needle was caught directly by Lu Ye. His stone sword flared to life. Supreme sword intent surged, shredding through thick true essence and piercing clean through the elder’s skull.
The void-needle kept advancing toward Lu Ye’s head—
Lu Ye shifted slightly aside. His shoulder slammed into the elder’s body, caving in his chest.
Blood sprayed in all directions.
Close-quarters combat—this was its nature.
Brutality. Blood.
The elder’s broken body stumbled back. Lu Ye’s hand already gripped the sword hilt.
One diagonal slash.
The elder was cut down on the spot.
Not far away—a purple river slithered like a serpent. No—not just a serpent. It wrapped around the last elder and kept drilling into his body.
Screams rang out endlessly.
In barely any time, that elder’s soul turned to gray mist, pulled by the purple river straight into the Human Emperor Banner.
A once-proud Jiang Clan elder—now just an empty shell.
Right now, the Human Emperor Banner was tremendously powerful. On its own, it could reduce even a Karma Realm cultivator to a hollow husk.
The battle ended in an instant.
Lu Ye exhaled quietly.
It seemed... they had come to make peace. But then again—not really.
Because “seeking peace” usually referred to the weak approaching the strong with humility. But that elder from before—he’d acted like he was bestowing peace upon Lu Ye.
So arrogant. So absurd.
By all logic, Jiang Dingtian shouldn’t have made such a stupid error.
But whatever.
They were already enemies anyway. For Lu Ye, having an enemy was probably easier than having a friend.
He had no idea how Jiang Die was doing now.
If only his strength were a little greater—he’d just storm the Jiang Clan outright.
Right now, he was Destiny Realm.
Third Heaven had four major realm divisions:
Know destiny. Grasp karma. Reflect on past lives. Return to the One.
Lu Ye picked up the three storage rings, absorbed the souls into the Human Emperor Banner, and turned the corpses to ash with Vermilion Bird True Fire.
Then vanished.
Come to think of it, the Ascension Pool was kind of like a respawn point—easy to camp.
This was a problem the Nine Heavens Great Saint hadn’t accounted for.
In normal circumstances, unless it was a blood feud, cultivators didn’t camp the Ascension Pool.
Because if you gank someone today, someone else might gank you tomorrow.
Jiang Clan.
Three soul lamps shattered almost simultaneously.
The attendant responsible for watching them paled and immediately relayed the news.
“Jiang Yue, Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Hai—Elders. All fallen. What were they doing?”
“They went to reconcile with Lu Ye, I think.”
“Idiots! That Lu Ye... he really wants to make an enemy of our Jiang Clan? Does he take us for soft fruit to squeeze?”
“Tried to make peace and got slaughtered. Good! Wonderful!”
“Should we alert the Patriarch?”
“Ring the Heaven Bell. If the Patriarch wants to come out, he will. If not, then let Elder Jiang Fengshen handle it.”
“Understood!”
The news of the three elders' deaths spread rapidly, and the Jiang Clan flew into an uproar.
Good. Very good. So Lu Ye thought the Jiang Clan was some soft little fruit he could just squish?
When had they ever suffered this kind of humiliation?
In Third Heaven, when the name Jiang Clan was spoken, who didn’t show proper reverence?
Ranked #1 on the Eternal Heaven’s Genius List?
Even if you’re number one, that doesn’t mean you get to trample others like this!
