Woosh!
A strong force descended, instantly causing the air to thicken with oppressive pressure. The guards staggered back. Elder Bo's sneer froze mid-formation, his body involuntarily bowing as if an invisible mountain had slammed onto his shoulders.
The one who was affected the most was Chen Mo, instantly falling to his knees and vomiting blood. With a jump, Young Master descended to the bottom.
Elder Bo's face drained of color. "Nephew Tianmo! This... this waste is slandering the Wang Family! He—"
"Silence," Tianmo cut in, his voice calm but carrying the weight of a thunderclap. Elder Bo's mouth snapped shut, his throat constricting as if gripped by an iron vice. Tianmo's eyes, cold and fathomless like abyssal voids, swept over the scene.
He noticed the crumpled engagement paper fluttering on the ground. 30 Years in the east of the river and 30 years in the west of the river? Broken engagement?!
See the pattern.
"You," Tianmo said, pointing at Chen Mo without a trace of emotion. "Is your name Ye Chen or Li Fan?!"
Chen Mo swallowed hard, steadying himself. The pressure from Tianmo was suffocating, yet it fueled his hatred. How dare they look down on a common young man!?
Chen Mo coughed, wiping the blood from his lips with a tattered sleeve. He looked up, his eyes burning with a mixture of defiance and confusion. "My name is Chen Mo," he spat, his voice raspy but steady. "I am the son of Alchemist Chen. And I am no Ye Chen or Li Fan... I am a man who refuses to be trampled by the dogs of the Wang Family!"
Tianmo's lips curled into a faint, amused smirk. The classic tropes were aligning perfectly. The fallen young master, the broken engagement, the public humiliation, and the defiant speech. It was as if the world itself were a poorly written script, and he was the only one reading the stage directions.
"Wonderful..." Tianmo pointed his index finger at Chen Mo's head, the condensed Qi gathering at it, and without any mercy, he fired a beam of energy.
Baam!
Chen Mo's eyes widened, his body stiffening as the beam of energy pierced through his forehead, exiting from the back of his skull. A small, clean hole remained, oozing red and grey matter. He didn't even have time to scream; his body simply crumpled backward, hitting the dirt with a dull thud.
Silence.
Absolute, suffocating silence descended upon the entrance of the Wang Estate. The guards stood frozen, their eyes wide with disbelief, their hands gripping their spears so tightly their knuckles turned purple not white. Elder Bo's mouth hung open, his jaw nearly hitting the ground as he stared at the corpse of the young man.
The old man beside Chen Mo, his father's former servant, let out a grunt but before he could do anything, he was turned into blood mist by Tianmo's gaze alone.
'System... This protagonist is dead just like that?!' Tianmo thought, his mental voice echoing in the void of his mind. 'I expected a ring, a mysterious old man's soul, or at least a heavenly tribulation to protect him. Is the plot armor of this world so thin?'
[Ding!]
[Analysis complete. The target, Chen Mo, isn't a chosen son of heaven. He is an unlucky soul, coincidentally sharing the name and trope with a protagonist from a lower plane novel. The karma of the heavens did not protect him because he was merely a speck of dust in the grand scheme.]
Tianmo withdrew his finger, the golden light fading from his fingertip as if it had never been there. He looked down at the corpse of Chen Mo with a mild, detached curiosity, much like a child observing a squashed bug on the pavement.
"A pity," Tianmo murmured, his voice smooth and devoid of genuine regret. "I had hoped for a ring, or perhaps a grandfather's soul hiding in his consciousness. To think he was just a loud-mouthed mortal with a delusion of grandeur."
"Elder Bo," Tianmo said, not turning around.
"Y-Yes! Nephew!" Elder Bo stammered, his voice trembling as he fought to straighten his posture under the invisible weight.
"Clean this mess," Tianmo commanded, waving a hand dismissively toward the bodies. "And visit this Chen family—young, old, male, female—slaughter everyone. Remember don't even spare little kids, the chickens, dogs, cows, and livestock. Erase the Chen name from the history of the Eastern Region.... Umm, on second thoughts leave cows but kill everything else. If you manage to do it, the second Spirit-root upgrading fruit belongs to you."
Elder Bo's face turned ashen, but he didn't dare hesitate. "Y-Yes! This old man understands! I will make sure not a single root remains!"
As soon as the elder left, he looked at one of the guards.
"State your name..."
The guard, a burly man who had served the Wang family for over a decade, felt his heart hammer against his ribs like a trapped bird.
"Y-Young master... My name is Hu, I don't have a family name. I was an orphan picked up by the Patriarch," the guard stammered, his forehead pressed firmly against the cold stone. His voice was barely a whisper, trembling with the primal fear of a prey animal staring into the eyes of an apex predator.
Tianmo looked down at the man. Hu was muscular, his frame honed by years of manual labor and basic martial drills, but his spirit was brittle. He reeked of the mundane world—sweat, fear, and a mortal devoid of cultivation base.
"Hu, do you have family?!"
"N-No, Young Master," Hu stammered, his voice cracking. "I... I am an orphan. The Wang Family is the only roof I have ever known... B-but... I share affection with the servant girl named Mei."
"Good," Tianmo said, his voice losing its edge, replaced by a cold, calculating neutrality. "Stand up."
Hu scrambled to his feet, his head still bowed, his posture rigid with terror. He didn't dare look the Young Master in the eye.
"Look at me," Tianmo commanded.
Hu slowly raised his head. His eyes were wide, darting nervously, refusing to settle on Tianmo's face for more than a split second.
"You follow the Elder to Chen's residence and observe him. If he spares kids due to a weak heart, your job is to kill them and report it back to me. If you manage to do it, I shall marry you to the girl you love... If you dare to lie or hide anything, this Young Master will kill you and sell that girl to a brothel..."
Hu's face drained of all color, turning a sickly shade of grey. The promise of marriage to Mei was a sweet, dangling fruit, but the threat that followed was a guillotine blade hovering inches above his neck. He knew Tianmo wasn't speaking in metaphors; the casual tone in which he mentioned selling a human life was more terrifying than any shout of rage. And he didn't doubt it.
"This... this servant understands!" Hu choked out, dropping to his knees to kowtow again, his forehead hitting the stone so hard a bruise began to form instantly. "I will not fail you, Young Master! I swear on my life!"
"Go," Tianmo said, turning away, his black robes swirling around him. "Do not disappoint me."
Hu scrambled up, his movements clumsy with desperation, and sprinted after Elder Bo, who had already traveled a fair sum of distance.
He then looked at the other two guards with a sinister smile.
"Tell me which one of you has a family..."
The two remaining guards exchanged a panicked glance, the air around them suddenly feeling as thick as water. They were ordinary mortals, men used to chasing away thieves and drunks, not standing in the presence of a being who killed with a flick of a finger.
"I... I have a wife and a daughter in the village, Young Master," the guard on the left stammered, his voice trembling so badly his teeth chattered. He fell to his knees, pressing his forehead into the dirt. "B-but I swear my loyalty is only to the Wang Family! I would cut off my own arm before betraying you!"
Tianmo looked down at him, his expression unreadable. "Good! Your job is to follow them both, if that guard named Hu fails in his mission, he shall be killed, afterward, I shall make sure you can marry that girl Mei, I will even reward you handsomely... Just remember your family exists."
Even Dettol kills 99.9% germs yet people still fall sick.
Sparing kids is like activating a time bomb. If they are left alive, they will cultivate, they will grow, and they will come back for revenge. It is a universal law of the cultivation world: mercy to the enemy is cruelty to oneself. In cultivation stories, there are always the standing bloodline walking in the path of vengeance.
***
30 minutes later,
As Tianmo had expected Elder Bo was indeed a man of experience but with an underdeveloped heart. He believed even killing kids would attract backlash from heavens, so he decided to spare them.
After killing everyone and live stocks including cows, Elder Bo left the kids in the nearby orphanage, further giving 2 mid-grade spirit stones to Grandpa there, to raise the kids.
He believed that he had done a good deed, a small act of mercy in a world of blood. He felt happy, thinking that by sparing these innocent lives, he had accumulated some virtue, perhaps enough to smooth his path in his future cultivation.
He was smiling as he walked away from the orphanage, his heart light.
But he didn't notice the shadow that detached itself from the alley wall.
Hu also breathed a sigh of relief, he was but a mortal with passion and empathy, since the kids are already in an orphanage, Young Master won't find anything, will he?! He doesn't wanna live with a heavy heart for the rest of his life.
However, just as he was about to return, the second guard, following him plunged the spearhead into his heart.
Pfft!
The sound was wet and dull, like a butcher's knife sinking into a side of beef.
Hu's eyes bulged, his gaze snapping downward to see the leaf-shaped spearhead protruding from his chest, dark crimson blood bubbling around the wound. He opened his mouth to speak, to ask why, but all that came out was a wet, gurgling rasp.
The second guard twisted the spear, a cruel, efficient motion that severed the spine and silenced any final words. Hu's body went limp, sliding off the blade and collapsing into the dirt of the alleyway, his life's essence soaking into the thirsty earth.
The second guard, a man named Zhang, wiped the blood from his spear with a rag, his face impassive. He didn't look at Hu's dead eyes; he looked at the orphanage gate where the children were playing, unaware of the fate that had just been decided for them.
"Forgive me, brother, but if you had chosen to sin, my hands would be cleaned..." Zhang whispered to the corpse, his voice devoid of sympathy. "Blame home but yourself... Softness is a disease in this world. The Young Master offered me a wife, a home, and a future. You offered me a conscience. The choice was easy..."
He then looked at the orphanage with bloodshot eyes, he didn't wanna meet the same fate as Hu. Without any mercy, he killed everyone in the orphanage.
***
The sun was at its peak, casting long, sharp shadows across the courtyard. The air was thick with the scent of blood and ozone, a pungent reminder of the morning's violence.
Guard Zhang knelt in the center of the square, his head bowed low, his spear resting on the ground before him. His robes were stained with dark, dried patches of crimson, and his hands trembled slightly—not from fear, but from the adrenaline crash that followed slaughter.
"You did well... By my order, you are free to marry Servent Mei, or you are free to remain monogamous, I will also grant you ten Mid-grade spirit stones... But tell me, did you feel anything when killing kids?!" Tianmo's voice was calm, almost conversational, as if he were discussing the weather.
Zhang swallowed hard, his throat clicking dryly. "This... this servant felt nothing but the will to obey, Young Master," he rasped, his eyes fixed on the ground. "The children were but flowers in the garden of the world. They would have withered and died regardless. I simply plucked them before their thorns could grow. In a sense, I grant them mercy by now allowing them to grow in a cruel world and allowing them to rest in peace."
Tianmo nodded, a small, approving smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Interesting... Your philosophy impressed this Young Master."
With a wave of his hand, he summoned spirit awakening fruit, glowing with profound energy.
"This is the Spirit Awakening Fruit," Tianmo said, holding the glowing orb between his thumb and forefinger. It pulsed with a rhythm that seemed to synchronize with the beating of a heart, casting a soft, ethereal light on Zhang's dusty face. "Consume it. It will cleanse your mortal marrow and grant you spirit roots to walk the path of immortality."
Zhang stared at the fruit hovering before him, his breath hitching in his throat. It was a thing of legend, a treasure mentioned only in the whispers of drunk elders and the faded pages of ancient storybooks. To a mortal guard who had spent his life holding a spear at a gate for a handful of silver coins, this was not just a gift; it was an ascension.
He reached out with trembling hands, his calloused fingers brushing against the smooth, cool skin of the fruit. It felt warm, pulsating with a life of its own.
"This servant... this servant dares not refuse," Zhang stammered, his voice thick with emotion. He didn't ask if it was a trick; in the presence of absolute power, questions were irrelevant. He opened his mouth and took a bite.
The flesh was crisp and juicy, exploding with a sweetness that defied description. But as the juice slid down his throat, the sweetness turned into a fire.
Boom!
Zhang's eyes bulged, his body arching backward as a torrent of energy surged through his meridians. It was a violent, invasive process. The fruit didn't just awaken his potential; it scoured away his mortality, burning away the accumulated toxins and impurities of a hard, mundane life.
Black sludge oozed from his pores, coating his skin in a foul-smelling layer. He gritted his teeth, suppressing the urge to scream, knowing that such a sound would be an insult to the grace he was receiving.
Crack. Crack.
The sound of bones shifting and realigning echoed in the quiet courtyard. Zhang's spine straightened, his shoulders broadened. The weak, mortal dust in his Dantian was ignited, transforming into a swirling vortex of spiritual energy.
After a few minutes, the convulsions stopped. Zhang collapsed to his hands and knees, gasping for air. But when he looked up, his eyes were clear, bright, and possessed a sharpness that hadn't been there before.
Tianmo threw a breathing manual, "Cultivate this method... From now on, your salary is triple compared of others. If you manage to impress me further... I shall allow your wives and daughter to cultivate as well."
Zhang caught the blue paper written in runes, the script glowing with a faint, golden light. He could feel the power within it, a method of cultivating Qi that was beyond anything he could have imagined in his former life. It was a golden opportunity, a ladder leading him out of the mud and into the heavens.
"This servant thanks Young Master Tianmo for the boundless grace!" Zhang said, pressing his forehead to the ground in a kowtow, his voice strong and steady. "I swear my loyalty, my life, and my future cultivation to the Wang Family! I shall be the blade that protects your back, the wall that shields your front, and the shadow that strikes your enemies!"
Tianmo nodded, his expression impassive. "Go to the testing hall and test your spirit roots."
"Yes!"
Zhang turned and strode away.
Tianmo's eyes narrowed with cold chilling red eyes. To think Elder Bo was useless. He was too soft-hearted, too bound by the mortal concepts of mercy and karma. In the cultivation world, such sentiments were fatal flaws. If he had spared the children, he would have planted the seeds of the Wang Family's destruction.
Such people aren't suitable for the cultivation world, as Zhang said: they should rest in peace.