Three streaks of cold light shot forth like venomous snakes lurking in the dead of night, striking straight for Su Zhen’s throat, heart, and brow with deadly precision.
“Assassins! Father, be careful!”
Su Jin let out a low growl behind him, bloodthirsty cold light bursting from his eyes.
But Su Zhen was, after all, a peerless expert who had endured countless battles.
Even with his mind consumed by the excitement of making money, his body could still react on instinct.
“Get the hell away from me!”
With a furious shout, Su Zhen swept the Dragon Spring Sword in his hand across his body in a flawless half-circle.
“Clang! Clang! Clang!”
Three crisp metallic explosions erupted in the secret chamber, sending sparks flying in every direction.
The powerful force of his true qi sent the three ambushing figures hurtling backward.
Using the walls to break their momentum, they landed silently in the middle of the chamber like geckos.
Only then, under the dim light of the ever-burning lamps lining the walls, did the family of three finally get a clear look at their unwelcome guests.
Six masked assassins dressed in tight-fitting dark-purple nightwear.
Their attire was completely different from that of the heavily armored death warriors outside the Taiji Hall.
Nor did they bear the slightest resemblance to the servants Lin Zhenxiong had raised in the Grand General’s residence.
Their eyes were dead and vacant, as if they were soulless puppets manipulated by strings.
The weapons in their hands were not the swords and sabers commonly used in the Great Abyss Kingdom either.
Instead, they wielded strange black sickles with razor-sharp barbs.
A faint blue sheen shimmered along the sickle blades. Clearly, they had been coated with a deadly poison that could kill with a single touch of blood.
“This movement technique… and those weapons…”
Su Zhen narrowed his eyes, tightening his grip on the Dragon Spring Sword.
“These people definitely aren’t that old dog Lin Zhenxiong’s men!”
“Their martial arts are bizarre, and every move is lethal. They never waste a motion. They’re professional killers!”
The instant Su Zhen finished speaking, Su Jin suddenly let out a chilling, almost insane laugh.
“Heh heh… They’re not dogs from the Grand General’s residence? Then this just got more interesting!”
Su Jin drew the sharp dagger at his waist with a reverse grip.
As he stared at the six purple-clad assassins radiating danger, he showed not the slightest trace of fear. Instead, his entire body trembled with excitement.
“Anyone who dares block this Crown Prince’s path to seizing estates and making money—no matter what kind of deities you are—you’re all going to die today!”
Before his voice had even faded, Su Jin’s figure vanished like a ghost.
The next second, he transformed into a black bolt of lightning and charged brutally into the assassins’ formation.
“Cling! Clang! Splurt!”
The clash of weapons and the sound of blades tearing through flesh intertwined into a cruel symphony of death.
The six purple-clad assassins possessed bizarre martial skills, their bodies as supple as boneless snakes.
Every dodge and attack came from an unbelievable angle.
But today, they had picked the wrong opponent.
They were facing the Great Abyss Kingdom’s most gifted martial artist—the Crown Prince, whose methods of killing were the most ruthless!
Su Jin had no interest in following any techniques or established forms.
The poisoned dagger in his hand became a mass of deadly green light.
He simply charged forward and cut down everything in his path with brutal, overwhelming force!
“Splurt!”
Before the first assassin could even swing his sickle, Su Jin slit his throat in a single stroke.
Hot blood gushed out, splattering across a nearby chest of scattered pearls. The sight was horrifying.
Su Jin did not spare it a glance. With his body twisting at an impossible angle, he evaded the attack from behind.
Then he thrust his dagger backward, piercing the second assassin through the heart.
“Too slow! You’re all too slow!”
As he relentlessly reaped lives, Su Jin laughed maniacally.
“With skills like these, you still dare come out and guard a treasure vault?”
Under the Crown Prince’s violent, storm-like assault, less than half an hour later, five top-tier purple-clad assassins had already become cold corpses on the floor.
In the enormous underground chamber, only the final assassin remained.
He clutched his right hand, three fingers sliced off, and stumbled backward until his back struck a pile of gold bricks.
His chest heaved violently.
A trace of terror flickered through his dead, empty eyes.
He had never imagined that the Crown Prince of the Great Abyss Kingdom would be such a terrifying killing demon.
Su Jin toyed with the blood-dripping poisoned dagger in his hand and advanced toward him one step at a time.
“Talk. Who are you people, and why were you in Lin Zhenxiong’s secret chamber?”
“If you tell me, this Crown Prince might consider giving you a quick death.”
Seeing that escape was impossible, the leading assassin stopped retreating.
He neither begged for mercy nor showed fear.
Instead, a feverish, almost twisted smile appeared on his face.
Ignoring the murderous Su Jin before him, he looked past the Crown Prince and stared arrogantly at Su Zhen, who stood by the doorway.
“Hahahaha…”
The leading assassin gave a hoarse, grating laugh.
“Great Abyss Emperor, do you really think killing Lin Zhenxiong means you can rest easy?”
He spat out a mouthful of blood, his eyes filled with vicious madness.
“You ruined the restoration plan my sect spent years preparing!”
“You destroyed our most important piece!”
“Our Netherworld Divine Sect will never let you off!”
The Netherworld Divine Sect?!
At the sound of those four words, Su Zhen and Su Jin both frowned deeply.
What kind of organization was this?
Why had the intelligence network of the Great Abyss Kingdom never heard of it?
Just as father and son were preparing to step forward and dislocate the assassin’s jaw for a thorough interrogation, a look of resolute death flashed through the leader’s eyes.
“The Netherworld descends! The Red Lotus Inferno burns! Long live the Divine Sect!”
He clamped his mouth shut and bit down hard.
“Crack.”
A faint snap came from deep within his mouth.
He had crushed the specially prepared poison capsule hidden in one of his back teeth.
The poison took effect far faster than anyone could have imagined.
“Pfft!”
The instant he bit down on the capsule, the leading assassin’s eyes bulged wide.
A mouthful of thick, ink-black poisonous blood, reeking of a foul stench, erupted violently from his mouth and nose!
His originally pale face immediately turned a horrifying shade of black and purple.
With a dull thud, he pitched forward stiffly and crashed heavily onto the cold stone floor without even managing to struggle.
He was dead on the spot, black blood spreading across the ground.
It was not only him. The assassins Su Jin had cut down moments earlier, who had not yet completely died, also crushed their poison capsules at the same time and transformed into foul-smelling corpses.
Su Jin stopped and looked at the assassins lying thoroughly dead across the floor. He clicked his tongue in annoyance.
“What bad luck! These cowards sure died quickly.”
“This Crown Prince hasn’t even had the chance to use the Ten Great Tortures on them.”
Su Yaoyao poked her little head out from the doorway and glanced at the corpses on the floor.
“The Netherworld Divine Sect? Just hearing the name makes it sound like a textbook evil cult.”
“Father, it seems that old dog Lin Zhenxiong’s rebellion goes much deeper than we thought.”
As she spoke, she took small, quick steps into the chamber.
She was ready to begin her favorite part.
Counting the spoils of war.
When the leading assassin crashed heavily to the ground, the force of the impact shook open the collar of his purple nightwear.
“Gulu…”
An unremarkable little object slipped from the folds of his clothes, where he had kept it close to his body.
It rolled down the slanted flagstones and came to a stop on the ground not far away.
Under the dim light of the ever-burning lamps in the secret chamber, the object gave a crisp clink as jade struck stone.
It was a jade pendant no bigger than half a palm.
The jade was of exceptional quality—crystal clear, its warm luster flowing softly in the faint light.
At the very center of the pendant was an intricate, grotesque totem.
A lifelike blood-red lotus spider!
The spider’s body was formed from a blooming scarlet lotus, while its eight legs were sharp as knives.
It radiated a bewitching, sinister beauty—a deadly allure that made it impossible to look away.
This totem was identical to the blood-red mark on the encrypted letter that had previously fallen from Lin Zhenxiong.
Exactly identical!
Su Zhen was just about to step over the corpse and inspect the large wooden chest filled with gold bars.
Hearing the jade roll across the floor, he glanced down absentmindedly.
It was that casual glance.
Yet it was as if a thunderbolt from the heavens had struck Su Zhen squarely on the crown of his head.
His towering, mountain-like body, so proud and invincible, went rigid.
Time itself seemed to freeze.
Su Zhen’s pupils contracted sharply, and even his breathing stopped.
Clang!
The Longquan sword he had been gripping tightly in his hand slipped from his palm and crashed heavily onto the hard stone floor.
The Iron-Blooded Tyrant, who could face an army of a hundred thousand without so much as blinking, who dared draw his sword and fight to the death against a peak Grandmaster—
Now looked like a soulless walking corpse.
His legs gave way. Staggering and stumbling, he lurched forward, nearly tripping over the assassin’s corpse on the ground.
Su Zhen had no thought for the poisonous blood covering the floor, nor for the dignity of an emperor.
With a thud, he dropped to his knees on the cold stone.
His large hands, hardened by years of gripping a sword and covered in calluses, trembled violently.
With the utmost care, as though he were handling the most fragile treasure in the world, he gently picked up the jade pendant carved with the blood-red lotus spider.
The secret chamber fell silent. The only sound was Su Zhen’s heavy breathing, rasping like the bellows of a furnace.
The ruthless tyrant, who had never blinked while taking a life, stared at the pendant.
The instant his fingers closed around it, his eyes turned crimson.
Terrifying veins of blood spread across the whites of his eyes.
Overwhelming grief and shock, disbelief, and eight years of longing buried deep within his heart—all of it intertwined and erupted wildly in his eyes.
Drip.
A faint sound like a falling drop of water broke the silence of the secret chamber.
Hot tears spilled from the tyrant’s eyes.
They fell onto the strange and bewitching blood-red lotus spider.
