In the dim underground chamber,
the flames of the eternal lamps flickered unsteadily.
The gold and silver treasures scattered across the floor gleamed enticingly, yet they could no longer attract Su Zhen’s attention.
His tall, powerfully built frame knelt upon the cold, damp ground.
The large hands that could easily crush an enemy’s skull clenched around the jade pendant, wanting to hold it yet daring not to.
Su Zhen’s entire body trembled uncontrollably.
He shook as though he had been frozen in an icy cellar for three days and three nights.
“Drip.”
Another drop of scalding tears slid down the face of this Iron-Blooded Tyrant.
It landed heavily on the grotesque, eerily beautiful blood-red lotus-and-spider crest carved into the jade pendant.
Standing nearby, Su Jin had been nonchalantly wiping black blood from his poisoned blade.
Sensing something strange about his father, he slightly furrowed his brows and strode over the corpses scattered across the floor.
“Father, it’s only a token of some evil cult. Surely there’s no need to—”
Before Su Jin could finish, his voice was abruptly cut off.
His gaze fell straight onto the jade pendant in Su Zhen’s palm.
The instant he saw it clearly,
Su Jin was struck motionless, as rigid as iron.
The next moment, the cold-blooded, merciless Living Yama of the Dayuan Kingdom—
his eyes turned completely bloodshot.
“This… this is…”
Su Jin’s voice trembled beyond recognition, filled with heartbroken sobs and utter disbelief.
Then, an indescribably terrifying killing intent erupted from his body!
The temperature in the secret chamber plummeted. Even the flames of the eternal lamps were suppressed until they flickered weakly.
Su Jin gripped the poisoned blade in his hand, its sharp edge slicing into his palm.
Bright red blood trickled along the groove of the blade and dripped onto the floor, one drop after another, yet he felt no pain.
“The Netherworld Divine Cult… the Netherworld Divine Cult!”
Su Jin ground his teeth and forced the four words out from the depths of his throat. Each one carried an inescapable blood feud.
Su Yaoyao, who had just been searching the entire room for gold bricks, was utterly baffled by the sudden tragic spectacle unfolding between father and son.
Finding it boring, she put on the comical pig-nosed gas mask again. A metal detector was still raised in her hand.
With her short little legs, she toddled over to Su Zhen and Su Jin, her face full of suspicion.
“Dad, big brother, what’s wrong with you two?”
Su Yaoyao tilted her little head and glanced at the jade pendant on the ground, stained with poisonous blood and tears.
“Isn’t it just a lousy jade pendant from some evil cult? Is it really worth crying over?”
Hearing his daughter’s childish voice, Su Zhen slowly raised his head.
This Tyrant who had once dominated the world was now covered in tearstains, his eyes filled with boundless grief and the weariness of the ages.
He extended his trembling hand and gently stroked the top of Su Yaoyao’s head.
“Sweetheart, this isn’t some ordinary broken jade pendant.”
Su Zhen’s voice was terribly hoarse, as though he had swallowed a handful of coarse sand.
“This jade pendant belonged to your mother. It was something she always kept close to her!”
At those words, Su Yaoyao froze.
Though she was a transmigrator, she had inherited fragments of the original host’s memories.
She knew that the Empress of Dayuan—the biological mother of both her and Su Jin—
had perished eight years ago in a shocking catastrophe, dying a violent death.
At the time, Su Yaoyao had only just been born and had no memory of her mother whatsoever.
Su Zhen lowered his head, his fingers trembling tenderly as they traced the red lotus-and-spider pattern on the jade pendant.
He caressed it as though he were touching the gentle face of his beloved wife in life.
“Eight years ago, your mother died horribly within the imperial palace. Not even a complete set of bones was left behind.”
In the Tyrant’s eyes surged an overwhelming tide of remorse and self-reproach, and his tears flowed like a breached dam.
“I always believed that some vile woman in the imperial harem, jealous of your mother’s favor, had used witchcraft to harm her.”
“In a fit of rage, I slaughtered every consort in the harem, along with their entire clans!”
Su Zhen recalled the bloody massacre of that year and shut his eyes in agony.
“That purge claimed the lives of tens of thousands. I thought I had avenged your mother.”
“I thought she could finally rest in peace beneath the Nine Springs.”
At this, Su Zhen opened his eyes again. A terrifying crimson light erupted from their depths.
Clutching the jade pendant, he dug his fingernails so deeply into his flesh that blood began to flow.
“But I was wrong! Horribly wrong!”
“This jade pendant was your mother’s family heirloom. She had worn it ever since she was a child and never once took it off!”
“After she was murdered all those years ago, the pendant vanished as well. I searched for it for eight whole years!”
“I never imagined it would turn up in the hands of these assassins from an evil cult!”
The truth had become brutally clear.
The Empress of Dayuan had not been murdered because of palace intrigue or some jealous consort’s witchcraft.
The true culprits behind the brutal murder of the Empress of Dayuan were none other than the Netherworld Divine Cult, hidden in the shadows!
“Mother…”
Beside him, Crown Prince Su Jin dropped heavily to his knees with a thud.
This Living Yama wept like a helpless child, tears mingling with blood as they streamed freely down his face.
“It’s all because I was an unfilial son! Because I was useless!”
Su Jin slammed his fist into the hard ground, smashing his flesh until it was a bloody mess.
“I let those vile cultists remain at large for eight whole years!”
“They even used Mother’s keepsake as a token for those rats who dare not show their faces in the light!”
Grief, rage, and humiliation burned fiercely within Su Jin’s chest.
The relaxed atmosphere that had filled the underground chamber after they had seized the traitors’ possessions and made a fortune was gone without a trace.
In its place was an oppressive, tragic solemnity.
It was filled with an unyielding resolve: blood for blood, vengeance without end.
Su Zhen slowly rose to his feet.
His towering figure stood ramrod straight, like an ancient demon god awakening from a long slumber.
Raising the jade pendant in both hands toward the pitch-black ceiling of the secret chamber, he let out a roar that shook the heavens.
“Netherworld Divine Cult!”
The Tyrant’s furious roar was infused with earth-shattering inner power, causing dirt to rain down from the walls of the chamber.
“I don’t care what kind of demons and monsters you are, nor how deeply you hide!”
“You murdered the woman I loved. A blood feud like this can never be shared beneath the same sky!”
Su Zhen drew the Longquan Sword from the ground and pointed its edge toward the heavens.
“I swear here and now that I will trample your Netherworld Divine Cult’s headquarters into dust!”
“I will flay the men and draw out their tendons, and subject the women to a thousand cuts!”
“I will use the blood and heads of every last member of your cult to pay tribute to my beloved’s spirit in the afterlife!”
Su Jin rose as well, his eyes as cold as ten thousand years of ice.
“Rest assured, Father. I am willing to personally lead a hundred thousand troops, searching the heavens above and the depths below.”
“Even if we have to dig three feet into the ground, we will tear the Netherworld Divine Cult out by its roots!”
“I will make them understand that touching the Empress of Dayuan means a fate worse than death!”
A classic tale of revenge.
For the sake of his deceased beloved wife—the love of his life—the Tyrant swore to slaughter the entire world.
For the sake of his mother, who had died a gruesome death, the Crown Prince transformed into a vengeful demon, poised to unleash a bloody storm across the martial world.
What a scene. What lines!
Surely they would move any listener to tears.
It was unmistakably the prelude to a grave, heart-wrenching, and soul-stirring tale of ultimate revenge.
And yet—
As the only female member of the family in this revenge plot, Crown Princess Su Yaoyao’s reaction at that moment seemed rather out of place.
She silently removed the comical pig-nosed gas mask from her head.
Su Yaoyao stood where she was, watching the Tyrant and his son sob with their heads in their hands, swearing to slaughter everyone under Heaven.
She blinked her clear, innocent eyes. Not a trace of anguish showed on her face.
“Um… Dad, Big Brother, don’t jump to conclusions just yet.”
Su Yaoyao stepped forward and, driven by curiosity, took the jade pendant bearing eight years of blood vengeance from the Tyrant’s trembling hands.
The pendant felt smooth, warm, and cool to the touch. It was indeed a piece of fine jade.
First, she examined the front.
A scarlet lotus spider had been carved onto it in vivid detail.
“The carving is pretty good. Quite distinctive.”
Su Yaoyao muttered to herself before turning the pendant over.
She wanted to see whether the back bore some secret code used by the Netherworld Divine Cult to identify its members.
But the instant she saw the few tiny characters engraved on the back of the pendant, Su Yaoyao’s pupils widened.
The curious expression on her fair, delicate little face froze.
Then, her features twisted in a peculiar manner.
It was as if she had swallowed an entire unripe lemon.
Her powerful inner commentary mechanism sprang to life in her mind.
