Jiang Qiulan fell partway through the air before finally managing to steady herself.

White mist had already begun spilling violently off her body — the telltale sign of a path infant collapsing.

Her eyes were calm, though a faint haze of disorientation lingered within them.

She forced herself upright, until the only thing left in her sight was the cloaked figure hanging in the air.

Cold light flared bright across her palm, and she made to charge forward once more.

Just then, a hand closed around the back of her collar.

"Go sit this one out."

A familiar, indifferent voice sounded by her ear. Before Jiang Qiulan could even turn to look, she'd been tossed lightly away, down through the air.

Through her blurring vision, alongside Lady Qinghua's figure, there now hung another, slighter silhouette — also clad in black, the whole of him wrapped in a thick wreath of red cloud.

The sky changed color.

The dark crimson demon clouds were swallowed whole in an instant before the surging scarlet that rolled in to meet them.

The young man stood with both feet planted on a sea of blood-soaked, malevolent cloud, a gold-traced black sheath at his waist, his blood-stained black robes billowing — every bit a vengeful god of slaughter.

In that instant, the entire city seemed to freeze in place.

Countless martial warriors watched, helpless, as their last hope was tossed casually aside, without so much as a chance to resist.

The hand Jiang Yuanhua had clenched around his sword's hilt suddenly went slack.

He stared, dumbstruck, at the distant figure.

He should still be off intercepting the Howling Moon Demon King — it had only just been a little while since he himself had arrived...

Noticing the blood soaking Shen Yi's robes, his pupils contracted sharply, and an unbelievable thought suddenly took shape in his mind.

At the gate of the Li residence, everyone, the Ancestor included, stood frozen and numb. One savage demon had already been enough to chill them to the bone — and now, somehow, here was a second.

Just then, the eldest…