Li Yu woke up as the first hints of gray light pierced the thick fog of the Frostmire realm. He took his ti packing his small camp while the cold morning air bit at his exposed skin. He gathered his spices and stored his cooking tools inside his spatial ring while using a handful of damp earth to smother the remaining embers of his natal fire before kicking dirt over the scorched grass. The young physician prepared to leave the wetlands and head back toward the Zhan Clan military base to report his failed dical mission.
Just as he turned his back to the clearing, a sharp flash of light illuminated the eastern horizon. The brilliant blue and orange glare cut through the heavy mist like a lighthouse beacon. A heartbeat later, a deafening boom rolled across the dark water. The damp ground beneath his boots trembled from the force of the distant impact.
Li Yu stopped and looked back toward the direction of the Ye family estate. More flashes of light erupted into the sky and painted the clouds in violent shades of red. The distinct sound of tearing tal and shouting voices carried over the freezing wind.
He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. A large battle was clearly taking place at the sprawling estate he had departed from. He wondered if he should go check it out or simply walk away and ignore the chaos. He did not know the Ye family well and their swift dismissal the previous night left him with no loyalty toward their continued survival.
Stepping into the middle of an unknown conflict was rarely a good idea in the cultivation world. A wandering warrior might think they were helping the righteous side only to discover they were actively defending tyrants. There was always a deeper story hidden beneath the surface of any sudden siege and inserting himself without context was a quick way to invite unnecessary karma.
Despite his reservations, his curiosity won the internal debate. The brazen theft of the guardian beast and this sudden attack were too closely linked to be a coincidence. He decided to go check on the situation and gather so intelligence. He would watch the battle from a safe distance and decide what he would do depending on what he actually saw.
Li Yu pushed his Qi into his legs and launched himself into the damp air. He glided swiftly over the frozen marshland and used the thick canopy of the frosted cypress trees to conceal his approach. He moved quickly and covered the miles in just a few minutes as he landed lightly on a high branch overlooking the outer periter of the Ye property and peered through the shifting fog.
The pristine elegance of the wealthy estate was shattered. The towering stone walls that had projected a gentle warmth the night before were breached in a dozen different places. The protective array formations were broken and their fractured runes sparked wildly against the damp stone. Plus of thick black smoke rose from the burning manors and obscured the morning sky while the beautiful frozen lakes boiled from stray techniques.
The Ye family guards were fighting for their lives across the ruined courtyards. They were being attacked from all sides by a ferocious group of invaders. Li Yu noted that the attackers did not wear unified clothes or standardized armor.
They carried a wild assortnt of weapons and wore mismatched gear. They looked like a coalition of desperate rcenaries or a rugged group of survivors banded together for a single violent purpose rather than a formal faction.
Li Yu scanned the chaotic battlefield and located the key figures orchestrating the violence. High above the burning rooftops Patriarch Ye Lin was engaged in a brutal duel. The patriarch wielded a longsword that radiated frost laws while he fought against a wizened old man hovering in the sky. The older man commanded a heavy iron staff and struck with an unyielding fury that forced the patriarch to remain strictly on the defensive.
Down below in a ruined garden, Li Yu spotted a familiar gray cloak. The woman from the campfire was locked in close combat with the stern elder who had detained Li Yu the night before. The woman moved with lethal purpose while wielding her twin dark blades.
The stern elder frantically tried to utilize his glowing array compass but the woman was simply too fast for his formations. She deflected a beam of light with her left blade and carved a deep gash across the elder's thigh with her right. The woman was winning the exchange with ease and pushing the older man toward the edge of a boiling pond.
Li Yu sat quietly on his branch and wondered what had truly happened to ignite this war. He began to piece together the sequence of events in his mind. The theft of the small chira the night before was not just a simple robbery.
It must have been a calculated distraction designed to lure the patriarch and the strongest elders out into the swamp. The resulting ambush had wounded the Ye family leadership and drained their stamina. Now the coalition was attacking the weakened estate directly to finish the job and burn it to the ground.
He focused his senses and listened closely to the people fighting below. Their yelling and angry roars echoed over the clash of steel and provided the hidden clues he needed to understand the conflict. The story behind the bloodshed began to unravel through their hateful words.
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"You filthy swamp rats dare to defile our ancestral ho!" The stern elder scread as he stumbled backward from another rapid strike. "We will string your corpses up along the outer walls as a warning!"
"This ho is a monunt to thieves and butchers!" The woman roared back as she pressed her advantage and slashed at his chest. "You sleep on silk while the ghosts of the River Mist Tribe scream in the mud! You slaughtered my family to steal our prosperity!"
High above them, the old man swung his iron staff with crushing force and shattered a wall of ice summoned by the patriarch. The impact sent a shockwave of cold air rolling across the burning rooftops.
"Judgnt day has co for the Ye lineage!" The old man yelled with a voice that shook the remaining roof tiles. "Over 400 years we hid in the bogs while you paraded the offspring of our sacred guardian around as your own! You slaughtered our villages and burned our towns to ash just to steal her egg! You killed the mother to build your false fortune!"
Li Yu widened his eyes in surprise as he absorbed the grim history lesson. The small golden chira was not a good luck charm that the Ye family found by chance. It was the stolen offspring of a slaughtered guardian beast. The strongest group living in the Frostmire realm 400 years ago had possessed the mother of the chira. The Ye family had exterminated those local tribes to claim the egg and secure their own wealthy future. At least that was their side of the story.
The survivors of those ruined towns had spent ti hiding in the dark to build their forces and plan their revenge. They had finally returned to reclaim their stolen heritage and deliver bloody justice to their oppressors.
Patriarch Ye Lin parried a heavy blow from the iron staff and sneered at the old man. The Ye family did not try to hide the bloody past of their ancestors or deny the brutal accusations thrown at them. They embraced their history with pride as it had brought their family success.
"The strong take from the weak!" Ye Lin shouted back as his sword sparked against the descending iron. "That is the fundantal way of the Dao! Your people held a treasure they lacked the power to protect. We took what the heavens offered us. You should bla your own weakness instead of crying about our success! Now die!"
The arrogant words fueled the old man's rage. He abandoned all defense and channeled nearly all of his Qi into a single devastating overhead strike. The heavy iron staff blurred through the air and broke the patriarch's frost barrier into a shower of glittering shards. The weapon bypassed the longsword and crashed directly into Ye Lin's side.
The sickening sound of breaking bone echoed across the courtyard as the brutal impact severed Ye Lin's left leg just below the knee. A shower of blood rained down onto the pristine snow as the patriarch plumted from the sky. He crashed heavily onto the slanted roof of the main manor and rolled toward the stone gutter.
Despite his grueso defeat, Ye Lin did not scream in terror or beg for his life. He clutched his bleeding stump and let out a defiant laugh that carried over the sounds of the dying guards.
"You think killing ends this?" Ye Lin spat blood onto the tiles. "You have only awakened our foundation! The one we built upon your corpses!"
A terrifying aura suddenly erupted from the center of the main house. The pressure of the energy flattened the surrounding gardens and forced the fighting combatants to drop to their knees. The heavy doors of the manor blew outward and a figure stepped into the morning light.
It was the ancient founder of the Ye family. He was the man who had slaughtered the local tribes and built this sprawling estate through violence and who knows how many other horrors. Li Yu felt the oppressive weight pressing against his own chest and quickly estimated the power level of the newcor. The ancestor was residing at the Sovereign realm. He stood a full three realms higher than Li Yu's current Karma Severing stage.
Li Yu knew that no apex organization or wealthy faction built their legacy without spilling blood. The Zhan Clan and the Li Clan had their own dark histories written in conquest and territorial expansion. The Ye ancestor was simply a brutal reflection of the cultivation world's harsh reality that few dared to speak about openly to the faces of those that held power.
The ancestor glared at the invading forces with glowing eyes as he stepped into the sky as if walking on solid stairs and confronted the old man. The battle recomnced but the tides shifted instantly.
The Sovereign realm expert wielded laws that bent the ambient space to his will. The old man swung his iron staff but the ancestor casually swatted the weapon aside with a simple wave of his hand. The resulting shockwave shattered the old man's ribs and sent him tumbling backward through the air.
The old man was losing the fight right away but he did not despair. He had spent over 400 years preparing for this exact mont and he knew the Ye ancestor would eventually erge from his seclusion. The wizened leader stabilized his flight and reached into his tattered robes.
He pulled out a strange artifact that looked to be a small wooden horse. The carving was rough and simple but it pulsed with a volatile and destructive energy. The old man poured his remaining Qi and half of his life essence into the artifact and threw it forward with all his might.
"Return to the mud!" The old man roared as blood dripped from his chin.
The wooden horse expanded rapidly as it soared through the sky. It grew to the size of a real stallion and charged directly at the Ye ancestor as the sound of phantom hooves thundered across the battlefield. The Sovereign expert narrowed his eyes and first tried to dodge it. The horse however moved accordingly so he had no choice but to summon a thick barrier of compressed space to block the incoming projectile.
The wooden horse bypassed the defensive laws as it galloped through the spatial barrier and crashed directly into the center of the ancestor. The impact targeted the exact location of his dantian as a blinding shockwave swept across the estate and shattered every remaining window in the surrounding manors.
The artifact did not break the Sovereign's dantian but the concentrated blast caused devastating internal damage. The ancestor coughed up a large mouthful of black blood and his glowing aura flickered violently as the wooden horse splintered into dust.
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