Chapter 27: Crimson Firmament Manor

On a barren path in the wilderness outside Shuxia City, the convoy of merchants from the Great Chu Dynasty had halted by the roadside, as though waiting for someone.

Right at that moment, a man appeared before them. He was the very same man who had been seated at the neighboring table in the restaurant earlier.

“Captain,” the merchants from Great Chu greeted him respectfully with cupped hands.

Shi gave a slight nod and took a set of merchant’s clothes from one of them.

After changing, Shi blended into the convoy of Great Chu merchants, and the group set out once more. Their pace was neither fast nor slow, and to any outsider, not the slightest flaw could be seen.

Time flew by. The merchant convoy left the territory of Shuxia City and entered a desolate dirt road where not a soul was in sight. Thick brush and tangled woods lined both sides of the road, and the surroundings were deathly silent.

The moment the convoy entered that path, a faint ripple passed through the eyes of Shi and the Darknet members.

Without alerting the enemy, the group continued forward as if nothing were amiss.

Just then, rustling sounds came from the woods.

Dozens of figures burst out from both sides of the dirt road and surrounded the merchant convoy completely.

These people held weapons in their hands, and none of them wore anything over their faces. Clearly, they had no intention of hiding their identities at all. Their expressions were arrogant and unbridled.

As for the two men at the front, Spiritual Qi fluctuations could be felt from their bodies. They were unmistakably two experts who had already reached the Innate Realm.

As the two of them looked at the wooden crates within the convoy, their eyes lit up with greed.

“Kill them. Leave no survivors!” one of them ordered with a savage grin.

“Yes!”

The dozens of men raised their weapons and advanced on Shi and the others with vicious expressions.

But very quickly, they realized something was wrong.

The expressions of the merchants before them were wrong.

With death already at hand, not one of those merchants showed the slightest fear. On the contrary, every one of them was expressionless, so calm that it was eerie.

“Kill,” Shi said, uttering a single word.

Before the word had even fully fallen, the Darknet members beside Shi vanished from the sight of the dozens of men.

The bodies of those men abruptly froze. Their pupils shook, and all of them felt a chill rise from behind. Then, amid a dizzying spin of the world, their vision dropped away.

In the final instant before they lost consciousness, they saw their own headless bodies...

The assassination methods of the Darknet members were peerless under heaven, and on top of that, all of them were Innate-realm experts.

Against people like these, it was complete overkill.

In the span of a single breath, all of them—including the two Innate-realm experts—had been slain on the spot.

Shi walked over to the corpses and crouched down. After searching through them for a moment, his figure disappeared.

When he appeared again, Shi had already arrived several kilometers away from the dirt road.

A carriage was parked there, and Su Yanran was the one driving it.

“Young Master, the fish has taken the bait. They are men from Crimson Firmament Manor,” Shi said respectfully, dropping to one knee beside the carriage.

The curtain of the carriage window was drawn aside. Chu Feng cast an indifferent glance at the somewhat gloomy sky and said calmly, “Begin.”

“Yes.” Shi accepted the order.

...

Just a moment earlier, the sky had still been bright and clear, but now it looked like a sheet of water into which a drop of ink had fallen. It was dim and overcast, filled with an oppressive atmosphere.

Raindrops pattered against the tiles of Crimson Firmament Manor, producing a soft drumming sound.

Dozens of figures dressed in black and wearing bronze masks silently emerged through the fine rain. They were like ghosts walking out from the shadows, without the slightest fluctuation of aura around them.

Beneath the rain, only pairs of icy, indifferent eyes could be seen.

Standing at the front of these people was a woman with a graceful figure and exquisitely delicate features.

She too wore black, and her long black hair cascaded to her waist like a waterfall.

The raindrops evaporated the instant they neared the top of her head.

This woman was Tu, one of the ten captains of the Darknet Organization.

Tu lifted her eyes, gazed at Crimson Firmament Manor above, and lightly raised her pale hand in a wave.

The Darknet members behind her vanished and infiltrated Crimson Firmament Manor, harvesting lives.

Tu strode toward the main hall of Crimson Firmament Manor.

Inside the hall, silence reigned. A heavy atmosphere filled the entire place.

All of Crimson Firmament Manor’s upper echelon had gathered there. Their expressions were tense, and from time to time they lifted their heads to glance outside the hall.

Seated in the place of honor, Jin Huayong, the Manor Lord of Crimson Firmament Manor, appeared calm on the surface, but his heart was equally tense.

The Five Great Dynasties had long strictly forbidden anyone from laying a hand on merchants of another dynasty.

If something happened to merchants from another dynasty and no one found out, that was one thing. But once the matter was exposed, Crimson Firmament Manor would be finished. It would have to face the wrath of two great dynasties.

And yet, dangerous as this matter was, Jin Huayong had still done it.

The strength of Crimson Firmament Manor was no weaker than that of the Primordial Yang Sect, yet over the years it had been suppressed by them at every turn.

The reason was simple.

The Primordial Yang Sect had powerful backing behind it.

Now that the Primordial Yang Sect was gone, Jin Huayong had to seize this opportunity and take its place.

Duanmu Lei’s letter had stated it clearly: as long as Crimson Firmament Manor could obtain a Purple Moon Jade for him, then from that day on, Crimson Firmament Manor would become the number one sect in the Shuxia Domain.

For that reason, Jin Huayong had not hesitated in the slightest. He had directly sent people to rob and kill that convoy of merchants from the Great Chu Dynasty.

“That is enough. With two elders personally leading the team, this matter will certainly succeed. There is no need for everyone to worry,” Jin Huayong said with a smile as he looked around at everyone present.

Hearing that, the concern in everyone’s hearts eased somewhat, and they nodded with smiles.

Creak!

At that moment, the wooden doors of the hall were slowly pushed open.

Jin Huayong and everyone else in the hall were startled, and all eyes turned toward the entrance.

But when they saw that the person entering was an unfamiliar woman, Jin Huayong’s brows immediately knit together, and a nameless sense of foreboding rose within him.

“Where did this disciple come from? Is this a place you can enter? Get out at once!” one of Crimson Firmament Manor’s elders shouted angrily.

He had clearly mistaken the woman for one of Crimson Firmament Manor’s disciples.

Tu glanced at him indifferently and gave a light wave of her hand.

A flash of cold light blazed across the hall. When it faded, a bloody hole appeared in the elder’s forehead.

That sudden scene immediately shocked everyone else present. All of them stared at the woman in horror, their bodies going taut.

The elder who had just died had been an expert at the middle stage of the Innate Realm. Aside from Jin Huayong, he was the strongest person there.

Yet that woman had killed him in a single exchange, and none of them had even seen how she had struck.

That kind of strength filled them with fear.

“Who exactly are you, Your Excellency? And why have you killed an elder of my manor for no reason?” Jin Huayong asked in a deep voice, staring fixedly at Tu.

Tu did not answer his question. She slowly closed the wooden doors of the hall, then turned back to face Jin Huayong and the others. A trace of red light flickered in her eyes.

“Do not waste my time. Make your move.”

“There is only one road before you today, and that is... death.”

Tu’s red lips moved slightly, her tone utterly casual, as though she were speaking of something completely insignificant.

The expressions of the others darkened. All of them had been enraged by Tu’s attitude.

Jin Huayong and the people of Crimson Firmament Manor drew their respective weapons and charged straight at Tu.

Seeing this, the red light in Tu’s eyes deepened, and a long sword appeared in her hand.

Light as a swallow, Tu leapt into the air and went forward to meet them...