The ancestral hall of the Lin Clan estate blazed with high-grade tallow lanterns, casting a warm golden glow over red silk banners and polished mahogany banquet tables.
Laughter and loud toasts echoed across the courtyard. Tonight, every elder, branch leader, and core member of the Lin Clan had gathered to celebrate. At the center of the head table sat Lin Feng, a youth in embroidered silver robes, his face flushed red with pride and surging, unrefined Qi. Beside him sat Elder Lin Kuang, his wrinkled face split into a triumphant, toothy grin as he stroked his white beard.
"To Feng’er!" Lin Kuang boomed, raising his silver goblet to the gathered elders. "Twelve hundred spirit stones was a steep price, but buying those Supreme-Grade Spirit-Liquefying Pills from the Treasure-Gathering Pavilion was the greatest decision of my life! Feng’er’s dantian is expanding as we speak!"
"Congratulations, Elder Kuang!" an elder toasted heartily. "With Feng’er breaking into the 9th Layer of Qi Condensation tonight, the Lin Clan will dominate Cloud-Resting City’s young generation!"
"Indeed!" another chimed in, wiping wine from his chin. "It was worth discarding that useless meat shield Lin Chen weeks ago during our retreat! If we hadn’t saved our spirit stones on that trash’s food and pills, we wouldn’t have had the capital to buy these divine medicines!"
Raucous laughter rippled across the tables.
At the head table, Lin Feng lifted his chin, arrogance radiating from his eyes. "Lin Chen was born trash and died like trash in a ditch. Comparing his dog life to my path to the Great Void Sect is an insult to my silver robes!"
BOOM!
The heavy, steel-reinforced oak doors of the ancestral hall didn’t just open. They exploded inward!
Splintered oak, shattered iron hinges, and a wave of ice-cold wind blasted across the hall and snuffed out dozens of lanterns. Screams erupted as two 5th-Layer Qi Condensation gate guards flew backward through the air and crashed through the lower banquet tables, scattering dishes into red porcelain shards.
The laughter died. Silence fell over the hall like a heavy stone.
Through the drifting dust and smoke, a tall figure in pristine blue robes walked smoothly into the hall, one palm still raised from the strike that had shattered the doors. A gray cloak hung from his shoulders, its hood pulled low over his eyes. He lowered his hand and tucked it into his wide sleeve.
"Who dares?!" Elder Lin Kuang roared, slamming his goblet down and rising, his Qi bursting out at the Peak 8th Layer of Qi Condensation. "This is the Lin Clan Ancestral Banquet! Guards, drag this dog out and break his legs!"
"Old man," a soft, razor-cold voice cut through the dust. "You spent twelve hundred spirit stones on my trash pills, and you still have the breath to shout?"
The figure reached up and casually pushed back his hood.
Under the dim lantern light, a pale, jade-smooth face emerged, with eyes like twin pools of dark star-matter, utterly devoid of emotion.
Lin Kuang’s voice choked in his throat. The smile on Lin Feng’s face froze into a mask of pure horror.
"Lin... Lin Chen?!" an elder shrieked, knocking his chair backward. "Impossible! You were left in the Desolate Ghost Valley! You were dead!"
"Lin Chen?" Adam Hale murmured, sweeping his gaze slowly across the trembling faces, his Eyes of Divine Insight seeing through their frantic heartbeats and clogged meridians. "Lin Chen died in a ditch three days ago, discarded by parasites. I am Adam Hale. And I’ve come to collect the Lin Clan’s debt."
Lin Feng slammed his hands on the table and stepped forward, his face twisted in rage, his Qi flaring erratically. "You useless trash! How dare you crawl back here and barge into my celebration! I don’t care how you survived the beasts. You’re still a 1st-Layer Qi Condensation dog! I’ll tear your tongue out!"
Lin Feng drew his refined steel saber and vaulted over the head table. The blade hummed with a chaotic, violent red Qi as he aimed a heavy overhead strike straight at Adam’s head.
"Die, trash!" Lin Feng roared.
Adam didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t even shift his footing.
Through his Eyes of Divine Insight, he saw every microscopic flaw in Lin Feng’s attack. The Supreme-Grade pills had indeed poured massive energy into Lin Feng’s body. But because his meridians were narrow and clogged with years of inferior pill sediment, that raw energy was tearing his dantian apart from the inside out.
Adam simply raised his index finger.
Heaven-Shaking Sword Intent.
CLANG!
An invisible spatial pressure slammed into the steel saber, and the blade shattered into a thousand glittering shards!
Before Lin Feng could comprehend what had happened, Adam’s finger continued forward and tapped lightly against his abdomen, right over the dantian.
Pfft!
A microscopic thread of compressed sword intent, wrapped in light-swallowing Chaos-Devouring Fire, drove straight into Lin Feng’s dantian.
"AAAGHH!!"
Lin Feng shrieked. The violent, unrefined pill energy trapped inside his dantian collided with Adam’s thread of black fire.
BANG!
A muted explosion echoed from inside Lin Feng’s abdomen. His skin turned a sickly purple as blood burst from his nose, eyes, and ears. The ocean of Qi he had built over a decade ruptured, tearing apart his meridians and reducing his dantian to scorched, useless ash.
Lin Feng collapsed onto the stone floor, writhing like a worm. His cultivation was destroyed in a single second.
"My... my cultivation... my dantian is gone!" he wept hysterically, clutching his stomach as he vomited black blood.
"Feng’er!" Elder Lin Kuang screamed, rushing around the table to kneel beside his ruined grandson. He pressed a hand to Lin Feng’s chest, and his face went white as paper when he felt the utter void inside the boy’s body.
"You monster!" Lin Kuang looked up at Adam, his eyes bloodshot with insane rage. "You crippled my grandson! You destroyed our clan’s future! I will tear your skin off!"
Lin Kuang seized his wooden cane, unleashed his full Peak 8th Layer Qi Condensation pressure, and charged Adam like a mad bull.
Adam regarded him the way a man regards a flying insect.
He willed a fraction of his Hidden Fortune Aura to lift.
BOOM!
A suffocating, ocean-like pressure erupted from Adam’s body. The dense aura of a Peak Foundation Establishment master crashed down upon the ancestral hall like a falling sky.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Every mahogany table smashed flat into the floorboards. The remaining elders dropped to their knees, bones groaning, breath cut off, and were pressed flat against the stone floor.
Lin Kuang’s cane snapped in half under the sheer density of the air. He collapsed three feet in front of Adam, his face smashed against the cold stone, unable to lift his chin even a millimeter.
"Foundation... Establishment... Peak..." Lin Kuang gasped, his voice squeaking in terror, his mind shattering. "No... impossible... how could a 1st-Layer trash reach Foundation Establishment in three days?!"
Adam stepped forward and brought his boot down on Lin Kuang’s outstretched right hand.
CRUNCH.
Lin Kuang let out a muffled scream as his fingers were crushed to powder beneath Adam’s heel.
"You used Lin Chen as meat-shield bait to save your own skins," Adam said, his voice quiet, cold, and ringing through the shattered hall like a death bell. "You took his winter cloak, you stole his basic allowance, and you discarded him in a ditch."
Adam reached into his sleeve and drew out the heavy storage pouch stamped with the Treasure-Gathering Pavilion’s seal, holding it up so the stones inside rattled.
"Recognize this seal?" Adam asked softly. "These are the stones you paid at the auction, minus the Pavilion’s cut. You bankrupted the Lin Clan buying Supreme-Grade Spirit-Liquefying Pills from the Treasure-Gathering Pavilion. I was the alchemist who made them out of scavenger trash."
Lin Kuang’s bloodshot eyes bulged so wide his blood vessels nearly burst. "You... you were... the hidden grandmaster?!"
"I took your clan’s entire life savings for a batch of trash pills, then used those same pills to cripple your genius," Adam said, tucking the pouch away and stepping over Lin Kuang’s trembling body toward the ancestral vault at the back of the hall. "The debt for Lin Chen’s life is paid. Now I’m taking the interest."
He raised his hand. A single blade-arc of Heaven-Shaking Sword Intent flashed across the room.
BOOM!
The heavy, iron-bound doors of the Lin Clan’s ancestral vault split in two and collapsed inward, revealing centuries of stored herbs, spirit stones, and ancient martial scrolls.
Adam walked inside without looking back, leaving the broken, weeping remnants of the Lin Clan paralyzed on the floor behind him.