The sight of her suffering was an unforgivable violation that completely shattered Kahn’s remaining sanity.
Kahn’s eyes widened as the horrific reality of his sister’s condition fully registered in his mind.
The lingering restraint he had forced himself to maintain completely evaporated, and his full, unbridled Qi condensation aura violently exploded out of his body like a volcanic eruption.
The sheer, massive weight of his spiritual energy slammed into the walls, causing the wooden beams of the ceiling to groan loudly and the floorboards to crack under the sudden, immense pressure.
’Seraphina... what did these bastards do to you?’ he thought.
The agonizing guilt of being locked away for four months while she endured this systemic torture tore at his heart, and the urge to erase the entire Raging Bulls sect from the face of the earth pulsed through his veins like a roaring fire.
The short old man, who had been standing right by the side of the bed completely focused on his work, was caught entirely off guard by the sudden, terrifying blast of spiritual energy.
He was still holding a strange, glowing black vial in his wrinkled hand, which he had been about to pour into the unconscious girl’s mouth to stimulate her blood production.
The sheer force of Kahn’s aura hit him like a physical battering ram, forcing him to stumble backward in sheer shock, his heavy boots skidding across the floorboards as he tried to stabilize his balance.
He looked up at the towering, white-haired stranger standing in the doorway, his ancient face twisting with a mixture of intense alarm and deep confusion as the black vial trembled in his grip.
"Who the hell are you?!" he shouted on top of his lungs.
The air inside the room grew suffocatingly dense, heavy enough to make breathing feel like swallowing liquid lead.
Kahn didn’t offer a single word in response to the elder’s desperate shout.
To him, the old man standing before him was no longer a person—he was merely an obstacle, a piece of filth that needed to be erased from existence before he could reach his sister.
Seeing the utter coldness in Kahn’s eyes and sensing the terrifying weight of his aura, the old man’s face twisted in panic.
Realizing he stood no chance in a direct confrontation, his ancient eyes flashed with a sudden, vicious light.
Instead of defending himself, he dropped the glowing black vial, letting it shatter against the floorboards, and violently whipped out a long, jagged silver knife from beneath his robes.
Driven by desperation, he lunged sideways toward the bed, aiming the gleaming blade directly at Seraphina’s exposed throat.
"Stay back, or I’ll slit her—!"
He never got to finish the threat.
Threatening Seraphina’s life was the last mistake the elder would ever make. A blinding, explosive step pulverized the wooden floorboard beneath Kahn’s heel into splinters as he closed the distance in an instant.
Before the elder’s knife could drop even an inch closer to Seraphina’s neck, Kahn was already there. His movement bypassed the perception of a mid Qi Condensation cultivator entirely.
Kahn’s bare hand shot out like a lightning bolt, clamping around the elder’s wrist with enough force to instantly shatter the bone into dust.
The silver knife slipped harmlessly from the old man’s limp fingers, clattering onto the floorboards.
Before the elder could even scream from the sudden, excruciating agony, Kahn locked his other hand tightly around the man’s throat, lifting his body high into the air.
"You..." the elder choked out, his eyes bulging in terror as his windpipe caved in under the crushing pressure. "The... the sect leader will..."
"He won’t be here in time to save you," Kahn said, his voice terrifyingly calm, devoid of all human warmth.
Without giving the man another second to plead for mercy, Kahn ruthlessly drove his bare fist straight into the center of the elder’s chest.
A sickening, wet crunch echoed through the room as Kahn’s fist shattered the sternum, completely crushing the elder’s heart and destroying his meridians in a single blow.
Kahn released his grip, and the old man’s body went instantly limp, slumping to the floor in a bloody, unmoving heap.
Behind them, Ter—who was still groveling on the floor near the doorway after being kicked into the room—watched the entire execution in silence.
His mind had completely checked out, unable to comprehend how an elder who had spent over fifty years cultivating could be slaughtered in less than three seconds like a dog.
Kahn didn’t even glance at the corpse. He turned his body completely away from the dead elder, his focus snapping entirely to the small bed in the corner.
The dark, bloodthirsty aura radiating from him instantly softened, replaced by a deep, agonizing surge of concern as he stepped toward his sister.
Every step across the creaking floorboards felt impossibly heavy, his heart hammering in his chest as he looked down at her pale, shivering form.
"Sera..." he whispered, his voice cracking slightly under the weight of his emotions.
She looked so small, so impossibly fragile. The almost twenty thick iron pins stuck deeply into her body glistened under the flickering lantern light, and the rhythmic drip-drip-drip of her blood flowing through the transparent tubes into the brown glass bottle sounded like a ticking clock counting down the end of her life.
"I’m here," Kahn said softly, his teeth clenching tightly as he fought back the burning wave of guilt crashing against his heart. "I’m sorry it took me so long... but I’m here now."
As if hearing his voice through the deep, painful darkness of her unconsciousness, Seraphina’s long, dark eyelashes fluttered weakly.
A small, ragged sigh escaped her pale, chapped lips, and her shivering frame seemed to relax ever so slightly under his presence.
Kahn’s eyes narrowed as he examined the grotesque needles connected to her body. He knew he had to be extremely careful—simply ripping the pins out of her flesh all at once could cause her frail, heavily depleted body to go into shock.