"Scatter — NOW!"
The Li Clan Head bellowed.
His palms thrust out hard.
A wall of earth conjured from spiritual energy slammed into place across the sky.
An attempt to catch the black spheres that radiated menace just sitting there.
The Clan Head dared not underestimate those orbs in the slightest.
A thing that had let one light-element slip of a girl leave a Fifth Realm fire-element spirit master and a Fourth Realm light-element spirit master one dead, one crippled —
could that possibly be ordinary?
BOOM!
The instant the spheres kissed the wall of earth, the explosion tore the air apart.
"Blergh!"
The Li Clan Head sprayed a mouthful of blood.
And was blasted bodily out of the sky.
His earthen shield had absorbed the worst of it; behind their personal defensive artifacts, the others took only light wounds.
Someone darted forward at once to catch the Clan Head.
"Quick — beg the Old Ancestors to leave seclusion!"
"A Crimson Heaven direct disciple means to destroy our Li Clan!"
"She dared wound the Clan Head — I'll die before I let that stand!"
"..."
Just as the young Li disciples behind the Clan Head, eyes red, prepared to throw their lives at her —
the Clan Head spat another mouthful of blood:
"Silence, all of you. Fall back.
Everyone — back."
The Li disciples seethed.
But under their elders' glares, they had no choice but to withdraw.
The Li Clan Head forced himself upright, teeth clenched, and glared at Ning Ruan:
"Have you had your fill of chaos yet?
Do you honestly believe my Li Clan has no one who can handle one light-element spirit master?
If this truly forces the Old Ancestors out of seclusion, no power on earth will save you.
That black sphere of yours is formidable, granted. But how many of them can you possibly have?"
Ning Ruan only smiled and said nothing — so the Clan Head changed registers, pain spreading across his ashen face:
"I don't know who beguiled you into this monstrous, unfilial course.
But whatever else is true, you carry Li Clan blood.
If you would only admit your wrong..."
Ning Ruan finally burst out laughing:
"Admit my wrong?
Are you trying to make me die laughing so you can inherit my Thunderclap Bombs?
One of your Li Clan dead, one crippled — by MY hand — and you're ready to forgive and forget?
What's next? Going to have Li Yu call me Big Sister?"
The Li Clan Head's face darkened.
Behind him, a young man in white robes cursed aloud on the spot:
"What exactly are you, that Yu'er should call YOU sister?
You're both our second uncle's daughters — Yu'er is pure and kind, and you are venom and spite.
What qualifies you to be Yu'er's sister?"
Ning Ruan had settled into a half-seat on the Scarlet Feather Kite.
Her gaze drifted down, unhurried.
And in the same instant her smile appeared, two fresh fistfuls of Thunderclap Bomb 2.0 appeared with it:
"Venom and spite? Then let me show you venom and spite."
Down came the bombs again.
This time,
every face in the Li Clan went white as paper.
They fled as one back inside the great Li estate.
Sheltering behind the clan's grand defensive array.
Ning Ruan could not have cared less about arrays, grand or otherwise.
She flipped out two more fistfuls of Thunderclap Bomb 2.0 and kept right on bombing.
Even from far across the city,
one could watch the sky above the inviolable Li Clan estate
ripple with chain detonations.
The film of defensive light sheathing the whole clan grounds dimmed, and dimmed, and dimmed.
"Good heavens, what is happening at the Li Clan? I barely entered Shengjing and there were image-recording mirrors playing the whole way in. I was wondering why the Li Clan hadn't responded.
Turns out an enemy has brought the fight to their front door?"
"Pah. What enemy? That young lady will be the girl from the mirrors — the one her own father nearly refined into a death-substitute puppet.
Tsk, tsk. Who could have imagined.
The great Second Master Li.
The virtuous Madam Qingwu. Doing THAT behind closed doors.
If this old man hadn't spent decades studying artifact forging and spirit mechanisms, I'd have doubted the mirrors myself."
"Meaning — the footage in the mirrors is genuine?"
"This old man will swear it on his dao heart: not one frame of it is forged."
"Then the Li Clan has no shame at all. Just days ago they had the whole capital smearing Second Master Li's first dao companion.
If the mirrors are real, the Li Clan is rot through and through.
And they meant to shield him."
"Quite. This is simple deserts. Though — the girl has the Li Clan pinned down with those black spheres for now, but once she runs out, I fear she'll never walk out of there alive."
"I hear the Li Clan has two Old Ancestors in seclusion at this very moment — never mind the ones abroad. The girl can't possibly win."
"..."
Every word of the street commentary reached the ears of the Li Clan's high-cultivation elders inside.
While overhead,
that infuriating little demoness went on raining black spheres.
The grand defensive array was visibly minutes from failing.
"Clan Head, what do we do? The dignified Li Clan, cornered like this by one Third Realm light-element girl?
After today, we'll be the laughingstock of all Qingyun Province!"
"What word from the two Old Ancestors? Will they come out?" The Li Clan Head fought his injuries down and turned to his sons.
The Li Clan's eldest young master shook his head, face wretched:
"The Old Ancestor hasn't responded at all.
And the Third Ancestor... the Third Ancestor says..."
"Says WHAT?" the Clan Head pressed urgently.
Grief and indignation warring on his face, the eldest young master could only answer, very quietly:
"The Third Ancestor says... in this matter, the fault was Second Uncle's... that it's we who owe... owe that feral stray.
Unless the Li Clan faces true extinction, the Third Ancestor... will not intervene."