Inside the Du Family's exquisitely carved yet tension-filled main hall, Du Bufan was overwhelmed by a profound sense of absurdity. He had already agreed to break off the engagement, yet the other party refused to let the matter rest and even demanded to cripple him. This was sheer madness. Clenching his fists so tightly that his nails dug into his palms, he felt a mixture of burning rage at Wang Weisuan and his companions' unreasonableness, alongside a heavy wave of anxiety and helplessness over his own predicament, as if he were trapped in a dark vortex, powerless to break free.
"Wang Weisuan, what are you trying to do?" Du Tianxiong roared like a booming bell, causing the hall's pillars to tremble slightly. His eyes bulged like bronze bells, burning with a fierce flame of anger and incomprehension, every single syllable imbued with mighty strength and majesty.
"Hmph, shut your mouth!" Wang Weisuan abruptly flicked his long sleeve, a movement resembling a flash of black lightning. In an instant, an icy chill surged forth like a billowing wave of black demonic qi, sweeping toward Du Tianxiong with a world-destroying momentum. This cold aura seemed to originate from the deepest, darkest corners of the netherworld, the very embodiment of death and destruction. Wherever it passed, the air seemed to freeze and time itself appeared to stand still.
"Ugh..." Du Tianxiong's face instantly turned as pale as paper, drained of all color, and his body trembled violently out of control like a withered leaf in an autumn wind. "You... you are actually in the Void Flight Realm?" His voice carried a terrified tremor, every word seemingly squeezed with agonizing difficulty from the depths of his soul, as if an invisible giant hand were tightly gripping his throat.
Martial cultivation was like a towering, layered, and mysterious giant pagoda piercing the clouds. The first five realms—Body Refining, Qi Gathering, Spirit Transformation, Void Flight, and Profound Penetration—were peaks that countless cultivators yearned for yet found perpetually out of reach. Du Tianxiong, a powerful expert of the Third Layer of Spirit Transformation Realm, was originally a renowned and deeply revered top-tier figure across the vast expanse of Tianwu City, holding a prominent position among the top three in the martial underworld. Yet Tianwu City seemed sealed away by the passage of time, having produced no Void Flight Realm powerhouse—a mythical, peerless master—for an entire century. Yet Wang Weisuan before him looked like a demon crawling out of an endless dark abyss, radiating a bone-chilling, terrifying aura and possessing a formidable cultivation capable of plunging all of Tianwu City into utter ruin. He was like a dark cloud suspended above the heads of all living beings, requiring nothing more than a casual flick of his sleeve to unleash a rain of destruction and crush every trace of resistance.
Wang Weisuan's tall and straight posture carried the ominous, hair-raising gloom of a poisonous tree growing in the dark. His face was lean, with jawlines as hard-cut as if chiseled by a blade, every line seemingly cast from ruthless indifference. His narrow, deep-set eyes resembled the darkest black holes in the universe—bottomless and flashing with a tangled mix of cunning and ruthlessness, like two venomous serpents spitting their forked tongues, capable of plunging their prey into an icy abyss and making them feel the immediate threat of death with a single glance. The immaculate white robe he wore ought to have symbolized purity and nobility, but on him, it formed a stark and extreme contrast with the sinister aura he emitted, making him look like a vicious wolf draped in sheep's skin, hiding behind a righteous disguise while waiting for the right moment to bare its ferocious fangs.
As an elder of the Sword Mystery Sect, he had drifted for many years through a treacherous and deceitful martial world, tempered by countless trials of conspiracy and scheming. Time and those brutal experiences had acted like a merciless whetstone, bit by bit grinding away his humanity and twisting his disposition into a ferocious monster. In his eyes, everything in the world was merely a chess piece to be manipulated at will; human life was as light as a feather, treated merely as a tool to achieve his ends. Li Muge was his proudest disciple, a crucial pawn to consolidate his status and demonstrate his teaching prowess to others, as well as a symbol of his power and glory. Li Muge was naturally arrogant and supercilious; whenever she interacted with Du Bufan, she always felt that Du Bufan was unworthy of her and repeatedly subjected him to humiliation. This annulment of the engagement, originally proposed by Du Bufan because he could no longer bear the insults, was instead viewed by Li Muge as a monstrous affront. After Li Muge wept to Wang Weisuan about it, Wang Weisuan's warped sense of protectiveness and cruel nature erupted like a volcano. Deep within his darkened mind, there existed only a single thought: to uproot the threat completely, eliminate anyone who might jeopardize his plans, and wipe them from the face of the earth.
Watching all this, Du Bufan felt a wave of bleak desolation surge through his heart. He never imagined that such a trivial matter as breaking off an engagement would bring such a catastrophic disaster upon his family. He hated his own powerlessness, a flash of resolute determination crossing his eyes as he silently swore that if the opportunity ever arose, he would make Wang Weisuan pay dearly for today's actions.
His attitude toward the Du Family laid his cruelty and ruthlessness bare for all to see. In his eyes, blinded as he was by self-interest and prejudice, the Du Family was as insignificant and humble as ants, existences to be trampled upon at will, like unregarded weeds by the roadside. Even though the Du Family and the Li Family shared ties of generational friendship, that bond was, in his view, nothing more than worthless trash. The two choices he offered Du Bufan were not genuine opportunities, but rather a perverted form of mockery—a desecration and satire of life itself. He sought to mentally shatter everyone in the Du Family completely, relishing the warped thrill of crushing other people's hopes like soap bubbles in the palm of his hand, acting as a demon presiding over life and death while taking pleasure in human tragedy.
When Du Tianxiong mustered the courage to question him, the chill he unleashed with a wave of his hand was not merely a display of martial deterrence; it was a naked demonstration of his contempt and disdain for the Du Family. Relying on his despairingly formidable strength, he stood like a demon upon the clouds, looking down upon all living beings and toying with the members of the Du Family as if they were mere ants. He relished this perverted thrill of controlling life and death, every subtle movement and every icy word reeking of a deep-seated arrogance and megalomania that penetrated to his very bones. It was as though he were watching a magnificent play, where the despair and terror of the Du Family members served as the most entertaining performance for his amusement, treating the whole affair as a game to satisfy his dark inner desires.