Though Shao wanted to sprint through the forest surrounding his home at full speed, the twisting path taken by the trail forced him to slow his pace frequently. He knew he would lose the trail if he ran at a full sprint. Every fifty cun or so, Shao was forced to recheck the trail to make sure he was still headed in the right direction. The relatively slow pace of his advance infuriated Shao, but he knew his pace would be slowed even further if he lost the trail and had to backtrack.

After nearly twenty minutes of following the trail, a massive, dull sound echoed through the forest from east of Shao’s position. If it wasn’t a clear day, Shao would have sworn that the sound was a clap of thunder. For a moment, he wondered if Shen Jian had run into a giant, and in their fight the giant struck the ground with a club as large as a mountain. Thinking about it for a moment, Shao realized that the sound could have just as easily been caused by Shen Jian himself. As it was, Shao did not have a good grasp on the extent of Shen Jian’s power.

The far-off crash reverberated through the ground and caused a flock of nearby birds to take off into the sky. Shao did not let the sound alter his path. Based on the echo, whatever caused the sound was so far away that it couldn’t pose a direct threat to him.

Frantically, Shao followed the trail in the dirt for several more minutes. With every second that passed, his anxiety and frustration grew. He wondered if the path itself was some kind of cultivator illusion used to draw him away from the ki signals mentioned by Shen Jian. If that was the case, Shao could at least appease himself with the knowledge that Shen Jian had already killed the demonic cultivator. Though such a scenario would deprive Shao of the chance to wreak bloody revenge, it would be better than the alternative of the demonic cultivators getting away.

Shao’s thoughts were interrupted by a distant sound. The sound rang out on the edge of his perception, and he wondered for a second if he had imagined it. After a second, the sound did not stop, prompting Shao to halt his pace and strain his ears to hear better. It was only when Shao stopped to listen that he could determine the source of the sound. Far off in the distance, people were screaming in pain.

With no hesitation, Shao began sprinting in the direction of the sound. The trail was immediately abandoned as he picked up a trail that he could follow without slowing his pace. Shao ran toward the screaming, and it kept getting louder and more discernible as he approached. At least several dozen people wailed in fear and pain, letting out a terrible cacophony that shook Shao to his core.

Within seconds, Shao reached a dense copse of trees that blocked him from seeing any further, though the rancorous sound of suffering and death clearly originated from just beyond the thick leaf-growth. There was no time for Shao to mentally prepare himself for what awaited him behind the treeline, as the momentum of his sprint pushed him through the leaves and into the clearing beyond.

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On the other side of the treeline was a scene of death. More corpses than Shao could count littered the grassy dirt. So much blood flowed onto the ground beneath that patches of grass choked on the plentiful liquid. By the time Shao had reached that clearing in the forest, more than half of the villagers were dead on the ground.

In the center of the clearing, those responsible for the massacre were still carrying out that gory task. Five cultivators, all teenagers or adults in their early twenties, viciously attacked the defenseless villagers. They moved like shepherds herding sheep, spreading out into a large circle to prevent any villagers from escaping. Whenever a cultivator got within striking range of a villager, the cultivator would lazily throw a wide punch that destroyed the villager’s body completely.

All five of the cultivators wore clothes dyed in a dark silver color like that of pressed iron. Shao recalled those colors as those worn by the Gao Clan far to the south. Four of the demonic cultivators were male, but one was a teenage girl.

“Stop!” Shao shouted at the top of his lungs. He wanted his voice to ring out with righteous anger, but it just sounded desperate. In that moment, the only thing he wanted more than revenge was for them to stop killing his family.

The five demonic cultivators came to a jerking stop as they all turned toward Shao. Their reaction almost seemed fearful, but that made no sense. For a moment, their reactions were uncannily similar to those of children who had been caught committing some minor mischief.

The oldest of the demonic cultivators, a man who was somewhere between twenty and twenty-five years of age, turned toward Shao, and this momentary look of fear immediately transformed into sadistic glee.

The man who, by his age and body language seemed to be the leader of the demonic cultivators, turned to the rest of his cohort and said, “We’ve culled enough by now anyway. Make ready for the next phase of the clan while I deal with the welp.”

Shao’s lips curled into a snarl, and he prepared to put the emotions churning in his heart into words. He was about to speak to the leader of the demonic cultivators when he caught sight of something laying on the ground, cast aside like trash.

Laying on the ground next to Shao was the severed head of Chu Peijing, her eyes wide with terror. Next to her head laid the rest of her corpse, still dressed in the apron she wore every day to her job at her family’s fish market. Beyond that was the barely-recognizable corpse of her twin brother, Chu Haoyu, and both of her parents. Though they were not born on the same day, the Chu family all met their end at the same time.