Chapter 155: Bai Qi, the God of Killing

Two months ago, a momentous event shook Qingxue County. Two experts of the River Realm, over forty of the Stream Realm, and more than three hundred of the Vein-Opening Realm suddenly descended upon the county.

All the prominent families in Qingxue County received the news: Lin Fan of the Panlong City Lin family had committed a grave and monstrous offense at the Heavenly Book Academy, bringing this catastrophic disaster upon them.

Across the entire Qingxue County, there was only a single River Realm expert, and fewer than twenty in the Stream Realm. The arrival of such an overwhelming and formidable force was more than enough not only to obliterate the Lin family of Panlong City, but to wipe out the entirety of Qingxue County as well.

Among them, only the head of the Jiang family stepped forward to obstruct these powerhouses, buying some time to send word to the Lin family in the hope that at least a few could escape. Yet, in the face of such overwhelming might, even his Jiang family appeared utterly insignificant.

Word came that this Lin Fan had slaughtered two to three hundred scions of prominent families. Even the weakest among those families had a Stream Realm expert anchoring them, while the strongest boasted six or seven River Realm powerhouses, and some even included descendants of kingdom royalty and generals with immense influence in the military.

According to insider reports, the royal family of the kingdom had intervened in this matter, managing to restrain some of the factions. Nevertheless, several families had still joined forces, dispatching their own troops or hiring formidable assassins to strike at the Lin family.

When a quarter of the kingdom's factions banded together, just how terrifying was their collective influence?

To say nothing of a tiny place like Qingxue County, even the entire kingdom would tremble. Of course, only two River Realm experts and thirty Stream Realm experts had arrived for now, simply because the total number of River Realm powerhouses in the entire kingdom did not exceed five hundred.

Restrained by the royal decree, those major factions naturally could not dispatch their own River Realm members. Furthermore, many River Realm experts were family heads or ancestral patriarchs who would not easily make a move.

Besides, to eradicate a family whose highest tier was merely the Vein-Opening Realm, sending a single Stream Realm expert was more than sufficient. Thus, although countless factions were eager to strike, those too powerful were watched far too closely by the royal family to dare make a rash move.

In the end, those who made their move were mostly smaller factions. Of course, none of these "smaller factions" were any weaker than the Jiang family of Qingxue County, and at the very least, they were comparable to the top ten families of the region.

Consequently, each family dispatched one Stream Realm expert, bringing the total to over forty. These families were the relatively weaker ones among the coalition. Since the formidable ones were too closely watched to act rashly, they had instead issued bounties.

To prevent any accidents, they had directly put out a bounty for two River Realm experts to oversee the operation, determined to leave not a single dog or chicken alive for the Lin family of Panlong City under the watchful eyes of all Qingxue County!

Despite the Jiang family head's best efforts to stall, he ultimately failed to hold back their advance. They all marched murderously toward the Lin family of Panlong City.

Seeing this, some gloated, such as those of the Liu family; some remained indifferent, like the neutral factions; while others worried, such as the Jiang family and the clans behind Xiao Beihan and the others.

Alas, what they could never have imagined was that upon arriving at Panlong City, the city remained completely peaceful and unharmed. Instead, the heads of those two River Realm experts, forty Stream Realm experts, and three hundred Vein-Opening Realm warriors were now hung high upon the walls of Panlong City!

Beneath the walls of Panlong City, twelve figures stood facing one another.

No!

It should be said: eleven figures facing a single man!

All eleven were draped in long black robes, their faces entirely concealed beneath their hoods. To any family guarded by a Stream Realm expert, the mere presence of these individuals would induce trembling, for they were members of the royal enforcement agency, specially tasked with executing families that defied the crown.

Yet at this moment, these eleven individuals were all staring fixedly at the middle-aged man opposite them, blades in hand, tension hanging thick in the air like drawn bowstrings!

The middle-aged man was clean-shaven and clad in silver armor. His left hand rested upon the hilt of a precious sword, the scabbard bearing the two characters "Heroic," while his right hand gripped a two-meter-long Sky-Breaking Halberd, the blade dripping with fresh blood.

The man gazed calmly at the eleven before him, unmoving and unshaken. Although he released no overt aura, he felt like an unyielding mountain, pressing down heavily upon everyone's hearts.

At first glance, he appeared to be an utterly ordinary middle-aged man. But upon taking a second look, one seemed to witness an endless sea of blood, with violent, murderous intent permeating every corner, fields strewn with countless corpses and dead bodies!

At the end of those corpses stood a towering mountain piled high with hundreds of thousands of bodies, and the man stood atop that mountain, looking down at you with calm indifference.

Death!

Meeting the gaze of that man, everyone felt their entire bodies tremble—it was the chilling fixation of death itself.

Though the man possessed only the cultivation of the Stream Realm, even the Jiang family head, a River Realm expert, felt an overwhelming sense of imminent death when encountering that gaze, a feeling of extreme peril.

"Who are you—?"

Finally, a deep, resonant voice rang out from among the eleven black-robed figures. His aura gradually surged, pressing down toward the silver-armored man opposite him.

Clang!

The Heroic Sword was drawn, its tip planted into the earth by the silver-armored man, and the black-robed man's surging aura was instantly shattered by an invisible force.

"My name is Bai Qi!"

The middle-aged man spoke, his gaze calm as he looked upon the black-robed figures as though staring at dead men. That's right, he was the God of Killing, Bai Qi, summoned by Lin Fan through the system!

He had known no fear throughout his entire life, living amidst slaughter and warfare. Let alone facing black-robed figures who were at least in the mid-River Realm at this moment, even if he were surrounded in the very center of tens of thousands of mid-River Realm troops, he would not so much as furrow a brow.

Since he had sworn allegiance to his lord, he would certainly regard him as a confidant for whom one was willing to die!

At a single word from his lord commanding him to take the emperor's head, he would charge alone on a single horse into the imperial city without a moment's hesitation, severing the emperor's head to present to his lord.

"Among the one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight River Realm experts of the Snow Kingdom, there is no one like you!"

The black-robed man was Tianwu, an inner court instructor dispatched by Qi Daolin, and behind him stood ten students of the inner court. Hearing Bai Qi's words, Tianwu spoke in a deep voice.

Within the Heavenly Book Academy, the River Realm experts of the entire kingdom were naturally known to them down to the last detail. People often assumed the Snow Kingdom had only a little over five hundred River Realm experts, but in reality, the actual number had already reached over eighteen hundred.

It was simply that some individuals remained hidden in the shadows, maintained a low profile, devoted themselves entirely to secluded cultivation, or were employed by the royal family, remaining unknown to outsiders!

Of course, these records were not entirely comprehensive and could only serve as a general estimate. Who could say whether someone in some remote corner had broken through? Yet the discrepancy wouldn't exceed twenty individuals, for after all, River Realm experts constituted the pinnacle combat strength of the kingdom—how could breakthroughs happen so casually?

Furthermore, the commotion accompanying the breakthrough of any River Realm expert was by no means small. The kingdom kept a close watch on all those who had stepped into the peak of the Stream Realm and still possessed the potential to break through, and once someone advanced, the scouts dispatched would naturally relay the news to the kingdom's upper echelons!

Tianwu's meaning was very simple: if no such River Realm expert existed among those records, then only two possibilities remained. Either you broke through from the Stream Realm within our own kingdom, or you are an expert from a foreign land.

He certainly did not believe that Bai Qi was merely a Stream Realm expert, as he appeared.

Could a Stream Realm expert fiercely slaughter two River Realm experts?

Could the Stream Realm ruthlessly and overwhelmingly annihilate over forty peers of the same realm?

Most importantly, leaving everything else aside, even assuming your strength was formidable, why did not a single one of the more than three hundred Vein-Opening Realm experts manage to escape?

Could your Stream Realm cultivation truly be so terrifying that two River Realm and forty Stream Realm experts could not even stall your footsteps?

Not to mention Tianwu, not even a fool would believe such a thing.

Therefore, Tianwu surmised that Bai Qi must have concealed his cultivation, judging him to be at least a late-Stage River Realm expert. Otherwise, it would have been utterly impossible to kill so many powerhouses while preventing anyone from escaping.

"Whether I exist among them matters not. I merely obey my lord's command to protect the Lin family!"

Behind the silver armor fluttered a crimson cloak. At that moment, a gentle breeze swept past, carrying with it a thick, pungent stench of blood that caused the grand red cloak to billow in the wind.

Hearing this, Tianwu narrowed his eyes and asked, "Who is your lord? Where do you come from? Which country are you from? And what precisely is your purpose?!"

"I have already said, I am merely under orders to protect the Lin family. As for who my lord is and where he comes from, I am not at liberty to say. As for which country..."

At this, Bai Qi paused. His eyes, previously as calm as stagnant water, flickered with a trace of reminiscing nostalgia, before turning resolute. "The Great Qin Empire. My country—the Great Qin Empire!"

"People of an Empire?"

Tianwu was startled inwardly. An empire was an existence that towered far above kingdoms. To become an empire, a state required at least three powerhouses surpassing the River Realm, territory expanding to three times that of an ordinary kingdom, and the formal permission of the higher realms before it could ascend to imperial status.

Consequently, the foundational heritage of an empire was vastly greater than that of a kingdom. To say nothing of mid-tier combat strength, even their River Realm experts outnumbered those of the kingdom many times over. To annihilate a kingdom, even the weakest empire needed to deploy only a fraction of its military might.

This was precisely one of the reasons why every kingdom had to pay tribute to the empire year after year.

However, he had never heard of the Great Qin Empire. The closest empire in the surrounding regions was the Eastern Pole Empire!