Before leaving, Chu Qingyun unleashed his Thunder Sword Momentum, blasting it into the crowd of onlooking bandits.

"Get lost! From now on, I don’t want to see any of you acting as bandits or robbers!"

A strike from a Half-Step Martial Spirit was immensely powerful. It left the bandits wailing in agony amidst heavy casualties. Those who could still move scrambled away, fleeing for their lives, terrified that Chu Qingyun would strike them again.

At this, Chu Qingyun could only shake his head helplessly.

There were too many of them left, and the vast majority were only in the Martial Artist Realm. Chu Qingyun wasn’t a bloodthirsty maniac; he had no interest in hunting down such weak individuals.

All he could do was intimidate them and scatter their ranks.

However, since all the important leaders had been killed, the remaining bandits wouldn’t be able to cause much of a stir.

With its core members all dead, Cloud-Mo Village was finished.

After cutting off the heads of Heaven-Reaching Clouds, Zhu Wenwen, Cui Yanghong, and Mo Feiwen and wrapping them up, Chu Qingyun carried them down the mountain. These four heads were the proof he needed for the Assassin Alliance and the Great Xia Dragon Guards that he had completed his mission.

Without such direct proof, he would have to wait for them to verify the mission’s completion before his reward could be issued.

After descending the mountain, he arrived at the home of the old man he’d met earlier. But as he did, Chu Qingyun’s expression suddenly changed.

In the courtyard, the old man lay face down on the ground in a pool of blood. A clear Palm Seal was imprinted on his back!

Chu Qingyun rushed forward to check, but the man was no longer breathing.

The old man had been killed with a single palm strike...

"Hee hee hee... Chu Qingyun, we meet again..." A nauseating cackle suddenly echoed from behind him.

Chu Qingyun turned to see a small, wizened figure completely shrouded in a black robe.

After a moment’s thought, Chu Qingyun recognized him.

This was Elder Huai! The Half-Step Martial Spirit who had seized control of his Puppet back when Jintai tried to ambush him in the Cold Cyan Mountain Range near Qingshan City!

"It’s you... Did Jintai send you?" Chu Qingyun demanded, his eyes turning to ice.

"Hee hee... you have a good memory, boy. Before I came here, I promised the Young Master I would bring him back your head and that Storage Ring of yours."

Elder Huai blocked the courtyard gate, cackling as if he had Chu Qingyun right where he wanted him.

Unfortunately for him, he had only tracked Chu Qingyun’s movements through a spy at a local inn. He had no idea Cloud-Mo Village was here, much less what Chu Qingyun’s mission had been.

If he had known that Chu Qingyun had just slain a Half-Step Martial Spirit, nothing could have compelled him to linger here for another moment!

Chu Qingyun’s face became an emotionless mask.

But the bulging veins on his hands betrayed the fury raging within him!

"If you came for me, then why did you kill the old man?" Chu Qingyun’s face was impassive, his tone as lifeless as stagnant water.

Elder Huai visibly stiffened, clearly not expecting Chu Qingyun to ask such a question.

He had imagined all sorts of reactions from Chu Qingyun upon seeing him. Terror? Fear? Annoyance? Hatred?

But he’d never imagined Chu Qingyun would question him over some worthless old man.

In his eyes, ordinary people were less than nothing. If he wanted to kill one, he just did.

"Hee hee hee... Why kill him?"

"That old codger talked back to me. Should he not be killed for that? He dared to be stubborn and defend you. Should he not be killed for that?"

"Even if none of that were true, ambushing a Great Xia Dragon Guard is a capital offense. How could I leave a witness alive and make such a low-level mistake? Besides, what’s the big deal about killing an old man as insignificant as an ant?"

Elder Huai let out another cackle, his body trembling with amusement.

Just then, a FWOOSH echoed from behind Chu Qingyun. A powerful, scorching presence instantly enveloped the entire courtyard.

Flames more than two meters tall erupted from thin air behind him.

It was... his Fire Martial Soul, now at Tier Four!

The terrifying pressure of the Tier Four Martial Soul washed over Elder Huai like a tidal wave.

A Tier Four Martial Soul was on a completely different level from Tier One, Two, or Three. Suddenly faced with its power, Elder Huai felt his body instinctively suppressed, just as Chu Qingyun had been when he first faced Xia He’s Martial Soul!

"Wh-what is this? Wasn’t your Martial Soul that vine...?"

"Twin Martial Souls? A Mutated Martial Soul?"

"No, wait, this is a Tier Four Martial Soul!"

Elder Huai was so terrified he became incoherent, his voice cracking from the shock.

In all of Lianshan County City, a Tier Four Martial Soul was an existence of legendary rarity. Anyone who possessed one was a supreme genius, carefully protected and nurtured by the major powers from the moment they began to cultivate. They were destined to dominate a region, support an entire faction, and become peerless experts in the future.

Moreover, Elder Huai remembered that Chu Qingyun’s Martial Soul was just a Tier Two Five-Star Vine. How had it suddenly become a Tier Four Martial Soul?!

While still reeling from shock, Elder Huai suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet grow scorching hot.

He looked down to see the ground in a ten-meter radius around him, stretching all the way to Chu Qingyun, appearing as if it were on fire. An immense power seemed to be gathering beneath the surface, ready to erupt at any moment!

At that moment, Elder Huai felt like he was standing on an erupting volcano!

"You..."

Elder Huai was terrified, but both his body and his Primordial Power were suppressed by the pressure of the Tier Four Martial Soul. He had no time to react.

He snapped his head up, only to meet Chu Qingyun’s pair of ice-cold eyes.

"Die."

"Blazing Flame Pillar."

Chu Qingyun murmured softly.

BOOM!

A colossal pillar of fire erupted from beneath Elder Huai’s feet with a deafening roar. The pillar shot skyward, stretching over a hundred meters into the air!

Furthermore, with the pillar beneath Elder Huai as the center, four other equally massive pillars of fire simultaneously erupted in the four cardinal directions.

Five colossal pillars of fire, each nearly twenty meters in diameter and over a hundred meters tall, instantly dominated the landscape.

Chu Qingyun stood between the pillars of fire, feeling waves of heat wash over him. If he hadn’t been using his Primordial Power to shield the old man’s body behind him, it would have been incinerated to ash merely from proximity to the flames!

After his Flame Martial Soul advanced to Tier Four, not only had the Blazing Flame Pillar Soul Technique’s size and power increased dramatically, but the number of pillars had also grown from one to five!

Inside the pillar of fire.

At the precipice of life and death, facing his imminent demise, Elder Huai finally managed to fight through the suppression from the Tier Four Martial Soul’s pressure. A massive amount of Primordial Power erupted from his body as he attempted to break out of the fiery prison.

However, the flames of the pillar began to rotate slowly.

This rotation generated a strange force along its boundary.

Elder Huai charged several times but couldn’t break through!

Against the might of the Tier Four Martial Soul, Elder Huai lasted less than thirty seconds before his Primordial Power was burned away.

He was burned to nothing but ash.