Within the forest, a streak of crimson sword energy flickered at Theodore's fingertips.
He drew in a slow, deep breath.
Even he had not expected that the killing intent surging through his heart would resonate so strongly with his Clear Sword Heart. Together with the heightened comprehension granted by his Microscopic Heavenly Eye and the Purple-Gold Crown of Auspicious Clouds, it had allowed him to brush against the threshold of the Sword of Slaughter.
It was not a supreme Great Dao in itself, but a branch of a far greater path.
And that path was the Dao of Slaughter.
In the System's mythic interpretation, the greatest figure to walk that road had once been the dark progenitor who nearly drowned the primordial world in blood. He had stirred up an age-shattering catastrophe, and the sheer scale of that slaughter had eclipsed even the later wars of gods and immortals.
Compared to that ancient calamity, the destruction of later eras was nothing.
It was during that age that the supreme killing sword formation had first been forged. Once it was complete, even heaven and earth had changed color.
Back then, even the Primordial Ancestor had not yet fully united with the cosmic order. Ancient gods and primal beings still walked the world openly.
In the end, it had taken the combined strength of four ancient powers to break the sword formation, and only after two of those beings had detonated their very origins in the struggle had the Primordial Ancestor been able to seize the four killing swords and bring the formation down.
Had that not happened, perhaps the world afterward would never have belonged to the Ancestor at all.
It would have belonged to slaughter.
Even in defeat, that ancient dark progenitor had still possessed enough power to shatter the leylines of the western lands, leaving them barren for ages to come.
That alone was enough to show how terrifying the Dao of Slaughter truly was.
Among the three thousand Great Daos, the Dao of Strength stood above all others.
And the Dao of Slaughter was one of the few paths that came closest to it.
Anything that could be linked to such a path was never ordinary.
More than that, the Dao of Slaughter had always shared deep ties with the sword.
If the Dao of Slaughter itself was the throne of an emperor, then the Sword of Slaughter was the crown prince.
At this moment, Theodore's eyes rested on the sword energy dancing at his fingertips, and he could feel its frightening sharpness.
The sword energy was still small.
Its power was still young.
But the purity of the killing intent within it was so extreme that, in terms of sheer level, it already ranked among Theodore's strongest offensive methods.
Even the indestructible protection of his Adamantine Body could potentially be threatened by its essence.
"The Sword of Slaughter truly lives up to its name."
At that very moment, however, the werewolves surrounding Theodore could not sense any of its terror at all.
To them, it looked like nothing more than a minor trick.
A little glow on someone's finger.
Fire, light, a child's game.
One of the werewolves could no longer restrain the bloodthirst in its eyes.
If it devoured Theodore, it would not only claim the enormous bounty on his head, but also enjoy a fresh and exquisite meal.
How could it possibly allow another to seize such a prize first?
In the next instant, it lunged.
Drool sprayed from its mouth. Its elongated nails flashed like claws. Its face twisted into the expression of a starving beast ready to tear flesh from bone.
Theodore's expression did not change in the slightest.
He merely flicked a finger.
The killing intent in his heart stirred.
The crimson sword energy shot silently through the air.
And by the time it returned to Theodore's fingertips—
a corpse already lay on the ground ahead.
The restless werewolves froze.
They had not seen Theodore move a wand.
They had not heard him cast a spell.
Then how had their companion died?
Among them, a few who understood more than the others immediately showed open horror.
"Wandless, wordless magic?!"
Plenty of adult wizards—even battle-hardened Aurors—could not accomplish such a thing.
Yet this little wizard, barely entered into school, had done it as casually as breathing.
And that was not even the worst of it.
Werewolves, even untransformed, possessed resistance to magic far beyond ordinary humans. A single spell from an Auror often could not put one down immediately.
Yet Theodore's wordless, wandless strike had killed one outright.
Only now did they begin to understand why such an absurd bounty had been placed upon this child.
At the same time, a faint smile appeared at Theodore's lips.
He had felt it.
The moment he killed that werewolf, the crimson hue in the sword energy at his fingertips deepened slightly. Its edge also became sharper.
That was one of the core properties of the Dao of Slaughter.
It could draw strength from killing.
In the ancient myths, the dark progenitor had gone to unimaginable lengths to stir chaos across the world precisely so he could feed on endless slaughter.
Theodore's own Sword of Slaughter was nowhere near that level. He could not draw strength from all the killing beneath heaven.
But from the killing he himself created?
That much, he could do.
The sword energy of slaughter grew stronger the more it killed.
Theodore's gaze fell upon the remaining werewolves.
"Filthy things like you should consider it the high point of your miserable lives to die beneath this sword energy."
Then he flicked his finger again.
The sword flashed like a shooting star.
The crimson killing energy became like a dancing red butterfly flitting through the trees.
Wherever it passed, corpses fell in rows.
These werewolves, steeped in evil and drenched in innocent blood, were as fragile before the sword energy as rotten reeds before a scythe. They dropped one after another, cut down as easily as wheat.
Their deaths did not weaken the sword energy in the slightest.
On the contrary, each new kill made the red within it richer, more vivid, more brilliant, until it almost looked wet with blood.
Only moments later, every werewolf in sight had been executed.
Theodore lifted his gaze into the distance and caught sight of Fenrir's silhouette fleeing in mad terror through the trees.
A cold smile curved Theodore's lips.
"He runs quickly."
"But can he escape?"
At that moment, Fenrir was sprinting through the forest with every shred of speed he had, and his heart was full of pure fear.
What kind of little wizard was this?
What kind of magic was that?
Damn that bounty—this was no different from being asked to fight Voldemort himself!
No—worse.
At least Voldemort's Killing Curse only struck one target at a time, and if one reacted fast enough, it could still be dodged.
But that little wizard's strange red magic tracked him automatically—and could kill again and again without stopping.
Compared to that, what was the Killing Curse even worth?
Run. He had to run.
Leave Britain. No—leave Europe entirely. Find some forgotten wasteland in the middle of nowhere and hide there before that young butcher found him again—
Then, in the middle of his flight, something like a razor-edged peal of thunder sliced past his ear.
The next thing Fenrir saw was the world in front of him beginning to tilt.
Then split.
Neatly.
Into two halves.
So this is how I die?
That thought passed through his mind.
The next instant, everything went dark.
In the forest, Theodore looked coldly at the corpse of Fenrir Greyback.
Lines of text appeared one after another across the System screen.
[You battled One-Air Immortal Ma Yuan and his many wicked followers. The Sword of Slaughter cut through all before it, and when joined with your invincible heart of the path, became all the more unstoppable.]
[One-Air Immortal Ma Yuan, who had plagued Skull Mountain for years, has finally been beheaded beneath your sword energy.]
[You have obtained the talent reward: Blood-Hunger Without End.]
[You have obtained the talent reward: Soul-Trembling Terror.]
[You have obtained the talent reward: Malignant Hand Behind the Head.]
[Would you like to claim these rewards now?]
Disgust showed openly on Theodore's face.
"No."
"Refine all of them directly into Dao resonance."
A moment later, the furnace within the System flared into life.
The three unclaimed talents vanished at once.
In their place, Theodore's stock of Dao resonance rose to twenty-three strands.
A trace of surprise appeared in his eyes.
The talents taken from Fenrir had refined into quite a substantial amount.
That was an unexpected gain.
Once he gathered a hundred strands of Dao resonance, he would be one step closer to advancing his Adamantine Body to a higher level. When that happened, his strength would rise yet again.
With that, Theodore turned and prepared to leave.
As for the corpses scattered through the forest, a single Fiendfyre spell would be more than enough to handle them.
But just then, the System screen suddenly dimmed, shadowy light rippling across it as chaotic script surfaced.
[The Western Saint has laid out plans across a thousand years. With a single sword, the host has now ruined a considerable portion of them.]
[Even though the great tribulation approaches, and Saints do not descend into the mortal world but remain above the Ninth Heaven, wrath has already arisen.]
[When a Saint grows angry, a whole realm may be strewn with corpses and rivers of blood may flow for a million miles.]
Theodore slowly came to a halt.
The strand of killing sword energy that had already begun to subside around his finger reappeared, circling once more.
Battle intent burst from his eyes.
"Oh?"
"So you can't hold back any longer?"
"Good."
"I've only just begun to understand the Sword of Slaughter. I was already thinking I hadn't killed nearly enough tonight."
"Whatever filth or phantom you may be—if you come, then you die."
Again the System wrote in a voice full of awe:
[Heaven's wrath descends, yet the host neither dodges nor retreats. He lifts cold eyes toward the Ninth Heaven.]
[So what if a Saint is angry?]
[Ma Yuan harmed heaven and reason alike. The Western Saint had karmic ties to this matter, yet chose indulgence over restraint.]
[If such conduct is called sainthood, then what is a Saint worth?]
[And if the saints seated above the Ninth Heaven are all like this, then today—]
[With one sword, slaughter the whole Ninth Heaven!]
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