Below Ling Feng, Chen Baojiao's fingers tightened around the haft of her hammer.
Li Shangyuan's knuckles went white on her Black Tortoise Rod.
Xu Pei's lightning domain shrank in around her body without her noticing, storm clouds drawing close like a cloak. Even Bai Jianzhen's sword intent—normally a straight, unwavering line piercing the heavens—quivered for a breath before stabilizing again.
Chi Xiaodie, Chi Xiaodao, and Bao Yun were pale.
They had already known he was terrifying.
Seeing this, however… it sank past skin and bone, all the way into the marrow.
"Young Noble… Feng…" Bao Yun whispered, lips dry beneath her veil. "This… this is…"
Chi Xiaodao's hands were clenched so tightly blood seeped from crescent marks on his palms.
"So this is… the height I've been chasing from behind all this time…" he murmured, voice hoarse.
Behind them, Bing Yuxia's jade fan had frozen halfway open.
Her tongue—usually sharper than a sword—forgot how to move.
Only her ears betrayed her. The tips were faintly red.
'Future husband,' she thought of his words from earlier, then jolted like she'd been slapped. 'What future husband?! This monster…'
Far away, Mei Suyao pressed a hand lightly over her chest.
Her Immortal Bone hummed with a strange, aching resonance, as if some invisible chisel had dared to carve on the ceiling of the heavens.
"Past the ceiling…" she whispered, recalling his casual words atop the World Tree.
Ye Chuyun's lashes lowered.
Her Pure Lotus Dao, attuned to the endless cycle of bloom and fall, felt as if it had just witnessed a flower blossom above the firmament—outside ordinary samsara, in a place no normal reincarnation could reach.
The world itself seemed to hold its breath around Ling Feng.
...
Below, the Tiger Emperor Citadel broke.
The death of the Eight-Winged Divine Tiger did not merely remove a pillar; it was as if someone had ripped out the sect's spine.
The White Tiger Great Vein beneath the mountain shuddered. Rivers of qi that had flowed obediently for countless years suddenly became turbulent, crashing into each other in chaotic eddies. The grand formation lines woven through the range flickered one after another, ancestral imprints groaning as if some invisible decree had erased their master's name.
The Four Ominous Graves roared in protest.
Deep beneath the citadel, those four dark weapons—linked to Tiger's Howl since the Emperors Era—felt their longtime master's existence vanish from their records. Their accumulated baleful energy tried to surge, to bite, to claw their way back into control.
Ling Feng merely clapped his hands lightly.
"Okay," he said, as if he'd just finished stretching. "Time to clean up."
His aura pressed down.
This time, he wasn't polite.
Chaos lines unfurled from his body, not in a violent explosion but in countless thin threads—each one a Dao mark of space, time, and destruction twisted together. They plunged into the White Tiger Vein like invisible blades, cutting along precisely chosen paths.
He did not refine the entire vein. That would have been too disruptive to the entire Eastern Hundred Cities; the White Tiger Vein was one of the land's pillars, after all.
Instead, he cut away the monopolized portions—those channels and nodes that Tiger's Howl had forcibly locked down with blood sacrifices and ancestral brands.
Essence pulses, killing-intent nodes, formation anchors that linked mountain to sect to fate… all of them were sliced free of the local geography and wrapped in Chaos.
From the perspective of the White Tiger Vein, it was as if a ruthless surgeon had appeared, ignoring the screams of the patient as he cut out clotted, diseased pieces and calmly dropped them into his own pouch.
Segments of pure, condensed tiger-vein power turned into streams of pale-gold light, each wreathed in a faintly roaring tiger phantom. They spiraled upward toward Ling Feng's Inner Void, disappearing into that unseen world as if swallowed by the maw of some higher law.
The Four Ominous Graves struggled.
Having their accumulated souls and death dao abruptly rerouted had already weakened them. Now, as Ling Feng's Soul Chaos Emerald spun once in his Inner Void, invisible soul chains extended outward.
Each chain was a law pattern born from buried resentment—he had taken all the grudges and dying curses he'd collected across his journey, woven them into shackles, and now those shackles fastened around the tomb-shadows of the graves.
From the citadel's vantage, four pillars of dark, ominous light that once dared to roar at Virtuous Paragons were yanked upward. They shrank rapidly, pulled from the earth like stubborn teeth dragged out from bone.
The sky shook.
Those four pillars compressed, folded, and coiled into four dense, jet-black "grave beads" hovering above Ling Feng's palm. Within each bead, an entire ominous dao system revolved—endless sea of death energy, numerous soul marks, all sealed tight by overlapping rings of Chaos law.
The mountain groaned.
Foundations shattered. Rock strata that had slumbered peacefully for millions of years cracked open. Ancestral formations, suddenly without their anchors, wailed like dying beasts.
"You—you dare steal the graves… steal the vein…!!"
A surviving elder staggered onto a ruined terrace, blood spraying from his mouth as several Fate Palaces trembled unsteadily behind him. His eyes were bloodshot, veins bulging, as he glared up at Ling Feng with hatred and despair.
Ling Feng glanced at him.
"That's the line you choose to yell?" he said lazily. "Not 'mercy,' not 'we surrender'—just 'you dare' again. You guys really never get tired of that."
He flicked a finger.
A thin strand of gray Chaos flew out, no thicker than a hair, almost lazy in speed.
The elder tried to dodge. His Fate Palaces roared, runes overflowing, blood energy pushed beyond its limit.
The Chaos strand passed through his forehead as gently as a falling snowflake.
For half a breath, nothing happened.
Then his body turned into blood mist—perfectly smooth, like a painting being wiped clean. No shriek, no lingering soul. Nothing remained but a faint iron tang in the air.
Ling Feng smiled.
There was no warmth in it at all.
"Honestly," he said, "I could be more cruel. I'm being very gentle today."
"Gentle" was not how anyone below would describe what followed.
He lowered his hand.
Chaos descended.
It was not a wild calamity. It was a deliberate, meticulously controlled annihilation.
One casual wave tore away protective formations around the main mountain, peeling them off layer by layer like rotten bark stripped from an old tree.
Runic walls that had once withstood Immortal Emperor-level fluctuations during their creation howled as Chaos law sheared through them. Arrays that channeled the killing intent of the White Tiger Vein tried to launch counterattacks… only to have their killing intent swallowed and repurposed as fuel.
The colossal stone tigers guarding the citadel gates shuddered.
Their carved eyes lit with ancient ferocity—phantoms of White Tiger roared, fangs bared, claws extended. The moment their spiritual imprints fully awakened, however, Ling Feng's Soul Chaos Emerald pulsed.
Those imprints screamed.
Their roars were cut off mid-note as their soul-brands were torn free and reduced to pure soul fragments, swallowed into his ring system as extra buffers and fuel. The stone tigers themselves cracked from within, fissures racing down their bodies until they collapsed into dead rubble.
Ling Feng pointed.
A beam of dull, gray Chaos energy—thick with the essence of the White Tiger Vein—fell from his fingertip like a judgment pillar.
Wherever it passed, space warped, the air tearing into thin, jagged flakes that drifted down like ash.
It struck the main hall.
This was the hall that had stood for countless years, where successive school masters sat enthroned, where ancestral tablets lined the walls and watched over disciples. Today, it did not explode outward in a flashy spectacle.
It caved in.
The entire structure was hammered down into the mountain as if an invisible fist had punched straight through heaven and earth. Tiles, pillars, dragon-carved beams, and ancestor tablets were compressed together, crushed through layer after layer of rock until they formed a distorted crater that pierced deep into vein stone glowing with pale tiger light.
The echo of that impact rolled through Tiger Emperor Citadel like thunder trapped underground.
On other peaks, surviving elders tried to rally.
"Activate the secondary formations!"
"Release the Tiger Claw Divine Array!"
"Send word to the external protectors—!"
Their orders ended in wet gurgles.
Ling Feng didn't even bother to look in their direction.
Thin strands of Chaos soul law spread out in all directions, invisible to ordinary eyes, brushing through the citadel like a breeze.
Wherever they passed, elders of a certain level—those whose names were written in Tiger's Howl karmic book—felt a chill crawl up their spine. Their souls flinched. Their True Fate trembled.
Then the chains closed.
Some dropped dead on the spot, their bodies falling like puppets with their strings cut, blood energy scattering like smoke.
Others had their soul seas twisted, Fate Palaces cracked, and wills shattered. Their eyes rolled white; their tongues lolled from slack mouths. In an instant, geniuses who had once looked down proudly from mountain peaks became drooling idiots, their cultivations completely crippled beyond repair.
Nearly all the other disciples died as well—those who had wholeheartedly thrown themselves into Tiger's Howl's cruel path. Their Fate Palaces shattered, or their lifeblood reversed, or their hearts simply stopped under the weight of Ling Feng's killing intent.
As for the small number of mortals and miscellaneous weak servants, Ling Feng couldn't be bothered to target them. The Chaos strands brushed past, ignoring lives that had never had the qualifications to touch the sect's main line of karma.
Tiger's Howl's claws, fangs, and spine were torn out in a single afternoon.
Ling Feng turned slightly, expression lazy.
"Baojiao, Shangyuan," he called, voice drifting down like a breeze. "Try your hands on any stubborn ones still barking. Don't worry about holding back. The vein's already paid for damages."
Chen Baojiao's lips curled in a feral grin, the earlier chill in her heart transforming into savage joy.
"With pleasure," she said.
Her Immortal Spring Physique surged; springs of tyrannical force bubbled beneath her skin, each one refined by Chaos energy into a furious counter-blow. She descended like a meteor, her Imperial Violent Hammer whistling through the air.
One strike.
The remnants of a defensive peak shattered, the shallow mountain array over it crumpling like thin paper before the hammer's terrifying weight. The elders who had gathered there to form a desperate last-stand formation didn't even have time to finish their incantations before they were smashed into paste, their Fate Palaces broken like fragile porcelain and forced into Baojiao's springs as pure cultivation fuel.
Every time she swung, power ricocheted through her body—impact, absorption, rebound—forming a vicious cycle that made her stronger as the slaughter continued.
Li Shangyuan followed quietly.
Where Baojiao was explosive, Shangyuan was cold, precise inevitability.
Her Pure Jade Physique shone with steady brilliance; her energy flow had become frictionless under the Chaos enhancements. Power slid through her like water through an immortal jade channel, leaving no cracks, no strain.
She stepped into the remnants of a complex defense formation, Black Tortoise Rod in her hand. Where others might have swung wildly, she simply glanced once, memorizing the array at a glance.
Then she moved.
Each Rod blow landed with surgical accuracy—one on a hidden node beneath a carved stone, one on an illusionary eye concealed within a cloud pattern, one on a key blood rune woven into the mountain wall. Every impact broke not only stone, but the invisible lines of force between formations.
Under her hands, Tiger's Howl's proud defense system didn't just shatter—it gracefully unraveled, like a tapestry being pulled apart thread by thread.
Elsewhere, Xu Pei's three-pillared lightning storm descended.
Her violent clouds converged, refined by Ling Feng's teachings; instead of a single, wasteful detonation, the storm compressed into three towering columns that moved like spears. Each time they crashed down, they did so in controlled bursts, ripping apart a formation, then pulling the excess lightning back into her Fate Palaces for reuse.
Disciples who still clung to their arrogance—shouting about Tiger's Howl's glory, about revenge, about Heavenly Kings and Ancient Kingdoms that would avenge them—were vaporized mid-curse. Their bones never had the chance to fall.
Bai Jianzhen walked through the chaos like a quiet specter.
Her sword intent, which had trembled for a breath, was now sharper than ever, honed by fear and inspiration both.
One step, one sword.
Her blade never flashed twice in the same place. A thin line of light would appear, almost unremarkable—and then an elder who had been fleeing through a hidden tunnel would freeze, eyes widening as his head silently slid from his neck.
There was no cruelty in her face, only cold duty.
Those who had raised hands against Lion's Roar and Bao Clan simply… had to die.
High above, Chi Xiaodao lunged forward, instincts urging him to leap into the fray, to swing his sword beside Ling Feng's wives and show he wasn't just a protected prince.
Chi Xiaodie's hand shot out, gripping his shoulder so hard he winced.
"Don't," she rasped.
He twisted around, eyes bloodshot. "Sister—!"
Her gaze didn't leave the scene of destruction below. Armored in battle gear, hair in disarray, she looked every inch a princess of Lion's Roar—but right now, the hand that held the terrace railing trembled faintly.
"Remember this," she said hoarsely, echoing Ling Feng's earlier words. "This is the price of touching Lion's Roar in this era."
Chi Xiaodao's mouth snapped shut.
Bao Yun hugged herself, veil fluttering in the acrid wind. Her eyes were wide, reflecting collapsing peaks and shattering halls, the very mountain that had once loomed over her clan like an unbreakable cage.
Tiger's Howl had always felt like the sky—vast, suffocating, inescapable.
Watching that sky crack open, watching Ling Feng turn it into rubble and ash, was both terrifying… and indescribably freeing.
Her knees nearly buckled from the sheer rush of it.
...
When the dust finally began to settle, Tiger Emperor Citadel no longer resembled a proud beast looking down on the Eastern Hundred Cities.
It looked like a carcass.
Peaks had been smashed flat. The main halls were gone, not even ruins remaining—just a series of craters and exposed vein stones glowing faintly with injured tiger light. Ancestral tablets had been reduced to powder and buried under collapsed rock. Formation lines that once webbed the range like divine arteries were cut and scattered, their fragments flickering weakly before going dark.
Only a few outer buildings on the fringes of the mountain remained intact, along with some distant training platforms and low-grade pavilions where junior disciples would eventually awaken from fainting spells to stare blankly at the ruins of their faith.
Ling Feng stood in the air above it all, cloak stirring in a wind that smelled of ash, blood, and the faint metallic tang of broken Dao.
In his hand floated four black grave beads and several condensed clusters of White Tiger Vein essence—each cluster a beating heart of pale-gold energy, its killing intent tamed and swirling obediently like a tiger made to lie at his feet.
He flicked his wrist.
The grave beads spun once, then sank into his Inner Void. Within, his Soul Chaos Emerald hung at the center like a dark-purple sun. The beads took up positions around it, each one slotting into an orbit with uncanny precision, like stars falling into place in a formation map only he could see.
The ominous dao within them was no longer a wild beast.
It was a set of tools now—burial laws he could draw on whenever he wished to erase not just bodies, but traces. If he wanted, he could bury a person, a clan… or the memory of an entire era.
The White Tiger essence clusters, he divided.
One portion melted into pure light and sank into the rings orbiting the Soul Chaos Emerald, nurturing them, thickening their structure, and further strengthening his soul defenses. Rings born from previously refined souls firmed up, gaining new layers of dao patterns—white tiger lines etched into their surfaces, their protective power quietly climbing.
Another portion he branded with a simple law pattern.
Lines of Chaos law wrapped around it, imprinting coordinates not written in any mortal map. The cluster shivered, compressed into a thin stream, and vanished along a distant, hidden path—down through layers of earth, past abandoned mines and ancient bones, toward an abyss beneath the Heavenly Dao Academy where ordinary cultivators were forbidden to tread.
"Payment for earlier," he murmured. "You wanted to tear these tigers apart, didn't you? Consider this a snack."
Deep underground, a demonic tree stirred.
Realm God.
Thick roots coiled in darkness twitched as that familiar aura approached—White Tiger, but refined, no longer tugged by the distant Void Gate. Old resentment and hunger rumbled through its massive trunk. It had once been bound to this world by endless schemes and greed, forced to stay when it should have returned to ashes.
Now, a piece of justice flavored with tiger blood slid into its grasp.
Branches rustled in unseen night.
The demonic tree rumbled in satisfaction, swallowing the refined essence in one gulp. In the deep, its chaotic aura calmed by a fraction, like a starving beast that had just been thrown a slab of meat.
The remaining portion of White Tiger essence, Ling Feng kept.
He rolled a cluster between his fingers, smirking faintly.
...
For a moment, silence reigned.
Then, slowly, sound returned.
Cries of disbelief. Choked sobs. Whispered speculation that spread like wildfire.
"Tiger's Howl… is gone…"
"The Divine Tiger… the Prime Imperial Sire… all the supreme elders…"
"In one day…"
"In a few hundred breaths…"
On a nearby peak, several hidden observers from the Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom and Brilliance Ancient Kingdom—who had originally planned to leisurely watch the show, then adjust their own schemes toward Lion's Roar and the Bao Clan—could no longer maintain their composure.
One old scout from Azure Mysterious gripped his jade token so hard it cracked.
"Retreat," he snapped, cloak whipping around as he forcibly changed direction mid-air. "Return to report. Immediately."
A younger cultivator hesitated. "What about—"
"Do you want to die here?" the old scout hissed. "If that monster turns his eyes this way, none of us will keep our souls. Go!"
They fled like rats abandoning a sinking ship.
Their hurried sound transmissions raced back to their homelands even faster than their bodies. Each message carried the same, repeated report:
He destroyed Tiger's Howl by himself.
He killed the Eight-Winged Divine Tiger in one move.
The Four Ominous Graves and the White Tiger Vein's essence have vanished. We suspect… they are in his hands.
In the jade halls and ancestral palaces of Ancient Kingdoms, faces paled as those words arrived.
In Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom's hidden grottoes, old ancestors who had once schemed to bury their own progenitor in the Ancient Heavenly Corpse Burial Ground felt a familiar chill.
In the Brilliance Ancient Kingdom's imperial palace—an imperial lineage founded by Immortal Emperor Yao Guang himself—jade slips shattered in the hands of arrogant princes who had just finished boasting that Hundred Cities' powers were nothing.
And in the distant Furious Immortal Saint Country, geniuses who had cultivated the Lower Tyrannical Immortal Physique and once looked down on Lion's Roar and its allies as inferior powers felt their arrogance crumble.
If a single Virtuous Paragon-level cultivator could erase a great sect anchored over one of the mortal world's great veins, kill its guardian beast, and steal its supreme weapons in an afternoon…
Exactly what kind of storm had descended upon this era?
...
Up in the sky, Ling Feng finally turned back to his own people.
The vicious sharpness in his eyes faded, replaced by warmth and a lazy amusement that felt almost out of place above such slaughter.
He looked first at Chi Xiaodie.
Her armor was spotless, but her hands shook faintly where she gripped the terrace rail of the small space platform he'd condensed earlier to protect them. Chi Xiaodao clung to her side, Bao Yun standing just behind, veil fluttering.
Ling Feng raised a hand and rapped lightly on the invisible barrier around them.
"Hey," he called, voice relaxed. "Show's over. No need to stare like your souls flew away."
Chi Xiaodie exhaled shakily.
"Brother Feng," she said, voice raw, "you… went too far. Tiger's Howl—"
"—has been trying to eat Lion's Roar and Bao Clan for how many generations?" he cut in softly. "You know that better than anyone."
Her words died on her tongue.
He shrugged, gaze drifting over the collapsing mountain as if he were simply evaluating land for a new courtyard.
"If you leave roots like this in the ground," he said, "they grow back. They might even grow twisted, nastier. Today, I just dug out the rot."
He smiled, and this time there was a hint of warmth in it.
"In the future, when you sit on Lion's Roar's throne, you won't have to constantly look over your shoulder at this mountain. You can focus on building what you want… not on begging tigers for mercy."
Chi Xiaodie closed her eyes for a long breath.
Memories flashed through her mind—the humiliation of being looked down upon by Tiger's Howl elders, the bitter negotiations over her brother's fate, the cold eyes of foreign envoys discussing her marriage like a transaction.
When she opened her eyes again, the last remnants of hesitation in her gaze had hardened into cold resolution.
"…En," she said quietly. "I understand."
Chi Xiaodao looked between his sister, the ruined citadel, and Ling Feng.
For a moment, all words seemed too small.
Then he bowed deeply in midair, forehead nearly touching his knees.
"Big Brother," he said, voice shaking, "this kindness—"
"Don't start," Ling Feng interrupted, tone light. "If you really want to repay me, then grow strong enough that I can throw you at someone annoying later and not feel embarrassed."
Chi Xiaodao blinked.
Then, despite the blood and ruin, he let out a rough laugh.
"…Yes!"
Bao Yun's lips trembled behind her veil.
"Young Noble Ling," she said softly, "my Bao Clan… owes you a favor that cannot be repaid in ten lifetimes."
Ling Feng waved his hand dismissively.
"You're Xiaodao's woman," he said, casual as if commenting on the weather. "His debts are your debts, your debts are his debts. You two can argue about it together later."
Chi Xiaodao turned scarlet.
Bao Yun's ears flushed beneath her veil, the fabric stirring faintly as if it couldn't hide how hot her face was. She glanced shyly at Xiaodao, then down at her hands.
Chi Xiaodie coughed once, giving Ling Feng a sharp look that couldn't quite hide the tiny smile at the corner of her mouth.
Ling Feng turned to his women next.
Li Shangyuan. Chen Baojiao. Xu Pei. Bai Jianzhen. Bing Yuxia.
All of them still carried traces of battle aura on their robes. Their eyes were bright—not just with the reflection of Chaos and ruin, but with the thrill and fear that came from standing near an abyss and realizing the abyss was wearing your man's face.
Li Shangyuan met his gaze steadily.
Her jade-like eyes, always calm, wavered for the first time. Lashes trembling, she looked away.
"You hid this much strength," she murmured. "You were still… playing with weights on."
Ling Feng's lips quirked. "Mm. Gotta leave something surprising for date nights."
Chen Baojiao snorted, recovering faster than the others, as always.
"Of course he was holding back," she said, rolling her shoulders as her hammer shrank into a simple bronze bangle around her wrist. "He's always been a monster. Today just proves his taste is good too—Tiger's Howl deserved worse."
Her words were fierce, but her hand on the hammer's phantom still felt a little damp with lingering sweat. Somewhere in her heart, a small, stubborn voice roared:
Catch up. Catch up, or you'll always just be watching his back.
Xu Pei's eyes still shone with storm light, the remnants of her three-pillared lightning swirling in her pupils.
"In the future," she said softly, "when we fight side by side, I don't want to just spectate at the big finish."
Bai Jianzhen's sword intent had already stabilized, but a new, hair-thin crack had appeared in her usually unshakeable calm.
"This sword…" she said quietly, fingers tightening on her hilt, "has to be sharper."
Each of them had their own pride. Seeing Ling Feng destroy Tiger's Howl alone, erase a guardian beast like swatting a fly, and pluck out the Four Ominous Graves as if harvesting melons… none of them could remain completely untouched.
Bing Yuxia was the last.
She stared at him, fan snapping shut with a sharp pa.
"You… you really don't know what the word 'low-key' means, do you?" she demanded, voice pitched a little too high.
Ling Feng grinned.
"Low-key is for people who can't afford attention," he replied lazily. "I need to make a name big enough that my wives' prestige rises with it—and so you can be impressed by your future husband."
Her ears reddened instantly.
"And stop telling people you're my future husband!" she snapped. "Do you know how that sounds when you're standing above a destroyed sect? You'll drag this young master's name into your chaos!"
He tilted his head, eyes softening.
"Yuxia," he said, his tone turning surprisingly gentle, "if I'm going to shake the world anyway, might as well let them tie your name to mine. Good for your momentum."
She made a strangled sound.
"This young master does not need your momentum!" she retorted, cheeks burning. "The Heaven Cutting Tablet and I can walk our own path just fine!"
"Mm." Ling Feng's smile deepened, gaze lingering on her a moment longer than necessary. "Sure. My future wife's path should be bright, after all."
"—You—!" she sputtered, fan whipping up to hide the blush racing across her face.
Chen Baojiao burst out laughing again, the sound raw but full-bellied, cutting through the oppressive air. Xu Pei hid her smile poorly behind her hand; Li Shangyuan's lips curved, the earlier fear in her chest easing slightly. Bai Jianzhen's sword aura quieted, warmed by the familiar bickering.
Bing Yuxia's fan stayed raised, but the fan's edge trembled slightly.
The tips of her ears were very, very red.
Ling Feng let their reactions wash over him for a moment.
The carnage below. The ruined sect. The annihilated vein nodes. The grave beads orbiting his Soul Chaos Emerald. His women, trembling between awe and exasperation. The Chi siblings and Bao Yun, standing before a future that, for the first time, did not have Tiger's Howl's shadow looming over it.
He chuckled.
It was a low, easy sound—more like a man amused by an inside joke than someone who had just erased a guardian beast and uprooted an ancient sect that had dominated an entire country.
He turned.
Not toward them, but toward the vast world beyond Tiger Emperor Citadel.
His gaze pierced the layers of sky, the collapsing formations, the distant mountain chains. It slid past the Eastern Hundred Cities, past the Grand Middle Territory, past rivers, oceans, and minor worlds. His cloak fluttered gently behind him, Chaos lines coiling and uncoiling around his body like faint, colorless dragons.
"Mm," he said lightly. "This much noise is already enough for Tiger's Howl."
He raised a hand and cracked his neck once, as if loosening stiff muscles.
"But if I want the message to really sink in…"
The lazy warmth in his eyes cooled, depths darkening into something older and far more terrifying.
"…one mountain isn't enough."