Ghost Insect Evil Child's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
He had already been traumatized once at Nightsea by Chi Xiaodie.
That shame had burned in his heart ever since.
Now, that fear curdled into something deranged.
He snapped.
"Insects!" he howled, voice cracking into a high, hysterical shriek. "Come! Devour them all!"
The air around him writhed.
From within his body, from within his Lifeblood Fate Palaces, from the void itself—Nether insects poured out.
They formed a storm of mandibles and carapaces, of cold ghost light and buzzing wings. The Nether Insect King's phantom manifested behind him again, a colossal shadow of wriggling segments and hateful, compound eyes. Its aura flooded the Dao Field, a tide of devouring intent large enough to swallow an army.
Bing Yuxia indifferently watched it rise. She stepped forward, the Heaven Cutting Tablet's shadow looming behind her shoulders like a subdued, ancient executioner.
Her cheeks were faintly flushed, though whether from exertion or the memory of Ling Feng's hands guiding hers in training, only she knew.
Her fan snapped open with a crisp pa.
"Let's see," she murmured, voice cool, "how much I can handle now."
She pointed.
The Heaven Cutting Tablet's shadow vibrated, condensing its severing intent into a single, razor-thin line. It did not roar, did not blaze. It simply fell, like the decision of the heavens being written into the bones of the world.
A beam of tablet power dropped from above.
Not wide.
Not flashy.
Just impossibly sharp.
It went through the Nether Insect King phantom as if slicing through paper.
For a heartbeat, the monstrous bug shadow froze.
Then it split neatly down the middle.
The halves slid apart, the swirling mass of Nether insects following its example. The swarm was bisected in one clean stroke. On one side, countless insects still gnawed on the air with mad hunger. On the other, their bodies blurred, losing cohesion as their organizing will was cut.
They dissolved into thick ghost smoke, their death cries swallowed by the Dao Field's muted laws.
The severing line didn't stop there.
It descended diagonally, aimed precisely at the Ghost Insect Evil Child himself.
His protective treasures flared—layers of insect carapace, jade shields, ancestral armors.
They lasted less than the time it took a spark to flicker.
The beam carved through his defenses, slicing plates, banners, and runes apart as if they were cloth. It struck from shoulder to hip, severing organs and dao structures alike.
At the very last moment, Bing Yuxia's fan twitched.
The line of cut curved slightly, pulling away from his heart.
The beam passed through, leaving behind a body that was more broken than whole—half his flesh limp, Fate Palaces shattered, dao foundation buzzing with crippled intent.
He collapsed, a broken insect thrown from a web.
Bing Yuxia closed her fan with a soft snap.
"Feng said 'near death,'" she said calmly. "So I'll leave you one breath."
Ghost Insect Evil Child lay there, half his body a dead weight, eyes bulging in dumb horror. He could not even scream properly.
On the other side of the arena, Titanic Crescent Saint Child had already gathered all of his power.
The descendant of Immortal Emperor Ju Tian stood atop a crescent of dao light, his small dwarven frame wrapped in Titanic Crescent's unique armor—plates embossed with crescent moons, each one a sealed realm. Behind him, the shadow of Immortal Emperor Ju Tian's dao rose, a towering crescent that once illuminated the Sacred Nether World.
He gritted his teeth.
"You dare raise your sword against Titanic Crescent's line?" he snarled, voice heavy with the weight of the imperial lineage behind him.
Bai Jianzhen's expression did not change.
She simply lowered her eyes, lashes shadowing them, and drew her sword.
No grand announcement.
No named technique.
Just one sword.
The white arc cut across the world like a stroke of cold lightning.
Sword intent here did not scatter into waves; it condensed into a single path, so thin and pure that everything else seemed clumsy beside it. The air itself separated along that line, Dao lines folding out of its way, unwilling to defy this will.
The crescent dao behind him met the incoming line.
Cracks spread instantly.
The crescent moon shadow—pride of Titanic Crescent's cultivation—fractured from its tip downward. The ripples reached his armor a heartbeat later; plates dented inward as if an invisible giant had punched them.
Blood sprayed from between the seams, dark and thick.
His Fate Palaces trembled—then ruptured, one after another, like lanterns being smashed by an unseen hand. Only a frantic, ancient protective treasure, cradled deep inside his sea of fate, ignited at the last second and wrapped his soul in a cocoon of dim light.
He flew.
His small body smashed into the far Dao Field wall, stone cracking under the impact. He coughed blood, more of it than a normal man even possessed, each droplet burning with shattered dao.
He slid down, leaving a smear of blood, finally stopping in a crumpled heap.
Barely alive.
Bai Jianzhen exhaled softly, sword lowering.
Her gaze stayed calm, not even heated by battle.
"…Your dao," she said quietly, "is not worth a second stroke."
The words cut deeper than the sword.
Dao Land fell utterly silent.
To the Ghost Immortals watching, the scene before them was impossible.
Every name here was notorious throughout the Sacred Nether World: Ghost Insect Evil Child, Titanic Crescent Saint Child, Hundred Clans Child, Divine Spark Prince, Golden Child, Ghost Monk… all were genius among geniuses, imperial descendants, future overlords.
Yet in the span of a few dozen breaths, half lay dead, and the survivors were broken things—crippled, humiliated, dangling in someone else's hand.
And the ones who had done this were humans.
Young human women.
On ghost soil.
If this had been a story told later, listeners would have scoffed and dismissed it as drunken bragging.
Now, watching through secret mirrors, jade formations, and borrowed lenses across Necropolis and the Sacred Nether World, countless cultivators could only feel their scalps go numb.
Ling Feng finally moved again.
He walked through the dust.
He didn't rush.
He simply strolled, hands in his sleeves, Chaos Force curled lazily around his body like an indulgent beast lying at his feet. As he passed Bai Jianzhen, his fingers briefly brushed the back of her hand.
"Nice," he said casually, just loud enough for her to hear. "That stroke was clean."
Her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly over her sword hilt.
She did not answer, but the sharp line of her aura smoothed, as if a tight string had been loosened a fraction.
Ling Feng stopped in front of Chi Xiaodie.
Divine Spark Prince dangled from her hand, barely conscious, divine flames reduced to trembling embers. His mouth worked silently, blood and broken teeth staining his lips.
Ling lifted his hand.
Threads of Chaos seeped from his fingertips — invisible to most, but dense enough to make the air curve around them. They wrapped around Divine Spark Prince's shattered body, weaving through broken bones, shredded meridians, and collapsing Fate Palaces.
Reality itself seemed to hold its breath as the threads quietly propped up structures that should have already fallen apart.
Divine Spark wheezed, eyes widening as pain receded just enough for him to think again.
Ling Feng smiled at him.
It wasn't gentle.
It wasn't kind.
But it was lazily intimate, the way one might smile at an insect they weren't done playing with.
"Don't die yet," Ling said softly. "We're not at the good part."
Divine Spark trembled.
"You… you dare…" he rasped, voice shredded. "Di Zuo… my sister…"
Ling Feng's eyes, usually full of casual amusement, went completely flat.
"Exactly," he said.
Those two syllables were a falling verdict.
"That's what I wanted to talk about."
He raised his head and his voice, just enough for Dao Land's laws to catch it. The realm itself rippled in response—ancient formations and viewing arrays scattered throughout Necropolis seized his words and carried them, like the tide carrying a corpse downriver.
He knew.
He had already made sure.
When Divine Spark died, Divine Spark Phoenix Maiden would hear every word thrown at her through his mouth.
"Listen carefully," Ling said, tone suddenly sharp as a blade drawn halfway from its sheath. "I don't care about Divine Spark Phoenix Maiden."
The watching world shuddered.
Ghost Immortals froze in their seats.
He continued, voice as calm as if reciting a shopping list.
"I don't care about Di Zuo. I don't care about any Immortal Emperor backing you wave around like a beggar's bowl."
An audible hiss went through distant halls and secret chambers.
To openly treat Immortal Emperor backings as worthless—to say it here, in Necropolis, on ghost soil, inside Dao Land—this was no mere arrogance.
This was pouring oil onto a world already filled with sparks.
"Like I said," Ling went on, eyes half-lidded, mouth curving into a lazy, razor-edged smirk, "they're both dogshit compared to me."
He let the insult hang in the air.
No flowery curse.
No elaborate metaphors.
Just blunt, obscene dismissal.
"If they come," he said, "my wives will collect their heads. And anyone else dumb enough to come along for revenge can lie down with them."
The Dao Field felt smaller.
Across Necropolis, countless powers gripped their armrests, hearts pounding. Some felt suffocated; humans felt a wild, feverish excitement rising.
Ling Feng let go of the Chaos threads.
Divine Spark Prince hung for one last, trembling second in Chi Xiaodie's grip, no longer supported by anything but his own ruined flesh.
"Xiaodie," Ling Feng said.
Chi Xiaodie's eyes lit faintly.
"Gladly," she replied.
She twisted.
There was no wasted motion.
Her grip shifted, wrist snapping with brutal, practiced precision. Divine Spark Prince's neck broke with a clean, sickening crack. His divine flames went out like a candle pinched between two fingers.
There was no lingering soul light.
No struggling remnant.
Chi Xiaodie's Lion's Roar bloodline pulsed once, swallowing the last echoes.
Divine Spark Prince died like a street thug strangled in an alley.
Far, far away, in the Divine Spark Country's core temple, an ancestral altar trembled. Divine Spark Phoenix Maiden's hand crushed the arm of her throne, divine flames recoiling as her brother's life-lamp shattered into ash.
Across Necropolis, in ancient halls and hidden viewing rooms, an invisible chill washed over countless onlookers.
Someone whispered, voice shaking:
"He… he said that… in Dao Land… and killed Divine Spark's heir like some random thug on the street…"
From this moment onward, Ling Feng was no longer just a terrifying human cultivator.
He had declared himself an enemy of emperor lineages on ghost soil, in front of the entire Sacred Nether World.
Ling Feng turned away from the corpse as if bored.
His gaze fell on Ghost Insect Evil Child's crawling remains and the broken, coughing Titanic Crescent Saint Child. The two of them struggled, pathetic, trying to gather the shattered tatters of their dignity.
Ling Feng laughed.
Not loud.
But full of open contempt.
"You two still have uses," he said conversationally.
Ghost Insect Evil Child shuddered.
Titanic Crescent Saint Child's fingers dug into the cracked stone, trying to push himself up and failing.
Ling Feng walked over.
He didn't hurry. His steps were unhurried, almost casual, yet each one seemed to fall on their hearts like a hammer.
He grabbed Ghost Insect by the ankle, lifting him as if he weighed nothing. The broken genius dangled upside-down, blood rushing to his head, eyes rolling wildly.
With his other hand, Ling Feng seized Titanic Crescent Saint Child by the collar, hauling his compact body up like a sack of grain. Armor clinked; dented plates scraped against his fingers.
"Relax," Ling Feng said, smiling pleasantly down at them. "I'm sending you home."
Chaos Control surged.
Green and cyan threads of Chaos interwove around his hands; space gently warped, folding in on itself like silk being drawn through a ring. Two points in the world lit up in Ling Feng's perception—one a grim, ancient throne hall filled with insect totems and foul ghost incense; the other a proud mountain plaza beneath a towering crescent altar.
Two round gates, as thin as soap bubbles and as deep as abysses, swirled open in front of him.
Through one, Ghost Insect Imperial Lineage's throne hall loomed in ghostly relief: towering insect statues, rivers of poisonous light flowing between carved mandibles, the vague shadow of Immortal Emperor Chong Huang's dao coiled above it all.
Through the other, Titanic Crescent Sacred Ground's ancestral plaza shone—white stone, crescent altars, ancestor statues carved from bone-white jade that reflected the light like cold moons.
Ling Feng's smile widened.
He didn't merely toss them.
He kicked.
One sharp boot to Ghost Insect Evil Child's side sent the broken genius flying headfirst into the swirling gate. His body vanished with a sickening whump.
A second casual kick sent Titanic Crescent Saint Child hurtling through his portal, his small form tumbling end over end.
As they passed through the gates, threads of purple Chaos slid from Ling's fingertips, almost tenderly.
They slipped into their souls, weaving into True Fates and wounded spirit bodies with the practiced ease of a tailor threading a needle.
Each rune was small, delicate.
Silent.
Linked not to Dao Land, not to his current location, but directly to his intent and to a single condition:
Name + killing will.
The portals snapped shut behind them.
For a heartbeat, the Dao Field was just an empty ring of broken geniuses and stunned ghosts.
Then the scene shifted.
Insect King Imperial Lineage.
Deep within a mountain whose core had long ago turned into a massive hive of bone and ore, a grand throne hall vibrated with power. Colossal insect totems clung to its pillars, their compound eyes glowing with malignant light. Ancestral statues lined the sides, each carved to resemble a different terrifying insect species.
Immortal Emperor Chong Huang's shadow loomed above it all, an unseen pressure that kept the entire place bowed.
The elders in the hall stiffened as a dark hole tore open at its center.
Ghost Insect Evil Child crashed down from the rift, rolling across the floor in a broken heap. Armor severed. Half his body limp, buzzing weakly with crippled dao.
"Child!" an old Ghost Immortal elder cried, rushing forward, robes billowing with frantic ghost light. "Who did this to you?! Speak!"
More figures appeared—elders, protectors, the current Insect King ancestor himself descending from his throne with murderous ghost qi coiling behind him.
Ghost Insect Evil Child coughed blood.
His mind spun.
He saw their faces—ancestors who had always stood high above him, who had always praised him as a future pillar of the lineage. Shame burned hotter than his wounds.
He wanted to beg for revenge.
He wanted to spit out that hateful name.
His mouth opened.
"Ling Feng—"
The Chaos rune flared.
It didn't glow.
It didn't scream.
It simply triggered.
His soul convulsed.
Chaos-infused ghost and insect dao exploded outward from his core, a detonation of twisted laws and raw destruction. The throne hall's layered defenses slammed shut; formations that had guarded against Immortal Emperor strikes activated in an instant.
They were barely enough.
Several lesser elders standing closest to him died on the spot, bodies vaporized, souls torn apart in the first shockwave.
The main ancestor staggered backward, sleeves shredding as he threw up merit laws and treasures in rapid succession to block the rest. Even so, cracks appeared along the stone floor, insect totems fractured, and Immortal Emperor Chong Huang's shadow flickered with momentary displeasure.
When the smoke cleared, Ghost Insect Evil Child's body lay in the center of a half-melted crater.
He was gone.
Only fragments of shell and bone remained, still buzzing faintly with chaotic residue.
The hall was in ruins.
The ancestor's eyes narrowed, killing intent rising like a poisoned tide.
Two facts etched themselves into every heart present.
One: The name Ling Feng.
Two: That this human could send their proud heir back as a living bomb, detonate him inside their sacred hall, and remain beyond their reach.
Far away, in the Misty Field region of the Sacred Nether World, Titanic Crescent Sacred Ground's central plaza glowed beneath a crescent moon carved from immortal jade. Disciples moved in orderly formations amid rows of statues depicting Immortal Emperor Ju Tian's feats, the scent of incense heavy in the air.
A tear in space opened above the plaza.
Titanic Crescent Saint Child tumbled out, smashing into the white stone with bone-crunching force. Blood splattered, staining the crescent patterns underfoot.
"Saint Child!"
"Prime Descendant!"
Elders and protectors appeared in flashes of light, expressions twisting with horror and rage as they saw the broken state of their hope for the future. Armor caved in, Fate Palaces shattered, dao foundation nearly erased.
An ancient aura descended from the ancestor hall above, a weight that made even Emperor lineages tremble.
"Who dares shame Titanic Crescent like this?!" an old ancestor's voice thundered, shaking the plaza pillars.
Titanic Crescent Saint Child's lips moved.
He tasted blood in every breath.
His pride screamed; his dao heart burned with humiliation that could only be washed away in vengeance.
He forced the words out, each syllable scraping his throat raw.
"Ling… Feng…"
The Chaos rune ignited.
A crescent of Chaos and dao detonated from his heart.
It resembled Titanic Crescent's own dao light, but twisted, warped, infused with a foreign will. The shockwave erupted outward, its edge sharp enough to carve through mountain stone like tofu.
The central plaza exploded.
Ancestor statues shattered, heads flying, arms dropping, faces cracking. Lesser elders were flung away like insects before a storm; some were cut cleanly in half, others torn to pieces. Protective formations shattered, runes bursting like popped bubbles.
Only the oldest ancestors—those who had long since surpassed the mundane realms—endured, throwing everything they had into suppressing the blast.
When the roar died, the plaza was a crater.
Blood, shattered marble, and pieces of carved crescent lay scattered everywhere.
Titanic Crescent Saint Child's body was no more.
The ancestor's expression was as dark as a storm sea.
In their hearts, the same realization took root:
This human had not only defeated their heir, he had used him as a remote detonator.
Titanic Crescent Sacred Ground had been attacked in the most humiliating way possible—through the body of their own descendant.
Back in Dao Land, Ling Feng exhaled, dusting his hands together as if he'd just finished taking out the trash.
"That's done," he said lightly.
The Ghost Immortals circling the field stared at him as if he were a calamity walking in human skin.
Their dao hearts shook.
They had come to Dao Land seeking fortune and opportunities beneath Nightsea. They had expected struggle, competition, perhaps even death.
They had not expected a human to cut down imperial juniors like weeds, kill Divine Spark's heir while insulting Immortal Emperors to their faces, then kick two more heirs home as living bombs.
Somewhere in Necropolis, an old Ghost Immortal ancestor sighed, feeling his scalp go numb.
"This… is not a person the young generation can handle," he muttered.
Ling Feng turned, Chaos aura slowly subsiding until he looked once more like an easygoing young man idling in a courtyard instead of the one who had just declared war on emperor lineages.
He walked back to his women.
Wanxue still stood slightly behind him, fingers clenched in his sleeve, heart hammering. Her ghost blood had been trained to fear Immortal Emperor lineages from birth. Watching those lineages' prides fall like this twisted something deep in her heart.
He smiled at her.
"Relax," he said, voice softening instantly when he faced her. "You did good."
Her lips trembled.
"Feng…" she breathed, eyes bright and complicated.
He ruffled her hair, then glanced at the others—Baojiao grin still feral, Xu Pei's storms quieting, Xiaodie's Lion's Roar bloodline slowly simmering down, Shangyuan's jade aura calm as a still lake, Yuxia's cheeks faintly pink, Jianzhen's sword intent cooling like steel after the forge, Lan Yunzhu's rivers hidden deep within her eyes.
His smile turned warm.
"Not bad," he drawled. "One round. Whole table flipped."
Chen Baojiao laughed outright.
"Next time," she said, hefting the hammer onto her shoulder, "let's pick stronger toys. These ones broke too fast."
Xu Pei shook her head, covering her mouth with her hand, eyes still a little wide.
Chi Xiaodie cracked her knuckles.
"If emperor lineages want to send more," she said coldly, glancing at the corpses and ruins, "I'll break them the same way."
Bing Yuxia looked away, one hand lightly touching her fan, the other unconsciously brushing her chest where lingering traces of severing intent still ran.
Lan Yunzhu exhaled slowly, the rivers inside her settling.
Li Shangyuan's fingers slid along the Frost Dragon Sword's hilt, eyes clear, heart steady.
Bai Jianzhen watched Ling Feng, her sword resting at her side, the tiniest glint in her gaze.
Ling stretched lazily, joints popping audibly.
"Alright," he said. "Show's over for now. Let the ghosts digest."