Those few breaths of time were enough.
Above the city, Grand Elder Chen Qingxu unleashed the Blazing Sun Divine Fire Array. His snow-white beard whipped in the wind, his eyes burning with fury.
"Impudent fiends! You dare run wild before me?""Let's see you survive the Blazing Sun Divine Fire!"
As his words fell, the fire-orb suspended high in the heavens erupted into blinding radiance.A column of pure, scorching flame descended from the night sky, flooding the darkness in golden light and engulfing the demonic cultivators below.
"Aaaah—!"
Their screams echoed across the square.The Blazing Sun Fire was the bane of all demonic arts— even Foundation-Establishment demons dared not touch it, let alone mere Qi-training ones.Within a single heartbeat, the black-robed figures were reduced to ash.Even the Blood-Forging Demon Blade was caught in the inferno, its crimson aura burned away until only the purified metal remained.
The demonic miasma evaporated like snow under sunlight; only the Thousand-Year Scarlet Iron, the pure material from which the blade embryo had been forged, survived.
Chen Nianzhi stood amidst the fading heat, chest heaving, eyes locked on the blade.
"A mere lower-tier second-grade demonic artifact," he murmured, "yet such terrifying power…"
The battle had begun and ended in moments— yet in that brief span, death had brushed close enough to taste.
None of them had imagined the enemy would wield such a weapon.Had they been even a moment slower, the Chen clan's losses would have been catastrophic.
"It's the work of Zhang the Old Demon,"said Elder Chen Changyan, stepping forward to lift the warped blade embryo from the ground."Across the entire Eastern Wilderness, only those from the Cave of Ten Thousand Demons know the method to forge a Blood-Forging Blade.Zhang inherited that art— he's the only one in Yu Prefecture capable of it."
Grand Elder Qingxu's expression darkened.
"Three years ago, when our clan escorted the Foundation-Pill convoy, several Foundation cultivators ambushed the Patriarch. Zhang was among them.That day, the Patriarch shattered his life-bound artifact. This blade must've been his attempt to forge a new one."
Chen Nianzhi nodded slightly.Their Patriarch, Chen Changxuan, was one of the only three late-Foundation experts in all Yu Prefecture— ranking among the strongest of its twenty cultivators.Even beset by several at once, he had slain one and gravely wounded Zhang, whose life-bound treasure was destroyed.Zhang himself had barely escaped with a forbidden blood-escape technique.
Since that day, the old demon had been living in fear.Even knowing the Patriarch was still recuperating, he hadn't dared to strike the Chen clan openly.
"It all makes sense now."Chen Changyan stroked his beard, eyes gleaming."To forge a Blood-Forging Blade is to bear immeasurable karmic sin. The old demon's scheme failed, and he lost his precious embryo— poetic justice."
The others allowed themselves faint smiles.
The material itself—Thousand-Year Scarlet Iron—was a heavenly treasure. Now that the demon qi had been purged by divine fire, it was no longer tainted.Though its power had fallen, it was still a quasi–second-tier artifact, an excellent foundation for a true weapon.
"A pity the Patriarch remains injured," someone sighed."Were he able to act, this metal could easily be refined into a proper second-tier treasure."
Changyan nodded, then turned toward Chen Nianzhi.
"Your sword clashed head-on with that demonic blade— its spirit will need months of rest.I say we give this blade embryo to you."
"This?" Chen Nianzhi blinked, startled. "It's too valuable. We should leave it for the Patriarch."
But the elder shook his head.
"For him, it's useless. But for you, it's strength.When you break through to Foundation one day, you can melt it down and forge your life-bound treasure from it."
Among the Chen clan, Chen Changyan's word carried weight second only to the Patriarch's.No one objected.
Grand Elder Qingxu smiled.
"Your talent is the clan's brightest hope. Take it. With this in hand, you'll have another weapon against the demons.And since the clan still owes you two hundred spirit stones for your service, we'll count this as repayment."
Chen Nianzhi laughed softly and accepted the metal, its surface still warm to the touch.He traced a hand over it, admiration flickering in his eyes, before tucking it away.
"Then let's settle it for fifteen hundred clan merit points," he said."My spiritual peach trees yield more than enough merit each year— it'll balance in a decade."
A second-grade middle-tier artifact might sell for two thousand spirit stones; even lower-tier ones fetched a thousand.Given the material, fifteen hundred merit points was fair.
The elders nodded in agreement.
But the cost of victory weighed heavy.Though the demonic incursion had been crushed, three Chen cultivators had fallen, and several others lay gravely wounded.The attack had been too sudden— that single strike of the Blood-Forging Blade had reaped lives like wheat.
The clan immediately moved to compensate the fallen.Wounded cultivators would receive between one and ten years of stipend, depending on their injuries.Families of the slain would be granted three to five hundred merit points; if the next generation lacked spiritual roots, the credit would be kept in the clan's records, to be restored to any future descendant who awakened cultivation aptitude.
Chen Nianzhi approved silently.If a clan failed to honor those who fought and died for it, how long before loyalty withered?A cultivation family without unity was nothing more than sand in the wind— destined to scatter and fade.
The Chen Clan had endured for centuries precisely because it never forgot such things.
And knowing the clan's treasury was thin, Chen Nianzhi and the other elders even pooled together over a hundred spirit stones of their own, ensuring every family received proper compensation in coin as well as in name.
The fires of the array dimmed.The city of Pingyang slept again beneath the night sky—but in the hearts of the Chen clan, the flame of vigilance burned brighter than ever.