Above the Wang Family Estate.
The shattering of the Mountain Protection Array instantly obliterated all of Wang Xiaotian's pride and confidence. He was frozen mid-air, trembling slightly from fear, as if nailed to a pillar of shame.
"Who... who exactly are you?!" Wang Xiaotian demanded, his voice shrill and hoarse.
Shan Hu looked down upon him, his eyes devoid of even a ripple.
"I am the Immortal Emperor of the Nine Heavens, Shan Hu."
The voice was not loud, yet it resonated throughout Longcheng like a prophecy from Heaven and Earth. Every cultivator looking up heard the name clearly.
"Immortal Emperor?" Wang Xiaotian gave a manic, tragic laugh. "Nonsense! Spiritual energy is depleted in this world, and even a Golden Core is difficult to conceive! Where does an Immortal Emperor come from? You're playing tricks! Die!"
He knew that now, only battle remained.
Wang Xiaotian roared, pushing his True Essence to its limit. He condensed a massive long saber formed from earthy yellow True Essence in his hand, the blade radiating a thick, imposing aura—the culmination of his decades of solid accumulation in the Foundation Establishment Stage.
"Foundation Establishment Spell—Mountain River Cleave!"
The saber carried the momentum to split mountains and redirect rivers, fiercely chopping down towards Shan Hu's head. Before the saber light even landed, the ground of the Wang family manor below was cracked inch by inch by the pressure of the saber aura.
Facing this desperate strike from the Foundation Establishment Ancestor, Shan Hu's expression remained serene, even tinged with disdain.
"The light of a firefly dares to contend with the radiance of the moon."
He slowly extended his left hand, joining his index and middle fingers, and pointed gently towards the intimidating saber light rushing at him.
There was no surge of True Essence, no complex spell formation, only a single, utterly pure five-colored light condensing at his fingertip. This light seemed to condense the essence of all things in Heaven and Earth, carrying a primitive and boundless Dao charm.
"Break."
As the finger pointed out, the light at his fingertip instantly magnified, meeting the terrifying "Mountain River Cleave" head-on in the air.
"Boom!"
The deafening noise caused a ringing in the ears of Longcheng's populace, but an incredible scene unfolded—Wang Xiaotian's saber light, which could sever mountain peaks, silently dissolved the moment it touched the five-colored fingertip glow, like snow encountering scorching sun!
Furthermore, the finger glow did not diminish; it broke through the dissipated saber light and shot straight towards Wang Xiaotian's chest!
"How is this possible?!" Wang Xiaotian let out a horrified shriek. With no time to dodge, he could only gather all his remaining True Essence to form a flimsy protective shield across his chest.
"Pfft!"
The finger glow pierced through the shield and went straight through Wang Xiaotian's chest!
Wang Xiaotian's sturdy Foundation Establishment body was as brittle as rotten wood under the Immortal Emperor's single touch.
He spat out a mist of blood mixed with organ fragments, his figure plummeting like a kite with a broken string. Only now did he truly realize that the youth before him was not a junior who had just entered Foundation Establishment, but a terrifying existence who had truly grasped the power of the Great Dao!
"You... you are at least Golden Core... or even..."
He desperately cried out his final guess, but his voice grew fainter, finally crashing heavily onto the stone slabs in the center of the Wang family training ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Wang Xiaotian, Longcheng's sole Foundation Establishment Ancestor, had fallen!
Inside the Wang family estate, there was a deafening silence.
Wang Xu and all the Wang family members stared blankly at the twitching corpse in the center of the training ground, their minds completely empty. Their proud reliance, which had dominated Longcheng for hundreds of years, had been killed in the blink of an eye by that youth—no, by that "Immortal Emperor"!
Shan Hu hovered in the air, lowering his hand, his gaze sweeping over all the terrified Wang family descendants below.
"The feud between the Wang and Qin families is settled."
His voice was cold. Then, he reached out across the space toward Wang Xu, who was paralyzed by fear on the ground.
Wang Xu's body was seized by an invisible force and instantly flew before Shan Hu.
"I promised to take your ancestor's life in three days. As for you... I will spare your dog life, out of respect for the fact that Qin Wan'er belongs to the same mortal realm. But you must remember that from this day forth, the Wang family ceases to exist. Should any dare to disobey, I will personally cleanse Longcheng."
With a casual wave, he threw Wang Xu back to the ground like a piece of refuse.
Following this, Shan Hu's figure flashed and vanished into the sky.
The oppressive atmosphere over Longcheng did not dissipate with the end of the battle; instead, it was replaced by profound reverence and terror. Everyone knew that from this moment on, the sky above Longcheng had completely changed. A young man named Shan Hu had, with an invincible stance, ascended to supremacy over the city.