Chapter 152: The Phantom's Demise
Ahead on the road, the carriage came to an abrupt halt as the Phantoms materialized before it. The dozen or so guards immediately drew their weapons—a cascade of sharp metallic sounds as swords, spears, and halberds cleared their sheaths.
One guard stepped forward from the rest. A burly man clad in black armor, his presence firm and commanding—exuding the bearing of a trained expert who had given and received orders in dangerous situations many times before. His cultivation sat at Peak-stage Martial Soul Realm.
Clearly the escort leader.
"You sneaky bastards—what do you want this time?" the man asked, voice carrying a dangerous undertone.
The leader of the seven Phantoms stepped forward with a carefree air, completely disregarding the man before him—someone who could end his life at any moment.
"Captain Kang, clearly you lack manners to so readily call this venerable one a bastard," the Phantom leader said, his voice soaked in arrogance.
Captain Kang's eyes flickered with killing intent. "Don't get cocky. You're just a messenger. Spill what you have to say and leave—or don't think I won't kill every last one of you."
"Kill me? As if!" The Phantom leader sneered. "Your Wang Mansion may be powerful—but the Phantom Blade Faction is in no way inferior. We have a treaty. As long as we don't kill anyone on your side, you will not kill anyone on ours."
He paused, his voice turning cold. "Cross that line and you'll be looking at a full-blown war between our Faction and your Mansion."
'So that's how it is,' Su Tianhao noted from his position on the road, still mounted and watching from a safe distance.
It was the same logic that governed the three great clans of Oakwood City. Sworn enemies on paper, but neither side willing to initiate open war—because when two equal forces tore into each other, it was their enemies who stood to gain. The losses would be mutual and devastating, and what remained would be easy prey.
"Damnit!" Captain Kang gritted his teeth—the sound almost like stone grinding against stone—his face flushing red with barely contained fury.
The Phantoms, for their part, stared at the carriage with complete mockery. Relaxed. Unfazed. Entirely too comfortable for men standing before an escort of this caliber.
Then—
Whoosh!
A powerful aura descended upon the road like a physical weight. A heavy wind swept across the earth, swaying the grass and throwing up clouds of dust.
'This aura—'
Su Tianhao's eyes went wide.
'A Martial Grandmaster!'
Martial Grandmasters were cultivators of esteemed status—powerful beings who have crossed the Great Divine with extraordinary prowess and power to soar the heavens. Second only to Martial Lords. In a place like Longzhou Country, they were elusive by nature, often spending years or decades in seclusion. Su Tianhao had lived in the Su family for seven years and had encountered their own reclusive Martial Grandmaster—Su Guangye—only once.
'What could they possibly be transporting that warrants a Martial Grandmaster to take action?' he thought, golden eyes gleaming with renewed interest.
It hadn't even been a full day since leaving Oakwood City, and already the world was showing him its complexity.
'I knew leaving early was the right call,' he murmured under his breath.
The moment that aura fell, the demeanor of the seven Phantoms shifted—cockiness dissolving into wariness, then into something closer to fear.
A mighty voice boomed from within the carriage, carrying the full weight of someone utterly unaccustomed to being inconvenienced.
"You troublesome pests! I have no idea why your young lord would send such useless fools to intercept us—but you had better deliver your message and leave, or I will be forced to act personally. And even your leader wouldn't fault me for it."
"Y-Yes," the Phantom leader stammered, all previous arrogance gone like mist under the morning sun.
His back straightened. His voice turned flat and careful.
"Spare this lowly one, Esteemed Elder. I was sent to carry a single message—our leader proposes that we reconcile our differences and forge an alliance by marriage. A union between our Young Lord and your Young Mistress Wang Bing."
"Outrageous!"
The voice thundered again—this time laced with impotent fury.
"Your leader sends a group of ants to propose an alliance with our Wang Mansion?! Does the Phantom Blade Faction look down on us so greatly that this is the courtesy you extend?! What happened to visiting our estate in person?! Is this not mockery?!"
"P-Please, Esteemed Elder, that is not our intention—"
"Unforgivable!" The voice rolled out again, shaking the air around them. "You dared to stop us on the road for this?!"
The Phantom leader pressed on hurriedly, his voice measured despite the tremor beneath it.
"We were aware the Young Mistress was being escorted to Cloudrise City. We came to inform you on the way—in hopes that if she is willing, she might meet our Young Lord there, so they may get to know each other."
"Nonsense!" The voice thundered again, heavy with disdain. "Don't think we don't know the real reason for this sudden proposal. Your Young Lord is aware of our Young Mistress's heavenly constitution. He wants to take her as a wife so he can combine Yin and Yang—using her body as a cultivation resource to acquire her constitution and rapidly advance his own strength."
Hiss!
From his position on the road, Su Tianhao drew in a breath of cold air as the pieces fell into place.
It was known that those with heavenly constitutions could share their physique with another—but only once in their lifetime, and only through sexual intimacy. The bearer lost nothing. The recipient, however, gained enormously—not only inheriting the same heavenly constitution and its benefits, but experiencing a dramatic surge in their own cultivation base and strength.
'Despicable,' Su Tianhao thought, his lip curling with contempt beneath his mask.
Whoever this young lord was, he was willing to reduce a woman to a cultivation resource—a tool for his own advancement—without a second thought for anything else.
Meanwhile, on the road, the Phantom leader's composure had fractured visibly even behind his mask—the cloth folding in ways that gave him away. Their mission had failed. As Phantoms, failure was not something they accepted quietly.
His gaze drifted—and landed on Su Tianhao's figure.
"You brat! What do you think you're watching?!"
All the frustration that couldn't be unleashed on the Martial Grandmaster came pouring out in a single direction. The other Phantoms turned as one, eyes gleaming with killing intent. The guards turned too—but their gazes held only curiosity.
The Phantom leader stepped forward, voice sharp with venom. "How much have you been listening to?!"
Su Tianhao watched him the way one watches a child mid-tantrum. He said nothing. His hand rested on Shadowfang's hilt.
"Are you deaf?! Or just dumb?!"
The other Phantoms joined in, voices rising with impotent rage. Then the leader's tone dropped—cold, flat, and final.
"It doesn't matter. You were going to die anyway. You'll die for putting your ears where they don't belong."
Before anyone could react, he moved.
His figure blurred—fast and unpredictable, shifting in and out of visibility in a pattern that spoke of a movement technique well above Peak-grade Spirit Rank. Even rivaling the Shadow Clone Steps that Blood Grin had once used against Su Tianhao.
Within seconds, he had crossed the distance entirely, arriving before Su Tianhao with twin daggers drawn—wicked blades gleaming beneath the burning sun.
"Die!"
Hmph.
A sharp snort cut through the air.
Su Tianhao.
Shadowfang cleared its scabbard in a single fluid motion, the dark blade catching the light.
"Shadow-Splitting Flash... Third Form."
His voice was low. Deliberate. Deadly.
"Ninefold Deathflash!"
BOOM!
A terrifying aura erupted from him—killing intent and momentum surging outward in a crimson-gold wave that swallowed both man and sword.
The Phantom leader froze for a fraction of a heartbeat—stunned by the sheer pressure—and desperately tried to push through and unleash his own strike. But Su Tianhao's killing intent had completely overwhelmed his technique's execution at the critical moment.
That fraction was all it took.
Shadowfang flashed forward—a streak of crimson-gold that vanished and reappeared sheathed in the same breath.
Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash.
Nine strikes, each overlapping the last—the combined sound cracking through the air like lightning splitting the sky.
The Phantom leader froze midair, suspended for one final heartbeat. Nine clean slashes carved his body in a crisscross pattern. He held for barely a second—then fell.
Blood and mangled flesh met the earth.
Silence.
A silence so complete that even the wind dared not stir.