The current head of the Xu Family, Xu Changzhi!

Unlike the young man from his last memory, Xu Changzhi had reached middle age and become the current head of the Xu Family.

Xu Changzhi staggered as he saw the rows of familiar heads.

His mind reeled, and the world seemed to spin around him.

His lips trembled, his jaw clenched tight, and his eyes were shot with blood.

Su Chen savored the scene, remarking calmly, "It seems I didn't kill the wrong people."

Xu Changzhi's head snapped up. Like a ravenous demon, he roared, "Kill! I'll kill you!"

Xu Changzhi charged forward.

His neck was caught in an iron grip.

Without a shred of mercy, Su Chen crippled Xu Changzhi's cultivation with a single palm strike.

For a Spirit Mark Realm expert, fighting someone in the Gathering Qi Realm was as easy as crushing a chick.

Of course, peerless geniuses were an exception, and Xu Changzhi was no such genius.

He didn't kill Xu Changzhi immediately. Instead, he dragged him to find the old patriarch of the Xu Family.

Xu Ba.

Hearing the commotion from the family estate, Xu Ba sensed something was wrong and rushed out of his seclusion. He was met with the sight of a strange, black-robed figure dragging his most prized son, the heads of his descendants hanging from the man's hand and waist.

Among them were his favorite great-grandson and great-granddaughter.

Now, they were all dead.

"Your Excellency, what grudge do you hold against my Xu Family? How could you not even spare such young children?"

Xu Ba cried out in anguish. A white-haired man burying his black-haired kin—there is no greater pain in this world.

"Where is the Spirit Sea Legacy? Tell me, and I might spare this one's life, leaving your Xu Family with a surviving heir."

Su Chen's tone was cold as he watched Xu Ba warily.

He never underestimated any opponent.

Xu Ba wanted to rush forward and fight Su Chen to the death. But Su Chen sensed the old man's intention. With a stomp of his foot, the full power of his Spirit Mark Realm 3rd Level cultivation erupted.

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Xu Ba despaired. He was already old, his qi and blood in decline, and this strange man before him had a higher cultivation. Even in a life-or-death struggle, he couldn't be certain of even heavily injuring him.

His heart struggled. Looking at the unconscious Xu Changzhi, who was still faintly breathing, tears streamed down his old face.

He had made his decision.

"Your Excellency, can you make an oath? If I hand over the Spirit Sea Legacy, you must keep your word."

Xu Ba didn't ask how this strange man knew the Xu Family possessed the Spirit Sea Legacy.

It was meaningless now. Even if they didn't have it, at this moment, they had to.

He had to preserve the last spark of his family's bloodline.

Su Chen nodded. "I only came for the Spirit Sea Legacy. If I obtain it, it's no trouble to leave a spark for your Xu Family. If I break this promise, may my martial path end here."

Having gotten the answer he wanted, Xu Ba returned to his house and retrieved an animal hide inscribed with strange runes.

Along with it were the translations the Xu Family had deciphered over the years.

Watching Xu Ba's earnest efforts, Su Chen recalled their past days of wits and battle, and for a moment, he almost wanted to let him go.

Of course, that was impossible.

No sooner had Su Chen taken the Spirit Sea Legacy than... just as Xu Ba reached for Xu Changzhi, Su Chen lopped off Xu Changzhi's head with his sword. The head landed on the ground, rolling over and over as blood gushed like a fountain.

"You..."

Xu Ba was speechless, his heart twisting as if stabbed by a knife.

A familiar, cold voice reached his ears.

"Do you remember the Su Family of Ancestor Su Chen? When you annihilated the Su Family back then, did you ever spare a thought for the old and the young?"

"Today, someone has simply come to collect a debt."

Xu Ba's eyes widened.

From the very beginning, this black-robed man never intended to spare his Xu Family!

"You will die a horrible death! You broke your martial oath! You will be devoured by ten thousand ghosts!"

"Everyone in my Xu Family will be waiting for you on the road to the underworld!"

With a wretched scream, Xu Ba was slain by Su Chen.

After arranging all the heads in a neat row, his great vengeance exacted, Su Chen stood in silence for a long time.

Finally, he whispered,

"I will not walk the road to the underworld. Even if you wait there until the rivers of hell run dry, you will not find me."

He was only trapped in an endless cycle of rebirth.

He could not go to the underworld.

After obtaining the Xu Family's Spirit Sea Legacy and killing Xu Ba, Su Chen left.

He paid no mind to the other members of the Xu Family, for there were others in this world who hated them even more than he did.

Before leaving, Su Chen glanced from afar at a chubby old man walking into the inner courtyard.

He murmured softly, "Su Xuehe... the Su Family is in your hands now. You cannot repeat the mistakes of my past with the Xu Family."

Su Chen left. He had already forgiven Su Xuehe for seizing his martial resources back then.

Facts had proven that Su Xuehe was a more suitable heir to the Su Family than he had been. Su Xuehe would put the Xu Family's resources to good use.

The grudges were settled, the past put to rest.

Su Chen wanted to live this life to the fullest. He still had to see the higher peaks of the martial path.

Su Xuehe seemed to sense something and turned his head. He saw the back of the black-robed man who had helped them destroy the Xu Family, disappearing from sight in a few moments.

"That senior must have obtained what he was looking for," Su Xuehe thought to himself. The item must be incredibly valuable, but it was not something they could covet.

But... he found it strange. Why did that departing figure... overlap with the memory of that person leaving the Su Family all those years ago?

It must be a trick of the mind.

Su Xuehe walked into the inner courtyard alone, the Su Family guards remaining outside.

Seeing the neatly arranged heads of the Xu Family, Su Xuehe suddenly laughed, then viciously kicked the old, unseeing head.

The head burst apart instantly, but as Su Xuehe laughed, two streams of clear tears flowed down his face.

"Brother Chen... did you see? Xuehe... has finally avenged you!"

"Brother Chen, it was Xuehe who was young and foolish. It was Xuehe who was jealous of Father's favor toward you, jealous that everyone in the Su Family liked you. But I truly didn't mean to steal your position, I truly didn't want to force you to leave the family!"

"Brother Chen, you don't know... for those three years, there was no news of you. My mother... my mother desperately needed the Thousand-Year Snow Lotus Pill to save her life. I begged them for it, but they wouldn't give it to me. Only by becoming the first-in-line heir would I have the right to save my mother."

"Brother Chen... after you left the family, I searched for you for sixty long years. When I finally heard news of you, I wasn't happy, I was terrified. I was afraid you wouldn't see me, afraid you still hated me. The day you agreed to see me... that was the happiest day I'd had since Mother's death."

"Actually, on the way back that day, I cried for a long time. If you had known, you would have surely laughed at me. I used to cry a lot as a child, and you always told me that a man doesn't shed tears easily. I think you were wrong. It's only because the pain hasn't struck deep enough."

"Brother... it was my fault... It was Xuehe who caused your death, Xuehe who condemned you to a life of sorrow."

Su Xuehe's choked sobs, which he had been desperately trying to suppress, finally broke into the unrestrained wails of a child.

The clash of swords rang through the night.

Finally, dawn broke.

---

Proofreader: Peter Pan