Damon's Ascension-Chapter 121: War In Xiangyang - End

From behind the Prefecture Envoy, an explosion of blood and flesh came out a large shard of ice bloomed from that spot, sending all the organs within his torso flying out and killing the man instantly.

Everyone else stood there in shock like their brains had frozen, because even with the ridiculous scene before them, never had they thought things would develop in this way.

Damon took his palm back and pulled his sleeves up a little to give his arms breathing room.

"Time to let the massacre begin." He murmured with amusement.

The County Governor was the closest to him and was the first to snap out of it when Damon slowly turned his head to face him.

Zhao Fengliang took a panicked step back as he pointed at Damon. "You! What do you want to do?! Do you understand what you’ve done?"

Damon chuckled. "Oh, I know quite clearly the consequences of my actions. At most it will be a lowered score on the settlement screen, but for you all? It means death."

"What are you- ARGH!!" Zhao Fengliang was about to ask what he meant when Damon suddenly kicked him backwards, causing him to fly into a nearby booth and break his spine against a fixed seat there.

"Stay there for now while I deal with the really annoying ones." Damon suggested coldly as he looked down the private booth towards the arena.

Below the Governor’s platform, the five sect leaders stood paralyzed by fear, then there was a sudden and dawning realization of just how far out of their depth they were as Damon ’teleported’ onto the arena with them.

Elder Bai Tianmu recovered first, eyes sharp as frost. She raised both hands and summoned a flurry of emerald maisma laced with poison needles that curved toward Damon like sentient vipers.

"Thousand Fang Miasma!" She cried out with killing intent.

Damon tilted his head as the air bent in response to the attack, the young man choosing to strike out with an open palm that contained his martial god level Empty Soul Palm Internal Force. The quantity may be lacking, but the quality was there.

The result of this was the needles shattering in midair before they could even reach him, and before Bai Tianmu could retreat, Damon was already standing behind her.

She gasped in horror and turned to defend herself, but it was obviously far too for that.

Crack!

Damon simply tapped her temple with two fingers that contained a bit of Internal Force, and in that moment, Bai Tianmu’s body convulsed because a spiraling pulse of Silent Wheel Palm detonated inside her skull.

There was no blood, nor was there any screaming, only a violent shudder before she collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, her eyes wide open and devoid of life.

Duan Xing roared in fury and stepped forward, his body glowing with iron Qi.

"IRON WALL STANCE! BANNER FORMATION—!"

His war cry never finished as Damon struck the ground with the edge of his foot, causing the ground - and even the air - to split.

A line of death carved across the arena and through Duan Xing’s torso - precisely through his heart - which was executed using a condensed thread of Withering Thread Style reinforced by Internal Force.

The Iron Banner Hall’s revered general collapsed onto his knees before falling forward, dead before he hit the floor, and his disciples screamed in disbelief.

Yan Qiu unsheathed his mirrored sword at last, his aura blooming like a sea of reflected stars.

"You must fall, vile beast!"

Damon didn’t let him finish his attack as, with a flicker of movement, he vanished from sight using Shadow Tide Step, appearing within Yan Qiu’s guard as if reality had ’skipped’ a frame.

SHING—

Yan Qiu’s was actually ready for this act of Damon false teleporting up and down as his blade swung out with perfect timing.

But he missed.

As punishment for his big whiff, Damon gripped his wrist and crushed it with one hand, forcing the man to grimace as he dropped his sword.

Then, with eerie calmness, Damon stabbed his fingers into Yan Qiu’s chest, bypassing flesh entirely to rupture the man’s meridian core. A spiral of silver light erupted from the impact zone, the backlash tearing through Yan Qiu’s body from the inside out.

The Azure Sword Master dropped like a statue collapsing in slow motion, eyes wide with disbelief, his sword never touching Damon once.

Three sect elders at the Martial Grandmaster Realm were dead in less than twenty breaths.

Feng Meizhen took one step backward in fear subconsciously, and Damon, who had been silent until now, finally spoke again.

"Move, and I will kill you like the rest." He said with a casual glance over to the fellow.

Feng Meizhen froze mid-step as sweat dripped down his brow, noting that Damon’s voice held no anger, only certainty.

And then... all eyes turned to the last of the five, the elusive Brother Mian.

Looking at him, Damon felt he could see the tiles of ’The fake monk’, ’the snake in the garden’, and ’the coward clothed in virtue’ hovering above his head.

He backed away step by trembling step. "W-We can talk, I... I was following orders!!"

"Orders from whom?" Damon asked, walking toward him with measured pace.

"I-It was the noble families! The Liu! The Sun! The Cao!" Brother Mian shrieked, pointing in every direction.

"I believe you." Damon said calmly.

Brother Mian was stunned then seemed to relax greatly. "Then please let me live, good sir."

"No." Damon replied immediately as he grabbed the fellow and tossed him backwards.

And Xu Baochun responded by ctahcing the fellow by the neck like a rat, glancing at Damon with immense approval and fire in his eyes.

"Hahaha! I knew I was right to bet on you! Burn it all, bathe this entire province in blood!"

The fellow was extremely ruddy and full of joy, looking 20 years younger.

As for Brother Mian, Xu Baochun would not kill him so easily, and the tortured he would suffer would likely make even Qian Weimin feel shy to talk about his own pain in public.

Up in the noble tiers, the Cao, Liu, and Sun family elders were visibly trembling while their juniors were either pale, unconscious, or kneeling in fear.

Damon stepped calmly to the edge of the arena, now bathed in tension instead of blood, though the latter would surely follow.

The nobles who had raised their heads so high over the common people were now visibly shaking, some clutching their robes, others preparing to run.

The commoner crowd who were spared the suffering were frozen in a mixture of fear and morbid fascination, feeling caught in the eye of the storm.

The entire place was quiet enough that you could hear the noble retainers choking on their panic, trying to stifle sobs of terror.

Damon glanced at the city guards on the floor his tone even and his gaze sharp.

"To all city guards present..."

The armored men who had once marched against him instinctively braced, but Damon wasn’t looking at them with hostility, rather opting to give them a choice.

"...the Prefecture Envoy is dead and the Governor is crippled. And the five sects have just committed treason and been purged accordingly."

He slowly turned to face the platform where the noble families sat, their retainers surrounding them in clusters.

"The remaining threat to this county’s justice are in those three boxes." Damon said, eyes narrowing dangerously.

He pointed at the Liu, Cao, and Sun family sections like marking coordinates on a map.

"They are yours. Kill them all."

For a moment, the guards hesitated, unsure because these were the men they once served, after all.

Then, from behind, one particularly smart captain - a grizzled man with a broken nose and dark stubble - stepped forward, his hand gripping his halberd.

"You heard the noble hero from afar, cleanse this rot!" He bellowed.

"FOR THE COUNTY!" The other guards roared as in that instant, the spell of hesitation broke.

City guards, those who had once bowed and scraped before the nobles, now surged like a tide.

Screams erupted from the noble tiers as retainers, servants, and mercenary bodyguards were swarmed. Blades flashed, blood sprayed, and the illusions of hierarchy crumbled like wet sand.

The Cao family’s enforcers fell first, their front ranks overwhelmed as common soldiers cut them down with cold purpose. The Liu retainers tried to form a formation, but Damon’s earlier slaughter of their young master had left them broken in spirit so they collapsed in under a minute.

The Sun family’s troops fought back the hardest... until Damon looked at them. Just one glance, and their resistance melted into chaos.

From above, the three noble elders stood frozen, forced to watch the massacre of their legacy unfold below as they could barely breath.

Then Damon stepped forward again.

"Cao family."

An elder in plum-colored silks staggered to his feet. "Wait! We were only following the sects’ lead! We were protecting the county!"

"Your entire family tortured a judge for a fruit." Damon said to counter that.

He raised a finger. "Withering Thread Style."

Flick.

The elder didn’t even feel the impact. It was only when he turned to look at his shoulder did he realize his arm was hanging by a strand of skin. He collapsed seconds later, his organs already failing due to the precise internal ruptures triggered by Damon’s technique.

"Liu family."

"W-We surrender! We surrender! I’ll give you evidence! We were pressured by Brother Mian, it was him—!" Liu Fan shouted, dropping to his knees.

Damon flicked his hand and Liu Fan’s mouth closed permanently as his jawbone collapsed inward while blood poured out from his eyes and nose.

"I didn’t ask for a plea deal." Damon said simply.

He walked toward the Sun family’s box, where Sun Jianhao’s uncle clutched a talisman.

"Don’t come any closer! We’ll curse you! We’ll burn your name from the records of—" the elder roared with courage.

Thud.

The man was hit in the chest by a casual flicker of Damon’s palm, the pressure alone knocking the breath from his lungs. He staggered backward as Damon appeared behind him.

"You were born with a voice, but I don’t recall asking you to use it."

With that, Damon struck his back with a simple palm strike, causing the fellow to explode from the inside out.

The rest of the Sun family elders tried to flee, only to be stopped by the guards now drunk on righteous fury.

Blood ran like rivers through the tiers of the arena and screams became background noise. The only sound that still stood out was the firm, calm breathing of Damon Arnan, standing like a black pillar at the center of collapsing power.

From his vantage, Xu Baochun laughed wildly, his throat raw and voice manic.

"Do you see this Brother Zu? Little Mei?! They are finally getting their comeuppance! Hahaha!"

Xue Rou, Chen Yuan, and Sun Liang stood by Damon’s side now, their gazes unreadable as they were caught between awe and horror.

Damon folded his hands behind his back, then looked to the sky.

In that moment, he couldn’t help but wonder.

Was this the true meaning of strength?