"Father?"
Rihai quickly turned her head toward the direction where she had seen the silhouette… but it wasn't her father. It was an old man she didn't recognize, wearing simple gray robes, staring at her without a single drop of emotion, as if she were nothing more than a speck of dust drifting in the wind.
"Ah!" Taking a startled step backward, frightened by the sudden appearance of the man staring at her, she tripped on the side of the sofa she had stood up from and almost fell, staying on her feet only because of her perfected Foundation Establishment cultivation, which granted her inhuman reflexes and body control.
She had seen eyes like that before. The ancestors of her clan often had those same eyes.
Her father had once told her that the Tribulation Transcendence realm was extremely difficult to advance through, and many quickly reached their limit, even though their lifespan reached a long one hundred thousand years.
Thus, they lived far too long, stagnant at the top of the world, and slowly lost their motivation and desire, leaving behind only an empty shell waiting… waiting for a miracle that would allow them to progress further in their cultivation, to glimpse, even for an instant, a higher realm.
One thing all cultivators shared was their innate desire for more power and longer life, something that ultimately meant reaching a higher realm. Throughout a cultivator's life, this was one of their greatest attachments, and over time it became an obsession. Therefore, cultivators might live long enough to lose all emotions, but they never lost their obsessive desire to reach a higher realm.
Because of that, with just one look at those emotionless eyes devoid of life, which seemed to see everything as meaningless, Rihai subconsciously knew that this man was a Tribulation Transcender— and a strong one.
But the most disturbing part was that he stood there silently, not moving, just watching her.
The girl's hands began to sweat, and an unfamiliar wave of terror seized her heart.
"F-FATHER!!" she didn't pretend to be strong and immediately screamed for her father.
BOOOOMMM!!
As soon as her scream echoed through the room, a massive explosion shook the entire city, accompanied by a loud, thunderous shout.
"HAI'ER!!"
It was her father, who even from afar had easily heard his daughter's cry thanks to his heightened senses.
Rihai exhaled in relief upon hearing his voice, and courage filled her. She lifted her eyes and glared firmly at the cultivator, her brows furrowed, no longer showing fear.
BOOOMMMM!!
"YOU BASTARDS, GET OUT OF MY WAY!!"
More explosions sounded, making the world seem to tremble in Rihai's eyes.
'Father is in trouble! But it won't take him long to get here. As soon as he enters the barrier I'm in, he can open a spatial rift and take us home, and we'll be safe.'
Rihai steadied herself against the sofa to keep from falling due to the tremors, while keeping her firm gaze locked on the figure outside.
The explosions kept echoing, the ground trembled, and with the intensification of both factors, it was possible to tell the battle was drawing closer to where she was.
Rihai clenched her teeth through the shaking. But even though she should have been relieved to feel her father approaching, a very bad premonition grew in her heart. All because the man outside the barrier simply watched her— still motionless.
Regret bloomed in her chest. If only she had followed her father earlier—staying by his side instead of reading in the VIP box—he could have easily protected her, torn through space, and returned to the family without needing to fight the enemy just to reach her.
BOOOMMM!!
A loud explosion sounded, and the auction house's ceiling shattered, letting sunlight flood the interior.
There, she saw her father in the sky, surrounded by about twenty people. His aura was vigorous and intense, his clothes whipped violently by the wind generated from his strikes, but the enemies together were not lacking in momentum.
Even surrounded, Liu Shun'an lowered his gaze without fear toward his daughter and felt relieved to see her unharmed.
Then his gaze shifted to the old man with silver hair and eyes, wearing gray robes, standing beside the barrier protecting Rihai.
"Luo Tianhao, are you in a hurry to die?" Liu Shun'an asked in a calm voice, but the fire bubbling in his crimson eyes revealed his true state of mind.
The old man stared back emotionlessly.
"It's the opposite, Patriarch Liu. My companions and I wish to live much longer, unlike you, apparently. So I advise you to give up your resistance. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee the safety of this little girl here."
The old man spoke even more calmly, maybe even with a touch of boredom, as if he already foresaw the outcome but was forced to accompany the process anyway.
"Hmph! You underestimate me and overestimate your own abilities. At this distance, I can take my daughter away at any moment, and you wouldn't have time to break the barrier protecting her," he scoffed, though inwardly he was wary.
He might be strong, but he was the youngest and least experienced there. Surrounded by old foxes, he could not ignore the bad omen in his heart.
"You may try," Luo Tianhao's calm voice made Liu Shun'an's hair stand on end.
Narrowing his crimson eyes, he suddenly lunged toward his daughter, but the twenty men around him blocked his path.
"OUT OF MY WAY!!" he roared, pushing his roots to the limit.
A devastating sword intent erupted, and he swung his blade ferociously.
Ten of the twenty men moved forward, entering some sort of defensive formation, facing Liu Shun'an's full-force attack head-on.
BOOOMMM!
The entire city shook once again. Debris, objects, and even the street and floor tiles were blasted outward, creating a gigantic crater.
Rihai no longer had ground beneath her feet, but the barrier remained in place, floating in the sky, with her standing on the only untouched piece of land within it.
The ten men, even in formation, were sent flying backward, but they were unharmed. Even so, astonishment shone in their expressions at the strength of the blow they had received.
Liu Shun'an also retreated slightly from the rebound, but quickly advanced again, only to be intercepted by the other ten men. The scene repeated itself in the same way.
However, with each strike he delivered, he got closer to reaching his daughter. He wanted to tear through space to get to her, but the opponents could distort space as well, greatly increasing the margin of error for the point where he would emerge. He could end up even farther from her than he already was.
So all he could do was advance without stopping.
The defenders, even in large numbers, faced the young man in front of them with growing terror. He awakened in them an emotion they had not felt in a long time… fear.
The hands and bodies of all of them trembled with each attack they had to block, and their spiritual energy was being consumed at high speed.
Liu Shun'an was not unscathed either. Pain spread through his body as he forced his roots beyond their limit to generate greater power, and his energy consumption was equally brutal. He was strong, but he was facing twenty cultivators at the peak of the world.
Inside the barrier, seeing her father so close, Rihai clenched her fists with joy and prepared to be grabbed by him so they could escape together.
Liu Shun'an thought the same. When he was less than twenty meters from his daughter, his gaze fell upon the old man, Luo Tianhao, who floated beside the barrier and who had finally moved.
Walking through the air, he took firm steps toward the barrier.
Everyone's eyes turned to him.
Reaching into the void, he pulled out a strange formation disk and simply threw it at the yellow barrier which, before the eyes of both father and daughter, simply… dissolved.
Rihai's eyes widened in horror as she saw the barrier recede. When she blinked, the old man who had been outside a moment ago appeared in front of her, his withered hand strangling her neck and lifting her into the air.
"Akh!!" Rihai choked, kicking at the air while grabbing the old man's arm and struggling.
"RIHAI!!" Liu Shun'an roared upon seeing his daughter being strangled. The veins on his neck bulged with sheer fury. "You old bastard! Let go of my daughter!"
Driven by hatred, he unleashed an attack with his sword that created a sea of black, living flames. Space twisted and split violently in the wake of the strike, making the defenders' hair stand on end as reality itself seemed to shatter.
The twenty men poured everything they had into an extremely powerful formation to block the desperate blow. Blood began to drip from their noses and mouths, but in the end, they blocked the attack while being launched far away, crashing into the ground and sinking deep into the earth.
Luo Tianhao watched everything calmly, though a trace of admiration appeared in the depths of his gaze when he witnessed such an attack. But seeing the reckless man about to charge toward him, he suddenly tightened his grip on the girl's throat. His nails tore into Rihai's neck, and blood began to stain her once pristine white robes.
"A–AHH—!!" Feeling her neck begin to be crushed under the impossible pressure, Rihai could no longer endure the agony and released a strangled, broken scream.
"STOP! STOP! STOP!! DON'T HURT HER!!"
Hearing his daughter's scream and seeing her blood, Liu Shun'an turned pale. He almost lost his reason, but the last thread of his control held him back. He stopped immediately in midair, not daring to take another step forward. The knuckles on his fingers turned white from how tightly he clenched the sword's hilt.
Luo Tianhao loosened his grip slightly when he saw him stop, causing Rihai's kicking feet to weaken. Now they swung weakly, without strength. Her once cheerful, gentle, carefree face was now pale, with an expression of pain and weakness as blood dripped down her clothes.
Seeing his precious daughter in such a condition, Liu Shun'an's heart nearly split in half.
"Please, Luo Tianhao, let her go. She is just a child," he clenched his teeth and begged humbly, his eyes red.
The old man merely tilted his head, looking at him. At that moment, the twenty men crawled back up from beneath the earth, their appearances terrible and bloodied, but alive—though their eyes held deep fear when they looked at Liu Shun'an.
The only one who remained completely composed was Luo Tianhao, who even had a hint of disdain in his gaze.
"Liu Shun'an… you are like a lonely child wasting the gifts granted by the heavens by playing house like a mortal. It doesn't surprise me. Your father was weak, and he raised a weak son, even though you have the talent to stand above all of us."
Luo Tianhao spoke calmly, with measured words, almost as if he were reading text instead of speaking like a living person expressing feelings.
He looked at the girl in his hand and felt nothing. His hand had taken too many lives to count. She would be just another, if he wished.
"According to the records we have, Divine Physiques used to take millions of years to appear again after the previous one fell, never exceeding five million years. But before you, the last divine physique appeared more than a hundred million years ago. Ever since the events of that year, the world seemed to fear that the same thing would happen again and severed the Mahayana route, preventing Divine Physiques from being born once more."
The old man continued speaking with the same calmness, even as he received only cold stares from Liu Shun'an, who cared only about his daughter.
"But here you are again, possessing such a blessed physique after so long. Unfortunately, in your shortsightedness, you failed to realize that the heavens had given you the chance to leave and become this world's legacy. But they judged you wrongly, and you are not up to the task. So we came to put things back on track, so that a thousand years from now, at least a part of the Lingxi world remains. Liu Shun'an, surrender yourself, and we will not bury your daughter or your family."
After the long speech, he finally gave his ultimatum.
The world fell silent. The only sounds were faint groans amid the debris of the battle spreading far into the distance.
What was once a large and bustling city was now nothing more than a devastated region as far as the eye could see, with traces of the city visible only in the far distance.
These powers had set up an ambush, but they had never cleared the battlefield beforehand. Perhaps to avoid alerting their target, perhaps simply because they did not care. In any case, the number of people killed by the aftermath of that brief battle undoubtedly exceeded seven digits.
But one faint groan, in particular, caught Liu Shun'an's attention.
"No… father… go away… leave me… behind…"