Wang Tao's eyes widened as a bloodied hand gripped his foot. His gaze traveled up the arm to meet the face of a man lying on the ground, covered in blood.

"You fool! How many times do I have to tell you to always pay attention to your surroundings?" The man coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

"E-elder?" Wang Tao stammered, rushing to the elder's side. His focus, however, snapped to their surroundings. While the small garden remained intact, the rest of the compound lay in ruins. Rubble and clouds of dust painted the scenery. In the distance, the orange glow of fire lit the sky.

"Elder, what happened?" His voice trembled. The last time he had opened his eyes, everything had been fine.

"Spirit beasts are attacking us!" The elder, a man hundreds of years old with white hair and wrinkled skin, coughed up more blood as he answered. One of his eyes was clouded with cataracts, the lower half of his face soaked in red.

Wang Tao suddenly remembered the pills he carried. He tried to shove them into the elder's mouth, but the old man refused.

"I'm already dead. My cultivation is broken, and I used the last of it to come here and wake you from your concentration!"

"I'm sorry, Elder!" Tears threatened to fall from Wang Tao's eyes. It was so sudden; he didn't have time to comprehend what had happened. The fact that the elder, who had been kind to him and whom he considered a father figure, was dying made his heart ache. "I'll get you to safety!"

He scanned their surroundings, trying to locate the spirit beasts and find an escape route.

As Wang Tao reached for the elder, the old man waved him off. "No, just run. These spirit beasts are stronger than all of us. Don't burden yourself with me." The elder rolled onto his back, facing the sky.

A sinister laugh echoed through the air, accompanied by desperate cries and shouts. Wang Tao's heart raced as he wondered what kind of spirit beasts dared to attack the Wang clan and succeed.

"Listen carefully; we don't have much time," the elder said urgently. "I want you to run. Run as fast and as far as you can. Don't stop for anything. Even if you see a naked woman with her legs spread and a bewitching smile, ignore her. Just run, run, and run. These spirit beasts are dangerous. They are stronger than me!" The elder coughed up another mouthful of blood.

Wang Tao's heart ached, and his eyes burned with unshed tears, but he took a deep breath and centered himself. He began to accept the harsh reality and nodded. He would run. He would hide. The elder was at the Core Splitting realm and had two cores; anything that could kill him could easily crush Wang Tao.

"Now, about your father, he is actually—"

Before the elder could finish, something hurtled toward them. It moved too fast for Wang Tao to dodge, but the elder suddenly shifted, standing directly in front of him and blocking the object with his body.

The projectile wasn't an object—it was a person. The gardener! He had likely been thrown by a spirit beast!

The gardener's bald head now jutted from the elder's stomach like the blade of a spear, his entire head red with blood. The scene before Wang Tao was so absurd he felt he must be dreaming.

"Go now!" The elder coughed several times. "Just go!"

Wang Tao's body trembled, but he nodded and ran as fast as he could. As he fled, he glanced back to see the elder and the gardener fall together, their bodies tangled. Sadness gripped him at his elder's death, but the most dominant feeling in his heart was fear—fear of whatever had hurled the gardener with such force.

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"Why?" he muttered. Why had this suddenly happened? Wasn't he a genius favored by the heavens? Shouldn't his life be smooth sailing from here on out?

As these thoughts raced through his mind, tears streamed from his eyes. While he hadn't truly loved his clan members, they were still family. He vowed to someday kill whatever had annihilated his clan and murdered his elder.

Wang Tao ran for some time, his feet carrying him far from the devastation of his clan compound. The dense forest outside the compound surrounded him, its shadows offering a false sense of security.

Suddenly, a whistling sound cut through the air behind him. A black blur shot toward him like an arrow. His eyes widened in terror, and he instinctively jumped aside, narrowly avoiding the projectile.

A loud crash echoed through the forest, followed by the groan of a tree giving way, then a larger crash accompanied by the rustle of falling leaves.

Wang Tao snapped his head toward the sound. A massive tree lay toppled on its side. His eyes, however, focused on the disgusting and terrifying spirit beast that had felled it.

Its skin was brown as mud. Its right ear resembled a giant grape, while the left was a yellow chili. It had white teeth and smiled wide, like a beggar spotting a pile of gold. Tied around its neck was a yellow cloth with a flower pattern. It possessed a human torso, but its four limbs were yellow snakes speckled with red dots.

Wang Tao's heart pounded in his chest. The qi emanating from this spirit beast felt overwhelmingly strong, like drowning in malevolent, powerful water. It was even stronger than the elder, meaning this thing could kill him as easily as a child stomping ants. His body and teeth trembled, his back drenched in cold sweat. His lungs felt like iron, unable to draw air. But his self-preservation instinct roared at him to flee.

Wang Tao scrambled to his feet, cycled his qi to strengthen his body, and bolted like an arrow. He prayed the creature wouldn't chase him. He was just an ant. Surely something so powerful wouldn't stoop to hunting an ant.

He glanced back; the spirit beast stood near the fallen tree. For a moment, relief washed over him, but it vanished as his body slammed into something solid. He fell onto his backside and looked up.

When he saw clearly what he had hit, the blood drained from his face, leaving him candle-pale. It was another spirit beast. This one had blue snakes for limbs, pale skin, apples for ears, and a smirking face. A ripple of wind touched his side as a similar spirit beast landed nearby—this one with pitch-black snakes, yellow skin, red potatoes for ears, and an angry expression.

More and more spirit beasts arrived around him. They perched on the ground, in tree branches, hovered in the sky on shimmering platforms, some even tunneled up from the earth like moles.

Wang Tao looked around, instinctively trying to count his enemies.

"O-one, t-two, t-three," he counted, his voice trembling. When he reached ten, despair filled his heart. At twenty, he knew survival was impossible. By the time he counted thirty, rage consumed him.

He shouldn't die now. He should live, advance, become strong, and rule the world.

Wang Tao stood up, his face contorting into a mask of fury.

One of the spirit beasts began to laugh—an ugly sound, like a child with diseased lungs. Another joined in, then more, their laughter echoing through the trees.

"Don't laugh!" Wang Tao screamed. "I, Wang Tao, declare you all my enemies! Whether in this life or the next, I will remember you! I will tear off your snake limbs, chop off your heads, eat your hearts, and refine pills from your corpses!"

A spirit beast with pitch-black skin and green coconuts for ears struck the air with a snake limb. A golden ball shaped like a tiger's head shot toward him.

Wang Tao screamed and tried to punch the attack, his eyes red and glistening with tears. When his fist connected with the golden tiger head, his hand exploded like a popped balloon. Red mist spread around him as unbearable pain shot through his body. The agony forced his eyes shut for an instant. In that moment, every spirit beast surrounding him—whether on branches, the ground, floating, or atop platforms—rushed him like a pack of starving dogs converging on fresh meat.

Before he could open his eyes again, his limbs were torn off, his head bitten, his stomach and torso savaged as if he were the most delicious meat in the world.

The only mercy granted was that while his death was brutal, darkness claimed him before he could fully register the pain.

He was dead. So were most of the Wang clan, the surrounding clans, and the people in nearby towns, cities, and provinces.

This was not an isolated event. Throughout the Twelve Sun Empire, the same horror unfolded through the night.

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