Just then!
*Khm—*
The crisp sound of an arrowhead cutting through the air forced Xue Ren to react fast. And with an inhuman sequence of moves, he got both himself and the triplets out of the way of a shiny, speeding object that hit a house, demolishing it.
'Powerful,' thought Xue Ren as his eyes rapidly darted around, locating the origin of the fired arrow in the shortest possible time. 'Foundation Establishment Realm Cultivators. Multiple of them.'
There were also dozens of Qi Condensation Realm Cultivators hiding in the surroundings, most of whom were in the 7th to 12th Layers.
"You actually managed to dodge that and save everyone in the process? Well, it's to be expected that the one who killed #37 is at least this capable."
The sinister voice of an old, wrinkled man echoed. He was wearing an embroidered robe that was black on the outside, red on the inside—the opposite of what everyone around him was wearing.
He was obviously their leader or something like it.
But like the rest, he was hiding, acting cautious.
"What do you want?" Xue Ren asked coldly, brimming with murderous intent.
"What do we want!?" the wrinkled old man angrily repeated. "We want revenge! Revenge for what you did to #37! We, the Bloodring Assassin's Guild, never let anyone kill one of our own and get away with it!!"
Xue Ren's gaze grew colder.
"What did you do to the villagers and my parents?" he asked, his emotions unreadable.
'Mother and Father haven't contacted me in the last few days… If they…'
The wrinkled old man's sadistic grin curved upward, stretching from one ear to the next.
"Those villagers are dead, boy! And so too are your parents!!"
OOOM!
"Ha! Are you mad, you brat!?" the wrinkled old man evilly cackled. "Well, I'll tell you something else, just between us. I personally refined all of their souls in my Soul Banner—but not before skinning them alive and torturing them to death so the effects would be stronger!!"
"How does that make you feel, huh!?" the old man mocked, fearless with his Peak Foundation Establishment Realm cultivation. "You're angry? So what!? You're furious? Then come and hit me!! See how quickly you meet the same fate as those you cared about!!"
The triplets nervously looked over at Xue Ren, only to back up in fear when they saw a face so grimly terrifying that even genuine devils couldn't compare. Like a bottomless abyss. Deep and unfathomable.
"That's a scary face you got there, boy, bahahaha!" The wrinkled old man reeled back in laughter. "I bet it must hurt to know that no matter what you do now or how angry you feel, nothing will change the fact that they're gone!!"
The other assassins from the Bloodring Assassin's Guild joined in on the laughter as they all pointed their fingers at Xue Ren. In turn, his face became darker and darker.
But suddenly, what looked to be a black hole containing unimaginable levels of fury returned to absolute void. An expression devoid of any and all emotions.
"Ha!? What's up with you now, boy!?" the wrinkled old man cocked his head back, curling his lips in Xue Ren's direction. "Did you actually not care about any of the villagers or your blood-related parents?? Are we the monsters here, or are you???"
After receiving no response from Xue Ren, the Bloodring Assassins went from humorous to serious. Their hands tightly clasped onto their blades, battle-hardened killing intent surging.
"Are you deaf or what, boy!?" asked the wrinkled old man as he and the others quit hiding, finally coming out into the open. "Whatever, I'm bored now, so just give up resistance and die an ea…sy… dea—"
SPURT!
"—th… Huh…"
"I found you," came a grating, abyssal voice as Xue Ren twisted the arm that was lodged deep into the wrinkled old man's stomach. "Now die."
"W-Wait, I—"
Before the old man could get out even a single sentence, Xue Ren emotionlessly slashed upward with his arm. The old man was split in two, his eyeballs parting ways as his sticky innards broke apart like string cheese.
"!!!" "!!!" "!!!"
In that moment, when the voided eyes of the devil fell on them, the Bloodring Assassins realized that they had made a dire mistake. They miscalculated at a fatal level, and for it, they'd—
SPURT! SPURT! SPURT!
—DIE!
The triplets saw nothing but a black-and-flame-covered blur draw a line between each of the Bloodring Assassins. And one by one, whether by brute force or |Fireball Sniper|, the assassins died.
Their blood and dismembered parts sprayed the surroundings a bright shade of red.
And though the triplets were horrified by what they were witnessing, they also couldn't help but be… amazed…
"Beautiful," Mu Qing unconsciously murmured, with her pupils reflecting the dance of spells and blades happening in front of her.
The Bloodring Assassins tried to fight back. They even managed to harm Xue Ren a few times.
However, in their play of death and destruction that left half the buildings in the village in shambles, the devil just kept on killing. No matter what was thrown his way or how they tried to thwart him, he'd break through it—attacking even more fiercely than before.