Long Shenyin broke the silence with a sneer.
She glanced at Long Shenyu as if he had personally offended her taste.
"Why the hell are they alive?"
Several cultivators flinched.
Zhao Chuan's body stiffened in the trench.
Lei Yunhe's fingers tightened around his spear.
Long Shenyu lowered his hand.
"Because dead envoys only send a message once."
Long Shenyin rolled her eyes.
"You're becoming sentimental."
"I'm becoming efficient."
"That is the same excuse you use when you want to keep annoying people breathing."
Long Shenyu smiled faintly. "It's more interesting to make their sect sweat by sending them back beyond damaged. Let Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace see the wound and decide how much pride they can afford."
Long Shenyin snorted.
"If they don't send at least a late-layer Sage Ruler, they'll end up as corpses too."
She said it casually, as if discussing whether the main sect would serve decent wine.
But the words sank into the city like a blade.
Late-layer Sage Ruler.
Only that level, in her view, was even worth mentioning.
Qin Roujian's throat went dry.
Zhao Chuan dragged himself up on one elbow.
The movement alone nearly made him faint. Blood ran from his mouth down his chin. His face twisted with pain, shame, hatred, and disbelief. The pride that had carried him into River Ridge City was shattered, but pride did not always die quickly. Sometimes it crawled bleeding from the ruins and tried to bite one last time.
"You…" he spat. "You low-born bastard…"
Lei Yunhe's face turned even paler.
He knew Zhao Chuan should stop.
He knew any further insult was not courage. It was stupidity wrapped in humiliation.
But Zhao Chuan had been born under the shadow of Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace. He had worn its robes, carried its decree, and lived his life believing that forces beneath the Noble Domain existed to be commanded. Long Shenyu had not only defeated him. He had made him look small.
Zhao Chuan's eyes burned red.
"Do you understand what you've done? Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace will hunt you to the ends of the earth!"
Long Shenyu looked down at him.
For a moment, there was no expression on his face.
Then he waved his hand.
A dark-gold suction force erupted.
It did not roar. It did not tear up the street. It did not even disturb the dust around Zhao Chuan's trench. It simply appeared, silent and absolute, wrapping around both defeated envoys with a force they could not resist.
Zhao Chuan's storage ring flew from his hand.
Lei Yunhe's followed.
Hidden talismans tore out from their sleeves. Saint artifact fragments sewn into their robes shook loose. Message jades, sect tokens, blood-sealed escape charms, healing bottles, thunder pills, spare spear seals, and defensive jade pendants all ripped free one after another.
Several items resisted.
One jade pendant released a flash of lightning. Long Shenyu's dark-gold force swallowed it whole.
A blood-sealed charm tried to burn itself to ash. The suction force crushed the flame and dragged it out intact.
Lei Yunhe's sect token trembled violently, releasing a faint echo of distant thunder authority. Long Shenyu glanced at it once. The token dimmed.
Everything flew into his palm.
The watching cultivators felt their scalps go numb.
He was robbing Heaven's Edict envoys in public.
Not frantically.
Not greedily.
Calmly.
Like collecting compensation from defeated bandits.
Qin Roujian's eyelid twitched.
The Qin Family elders behind him looked like they had aged ten years. River Ridge City had seen killings, betrayals, secret deals, and bloody clan conflicts. It had never seen someone beat Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace envoys half to death, strip them of their treasures, and look mildly inconvenienced while doing it.
Zhao Chuan's face turned purple.
"You dare steal from Heaven's Edict—"
Long Shenyu pointed once.
A sword thread flashed.
Zhao Chuan's arm separated from his body.
The cut was so clean that, for a breath, no blood sprayed.
The severed arm fell beside him with the storage mark still fading from its finger.
Then red flooded out.
Blood splashed across broken stone.
Zhao Chuan screamed.
The sound tore through River Ridge City, raw and humiliating. It was not the roar of a warrior. It was the cry of a man who had finally been forced to understand that his background could not shield his flesh from a blade.
Long Shenyu's expression did not change.
"Speak one more useless sentence," he said, "and I'll send your tongue back separately."
Zhao Chuan clamped his mouth shut.
His body shook. Sweat poured down his face. His eyes still burned with hatred, but fear had finally climbed above it.
Lei Yunhe lowered his head slightly.
He had lost almost everything on his body. His meridians were wounded, his spear was cracked, and the sword force inside him was still chewing through his lightning circulation. But unlike Zhao Chuan, he could still think.
His voice came out hoarse.
"Young Master Long… if you kill us, the Thunder Palace will not let this end."
Long Shenyu smiled faintly.
"I'm not killing you."
Lei Yunhe's heart tightened.
Somehow, those words did not comfort him.
Long Shenyu continued, "You're going back."
He shifted Ning Huang slightly in his arms.
Not because she was heavy.
Because he wanted both men to see her clearly.
Ning Huang felt the movement and stiffened. Her fingers tightened against his robe. Her pride, which had endured sect pressure, battlefield danger, and public conflict, trembled beneath the directness of what was coming.
Long Shenyu looked at Zhao Chuan and Lei Yunhe.
"Tell your sect. Tell that meager mortal prince."
His voice remained calm, but every word landed with crushing weight.
"Ning Huang is my woman."
The entire city seemed to stop.
Ning Huang's breath caught.
Her face remained cold out of instinct. Her chin did not lower. Her eyes did not waver. She was still the war heiress of Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace, still a woman who had faced lightning trials and noble heirs without bending.
But her ears turned red.
She wanted to speak.
She should speak.
This was not some small declaration whispered in a courtyard. This involved her sect, her reputation, her previous standing, her future path, and the terrifying political storm that would follow. It involved a prince whose influence reached into Noble Domain factions. It involved Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace's pride.
But when she heard Long Shenyu say it so openly, without hesitation, without bargaining, without fear, her heart lost its rhythm for a moment.
No one had ever spoken of her like that in front of danger.
Many had wanted her.
Some had courted her.
Some had weighed her value as a talent, alliance piece, or war bride.
But Long Shenyu did not sound like he was asking permission from the world.
He sounded like he was stating a fact and daring heaven to disagree.
Zhao Chuan trembled.
Lei Yunhe's throat moved.
Long Shenyu's gaze remained on them.
"If they want to talk, I'll talk. If they want to stand in my way, then this region will have one less Noble Sect."
No one breathed.
The words were too large.
Too wild.
Too calm.
Destroying a Noble Sect was not something said by Lower Domain cultivators. It was not even something most Sky Lords would dare say in a nightmare. A Noble Sect had Sage Rulers, deep inheritances, guardian arrays, hidden ancestors, oath-bound vassals, and generations of accumulated authority. Such powers did not fall because one man disliked them.
Yet the street was filled with corpses and trenches that argued otherwise.
Long Shenyin gagged.
It was deliberate and shamelessly loud.
"You're doing all this for a woman again." She looked at Ning Huang, then at Long Shenyu, her expression full of disgust. "Truly hopeless."
Long Shenyu glanced at her. "You say that like you're surprised."
"I'm not surprised. I'm disappointed that I still have to watch it."
"You watched worse."
"I killed people during those times. That made it tolerable."
Despite everything, Mei Qingxue's eyes softened.
She stood near Shen Lanyue with dust clinging to the edge of her robe, her face pale from the scale of the battle but warm when she looked at Long Shenyu. There was no shock in her gaze at his declaration. Only a quiet, almost helpless affection.
This was him.
Shameless. Direct. Terrifying.
And sincere enough to make even impossible things feel natural.
Shen Lanyue's expression did not change much. Her cold face remained composed, her eyes clear, her posture dignified.
But inside her sleeve, her fingers curled slightly.
Ning Huang stared at him from his arms.
Her pride had been struck in a way no defeat had achieved.
Zhao Chuan and Lei Yunhe felt it too.
The storm of emotions in the street crushed down on them, but survival finally overpowered humiliation.
Zhao Chuan bit down hard enough to crack a tooth. His remaining hand pressed against his bleeding shoulder. White-gold lightning began to burn from his wounds, ragged and unstable. The flame of his thunder blood wrapped around his body, forcing his shattered meridians to circulate one last burst of power.
Lei Yunhe did the same.
His lightning glow was dimmer, but steadier. He did not waste energy on anger. He gathered everything into escape, feeding his bloodline, his spear intent, and the last remnants of his sect art into a single movement.
Long Shenyin's eyes narrowed slightly.
She could stop them.
Everyone knew it.
Zhao Chuan and Lei Yunhe knew it most clearly.
But Long Shenyu did not move, so she only clicked her tongue and let them burn.
Zhao Chuan's escape light formed first, a ragged streak of white-gold thunder that looked more like a wound across the sky than a movement technique. Lei Yunhe followed half a breath later, his lightning dim and narrow, but controlled enough to carry him away.
The two vanished into the distance.
Not with the dignity of envoys.
Not with the bearing of Heaven's Edict representatives.
But with the desperation of defeated men fleeing slaughter.
For a long time after they disappeared, River Ridge City remained silent.
No one even dared breathe too loudly.
Those two men had come as thunder.
They had left like beaten dogs.
Ning Huang finally spoke, her voice low enough that only those near him could hear.
"You know what those words mean."
Long Shenyu looked down at her.
His smile changed.
The killing indifference faded from his eyes, replaced by a warmth so direct that Ning Huang's breath caught before she could stop it.
"I do."
Ning Huang held his gaze. "You offended Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace completely."
"They offended me first."
"That is not how sect politics works."
"I know."
"Then why say it like that?"
Long Shenyu leaned closer. His voice lowered, amused and intimate, slipping beneath the ruins of thunder and blood as if the whole city were not watching them.
"Because you looked too pretty defending me earlier. I couldn't let them think I didn't notice."
Ning Huang froze.
For one full breath, the War Heiress of Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace did not seem like a woman who had stood against envoys, sect judgment, and battlefield death. She looked like a proud young genius who had been struck in the most defenseless place possible.
Her cheeks colored.
Long Shenyu's smile deepened.
Ning Huang's fingers tightened against his robe. "Shameless."
"Honest."
"That is worse."
"It works better."
Mei Qingxue let out a soft laugh.
Shen Lanyue turned her face slightly away.
Her expression remained cool, but the faintest warmth touched her eyes.
Long Shenyin made a disgusted sound.
"Are you finished?" She rested the Black Sun Tyrant Spear against her shoulder, her black-red slaughter aura still crawling along the spearhead. "Stop wasting my time and conquer this meager city already. Watching you flirt over broken trash is making my spear bored."
Long Shenyu waved one hand lazily at her.
"Your spear complains less than you do."
"It has better manners."
"It also kills fewer people when ignored."
Long Shenyin sneered. "Give it a moment."
Then Long Shenyu turned his gaze across River Ridge City.
The city felt it.
It was not killing intent.
Killing intent was direct. Killing intent chose targets. Killing intent made people imagine blades, blood, severed necks, pierced hearts.
This was broader.
Colder.
Heavier.
His gaze swept outward like an invisible tide, passing over ruined streets, broken rooftops, cracked defensive formations, trembling cultivators, and elders hidden behind formation mirrors. It touched the Qin Family estate, where sword cultivators stood stiff as corpses. It touched the Lu Family's shield halls, where defensive masters felt their armor become meaningless. It touched the Huo Family's furnace district, where flames dipped low inside pill cauldrons and forging pits. It touched the Wen Family's administrative towers, where scribes, accountants, contract elders, and informants suddenly realized that numbers could not measure this disaster.
It settled over every market.
And River Ridge had nowhere to hide.
Long Shenyin spun her spear once.
The sound was low and brutal, like iron turning inside a furnace.
Her eyes drifted across the city with lazy cruelty until they stopped on the Wen Family.
Those who saw her gaze shift went pale.
The Wen Family had always survived by bending.
They recorded debts. Managed contracts. Balanced city payments. Sent gifts to the right elders, messages to the right sects, rumors to the right ears. They were not famous for warriors. They were famous for remaining useful no matter who won.
But there were moments when usefulness became worthless.
Long Shenyin raised her spear.
Across half the city, every Wen cultivator in the main administrative tower felt the same instinct at once.
Run.
A black-red spear light tore through the sky.
It did not fly like a normal technique. It advanced with the weight of a charging army. The air before it compressed. Roof tiles ripped loose. Hanging banners snapped apart. Formation screens across the Wen district flashed to life, layer after layer of pale-gold script spreading over the tower like stacked shields.
"Defend!"
The Wen Family patriarch, Wen Zhili, roared from within the upper hall.
His face had already lost its color. Beside him, a half-step Sky Lord elder burned his blood essence without hesitation. A Perfection Origin Core enforcer slammed both palms onto the control array. Dozens of clerks poured Qi into formation plates until their arms cracked and blood seeped from their sleeves.
For a breath, the Wen tower shone with the defensive brilliance of a family that had spent generations preparing for political catastrophe.
Then the spear light arrived.
The first barrier broke without a sound.
The second split in half.
The third exploded backward, blasting formation plates through the walls. The half-step Sky Lord elder coughed blood and was thrown into a stone pillar. The Perfection Origin Core enforcer's palms burst apart. Wen Zhili's eyes widened as the spear force struck the upper tower.
There was no contest.
The top section of the Wen Family's main administrative tower exploded.
Stone, wood, jade slips, formation plates, ledgers, and screaming cultivators scattered into the air. A ring of black-red force expanded outward, chewing through carved beams and protective runes. Several Wen elders at the top died instantly, their bodies torn apart before they could even curse.
Inside a hidden chamber, a message formation had nearly activated.
It was meant to transmit news to distant contacts—possibly the Night Ledger Sect, possibly other city powers, possibly anyone willing to pay for disaster.
The spear light brushed it.
The formation burned white, then black, then collapsed into ash.
Half the Wen district fell silent.
Long Shenyin lowered her spear, her expression bored.
Then her voice rolled over River Ridge.
"All family leaders, crawl out here. Now."