Starting as the heir of a marquis's mansion, I gained access to a summoning system.

three days later.

The White Lotus Sect's secret envoy, accompanied by a group of men, delivered five million taels of gold and five White Lotus Heavenly Pills to the western headquarters of the Heavenly Net under the cover of night.

Yin Wuxie said to the man in black beside him, "Go and fetch Blood Hand. Tell him we can make our move. I want to see Dongfang Weiwo's head within three days."

The man in black accepted the order and left.

Yin Wuxie looked at the box of White Lotus Heavenly Pills, a smile playing on his lips.

As for Dongfang Wudi's rage...

"No matter how strong Dongfang Wudi is, he's still just one person," Yin Wuxie murmured, a cold glint in his eyes. "The Heavenly Net hides in the shadows, covering the entire world. Can he find it?"

"Besides... those people will also target him."

He closed the box and put it into his sleeve.

Pingyang County City.

The moonlight, like water, spilled onto the rows of rooftops, bathing the entire city in a cool, silvery-white glow.

A blood-red figure swept silently across the rooftops, as fast as the wind and as light as a leaf. He walked on the tiles without making a sound, and not even the moonlight cast a shadow on him.

The man was thin, dressed in a dark red bodysuit, and wore a half-blood-red mask on his face, revealing only a pair of cold eyes.

He is Skynet's top assassin – "Bloody Hand," a Grandmaster at the second level, known for his speed and fame for assassinations. In his twenty years in the business, he has never failed.

Bloodhand lay in wait outside the Zhenfu Division branch for half an hour, like a spider clinging to the edge of a web, motionless.

He carefully observed the layout of the courtyard: the main gate, the side gate, the back gate, the walls, the changing times of the sentries, the routes of the patrolling soldiers, and the location of each house in the courtyard.

His target lived in the second public house on the east side. A junior at the Innate Realm, seventeen years old, who had only been in Pingyang County for less than half a year. Normally, this kind of person wouldn't be worth his personal attention; a mere Earth Realm assassin could easily handle him.

But he remembered the commander's words very clearly—there were experts guarding Pingyang County, but their specific cultivation levels were unknown.

"I can't sense any powerful aura..." Blood Hand lay on the roof ridge, his ears twitching slightly. Every sound within a hundred feet couldn't escape his ears. Breathing, heartbeat, footsteps, insect chirping... everything was normal.

Either there are no expert guards at all.

Either that person's cultivation level is far above his, and they can perfectly conceal their aura so that even he cannot sense them.

Bloodhand doesn't like the second possibility.

He decided to finish the fight quickly. Regardless of whether there were guards or not, as long as he was fast enough, he could kill his opponent with a single strike before the opponent could react, and then immediately escape—his speed at the second level of Grandmaster was so great that even if the opponent was at the third level of Grandmaster, they wouldn't be able to stop him.

A blood-red afterimage streaked across the night sky.

Bloodhand appeared like a ghost outside the window of Dongfang Weiwo's mansion. His movements were so fast that even the moonlight couldn't linger on him. With a flick of his right hand, a short, jet-black blade appeared in his palm. The blade was as thin as a cicada's wing, without any reflection. The tip of the blade was coated with a colorless and odorless poison—it was lethal upon contact with blood, and anyone below the Grandmaster level would die instantly.

He doesn't even need to hit a vital spot; just a slight scratch is enough to kill the target.

He raised his short blade and stabbed it into the window.

The window paper shattered silently.

Then he saw someone.

Dressed in white, she stood in the public room, facing him.

The man was tall and slender, with a cold and stern face. His black hair was tied up with a jade crown, and a long sword hung at his waist. He stood there, neither drawing his sword nor channeling his inner energy, nor even deliberately releasing any aura—

But those eyes.

Those indifferent eyes looked like they were looking at a dead person.

Bloodhand's pupils suddenly shrank to pinpoints.

He couldn't sense this person's cultivation level. Absolutely not. It was as if the person standing before him wasn't a living person, but a stone, a sword, or a void. But in that instant, his intuition screamed a warning—a sense of danger a hundred times stronger than anything he had experienced in the past twenty years.

escape!

Run away immediately!

Bloodhand didn't even have time to think about who this person was before his body reacted before his mind could process it. He pushed off the windowsill with both feet and shot out like a blood-red meteor, leaving a trail of afterimages in the air with incredible speed.

He turned and ran.

Then he heard the sound of a sword being drawn.

The sound was soft, like the wind rustling through pine needles, like water droplets falling into a deep pool. But to Bloodhand's ears, it was louder than thunder, deeper than a death knell.

A flash of sword light appeared.

Colder than moonlight, faster than a shooting star. That sword light seemed to fall from the heavens above, or rise from the depths of hell; it did not belong to the mortal realm, nor to any martial arts he knew.

Blood Hand didn't even feel any pain.

He felt a chill on his neck, and then the whole world went dark.

His body tumbled off the roof and crashed onto the bluestone slabs in the courtyard with a dull thud. A thin line of blood, as fine as a hair, slowly seeped from his neck under the moonlight, spreading into a dark red flower on the bluestone slab.

He killed a Grandmaster at the second level with a single sword strike.

Ximen Chuixue sheathed his sword, walked out of the office, glanced at the corpse on the ground, and then disappeared into the shadows.

next morning

Chai Yuguan sat in his tent, holding a secret report that had been delivered overnight.

The contents of the secret report made his pupils shrink slightly—last night, an assassin at the second level of the Grandmaster realm infiltrated Pingyang County, intending to assassinate the young master, but was killed by the white-clad swordsman with a single sword strike. Judging from the assassin's attire and methods, he was a member of the Skynet.

"The Skynet..." Chai Yuguan muttered to himself, his face grim.

The White Lotus Sect had just sent people to test the waters when the Skynet assassins arrived. These two events are likely connected.

He immediately took out a communication talisman and wrote: "Last night, a Grandmaster-level assassin from the Heavenly Net attempted to assassinate you, but he has been killed by Ximen Chuixue. The Netherworld Dharma King of the White Lotus Sect may be colluding with the Heavenly Net. Please, Dragon Head, act swiftly."

The smoke dissipated.

A moment later, a reply came: "Prepare to take action."

Chai Yuguan felt a chill run down his spine when he saw those four words.

Li Chenzhou is about to make his move, and this time it's not a warning.