Chapter 266: Chapter 266. Punishment for Trespassing

The four seniors crashed through four separate windows. They found themselves in two different rooms, two in each room. The leader was among the two inside the room Amon crashed into. He saw a broken door opposite the window he entered through. The door, which broke to the outside, indicated that something had smashed into it from inside this room.

“He ran through that door. Chase!” The leader commanded.

He and the other senior rushed outside. At the same time, their two comrades came out of the door of the room next door. “Where is he?” One of the two asked.

They looked around the place. Outside the rooms was a large hall. Looking at the place, they believed this building was a community building. Most likely the village hall, and this large hall should be the grand hall.

“There are too many doors…,” One of the seniors said. “He can be in any one of them.”

“… Yun and Miyang are keeping watch outside,” The leader said. “He won’t get out of here undetected. Search this place! We split into two and comb through every door until we find him. Shout when you do.”

They nodded at the command. They split into two teams. One team stayed on the second floor, and the other team jumped to the ground floor to check the rooms there.

They started opening the doors. They were not subtle about it. They kicked the door until its hinges were torn from the walls. They had no reservations because they didn’t think this small village had any high-level cultivators.

They were all Transformation Stage cultivators. Furthermore, they were Royal Academy students and came from respective clans. Even if there were cultivators in this village who had the same cultivation level as them, their arts and prowess would not be up to par with them.

Hence, they felt they could do whatever they wanted without fear of repercussions.

One of the doors on the ground floor opened by itself as they searched. They looked over and saw a small girl behind the open door. She was holding a worn-out teddy bear. Her face showed a shocked expression as she watched the strangers in her house.

She turned to the inside of the room and said to someone inside, “Ma, there are strangers inside the house.”

Not long after, a woman came out. She looked to be in her forties. She had a pale face with two large eyes that appeared swollen. She wore a black dress that covered almost her entire body. She was staring at the people who had intruded into her house with her unsettling eyes.

“Why are you in our house?” She asked.

“We are the Royal Academy students, and I am from the Gao clan,” One of the seniors said. He believed his status and heritage were enough to intimidate these villagers. “We are conducting an official business. Have you seen someone else aside from us in this house?”

“No,” the woman answered flatly.

“Are you sure? The person we are looking for is a criminal. If you harbor him, we will consider you guilty and won’t hesitate to dispense punishment. It will be in your best interest to hand him over.”

“Funny that you should mention punishment,” the woman said. Her face was flat without any emotion. “I was thinking about what punishment we should give you for trespassing our house.”

She turned to the girl next to her and asked, “What do you think, Xiao Yu? Do you think death is too harsh of a punishment for them?”

The girl looked at the strangers and said, “They broke our doors.”

“So, death?” The woman asked.

The girl nodded.

“Death it shall be then,” the woman announced.

The senior, who tried to intimidate using status and heritage, chuckled. He told his comrade, “The villagers here are nuts. They don’t know their limits.”

As he said that, he felt the temperature in the hall drop drastically. At the same time, the lighting around the place seemed to dim. They then heard a hum.

The change in the environment made them look around the place, trying to see what was wrong. When their eyes returned to where the woman and girl were, they were shocked to find a bizarre creature had appeared next to the two villagers.

“A spirit beast?!” The senior from the Gao clan asked. “How did it get in unnoticed?”

“What kind of spirit beast is that?” His friend asked. “I have never seen or heard anything that looks like that.”

“It’s probably that woman’s pet. She should be a beast tamer.”

“Stupid fool. Does she think a mere spirit beast tamable by weak villagers like her can threaten royal academy students like us? Let’s use this spirit beast to show her what happens if she hides Lin Mo from us!”

Finished talking, the senior threw multiple small knives in the spirit beast’s direction. The spirit beast didn’t show any attempt to defend or dodge. The knives stabbed into its body. They sank in, but no blood was spilled. The knives slowly slid out of the wounds and fell to the ground. The wounds were closed as soon as the knives were out. It was as if nothing had happened. The spirit beast slowly floated toward them.

“What the hell? What kind of spirit beast is that?”

“You’ve asked that before. Stop talking and attack!” The Gao senior exclaimed. Two swords with hooked ends appeared in his hands.

He lunged forward and spun the swords. Flashing lights crisscrossed all around him. As his swords turned into imperceptible blurs, the flashing lights came together and surrounded the spirit beasts.

At the same time, uncountable leaves blew throughout the hall. They came from the senior who threw the knives earlier. This time, he was using arcane art. These leaves were sharper and faster than his knives. They also had significantly more numbers.

The flashing lights and the leaf darts landed on the spirit beast. The light sliced its body while the leaf darts pierced it. Despite the seemingly successful hit, the spirit beast uttered no sound. Its face was covered by its long hair, so they couldn’t see if it felt pain from their attacks.

The unsettling hum that came from the spirit beast instead became louder. At the same time, darkness seemed to spread, dimming the lights around the house further. It was still morning outside, but it appeared as if it was already evening inside here.

As this happened, the two seniors experienced irrational fear. They felt their hearts beat faster, even the other two seniors watching from the second floor felt unnerved.

A high-pitched cry echoed through the hall. The seniors on the ground floor felt they lost control of their bodies. They couldn’t move. As that happened, the spirit beast suddenly warped over. At one second, it was away. The next, it was right in front of them.

Its four long arms moved at a dazzling speed. The paralyzed Gao senior couldn’t do anything as the spirit beast’s two hands grabbed his arms. The spirit beast’s two other hands formed into fists. They came down and slammed into the senior’s two arms. Loud broken bones were heard.

“AAAHHH…!!!” The Gao senior screamed out of pain. His pain became louder when the spirit beast pulled his broken arms and ripped them out of his shoulder. Blood gushed out of his severed limbs.

His scream didn’t last long as the spirit beast pushed him to the ground. With two hands pinning him on the ground, the other two arms mercilessly pounded his head. Without an arm to block, he was helpless as his head received repeated pummeling. His skull finally gave in and cracked. His brain splattered all over the floor.

His comrade, who was also paralyzed, could move again out of the sheer terror from what he witnessed. He turned to run but didn’t get far. Threads of hair came from behind and ensnared his body. He fought to free himself, but more and more hair wrapped over him.

He was lifted off the ground by the hair. The hair had now covered almost eighty percent of his body. He was screaming. His mind was in turmoil. The fear clouded his mind so much that he didn’t have the thought to use any art.

The hair pulled him in different directions. His body failed to withstand the force. It was ripped apart into many pieces. Blood splattered all over the place. Some even hit the ceiling.

The two seniors on the second floor were petrified by the scene. Everything had happened so fast. They didn’t know what to make of it. One of them snapped out and threw small knives at the villager woman. If he killed the beast tamer, the beast would lose control and might not target them anymore.

The knives flew fast. The villager woman watched the incoming knives without any expression. The spirit beast, which was ahead, suddenly vanished and reappeared before the villager woman. The knives hit the spirit beast, instead.

The two seniors couldn’t see the face behind the spirit beast’s hair. Yet, they somehow knew it was staring at them. They could feel it. They had been marked! The scenes of their comrades getting torn apart replayed in their minds. These memories screamed for them to leave the place.

They obeyed the impulse. They turned to flee but were assailed by another high-pitched cry. Their bodies involuntarily stopped again when they heard the cry.

Their legs refused to move. All they could do was turn their necks. They looked back and saw the spirit beast move by teleporting. Each teleport brought it closer until it was right before them.

They were close enough that they saw the spirit beast’s face underneath the hair. All they could think about when they stared at the face was a combination of all the dreadful memories throughout their lives. These thoughts stopped when the spirit beast’s hair wrapped all over them.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep