My whole family was brutally murdered? I awakened the thug system and went on a killing spree.

The provincial capital, the Zhao family ancestral home. An underground combat command center constructed entirely of metal.

The patriarch, Zhao Zhenhai, stared intently at the satellite imagery displayed on the screen. He crushed the pure gold teacup in his hand into a pile of crumbs with his bare hands.

"Intercepted it? Intercepted the Rod of God with his own body?" Zhao Zhenhai was breathing rapidly, his eyes bloodshot.

Nearby, several officers operating tactical radars were drenched in cold sweat, their uniforms completely soaked.

This is not martial arts. This is a humanoid catastrophe that has broken down species barriers.

"Master." An old man dressed in black robes appeared silently behind Zhao Zhenhai.

"Physical attacks are ineffective. His internal energy cycle has become unorthodox and beyond the realm of common sense."

The old man had a golden cross embroidered on his chest. It was the symbol of the Tribunal, the highest authority in the provincial capital.

Peak of the ninth rank. Grandmaster of swordsmanship, Chen Wuji.

"Elder Chen." Zhao Zhenhai turned around and bowed deeply. "The spiritual veins in Jiangcheng have been destroyed. But if this boy doesn't die, how can our four great families maintain their dignity? We request the Tribunal to take action and suppress him."

The lines on Chen Wuji's wrinkled face were extremely stiff.

"He stole the opportunity of the earth's veins and achieved physical sainthood. But he was merely an empty shell. Without understanding the laws of heaven and earth, he was ultimately just a brute who deserved to wallow in the mud."

Chen Wuji gripped the hilt of the sword behind his back with his other hand.

"I will go there myself. I will take his head and extract his spinal cord to make medicine."

Before he finished speaking, he transformed into a beam of sword light that shot into the sky, tearing through the thick alloy dome of the command center and heading straight for Jiangcheng.

Jiangcheng, Zhao Family Mansion Plaza.

Qin Meng had just sat back down on the slumped sofa, preparing to continue gnawing on the remaining half of his scaly cow.

A chilling, extremely sharp aura filled the air. This aura was unlike any previous oppressive energy; it was highly restrained, yet it pierced straight to the bone marrow.

The low-level gang leaders in the hall suddenly developed small, bloody cracks on their skin, with blood gushing out.

Qin Meng stopped chewing. He swallowed the meat in his mouth and looked up at the outside of the building.

A dazzling white light sliced ​​through the horizon, moving too fast for radar to detect. One second it was kilometers away, the next it was hovering above the building plaza.

Chen Wuji stood with his sword on his foot. His black robe fluttered in the wind.

A ninth-tier peak swordsman. He didn't deliberately release his aura, but the physical laws of the surrounding space had already begun to tilt towards him. Raindrops lingered in mid-air, defying the rules of gravity, slowly rotating around him, transforming into millions of miniature, deadly ice swords.

"You are that variable." Chen Wuji looked down at Qin Meng in the hall. His voice wasn't loud, but it sparked in everyone's ears.

Jiang Nuonuo was so frightened that she immediately crawled under the marble coffee table, covering her ears tightly and trembling.

Qin Meng stood up. He didn't answer the pointless question, but simply stretched his thick neck.

"Peak of the ninth rank?" Qin Meng sized up the old man in mid-air. "Perfect for me to digest after my meal."

Chen Wuji snorted coldly. He had seen far too many arrogant fools like this who didn't know their place. Relying on brute force, they dared to try and defy the laws of heaven and earth.

"A frog at the bottom of a well. No matter how strong its body is, it is still just a mortal."

Chen Wuji brought his right hand together to form a sword finger and gently slashed downwards at Qin Meng.

Judgment Sword Domain: Thousand Threads.

There was no grand display of force. Thousands of invisible, transparent sword energies, sharp enough to cut through atoms, enveloped Qin Meng from all directions. These sword energies ignored any physical defenses, directly targeting and dismantling cellular structures.

The load-bearing steel columns in the hall were grazed by these invisible sword energies, and without even stirring up any dust, they were cleanly broken into several pieces.

Qin Meng stood still, his body enveloped in sword energy.

A series of ear-piercing metallic scraping sounds rang out across his body. Dark red Dao patterns burst forth with dazzling light.

The system panel is twitching.

It is subjected to the cutting of microscopic laws.

Physical strength assessment in progress. Current physical strength: 612 points. Law resistance is overwhelming.

The battle-hardened body absorbs ineffective energy and converts it into bioelectricity storage.

Those ninth-order sword energies, powerful enough to grind an eighth-order martial artist into mincemeat, struck Qin Meng's Dao-patterned skin without shaving a single hair. Instead, they were completely devoured by the muscle groups beneath the skin.

Chen Wuji's usually calm and collected face showed a dramatic change in expression.

The sword energy was ineffective. That was an attack imbued with the laws of heaven and earth.

Qin Meng patted his chest, brushing away some non-existent dust.

"It's all flashy and overly complicated. The scraping alone isn't strong enough."

Qin Meng's hind leg muscles were extremely compressed, and then suddenly released.

The hall floor shattered completely. Qin Meng appeared before Chen Wuji as if by teleportation. He was so close that Chen Wuji could clearly see the frantically throbbing, violent Dao patterns in Qin Meng's pupils.

The long sword on Chen Wuji's back automatically unsheathed, attempting to protect its master.

Qin Meng reached out with his left hand and grabbed the ninth-tier flying sword, which had been forged from extraterrestrial meteorite iron and nurtured for eighty years.

bang.

With a flick of his two fingers, he snapped his natal flying sword, which could cut through iron like mud, in two.

With his natal flying sword damaged, Chen Wuji coughed up a mouthful of blood, his spiritual sea suffering a devastating blow. He finally understood that the monster before him didn't care about any nonsense about the laws of heaven and earth; its very existence was crushing common sense.

Escape. We must escape back to the provincial capital.

Chen Wuji crushed a high-level spatial transfer talisman, and the void around his body began to distort.

"Come and go as you please?"

Qin Meng spread his right hand out like steel bars and inserted it directly into that distorted space.

With overwhelming, pure physical force, he forcefully blocked the spatial teleportation channel. He grabbed Chen Wuji by the collar and dragged this high-ranking ninth-level sword master back from the spatial rift.

"Get down."

Qin Meng swung his arm and slammed Chen Wuji down like a rag doll onto the marble plaza below.

boom.

A massive crater was smashed into the plaza. Seventy percent of Chen Wuji's bones were shattered, and he lay sprawled at the bottom of the crater like a lump of mud. His ninth-level true qi protection was as brittle as a piece of waste paper under the physical impact of hundreds of tons.

Qin Meng landed on the ground, his foot stomping on Chen Wuji's chest. The sound of ribs piercing his heart was clearly audible.

He pulled a communicator flashing red light from Chen Wuji's pocket. It was an encrypted device that connected directly to the command center of the four major families in the provincial capital.

Qin Meng pressed the call button.

On the other end of the communicator, the heavy breathing of Zhao Zhenhai and the other three family heads could be heard. They had been listening to everything that had just happened through the device, and a deathly silence fell over them.

Qin Meng spoke into the communicator in a calm tone, as if he were picking out cabbages at the market.

"What 'Staff of God'? What 'ninth-tier swordsman'? Too weak."

"Jiangcheng is now my territory."

"You have three days. Wash your necks clean and take stock of all your possessions."

"Three days later, I'm going to the provincial capital to collect debts. If even one of you dares to run away, I'll slaughter your entire family."

Click.

Qin Meng crushed the communicator in his hand, stomping it, along with Chen Wuji's head, into the mud.