25: Chapter 25 This bow sends the Zhao family on their way!
Night had already fallen, but the main hall of the Zhao family villa was brightly lit, filled with the sounds of clinking glasses and lively conversation.
A massive crystal chandelier cast a brilliant glow, while the long European-style dining table was laden with delicacies from land and sea. The air was thick with the aroma of expensive red wine.
"Come, Elders, let us toast to the future of our Zhao family."
The patriarch, Zhao Wuji, dressed in a Tang suit, raised his glass with a face flushed with excitement.
Although hiring Shadow Ghost to assassinate the top scorer of the college entrance examination was a risky move—one could even say he was gambling with the family's destiny...
...Zhao Wuji believed that as long as the boy was dead, there would be no witness to testify against them. With the connections the Zhao family had built in Jianghai City over many years, it would be enough to suppress the matter.
"The Patriarch is wise!"
Several family elders rose one after another, obsequious smiles plastered on their faces. "Though that Lin Yuan was a genius, he hadn't grown up yet. A dead genius is truly worse than a dog."
"Hahaha!"
Zhao Tianba sat in a specially made wheelchair, his entire body wrapped in bandages, leaving only a pair of spiteful and excited eyes exposed.
"Dad! Shadow Ghost should have succeeded by now, right?"
Zhao Tianba grinned hideously. "When that trash's corpse is brought back, I'm going to cut off his head and kick it around like a ball! I'll crush his bones inch by inch and feed them to the Tibetan Mastiffs in the backyard!"
"Don't worry, Tianba."
Zhao Wuji looked at his son affectionately. "Shadow Ghost is a top-tier assassin at the Third Rank Peak and has never failed. Right now, he's likely on his way back."
Just then.
Bang!
The doors to the banquet hall were slammed open, and the Zhao family's old butler stumbled in. His usually meticulously combed hair was now a disheveled mess, and his face was as pale as paper.
"Pa... Patriarch! Something is wrong!"
The butler's voice trembled as if he had seen a ghost. "The surveillance at the entrance... it's all gone black! And... and we can't contact the outer security team! The entire manor... it's like... it's like it's become a city of the dead!"
"What?!"
Zhao Wuji's brow furrowed. "What's the panic? It's probably a circuit failure. Where's the backup power?"
"No... it's not a failure!" The butler shook all over. "Just a second before the surveillance went dark, I saw... I saw..."
"Saw what? Speak!" Zhao Wuji barked.
The butler swallowed hard, but before he could speak...
Suddenly.
A heart-stopping vibration radiated from the manor's main entrance.
Whoosh—!
The sound approached from afar, moving with incredible speed.
The next second.
Boom!!!
The four-meter-high, thousand-jin steel gate, engraved with the Zhao family crest, was blown clean off its hinges!
Carrying terrifying kinetic energy and accompanied by the whistling of the wind, the gate slammed violently onto the long dining table in the center of the banquet hall.
Two collateral members of the Zhao family sitting near the door, who were just raising their glasses to celebrate, were instantly crushed into a pulp by the falling steel gate!
The sturdy solid wood table shattered instantly. Delicacies and fine wine, mixed with blood and bone fragments, splattered everywhere.
The Zhao family members, who had been clinking glasses just a moment ago, were now splattered with warm liquid.
"Ah!! Murder!!"
"Enemy attack! There's an enemy attack!!"
Zhao Wuji was shielded by several elders. He stared intently at the slightly vibrating, deformed steel gate, his eyes filled with shock, rage, and fear.
"Who?! Who dares to break into my Zhao family manor?!"
The dust gradually settled.
Moonlight, like water, poured in through the shattered doorway.
A slender figure, carrying a pitch-black long saber, stepped over the rubble and through the moonlight, walking into the hall one step at a time.
Having just emerged from the Spiritual Qi Baptism Pool, he didn't exude the slightest bit of killing intent; instead, he was as calm as a pool of stagnant water.
Yet everyone present felt a sense of suffocation originating from the depths of their souls the moment they saw him.
Lin Yuan stopped in his tracks, his calm gaze sweeping over the wrecked banquet hall before finally landing on the ashen-faced Zhao Wuji.
"I heard you were waiting for good news?"
"No need to wait. I've brought it personally."
"Lin... Lin Yuan?!"
Zhao Tianba's eyes widened from his wheelchair. He pointed at Lin Yuan as if he had seen a ghost, his finger trembling violently. "How can you still be alive? Where's Shadow Ghost? Where did Shadow Ghost go?!"
Lin Yuan continued to walk forward.
"Presumptuous!!"
As alarms blared, twenty elite guards and bodyguards, heavily paid for by the Zhao family, rushed out from the side doors.
Every one of them wore a bulletproof vest and held an alloy war saber. Among them were even a few First Rank Peak martial artists.
"Daring to break into the Zhao family! You're looking for death!"
"Go, brothers! Hack him to death!"
Facing the surging crowd, Lin Yuan didn't even pause his steps, let alone raise the war saber in his hand.
[Chaos God Grinder Visualization Technique: Telekinetic Burst!]
Buzz!
An invisible wave centered on Lin Yuan instantly swept through the hall.
In the next second, a bizarre scene unfolded.
In the hall, the thousands of silver knives and forks scattered on the floor, tables, and even embedded in the walls suddenly seemed to come to life, trembling violently.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Under everyone's horrified gazes, the cutlery levitated into the air, transforming into a silver metallic storm!
"Go."
Lin Yuan uttered a single word.
Pfft pfft pfft pfft pfft!
Silver light flashed as fast as lightning.
The twenty guards who had been charging aggressively froze in their tracks before they could even get within three meters of Lin Yuan.
Their throats, foreheads, hearts... every vital spot was pierced by a delicate silver knife or fork.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The twenty corpses fell to the ground in unison, like wheat being harvested.
Instant kill.
And it was an effortless instant kill!
Lin Yuan walked across the carpet, passing through the middle of the corpses.
"A... A Telekinetic?!"
An elder behind Zhao Wuji, who was quite experienced, was now pale with fright, his teeth chattering. "Manipulating objects from a distance... that's Spiritual Telekinesis! How is this possible? How old is he?!"
The pampered women and children of the Zhao family had already shrunk into the corners, covering their mouths tightly, not even daring to cry out loud.
Fear spread like a plague.
Zhao Wuji looked at the boy approaching step by step and finally panicked.
"Lin... Lin Yuan!"
Zhao Wuji forced himself to stay calm. He crushed the wine glass in his hand, the shards piercing his palm. The sharp pain allowed him to maintain a final shred of clarity.
"Where is Shadow Ghost? What did you do to Shadow Ghost?"
Although he already had the worst suspicions in his heart, he still refused to believe that a top-tier assassin at the Third Rank Peak could lose to a student.
"You mean the one in black?"
Lin Yuan stopped his advance, only five meters away from Zhao Wuji.
He then pulled a blood-stained black dagger from his trench coat pocket and tossed it aside.
The dagger slid across the floor, stopping exactly in front of Zhao Tianba's wheelchair.
"He's dead."
"He said on the road to the Yellow Springs that it's too cold and lonely being by himself."
Lin Yuan looked up, his dark eyes instantly turning into icy blades as they locked onto Zhao Wuji's pale face.
"So, I came here specifically..."
"...to send your whole family down to reunite with him."