Long before the Ancestral Trial began, Shen Li had meticulously laid out his plans, leaving nothing to chance.

The most crucial part of his strategy was forging alliances with the young masters from other participating families. As the future head of the Shen clan, winning them over was a trivial matter. With their support, targeting Shen Xian and Ye Qingxian whenever he pleased would be child’s play.

Among his new pawns, Shen Cong, a loyal confidant, had received explicit orders: find the so-called “useless trash,” Shen Xian, and eliminate him within the ancestral grounds.

To his surprise, he discovered Shen Xian not only in the same Immortal Grotto as him but also completely alone.

Shen Cong and his four subordinates closed in. All four were late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators of considerable strength. They specialized in hunting spiritual beasts as a team, aiming to secure high rankings through their combined power.

From their vantage point, they saw Shen Xian locked in a fierce battle with a spiritual beast. He seemed evenly matched—if not a little strained.

“Useless trash,” Shen Cong sneered. How could someone at a mere Qi Refining Level 2 possibly survive the first stage?

“It seems this merit is all mine,” Shen Cong murmured, his eyes gleaming with a venomous, snake-like light as his fingers unconsciously caressed the hilt of his sword.

Lowering his voice, he spoke with bone-chilling contempt, “The Second Young Master has decreed it: whoever brings him this trash’s head will not only receive a second-grade supreme spiritual pill but will also be granted access to the Scripture Pavilion to select a cultivation technique.”

The four men’s eyes lit up with greed.

“Him?” A tall, thin cultivator let out a mocking laugh, deliberately raising his voice. “A complete waste who can’t even break through to Qi Refining Level 3 with pills—and he’s worth a second-grade supreme spiritual pill?”

He spat contemptuously toward Shen Xian. The saliva sizzled as it corroded a small pit into the metallic ground.

Beside him, a cultivator with a coarse, fleshy face grinned menacingly as he drew his saber. “I’ve killed chickens with higher cultivation than this piece of trash. The Second Young Master is truly overestimating him.”

The blade scraped harshly against the ground, but he paid it no mind, his eyes brimming with cruel excitement.

“What do you know!” Shen Cong barked, his own eyes gleaming with the same malice. “This trash may be garbage, but he still carries the name of a direct descendant!”

He chuckled sinisterly. “Imagine if the Second Young Master could personally witness this direct descendant kneeling like a dog, begging for his life…”

At the mention of this, the others’ eyes erupted with a morbid fervor.

The short, stout cultivator who had been silent until now produced a poisoned dagger, licking its blade with a flick of his tongue. “I’m going to slice his flesh off piece by piece. The screams of this trash will be music to my ears.”

To kill a direct descendant of the clan was something they wouldn’t even dare to dream of under normal circumstances. But within the ancestral grounds, all memories would be erased. No one would ever know it was them.

This thought made them feel even more unrestrained, more reckless.

Shen Cong watched his companions’ reactions with satisfaction, then solemnly withdrew the Soul-Locking Talisman from his robes. Dark energy writhed across its surface as if alive, faintly emitting mournful wails.

“The Second Young Master even parted with his treasured Soul-Locking Talisman,” he said, pausing deliberately to reveal a stark white grin, “just to ensure this piece of trash… can neither live nor die.”

The five men exchanged glances and burst into laughter, their smiles brimming with twisted delight. They reveled in the thought of tormenting the weak, especially when the victim was a direct descendant who normally looked down on them from on high.

Shen Cong gave the talisman one last look, his eyes blazing with ferocity. “Remember, don’t let him die too quickly. The Second Young Master specifically instructed us to make him savor every moment.”

The others nodded, their dark understanding clear.

With a flash of malice in his eyes, Shen Cong activated the Soul-Locking Talisman.

A dark mist instantly billowed out, enveloping everything within a hundred feet and forming a deathly cage isolated from the outside world. Five waves of malevolent energy rapidly closed in, led by Shen Cong’s repulsively fawning face.

“Well, well, if it isn’t our Third Young Master?” Shen Cong dragged out his words, a false smile plastered across his face. “What are you doing wandering alone in such a dangerous place?”

The area was sealed. He had no fear of his prey escaping.

The tall, thin cultivator made a show of scanning his surroundings. “Could it be that Miss Ye found you too worthless and abandoned you?” he said in a sarcastic tone.

The five of them roared with laughter. The brute with the coarse features slammed his large saber into the ground, sending a loud clang across the metallic surface.

Licking his lips, he sneered, “Third Young Master, how about your uncles here protect you? Just kneel and kowtow three times, and we’ll take you to find Miss Ye. What do you say?”

The thought that Qingzhou’s most beautiful woman was engaged to this useless trash infuriated them. Now, feeling completely emboldened, they seized the opportunity to humiliate him.

Shen Xian watched their performance impassively, his gaze as calm as if he were observing a troupe of clowns. He had sensed their approach long ago; the fight with the beast was merely an act to lure them in.

He just wondered how many beast crystals these fools were carrying.

“You must have pissed yourself in fear.”

Seeing no reaction, the short, stout cultivator mocked, “Trash is trash. Kill him!”

Five fierce attacks erupted simultaneously.

The tall, thin cultivator’s longsword became a silver arc aimed straight for Shen Xian’s throat. The bearded brute’s saber slashed like a torrent, sweeping across horizontally. Shen Cong chanted an incantation, summoning three strands of sinister black energy that shot toward Shen Xian’s dantian.

Just as the attacks were about to land, Shen Xian’s figure blurred.

“Too slow.”

Three soft words echoed in the tall, thin cultivator’s ear. To his horror, he realized his blade had passed straight through an afterimage.

Before he could react, a slender hand pressed lightly against the top of his skull.

Boom!

With a muffled thud, the man’s head exploded like a watermelon, splattering red and white all over the coarse-faced cultivator standing beside him. The late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator died without even a chance to scream.

“Impossible!” the coarse-faced cultivator recoiled in terror, the flesh on his face trembling uncontrollably. He frantically swung his saber, erecting a wall of blades before him. “You’re not at Qi Refining Level 2!”

Such power was far beyond what a Qi Refining cultivator could possess.

Shen Xian strolled through the wall of blades as if taking a leisurely walk. The blade energy, sharp enough to slice through steel, couldn’t even tear a corner of his robes. His powerful spiritual sense had locked onto them from the very beginning.

A faint smile touched his lips. With a casual flick of his finger, a bloody hole appeared between the coarse-faced man’s eyebrows, his eyes frozen in disbelief.

With strength equivalent to half a Golden Core, crushing these late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators was effortless.

“The Second Young Master was right…” One of the three remaining men suddenly burst into hysterical laughter. “You really were hiding your strength!”

He violently tore open his robes, revealing a chest plastered with explosive talismans. “Let’s die together!”

Realizing their opponent was in a different league, the man intended to detonate himself to grievously injure Shen Xian.

Shen Xian raised an eyebrow slightly and finally drew his Traceless Sword.

The sword light flashed like lightning. Before the cultivator could activate the talismans, the blade cleaved him in two at the waist. Before the severed halves even hit the ground, Shen Xian followed up with a palm strike, shattering the body into a fine mist of blood.

“A Soul-Locking Talisman?” Shen Xian’s gaze fell upon Shen Cong, whose face had turned deathly pale. A mocking smile played on his lips. “Good. Now I don’t have to worry about you running away.”

Shen Cong trembled violently, then dropped to his knees and began kowtowing frantically. “Third Young Master, spare me! The Second Young Master ordered me to do this! I…”

His plea for mercy ended abruptly.

He stared down in shock at a sword tip protruding from his chest. The Traceless Sword had pierced his heart at some unknown moment, yet not a single drop of blood stained its blade.

“I know,” Shen Xian whispered softly into his ear. “That’s why I’ll let Shen Li… enjoy this thoroughly.”