The Li family's mansion was built in Pingyuan Town, a local landmark known for its high walls and large courtyards.

  The Li family were not natives; they had moved here only about a decade ago.

  But relying on the two Foundation Establishment cultivators within the family, everyone from the cultivators to the servants had grown accustomed to throwing their weight around Pingyuan Town.

  Bullying men, abusing women, seizing property by force—these were daily routines for the Li family.

  Worse, a single cross word could lead them to ruin entire families, wiping out their bloodlines.

  When Li Rushi led his group of cultivators to the Li family gate, he saw it had completely changed.

  Not to mention the valuables, even the jade plaque, the mahogany doors, and even the stone lions that guarded the mansion had been stripped away by the surrounding people.

  There were no clan members or servants inside the residence, only ragged beggars lazily roaming through the various rooms of the compound.

  The sacred aura of incense that once filled the Li home was gone, replaced by a crude stench composed of blood, feces, and urine.

  On ordinary days, the townsfolk of Pingyuan Town spoke respectfully to the immortals but cursed them in their hearts, hoping the Li family would meet with disaster.

  Now that the Li family had truly fallen, everyone rushed to get a kick in.

  After the Ma family's massacre, the nearby residents became active, swarming into the Li mansion to grab whatever they could.

  They grabbed tables when they saw them, chairs when they saw them, even taking screens and everything else away in bundles.

  And several beggars whose families had been destroyed by the Li family moved in with other vagrants, squatting in the Li residence.

  It was like a final stamp on the Li family's grave.

  By noon, a few vagrants had gone out to beg for food, but most lay lazily around the ruined courtyard of the Li mansion.

  Seeing beggars casually desecrating the Li home, even Li Rushi, with all his depth of cunning, could no longer suppress his killing intent.

  In the Canglong Gang, mortals were human slaves.

  Worthless layabouts like these, who did no work, did not even qualify to exist within Canglong Gang territory.

  Let alone the fact that these wretches dared to squat in the Li family mansion.

  Li Rushi immediately ordered, "Not a single one of these filthy scoundrels in the mansion is to be left alive. Kill them all!"

  "Yes!"

  Seeing the Li mansion in such ruins, Li Wangxuan was filled with grief and rage.

  He leaped down from the flying artifact and charged straight at a beggar with scabs on his head who was at the gate.

  The scabby-headed beggar was busy catching lice, too lazy to even lift his head, casually humming a beggar's chant.

  Hearing someone approach, he listlessly called out, "Kind sir, madam, young miss, young master, spare a bite to eat..."

  "Crack."

  Li Wangxuan's sword sliced across the beggar's face, leaving a bloody gash.

  The beggar, numbly holding his severed jaw, looked at the ferocious face of Li Wangxuan.

  A mix of sadness and resentment in his heart.

  Knowing he was doomed to die here, he hoarsely shouted at the sky, "Heaven... bitter... eh."

  Li Wangxuan raised his sword and stabbed the beggar viciously several more times, then kicked the残 corpse aside.

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  Meanwhile, the other Qi Refining cultivators stormed into the Li mansion like wolves and tigers, killing anyone they saw.

  The already bloodstained Li mansion was once again shrouded in the smell of blood.

  The beggars fled in panic but could not escape the cultivators' clutches.

  These cultivators were veterans of the battlefield; dealing with these beggars was effortless.

  Soon, the Li mansion grounds were littered with fresh, nameless corpses.

  Blood from the bodies pooled into streams, flowing down the steps and seeping into the soil.

  Li Rushi watched coldly from the sidelines, not joining the slaughter.

  He walked over to a crossroads stall near the Li mansion and approached a seller of baked flatbreads.

  The stall owner had already noticed the cultivators massacring people at the mansion gate and was trying to pack up and leave.

  "Immortal, Immortal, this humble one has eyes but failed to see!"

  Seeing he could not pack up in time, the stall owner honestly knelt and kowtowed to Li Rushi.

  Li Rushi crouched down and spoke slowly and deliberately. "Hmph. You... what mistake have you made?"

  "This lowly mortal has defiled your Immortal vision. I beg the Immortal to be magnanimous and let me go."

  Li Rushi laughed coldly, his tone becoming more terrifying.

  "I ask you, what exactly happened to the Li family?"

  The stall owner nodded as he answered, not daring to look Li Rushi in the eye.

  "This lowly one does not know. I only know that during the day, suddenly the sounds of fighting rose from the Li mansion. In less than half an hour, it went quiet."

  "Later, I saw a group of servants throwing corpses out, littering the streets with them."

  "Those servants finally loaded several large chests of treasures onto carts and drove them away."

  Li Rushi impatiently interrupted, "You didn't throw the Li family members' bodies into the mass grave, did you?"

  The stall owner trembled all over with fear. "The Immortal jokes. How would we dare? Later, people from Qingfeng Sect came. They collected all the Li family corpses."

  "Everyone from the Li family, master and servant alike, was placed in thick coffins and buried in the cemetery the Li family had bought."

  "Afraid someone might disrespect the Li family, they even hired people to guard the graves."

  Hearing this, Li Rushi's face involuntarily twitched a few times.

  The Ma family had just finished their massacre, and Qingfeng Sect came right after to bury the dead.

  This suggested Qingfeng Sect and the Ma family were probably in cahoots.

  Li Rushi, who considered himself an old hand in the cultivation world, had been played by this young punk Lin Lin after all.

  This forced him to reconsider his plan to attack the Ma family.

  Things had come to this; he could no longer hold back.

  Li Rushi unstrapped the Blood Soul Banner from his back and began forming hand seals.

  After chanting the demon-summoning scripture three times, the Blood Soul Banner flew into the air, then steadily descended, planting itself in the dirt.

  Li Rushi twisted his hand seals and muttered incantations.

  "Blood sacrifice to the nether ghosts, flesh feed to the evil spirits, bones forge the ghostly altar!"

  As the words fell, the Blood Soul Banner emitted boundless evil energy, and searing killing intent poured forth.

  The stall owner, who had never seen such a scene, abandoned his stall and tried to run.

  "Where do you think you're going? I need to borrow a few things."

  Li Rushi stepped forward, grabbed the stall owner's arm, and with a light pull, yanked the arm bone right out of his flesh.

  "Ah! Ah! Immortal, help!" The stall owner fell in a pool of blood, staring at his boneless arm, wailing helplessly.

  "Hmph, your life, worthy of my saving?"

  Li Rushi pressed on the stall owner's chest, chanting incantations.

  Then, the stall owner's breastbone pierced up through his flesh.

  Li Rushi pulled, and the pink breastbone, still clinging to flesh and blood, was completely extracted.

  The stall owner was now a lump of motionless, mangled flesh.

  But that lump of flesh still twitched, suffering the torment of the dying on the threshold between life and death.

  Li Rushi's Blood Soul Banner secret art required separate sacrifices of mortal blood, flesh, and bone.

  The greater the number sacrificed, the more demons like Bloodletting Demons and Bloodthirsty Demons the banner could summon.

  Li Rushi had made up his mind. Since the Ma family had mercilessly wiped out the Li family,

  he could not blame him for resorting to extreme measures.

  Li Wangxuan, Zhang Shan, and the other cultivators emerged from the Li mansion covered in blood and gore.

  Seeing the Blood Soul Banner standing on the ground, Li Wangxuan's eyes went wide. "Uncle, this is a demonic artifact. Are we going to use this?"

  "The Ma family is no pushover. To kill a chicken, you use a butcher's knife. More preparation is better."

  "But..."

  "Foolish nephew, they massacred our entire Li family. Even if we descend into hell, we must avenge them!"

  As he spoke, the group finished slaughtering the vagrants and beggars inside the mansion and gathered before the Blood Soul Banner.

  Li Rushi then issued a new order. "All of you, within one hour, slaughter everyone in this town. Use their blood, flesh, and bones to feed the Blood Soul Banner. After the slaughter, we go to the Ma family to take their spirit stones, pills, and artifacts."

  "Yes."

  The people from the Canglong Gang were used to killing and plundering for a living.

  Slaughtering a town was even easier for them.

  "Help! Murder!"

  "Immortal, I was wrong! Spare me!"

  Pingyuan Town was instantly filled with screams of agony. The smell of blood gradually enveloped the entire town on the breeze.

  These townsfolk never imagined that the Li family's destruction would also be their own doom.

  Li Rushi half-closed his eyes, finding the screams increasingly pleasant to hear.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the stall owner, now a puddle of mud-like flesh, still twitching slightly on the ground.

  "Can't bear the pain, want to die, right?" Li Rushi looked contemptuously at this half-dead mortal lying on the ground.

  "Then you'd better endure it. The Blood Soul Banner needs suffering most of all. For you, a mortal, to become fuel for this artifact, your death is worth it."

  That lump of mud twitched a couple more times, then finally lay still.