Dominic's eyes widened in astonishment as he gazed upon the sword that had emerged from his chest. Before he could muster a response, the blade unleashed a surge of Sword Qi directly into his body and was swiftly withdrawn, inflicting further internal harm.
He threw his grandson off his shoulder and attempted to employ his Qi to sustain the functionality of his organs. However, the extent of the damage proved overwhelming. Even the most basic of techniques became a perilous endeavor, threatening to cost him his life in the midst of their execution.
"Why did you do it to me?" Dominic looked at Ken with anger. He believed his relationship with his grandson was getting better every day, yet Ken stabbed him in the back when he tried his best to protect him from an eighth-stage cultivator.
"Even now, to this very day, you haven't brought Mom and Dad back to the sect. You left them to die alone somewhere, uncaring of the fate of your own son and daughter-in-law. My mother's injury was your fault no less than it was Krone's; she had caused it only because she knew she would go unpunished, and she did, because you don't care about people that are of no use to you. Today I've completed my revenge against the Sue clan for what it had done to me 4 years ago."
Ken's red eyes seemed to penetrate into the old man's soul with his gaze. Dominic tried his best but he could not find a trace of pity or regret, and he knew nothing was going to save to save him from his fate.
"Did you orchestrate all of this? Did you plan to join the Serene Lotus Sect from the beginning?" Dominic asked, trying to stall for time. He hoped Fernando would eventually come to his aid, but he did not know how long his uncle would be occupied by his fight with the cultivator from the Four Seasons Sect.
"They reached out to me last year at the central zone, but I could not join before I took care of my parents, or else you'd use them against me. I've asked Elder Elmer to wait until I can rescue them, and asked for his cooperation to deal with the trouble I can't manage on my own."
Ken did not mind explaining since Elmer was on guard. He knew the elder would just take him and go if they could not remain there for some reason. The seventh-rank beast was still trapped in Elmer's technique while Fernando was away, there was nothing that stopped him from spending a few last moments with his dying grandfather.
"What about our supervision? Despite the war compelling us to recall the sixth-stage guards who were previously monitoring Haoran, we've now stationed a duo of peak fifth-stage cultivators there. We would not leave them with someone weaker than Haoran after all, and he was a top cultivator in the same stage."
Dominic continued to ask his questions, partly because he wanted to know, and partly because he was desperate for more time.
"Haha, I've sent Henry. He'd be more than enough to deal with them," Ken snorted when he heard his grandfather confirm that the war indeed helped remove the obstacles from saving his parents.
"They are Darkness Qi cultivators, your monk friend might not even sense their presence while they report to the clan that your parents are moving. Don't think we don't know they were moved to Ice Feather Sect, we were told everything."
Ken just smiled coldly when he heard Dominic claim that Henry could not locate someone in the fifth stage. Henry's scouting abilities were probably higher than his own, there was no way the monk would fail to locate some spies. In a city of normal citizens, two cultivators would stick out like a sore thumb to the monk obsessed with how disgusting bloodlust is.
"If you're done with your questions, I have to leave now. Wish me luck in my new sect, Grandfather."
"The Sue clan will not let you go!" Dominic said angrily, but Ken already charged toward him. He did not even unsheathe his sword; they began a barehanded fight.
Dominic tried to punch the young teen, but Ken used his smaller structure to duck low and swipe the man's leg. Because of the injury, his grandfather could not do sudden movements or stretch too much, nor could he use any technique. He could not even afford to block heavy blows.
Worse yet, he had to also focus on manually operating his organs while isolating Ken's Sword Qi in his body, or else it'd tear his organs to shred from the inside. With all these handicaps, he could not compete with his genius grandson despite the two full stages gap between them.
Ken, aware of his grandfather's limitations, took advantage of them without any shame. He used heavy blows to make his grandfather's organs suffer from the tremors, or moved swiftly to the sides to force him to make sudden movements and stretch himself.
"Ah! You unfilial grandson, you dare even torture your own flesh and blood?" Dominic's eyes were bloodshot in his fury. He could not accept that he, the patriarch of a top elite clan, was manipulated, betrayed, and eventually humiliated by his own 10-year-old grandson.
His fury was answered with silence, and Ken persisted with his onslaught without pause, delivering even more blows. More and more blood spilled out of Dominic's orifices with every exchange, and keeping his body in one piece was turning harder at every passing moment.
"ENOUGH!" Dominic shouted angrily. Knowing that he would not survive that day, he had enough humiliation before his death. He completely let his body go and channeled Qi to his palm. He slammed his chest decisively, making his own wounded heart explode completely.
"You've been cold and calculative to the end, Grandfather." Ken looked down at Dominic's corpse fall to the ground and lay there lifelessly.
"Elder Elmer, I'm ready to go." Ken turned to the elder who watched without interfering the whole time.
"Sure. But wasn't it too cruel to treat your grandfather like that?" Elmer appeared next to him and coated him in a sphere of Darkness Qi.
"No, he had to pay for his part in my mother's injury. He's not my grandfather as far as I'm concerned; I only know him as the one who sent goons to assault my family and took me from my home."
"I see."
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Meanwhile, Fernando was busy fighting the woman. His flexible sword tried to cut through the torrents of water while his opponent did her best not to be entrapped in the darkness. None of them could get the advantage in the fight for now, and they were mainly fighting for the sake of keeping each other busy. One to let his student run away while the other hoped reinforcements would arrive soon.
"Grand Elder Fernando, I have a report to make!" He received a message to his communication token during the fight.
"Is it urgent? I'm a bit busy right now," Fernando said after deflecting another dragon made of water.
"Yes, Grand Elder. We received a report that the life tokens of two disciples were shattered, and they were found dead in Ken Sue's house. From a quick check, they were poisoned by drinking tea. They were Ken's former bodyguard and personal maid."
Fernando was startled by the news, almost getting hit by his opponent. He did not know what was going on, so he hurriedly tried to contact Ken. However, there was no response. He immediately tried to connect to Dominic's communication token but failed again.
'What is going on?' he muttered to himself, unable to connect the dots yet. But his confusion did not last long.
"Grand Elder, I have more urgent news! Patriarch Dominic Sue's life token… was shattered!" The same voice came again, this time much more panicked.
Fernando widened his eyes in surprise when he heard the news. 'Did Elmer kill a sixth-stage cultivator? No, the Serene Lotus Sect would not do something like that openly. First Ken's maid and bodyguard were killed by poison, and now Dominic got killed while being with Ken.'
Now the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in his mind.
'Elmer was involved since the beginning, and he made sure to pressure the Four Seasons Sect, which I thought worked in our favor. Now again, he got involved and went after Ken. I did not understand how Gertrude found us, but could it be that Ken had revealed our location to Elmer who in turn brought Gertrude to keep me busy?'
The more he thought about it, the more this explanation made sense. His face turned red in anger when he thought about how he was manipulated by a child that was barely old enough to be referred to as a 'teen'.
"KEN!!!" He screamed in rage, his voice reverberating throughout the forest. His scream was imbued with Qi instinctively, and thousands of small critters died in a radius of a kilometer around him, while others lost their consciousness and collapsed.
Even Gertrude was caught by surprise and stopped attacking; it was not a scream of worry, she was sure that Fernando was furious.
"I will help you kill the boy myself if we can catch him!" He hissed at her and rushed in the direction the beast carried Ken.
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"Haha, I think that your granduncle found out about you!" Elmer laughed merrily. They were already far away from the scene, and the elder did not leave behind a single way to trace them.
"Why do you think that?"
"I just heard him scream your name, and I think I could recognize a hint of anger," Elmer replied with a wide smile.
Volume 5 – Home Sweet Home – The End.
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