"Go! Kill him!"
The four Royal Champions had always shared an unspoken understanding. Four figures transformed into streaks of light, shooting skyward. Divine radiance danced as they swung their weapons.
The attack appeared simple, but it was coordinated from four directions, sealing off every possible escape. This was a standard pattern in their combined assaults.
While it couldn't be called a profound formation, their seamless coordination made it devastatingly powerful.
Jiang Chen hovered high in the air. With a soft snort, he raised his hand, and four streaks of golden light shot out simultaneously.
The golden light sliced through the air, transforming into four trails of radiance that vanished into the void.
In an instant, the four Royal Champions felt a chill sweep through their bodies. Golden light flashed before their eyes as a wave of cold surged toward them, making the backs of their necks go numb.
"Look out!"
But words could not keep pace with what happened.
By the time they realized something was wrong, those four streaks of golden light had already slashed across their necks.
The golden light twisted once!
A crisp snapping sound rang out — like a wooden stick being snapped cleanly in half, so sharp it made their scalps tingle.
The next moment, the four Royal Champions' forward charge came to an abrupt halt.
Their rushing bodies froze in mid-air, caught in that one instant of stillness.
Then, four streaks of blood erupted almost simultaneously, and four massive heads soared into the sky. As the heads rose, each pair of eyes was filled with disbelief, gazing down at the earth below — watching as their own heads and bodies had inexplicably come apart.
Countless fragmented thoughts all dissolved into the despair of death.
In that moment, they knew — this glance would be the last they would ever take.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Four headless corpses hit the ground first, crashing into the dust in a heap of desperation. Blood gushed like rivers, pouring from their severed necks.
Then the heads, having reached their peak, began to fall.
Thud-thud-thud-thud — they hit the ground simultaneously.
Their eyes remained open in death.
In a single move, four Heavenly Spirit Realm martial artists — the four most powerful Royal Champions of the Shangyang Kingdom — had been killed in one strike above the royal palace.
And at least a hundred thousand pairs of eyes throughout the entire palace had witnessed the scene unfold.
At that moment, Crown Prince Wu Hong nearly stumbled and collapsed. The four Royal Champions — annihilated in a single move!
This opponent was terrifyingly powerful.
What was even more terrifying was that this opponent had come specifically for him, Wu Hong.
Before this, as the Crown Prince, he had been the primary protection priority. The four Royal Champions and all the rest would have risked everything to defend him.
But now that the four Royal Champions had been beheaded in a single strike on the battlefield, how much of that loyalty remained was anyone's guess.
After all, this opponent was far too powerful — practically invincible.
King Wu Tan's throat went dry as well. He had originally thought that even if the four Royal Champions couldn't defeat Jiang Chen, they could at least fight him to a standstill.
But the battle had shifted so quickly that he didn't even have time to react.
In the blink of an eye, the four Royal Champions had been separated — head from body.
These were four powerful cultivators at the seventh level of the Spirit Realm! In the Purple Sun Sect, they would have been considered high-ranking existences. If not for Wu Tan's considerable influence, he could never have recruited such powerhouses to serve as the kingdom's Royal Champions.
Wu Tan's own strength was indeed above that of any one of the four Royal Champions. But that was only in a one-on-one situation. If all four attacked together, Wu Tan knew he wouldn't stand a chance.
Yet the four Royal Champions had been slain in this utterly inconceivable manner, right on the battlefield.
This scene — from Wu Tan all the way down to every last imperial guard — had in that single instant utterly shattered their fighting spirit.
The imperial guards were no doubt formidable, with many powerful commanders among them. But no matter how strong, none of them could compare to the Royal Champions.
The four Royal Champions had been obliterated. What chance did the rest of them have?
"Your Majesty, please retreat to the palace!"
"Protect the sovereign! Protect His Majesty! Fall back to the palace and bolster our defenses!"
Wu Tan tasted nothing but bitterness. To retreat to the palace would mean bowing his head before Jiang Chen. As the ruler of a nation, showing submission under these circumstances would be a devastating blow to morale — and to his own authority.
Seeing Wu Tan still hesitating, the imperial guards urged him one after another: "Your Majesty, the enemy is far too powerful to confront directly. We must use the palace as our stronghold and hold our defenses until reinforcements from the sect arrive. Only then can we escape this predicament!"
"Father, please fall back for now." Wu Hong's face was grim too. He knew he had dragged himself into serious trouble this time.
Still, things had already reached this point, and Wu Hong knew regret was useless. He understood that since this had all been orchestrated by the Purple Sun Sect's higher-ups, he had no choice but to follow their orders.
If he refused the Purple Sun Sect's leadership, then the Wu family's position would be forfeit.
So Wu Hong understood clearly — those things, whether he wanted to or not, he had to do. And once done, there was no turning back.
What Wu Hong could never have dreamed was that Jiang Chen — this young man — had actually escaped from the Immortal Spirit Mountain, and then dared to come rampaging into the Shangyang Kingdom so brazenly!
"Father, as long as the green hills remain, there'll be no shortage of firewood! This villain is arrogant, but the Purple Sun Sect will surely destroy him. Our royal family was merely following the Purple Sun Sect's orders. Jiang Chen's true enemy is the Purple Sun Sect. The Purple Sun Sect's leadership will absolutely not sit idle. Even if we lose some face before this little villain, there's no shame in it. Even a genius like Long Juxue was cut down by him — wasn't she?"
At that moment, Wu Hong was actually overthinking things far less than Wu Tan was.