The Sun-Dappled Pavilion, usually a place of vibrant colors and the incessant, high-pitched laughter of the Yin Family's youngest mistress, was currently host to a scene of absolute chaos—of the domestic variety.
"Xiao Mei! Stand still! The 'Spirit-Peach Glaze' is a vital component of your facial health!" Yin Yue shrieked, her pigtails whipping behind her like twin flails as she chased her personal maid around a circular mahogany table. In her hand, she brandished a bowl of sticky, glowing pink goo that smelled suspiciously like fermented sugar.
"Mistress, please! I have to serve tea to the Elders in an hour! I cannot go looking like I was attacked by a fruit demon!" Xiao Mei cried out, her face flushed as she ducked under a silk screen.
Yin Yue let out a cackle that was far too mischievous for a seventeen-year-old.
"Nonsense! As the Fifth Young Mistress, I decree that all staff must glow! It builds morale! Now, accept your fate!"
She leaped onto the table, her small frame surprisingly agile, but just as she was about to pounce, the atmosphere of the room shifted.
The playful air was punctured by a sound that didn't belong in the Inner Estate—a deep, resonant boom that shook the foundation of the pavilion, followed by the sound of splintering wood and the heavy thud of boots on the gravel outside.
"YIN YUE! DAUGHTER OF THE UNWORTHY! COME OUT AND FACE YOUR JUDGMENT!"
The shout was laced with a coarse, jagged Qi that tasted of bitterness and old grudges. Yin Yue stopped mid-leap, her eyes instantly losing their playful spark. She hopped off the table, the bowl of pink goo forgotten on the floor. Xiao Mei paled, her hands trembling as she clutched her apron.
"That voice..." Xiao Mei whispered. "It sounds like... Master Yuan Mo?"
Yin Yue didn't hesitate. She walked toward the entrance, her expression transitioning from that of a fool to something much sharper, much colder. As she stepped out onto the porch of her residency, she was met with a sight that made her lip curl in immediate distaste.
Standing in the center of her garden, crushing her prized white lilies under his heels, was Yuan Mo. The former Third Elder looked like a shadow of his former self; his robes were disheveled, his face was gaunt, and his eyes were bloodshot with a manic intensity.
Behind him stood three men—mercenaries by the look of them. They wore mismatched armor of rusted iron and leather, their auras feeling dirty and unrefined, the kind of low-rank muscle one hired from the back alleys of the Outer City.
Yuan Mo took a deep breath, puffing out his chest as he began to speak. "Yin Yue, you brat! Do you have any idea the price I have paid because of your brother's—"
"Stop," Yin Yue interrupted, her voice flat and utterly unimpressed. She leaned against one of the pavilion's pillars, crossing her arms. "Just stop. My ears are already hurting from the sheer volume of your stupidity."
Yuan Mo choked on his next word, his face turning a dark, mottled purple.
"I mean, look at you," Yin Yue continued, gesturing vaguely at the group. "I expected a former Elder to at least have some standards. Instead, you show up at my doorstep with three absolute jokers who look like they haven't washed since the last century. And you? You look like a half-plucked chicken trying to act like a phoenix. Why are you here, Yuan Mo? Did you lose your way to the unemployment office?"
The mercenaries shifted uncomfortably, but Yuan Mo's rage hit a boiling point. "HOW DARE YOU! You insolent, pig-tailed brat! You think you're safe because of your status? You think your 'prodigy' brother can protect you?"
He let out a jagged, hideous laugh. "You won't be so cocky when you realize that your brother's and your sister's lives end tonight at my command! My scheme is absolute! The Yin direct line ends here!"
The air in the garden seemed to freeze. Yin Yue's body went rigid. Xiao Mei, standing in the doorway behind her, let out a gasp of pure horror, her hand flying to her mouth.
"What did you say?" Yin Yue asked, her voice dropping an octave.
Yuan Mo, seeing their reaction, felt a surge of cocky triumph. He straightened his robes, a sneer twisting his features. "Oh, did I hit a nerve? Yes! I have joined hands with the Devil Princess, Wan Linxe, and one of the other Five Great Families! While I deal with you, your precious brother, Yin Shen, is currently being butchered by two Nascent Soul assassins I personally hand-picked. And your sister, the 'Ice Queen'? She's currently struggling for her life against Wan Linxe's entire crew in the Frost-Bound Woods."
He snickered, leaning forward like a vulture. "By the time the sun rises, you'll be the only one left, and I'll take my time making sure you join them in the yellow springs. The 'Child of the Abyss' will be nothing but a memory in a shallow grave."
For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then, a sound began to build in the back of Yin Yue's throat. It wasn't a sob. it wasn't a plea.
It was a growl.
The ground beneath her feet began to crack. Her Qi, which usually felt like a warm summer breeze, suddenly turned into a rampaging storm of dark, violet energy. It wasn't the refined power of a Yin practitioner; it was something raw, ancient, and utterly terrifying.
"You... touched... Shen-er?" she whispered.
Then, she screamed.
It was an ear-deafening, soul-shaking roar that echoed out from the residency, booming through the Inner Estate, past the city walls, and vibrating the very foundations of the capital. It was the sound of a beast being unchained.
As the scream died down, Yin Yue's appearance began to shift. Her hands spasmed, and her fingernails—usually manicured and painted a soft pink—suddenly lengthened.
They didn't just grow; they transformed into long, black scissor-claws, each nearly as long as her entire arm, gleaming with a metallic, abyssal sheen.
She didn't wait.
In a blink—a movement so fast it bypassed the perception of the Core Formation mercenaries—she was in front of them.
SHLICK!
One of the mercenaries didn't even have time to scream. Yin Yue's scissor-claws snapped shut around his waist, and with a brutal, sickening tear, she ripped him into three distinct pieces. Blood sprayed across the white lilies, painting the garden in the colors of a slaughterhouse.
Her mind was no longer her own. It was a void of Rage, Wrath, and Anger. The image of Yin Shen—her brother who had finally started to smile—being hurt was a fuse that had detonated her very soul.
Yuan Mo stumbled back, his cocky expression replaced by a mask of pure, unadulterated terror. He looked at the girl—this "loli" he had mocked—and saw a demon.
"You... you monster!" Yuan Mo stammered, pulling a signaling jade from his belt. "You think killing one man changes anything? I bought hundreds of mercenaries with the gold I stole from the treasury! You will die here tonight under the weight of numbers!"
He crushed the jade.
Suddenly, the walls of the residency were swarmed. From the rooftops, from the shadows, and from the gate, more than a hundred mercenaries—some Core Formation, some high-level Body Tempering—surrounded the pavilion. A forest of blades pointed toward the center of the garden.
"Kill her!" Yuan Mo screamed, his voice cracking. "TEAR HER APART!"
Yin Yue didn't look at the mercenaries. She didn't look at the blades. She stood amidst the remains of the first man, her scissor-claws dripping with gore. She closed her eyes, and a name left her lips—a name that caused the stars above to flicker and go dim.
"Zyvaleth..."
She was a Patron. It was a secret she had kept even from her father. Years ago, in the depths of a forbidden library, she had made a pact with the Goddess of Death and Immortality, the primordial entity known as Zyvaleth.
"Forbidden Art: Mother of Cosmos!"
The air around Yin Yue didn't just vibrate; it shattered.
Her scissor-claws dissolved into black mist. Her small frame began to stretch, her height increasing by more than a foot as her muscles refined into a lithe, divine stature. But the most horrifying change was her back.
From her shoulder blades, eight additional hands erupted. They weren't made of flesh, nor were they made of Qi.
They were composed of a foreign, stardust-like substance—obsidian matter flecked with distant, swirling galaxies. It was an energy that Yuan Mo and the others had never seen in any textbook of the mortal realms.
Slowly, weapons began to manifest in each of her ten hands, shimmering with the light of a thousand dead suns.
On her right side: A rotating Chakram of white fire, a Trident that hummed with the weight of oceans, a lightning-wreathed Vajra, a crushing Mace, and a pristine Lotus that radiated a cold, immortal light.
On her left side: A black-steel Spear, a Bow made of bone, a jagged Sword, a heavy Axe, and a swirling Orb that seemed to contain a miniature nebula.
Finally, a Spike Crown—a halo of obsidian thorns—appeared above her head, hovering just out of reach. Her eyes opened, and they were no longer the eyes of Yin Yue. They were twin voids of cosmic judgment.
The hundred mercenaries froze. The sheer weight of the Mother of Cosmos form was so immense that the weaker men among them simply collapsed, their hearts stopping from the atmospheric pressure alone.
Yuan Mo fell to his knees, his mind snapping. He looked at the ten-armed goddess standing in the center of his "scheme" and realized he hadn't just attacked a girl. He had attacked a vessel of the primordial deity.
Yin Yue looked at the sea of mercenaries. Her voice, when she spoke, wasn't a girl's voice. It was a chorus of a thousand souls, echoing from the beginning of time.
"Come at me," she muttered, her ten weapons beginning to glow with a lethal, cosmic resonance.
"All of you!"
The night of the Yin Family had truly begun, and the heavens themselves were watching in terror.