Her voice came low and cold, a snake of sound coiled with hard-to-stifle rage. Many cultivators on-site froze, minds blank. Who was this woman? How could she be this vicious?

Armored cultivators patrolling Yuelao Temple rushed over at the noise, sealing the place tight. Each gripped a superior-grade sword. Murder pooled around them like winter iron. Their eyes sank. “Who are you? How dare you trespass in the Immortal Realm and disrupt the imperial marriage bestowed by the Emperor Immortal!”

“Heh. Emperor Immortal? What’s he to me?” Nana Toki looked at the ring of armor around her and smirked. “Forget a bestowed wedding. Even if the two of them truly loved each other, I still wouldn’t let it happen today.”

The one Nesting Phoenix can love is me. The one she can marry is me. If anyone tries to change that, I don’t mind taking more lives.

Boom— A golden bolt tore out of the clouds, like a blade that could split the sky.

Faces changed among the True Lords. That was the lightning of Heaven’s wrath, a myth given form. Was this woman so arrogant she didn’t even put Heaven’s Dao in her eyes?

“Kill!” The armored ring roared. A wave of Mahayana might and killing intent crashed toward Nana Toki. She hovered in the air, face unreadable. The black war-axe in her hands rose. Its edge carried the weight of mountains.

Pu-pu-pu— Blood-mist burst through the sky. Round heads and severed limbs tumbled like hail. Nana Toki slid to a two-handed grip and swept sideways. The giant black axe erupted, a demon-soldier descending. It carved a shocking black arc across the dim Immortal Realm sky.

“Die.”

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop... The front rank lost their heads between word and echo. She flipped her arms, changed angle, and the next rank met the same fate. Skulls shattered. Torsos were hewn in half by the keen black edge. She stormed like a gale and butchered nearly a hundred armored cultivators to the last.

“Anyone else?”

Shua— She drew the blood-dappled axe back. A flick sent a string of dark red droplets spinning. The viscous blood rained down without mercy, merging with the carpet of corpses. The sight burned cold.

Yuelao Temple filled with tension and ice. Many guests stared up at the black-robed woman in naked fear. Nearly a hundred armored cultivators—down in a blink. Even as True Lords, Half-Immortals, or High Immortals, they might not do that.

She did. And she hadn’t even stirred her Spirit Energy. How deep did her power run?

Under the Matchmaking Tree, Tianqi Yu in wedding-red robes looked up at that familiar figure. His gaze shifted. This woman called Azure An was boundless in her arrogance. Like this at their first meeting in the dust. Like this now. Did she have an invincible backing? Or was this just her nature?

They’d met not long ago. Back then, Azure An was barely at Nascent Soul. Now she stood at Mahayana. Was she a woman born under great fortune?

Silence fell like grave earth. True Lords and High Immortals held their tongues. Not from cowardice, but because her power felt too strange. No one dared move without knowing her depth.

After Nana Toki bared such ferocity, winter crept into every Immortal Realm heart. No one wanted to be the bird for the first arrow.

“So. Are your greetings done?” She swept the guests with a cool gaze and fixed on Chen Youxian near the seats. The chill on her face sharpened. Even her indifferent eyes held a rare, storming bloodlust. “Then it’s my turn to settle accounts.”

“Y-you... what are you going to do...” His chest knotted with cold as he met her look. In those calm, pitch-dark eyes, he saw frost that could seal the sky and a killing urge like a tide.

“I’ll ask one thing. Was it your hand that slapped Blue Magpie’s face?” Each word was flat as a judge’s gavel. The room trembled under it.

Thud. His knees hit stone before he knew it. Chen Youxian’s legs buckled under raw terror. He clawed at the ground, tried to rise. His limbs wouldn’t answer.

“I... I...” Sweat like beans slid off his brow. Pale as chalk, he could barely breathe. Her killing will felt solid, like a hand on his throat. Words died there.

Where was his earlier swagger? A scion of a proper Immortal sect, he knelt now like a condemned prisoner before the headsman.

“Looks like you don’t want to admit it.” Nana Toki watched his handsome face warp under fear. Her voice was a wind from the Ninefold Hells, cold and hollow.

“D-don’t kill me... don’t kill me... I was wrong... I apologize... I’m begging you... don’t kill me...” The longer one lives, the more one clings. Even Immortal Realm cultivators are no different.

But now—

“Too late.” Her words were ice awls. She bent close, bringing her face to his. Those empty eyes were a bottomless abyss dragging him down. “The moment you endangered Blue Magpie, I sentenced you to death.”

“I said, if she loses a single hair, I’ll repay it a hundredfold. You slapped her once. You’ll knock your head a hundred times for her. Not one more, not one less.”

“No... no, don’t!” “If you kill me, the Emperor Immortal won’t spare you!” “You can’t kill me! You can’t!”

He thrashed like a netted fish. It was too late.

Nana Toki grabbed his hair like a dead dog and dragged him before Blue Magpie. She seized his head and smashed it down a yard from her feet.

“One.”

Bang. The impact landed like a boulder from a cliff. Every Immortal Realm cultivator flinched at her brutality.

This woman... a madwoman.

“S-spare me...” Blood paste glued dust to his face. She hauled him up by the hair. He screamed and begged.

“Two.”

Bang.

Again and again. Dull skull-thuds mixed with ceaseless pleas. Her counting beat echoed in every ear. From hysteria to a dying rasp, his life-force thinned.

Nose, mouth, teeth, eyes—nothing was spared.

“Pl-please...” “Thirty-three.” Bang.

“I was wrong... I was wrong... Please spare me. I was wrong!” His face was a ruin, no longer human. He begged on the edge of death.

“Thirty-four.” Bang. She didn’t seem to hear. She drove his head into the ground.

“D-don’t... mm... don’t kill me...” “Thirty-five.” Bang.

“Thirty-six.” Bang.

“Thirty-seven.” Bang.

“Thirty-eight.” Pfft.

He hit the limit. After the thirty-eighth kowtow for Blue Magpie, his skull gave and burst. Shreds of flesh and threads of pink brain splattered everywhere. Fragments clung to Nana Toki like garlands of gore.

Was it... finally over?

Some softer-hearted True Lords exhaled for him. A hundred ringing kowtows for Blue Magpie was torture. Dying at thirty-eight was, in a way, release.

But—

Just as everyone thought she’d stop, the brutal woman drew a golden grain of sand from her sleeve and pressed it to his neck.

The scattered flesh and blood quivered and flew back in an eerie stream. A new head knit itself at his stump.

“I said a hundred, so it’s a hundred. Not one more. Not one less.”

“You don’t get to run.”

“Even dead, you’ll finish it.”

She yanked the regrown head up to her face. Her empty eyes met his terror. Her voice was winter steel. “Halftime’s over. Execution continues.”