Righteous? Evil?

Youming traversed the realm of void, tapping his head with his eyes closed as though weighed down by an immense dilemma. Suddenly, he seemed to recall something, and his eyes brightened at once. Wheeling around within the void, he streaked off in another direction. With each step he crossed a hundred li, yet he moved with effortless ease. Now and then he snatched up a mass of chaotic qi and swallowed it, curling his lip in slight distaste at the foul flavor. At times, when spatial fragments darted past him, he would extend a slender finger to tap them into smithereens. Whether ancient ruins lay preserved inside or whether living people dwelled within, he did not care in the slightest. Youming merely found it amusing. The moment he thought of Su Xuan tasking him with investigating the Abyss Demons, a sharp headache seized him. He clearly wasn't suited for this sort of work... He had no idea how much time passed before Youming, bored out of his mind, lay flat within the void, eyes shut, drifting forward like a floating corpse. Along the way, someone spotted from afar a "corpse" radiating faint nether light hurtling rapidly through the darkness. Driven by curiosity, the old man followed behind. Looking at the radiant, shimmering dharma robes draped over the body, a glint of greed flickered in the old man's eyes. Pushing his movement technique to its limit, he caught up. Seeing the corpse lifeless and its eyes tightly shut, he felt no fear; rather, he grew immensely excited. Yet the instant the old man reached out to strip Youming's clothes, the man's eyes snapped open, glaring fixedly right at him. Grinning wide, Youming struck like lightning. Squelch!! His fingers clamped together like a blade, piercing clean through the old man's skull! Youming rose with a grin, laughing loudly as he shook the old man's corpse, his eyes narrowing into a wicked chuckle. "So much fun!! Hahahahaha!" "No matter how many times I pull this trick, it never gets old!" With a slight flex of his hands, he ripped the old man's leg off and casually tossed it behind him. He ambled along, dismembering the old man's body as he went. Once he finally discarded the old man's head, Youming eagerly lay back down to play dead once more. This time, however, his luck ran dry. Not a single soul crossed his path for ages. Sitting up, Youming was thoroughly irritated. His face darkened as he pressed his lips together, resting his chin in his hand and petulantly tapping his knee. Glancing up, he noticed a speck of dust floating before him that seemed subtly off. Youming drew closer, and an inexplicable force of repulsion pushed against him. Sensing this force, Youming's expression turned frigid, and he lashed out with a vicious palm strike!! In an instant, the speck of dust was hurled tens of thousands of zhang away!!! And that very speck of dust was none other than the sanctuary of the Ancient Clan Liu family! Spanning a full thousand li, the Liu clan's domain was now quivering to its core. Pavilions collapsed, and the void tore apart into countless pitch-black rifts. A dozen figures soared into the air. The man at their lead frowned with a grave expression. "What is happening?! Who could have found our Liu clan domain?!" Outside, Youming frowned, muttering under his breath in annoyance, "It's only been two thousand years, and that bastard Liu Peiyuan... already dares not to come out and welcome me on his knees???" As he spoke, the man slowly stood, extending his tongue to lick a finger smeared with red and white brain matter. With a single hand, his slender fingers formed an incantation seal, instantly swirling with coils of bloody light. Then, the Liu clan domain tens of thousands of zhang away was pulled straight toward his grasp in an instant. Under a creeping sheet of blood-red radiance, an utterly horrifying array coalesced in a split second!! The massive sanguine array split right down the middle, like a monstrous beast parting its gaping, blood-soaked maw. With the flashing array light, the void across a hundred li trembled violently. The domain ward beams of a dignified reclusive Ancient Clan shattered one after another, the crunching sound of the barrier's destruction sending chills down the spine like a beast gnawing on human bones. The domain was forced to manifest in reality, its hazy pocket of space twisting unceasingly. From the outside, the void was forcibly ripped open into a bloody fissure a full thousand zhang long!! Inside the domain. Liu Xiaochen, Patriarch of the Liu clan, stood his ground with gritted teeth, the pressure belonging to a Body Integration Realm cultivator surging incessantly around him. Yet blue veins throbbed and pulsed on his forehead, which was slick with cold sweat. Behind him stood over twenty figures, the weakest among them at the half-step Void Refining Realm! Every single one looked up at the sky in sheer tension! The Liu clan disciples had already been barked at by their elders to hide away, while cultivators above the Nascent Soul realm wore grim expressions, bracing as if facing a mortal foe. Suddenly! The rift squirmed faintly, and a black-robed silhouette stepped out from within. The man acted as though he didn't even see Liu Xiaochen and the crowd, his gaze sweeping around as if searching for something. Incensed at the slight, Liu Xiaochen drew the sword at his waist and leveled it straight at the man, barking: "Who dares trespass into our Liu clan?! State your name!" Youming, who had turned sideways to look around, slowly tilted his head toward the slightly portly middle-aged man. Glancing at the sword in his hand, he let out a sneer. "Noisy!" With a wave of his hand, a crimson thread flashed past! Splat!! The man's hand was severed cleanly at the wrist. Fresh blood gushed from the wound, and his face turned pale! Youming raised a hand to draw the longsword into his grasp, gripping the hilt with his left hand and pinching the tip with his right. With slight pressure, the sword bent taut like a bowstring!! Then, a terrifying pressure so immense as to be matchless erupted with a roar!! Under this crushing might, every cultivator aloft plummeted out of the sky! All of them were forced to their knees, pinned down by pressure like an insurmountable mountain!! Bang!! The treasured sword shattered into countless fragments that shot straight at Liu Xiaochen!! Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff!! Liu Xiaochen stood frozen where he was, helpless as countless blade shards perforated his body! It was not that he did not want to move; he simply couldn't. A bizarre grin curled the corners of Youming's lips. Suddenly raising his left hand, his five fingers twitched slightly. Five crimson threads attached themselves to the man's severed wrist. Under everyone's terrified gazes, Liu Xiaochen actually shoved his left hand into his own mouth, then began forcefully wrenching his lower jaw downward inch by inch! In a single breath, the corners of his mouth tore open into two long, bloody gashes. The sound of tearing flesh made his pupils shrink to pinpricks, and his breath hitched completely. His eyes brimmed with abject terror!!! No matter how hard he struggled, he could not control his own body. Gradually, the man's eyes became bloodshot, and tears of pure dread welled within his sockets. Youming's voice rang clear and ethereal like that of a youthful boy, chuckling softly: "When speaking to me... you have to kneel, you know." Boom!!! The man's body slammed violently into the ground. In just a single impact, half of his face was completely mangled!! Seeing this, Youming split his lips into a mad laugh!! "Hahahaha! So fun, so fun!" Just as Youming was about to torture the man to death, an ancient sigh abruptly echoed across the heavens. Youming curled his lip and turned toward a towering mountain in the distance, calling out in an eerie voice: "Peiyuan~" The mountain range quaked, rocks tumbling in droves. Rumble!!! Crash!!! As the peak exploded, an aura seemingly born of an era long past slowly emerged.