Strongest Family System

Robert's boots clicked softly across the polished stone as he moved toward the great doors of the Carr clan's hall. He had what he came for—knowledge of the competition, a clearer picture of the enemies who lay ahead. He could leave now.

Yet just as his hand brushed the wooden frame, the familiar cold chime echoed in his mind.

Ding!

A voice, calm yet merciless, rang through his thoughts.

"Two missions available. Would you like to view them?"

Robert froze mid-step, his pulse tightening. He closed his eyes, answering silently. Yes.

The system's voice unfolded like iron against his bones.

Mission One: Make a name in the Four Clan Competition.

Reward: 300,000 system points.

Difficulty: Medium.

Failure penalty: Shadow Reaper will disappear.

Robert's breath hitched. To lose the Shadow Reaper… his greatest hidden card, gone in an instant.

But the second mission struck deeper.

Mission Two: Kill all members of the Carr clan.

Reward: 200,000 system points.

Difficulty: Medium.

Failure penalty: Cultivation reduced to Body Tempering Realm.

Robert's eyes widened, his chest tightening as though bound by chains. Fall all the way back to Body Tempering? That was not just punishment—it was death, in every way that mattered.

The hall behind him was still tense, filled with fearful silence. Elders and disciples still knelt, watching him as though he were a ghost. Only Tom Carr dared to lift his head slightly, his eyes pleading for the words Robert had promised earlier—mercy.

Robert drew in a slow, steady breath. His decision pressed down on him like a mountain. Mercy would mean death for him. Ruthlessness meant survival.

He turned slightly, his voice calm, almost detached.

"Shadow Reaper."

The black figure behind him shifted, its presence awakening like the breath of a tomb. Every elder flinched. Tom Carr's face drained of blood.

"Kill them all."

The words dropped into the silence like falling stones, ripping shock through the hall.

Tom stumbled forward on his knees, desperation cracking his pride.

"You said—! You promised to let us live if I spoke! You swore it with your words!" His voice broke, hoarse, half a scream. "You—"

Robert did not turn back. He did not answer.

The Shadow Reaper moved.

It was not ordinary slaughter—it was a massacre of silence and shadow. In the blink of an eye, the assassin was among them, blade flashing with an elegance so clean it barely disturbed the air. A disciple gasped, then fell with a neat line across his chest. Another elder raised his hand to cast a spell, but his arm fell limp as the Reaper's blade severed his will.

The hall filled with cries, then with silence. Within breaths, dozens of Carr clan members collapsed like toppled figures.

Tom's scream echoed louder than all of them. "No! Stop! STOP!" His voice was raw, animal. He tried to rise, but the oppressive aura crushed him to the ground. His fingernails scraped bloody lines into the stone as he clawed, uselessly, toward Robert.

But the Shadow Reaper was merciless.

One by one, every elder, every disciple, and every guard was cut down. Their cultivation, their bloodlines, their pride—erased as easily as dust swept from a table.

It was over in less than five minutes.

Silence. Only Tom Carr remained alive, kneeling in the annihilation of his clan. His chest heaved, his eyes hollow with horror. His lips trembled, forming words he no longer had the strength to speak.

Robert looked at him once. No pity. No hatred. Only inevitability. The Shadow Reaper's blade pierced the silence one final time.

Tom Carr's body slumped forward, lifeless, his hand still outstretched toward Robert as though begging for a mercy that never came.

The system's voice returned, cold and final.

Ding!

"Mission Two complete. Reward: 200,000 soul points. Soul absorption available."

Robert exhaled, his shoulders loosening as though a hidden weight had lifted. He extended his senses, feeling the tide of soul power swirl through the hall, the remnants of lives extinguished. He sat cross-legged on the bloodstained floor, closing his eyes.

The power surged into him, warm and terrible, filling his system with soul power. Ten minutes passed in stillness as he guided the energy into the system. When at last he finally opened his eyes, they gleamed faintly golden.

The hall was littered with corpses, but he did not look back.

"Return," Robert murmured, and the Shadow Reaper dissolved into darkness, vanishing back into the system.

He rose, adjusting his cloak, his expression calm once more. No one had seen what transpired. No witnesses remained to whisper his name, no voice to accuse.

At the great doors, he paused only briefly. His thoughts were steady now. This is survival. Nothing more.

The night air outside was cool, untroubled by the carnage within. He crossed the courtyard, mounted a horse tethered to the gate, and rode toward the main road.

Not a single soul saw him leave.

By dawn, the Carr clan would be nothing more than ashes of memory.

The dawn bells chimed across the outer city of Celestial Brook, but the day did not rise with its usual bustle. Instead, a wave of disbelief rolled through the streets as word spread like wildfire: the Carr clan was gone.

Not defeated in battle. Not scattered by exile. Annihilated.

When merchants opened their shutters along the market street, they were greeted not by the usual jeers of Carr disciples swaggering through but by silence. A boy's cry rang out when he stumbled near the compound's gate—its doors were ajar, blood smeared across the stone. Within the courtyard, the ground was carpeted with corpses.

The shock rippled outward.

"Impossible," one voice whispered. "There was a leader in the Soul Manifestation Realm for the Carr clan."

"Not even a night has gone by. Are they all dead?" another voice croaked.

Some clutched their mouths in horror. Others, those who had lived under Carr's arrogance for years, turned their faces aside to hide faint, forbidden smiles. Fear tempered their relief, but no one could deny it—the city breathed easier with the Carr gone.

By noon, rumors twisted into countless shapes.

"A sect came down from the mountains. They erased Carr in the night."

"No, no—it was a single man. I heard the guards say his shadow grew wings."

"I say it was the Walker clan. Who else could silence them so completely?"

Every tavern and every street corner was filled with speculation. As the story spread, the greater the awe and terror it inspired.

News traveled quickly to the clans.

At Walker Manor, elders assembled in tense silence as servants rushed in with fragments of the report. Elder Tom Walker himself was the first to rise. His voice was low, but the steel beneath it cut through the hall.

"Prepare the guard. We ride."

By the time the Walker escort reached the outskirts of Celestial Brook, the sun was already dipping westward. Dust rose behind their horses as they dismounted before the Carr compound.

What they saw drew a heavy stillness over the entire company.

The courtyard was painted with blood. Bodies lay where they had fallen, expressions frozen in terror, and qi signatures already faded into nothingness. No flags stirred; no disciples came forward to greet them.

Tom Walker's jaw clenched. His eyes swept over the devastation, and the weight of what it meant pressed heavily on his shoulders.

The Carrs were not allies, but they were a pillar of the city's balance. Their destruction was not just a loss of one family—it was a statement.

Someone had dared to topple a house rooted in centuries of power.

His voice cracked like thunder in the silence.

"Search every corner. Find the clue that tells us who dares to spit on the name of Celestial Brook."

The guards snapped to attention. "Yes, Patriarch!"

They spread through the ruins, overturning bodies, scouring the shattered halls, pulling frightened civilians aside to question them.

From the street, people gathered at a cautious distance, whispering. The Walker clan's presence alone silenced their words, but their eyes gleamed with the same mixture of fear and fascination. Mothers pulled children closer, merchants shuttered stalls early, yet no one left—the scene was too heavy, too shocking to ignore.

No one admitted to seeing the killer. No one claimed knowledge. A few swore they had heard a single blade in the night; others whispered of shadows that walked like men, but when the Walker guards pressed, tongues fell silent. Fear had built a wall thicker than the compound's ruined gates.

Only silence, whispers, and the weight of what had been done.

Tom Walker stood at the center of it all, his fists tightening at his sides. To annihilate the Carr in one night… it meant strength beyond anything expected in this city. It signaled that a storm was on the horizon, one that would pull every clan along with it.

And in his gut, a dark question twisted—was this the work of a rival clan or the hand of something even greater, hiding in the shadows?

Meanwhile, far from the ruin and chaos, Robert's horse clopped softly along a dirt road. The moon had risen again by the time the Osborn compound came into sight. His cloak stirred in the night wind, his eyes calm, his mind already turning to the competition.

Behind him, the city still reeled.

But ahead, new storms waited.