"Don't force me to make a decision now! Let's wait a little while longer." Qin Zongming was forced to make a bitter choice: one option led to grief, and the other to sorrow. How was he to choose between son and clan? How?

"Head, time's the one thing we lack most! Please make a decision immediately!"

"Your waiting now could well lead the Qin family into ruin!" 

Qin Zongming's response clearly wasn't what the elders wanted to hear, and they began to pressure him again. Everyone gathered at the meeting looked toward him, and Qin Zongming could sense the resolve in their eyes.

If he weren't able to resolve this matter immediately, it looked as though his time as clan head would be up. He didn't care whether or not he was the clan head, but if he stepped down, Qin Xiao would be in even more perilous a state.

His replacement would surely send Qin Xiao trussed up for slaughter.

"Alright, I've made up my mind! My only son, Qin Xiao, has committed a terrible sin. For this crime, I hereby declare that he shall be stripped of all duties and obligations to the clan of Qin and expelled from the clan. His life and death shall no longer be the clan's concern!" 

Qin Zongming's face flushed red upon making this declaration, red with anger, red with shame. After all, removing the clan's protection from him would undoubtedly send him out of the frying pan and into the fire. But what else could he do? There was at least still a slim chance of survival if he were expelled, and no chance at all if he remained within the clan.

All he could hope for now was that Qin Xiao was wily enough to escape with his life amidst this disaster.

"Head, if you do this—"

"I am the family head, and I've made up my mind!" Qin Zongming roared. Despite his compromise, the elders of the Qin family still weren't fully satisfied. However, Qin Zongming still held the authority of the clan head, and he interrupted the elder before he could finish speaking. 

"This punishment, as well as some monetary compensation, will be sufficient to repair our relationship with the Yun and Chu families. The three corporations don't have much power or authority of their own, and now that they've tasted a few benefits at our expense, they should know better than to push this matter further.

"My expelling Qin Xiao from our clan allows them to target Qin Xiao at will: the fault was his, not our clan's! If they want revenge, they should seek it out from him.

"Furthermore, from now on, I expect all of you to enforce surveillance on the Wang family. The reason for our losses is all because of that wench from the Wang family, and we'll settle this debt sooner or later!"

Qin Zongming's words thundered through the conference room. No one dared speak up against him now.

"In that case, since there aren't any further comments, the matter is settled! Spread the news that Qin Xiao fled to avoid punishment from the clan, and that he was expelled as a result. This meeting is over!"

Qin Zongming was the first to walk out of the conference room.

In the Renji Hospital in Liao, Qin Xiao, who was resting in a ward, suddenly received a message from his wristwatch.

"Flee!" As Qin Xiao opened it, a familiar voice entered his ears.

The next moment, Qin Xiao received the news that his point cards had been frozen, and that he had been expelled from the Qin clan. In a matter of moments, Qin Xiao had nothing to his name!

It was only then that Qin Xiao began to treat this matter seriously.

Expulsion from the Qin clan? How could this be? He was the only son of Qin Zongming, the clan head! How would his father bear to expel him from the clan? Who was going to take over the leadership of the Qin family now that he was gone?

That audio message instructing him to flee sounded like his father...

He replayed the message. There could be no doubt: the message really was from Qin Zongming! That message had been sent from an anonymous sender, which meant that his father couldn't contact him openly.

Qin Xiao got up and drew the curtains in his suite to see several vehicles owned by the three corporations heading toward the hospital.

He had no choice but to confront the likely truth. Although he had heard a few rumors during his stay at the hospital, he'd believed that his father would have been able to protect him. But five days later, he'd found himself unceremoniously kicked out of the clan.

He was certain that his father was under tremendous pressure to do so, but he was still quite aggrieved—not toward his father, of course, but the clan elders. His reputation in the Blacksteel settlement for the last two years had brought a great many benefits for his clan, but the moment something like this happened, those elders had discarded him immediately!

But no matter how he felt about the clan, he had no choice but to flee, dragging his bandaged, recently operated-on hand behind him.

Qin Xiao wasn't a fool. He knew that the blame for Zhou Qian's death could be placed squarely on him. And he knew what the consequences would be if he were to be caught by the three corporations after the Qin clan's protection was revoked.

With his disappearance, the affair of the venombane glade drew to a close.

All six families of the Blacksteel settlement had found themselves wearied—if not worse—by the whole mess. Even the Yun and Chu families, which had done the best among the six, were getting tired of sending all their hunters out to fight.

However, they had gained quite a fair bit of profit from their efforts, both on Earth and in the dimensional world, and they couldn't much blame Zhang Lie for treating them as pawns in his game. As for the three great corporations, with the notable exception of the Zhou family, they had all made some profit as well.

However, the Qin family had lost much of its reputation and prestige in the Blacksteel settlement, and it seemed as though the six great families would soon become five.

Of course, the one true winner was Zhang Lie.

He had crippled both the Wang and Qin families in one devastating blow. Qin Xiaotian was dead, Wang Jianxin had been sent to Chaos, and Wang Xiaohua and Qin Xiao were left to fend for themselves against those hunting them down. He had soured the relationships between the families, and in doing so, had even extricated himself from any blame.

In Zhang Lie's suite in the Blackgold Inn, a light clap from Zhang Lie's palm, sending ripples of genetic energy out from the point of impact, caused a crack in a massive steel shield. As the ripples grew more intense, the crack propagated, and the steel soon fell apart into a heap of scrap metal within his virtual training environment.

Given Zhang Lie's past experience with genetic techniques, he had achieved some success with the pinnacle-grade [Fists of the Silent Sea] in five exhausting days of effort. As he had anticipated, this technique was particularly compatible with him, and Zhang Lie couldn't have been more pleased with his purchase.

Next, he summoned Venombane and began to practice [The Boundless Blade].

Zhang Lie had been a swordmaster in his past life, and as a sword technique, [The Boundless Blade] should have been easier for him to pick up. The challenge of that technique, and what gave it its mythic-grade designation, was authority.

A hundred masters of [The Boundless Blade] would generate a hundred variants of the technique. Even if the bladework were essentially identical, each master would invoke the authority of the boundless ocean in a different manner, and this difference would subtly affect the technique.

It was this feature of mythic-grade techniques that made them so challenging to learn.

Zhang Lie had spent much of the last five days dedicated to this problem. With his past life and present dedication, with his large supply and masterful control of genetic energy, on the fifth day, Zhang Lie had managed to assimilate his unusual genetic core with the technique, coming up with a version of the technique that was uniquely his.

His version boasted a gigantic fish swimming in the ocean of genetic energy that served as the technique's backdrop. The ocean, which had felt somewhat lifeless during the robotic demonstration at the auction, seemed to have gained a measure of subtlety and mystery upon the fish's inclusion.

Zhang Lie charged up a blow, then released that energy with a light swing of his shortsword. As the blade struck its target, the fish leapt up from behind him, bringing the ocean's boundless strength to bear. 

The force of the technique leveled a small hill into flat terrain.

Zhang Lie exhaled deeply, then left the virtual environment, a hint of exhaustion in his features. The strength of [The Boundless Blade] left nothing to be desired, but it also drained him of much of his energy. He would have to save it for a killing blow; his stamina simply couldn't keep up with using it as a regular attack for the moment.

Thus ended Zhang Lie's practice regimen. Both the [Fists of the Silent Sea] and [The Boundless Blade] were multi-target techniques, and Zhang Lie had certainly managed to shore up his deficiencies.

Furthermore, his ceaseless practice and increase to his gene fragments had caused his [Ninecarp Transformation] to enter late first-stage. His supply of genetic energy had increased yet again, and the pale pink carp in his genetic core was now so detailed that it looked to be alive.

Zhang Lie's stats had also undergone a massive transformation.

Zhang Lie: a mortal lifeform

Framework: Foundation, Lv. MAX, Ninecarp Transformation, First Form: Carp

Techniques: Rippling Walk (novice), Three-Wave Crescendo (novice), Calm Waters (novice), Fists of the Silent Sea (novice), The Boundless Blade (novice)

Genes: Basic, 140; Mutated, 100; Superior, 19

Soulshards: White Grub (superior), Galewolf (mutated), Blood Ant (mutated), Potbellied Toad (mutated), Venombane Scorpion (superior)

He possessed two particularly strong superior-grade soulshards and an assortment of genetic techniques, the lowest of which was high-grade. The difference between the Zhang Lie of a few months hence and the Zhang Lie of the present was as heaven and earth.

Given just his gene fragments, soulshards, and techniques, he would have been 53rd on the gene leaderboard despite having no recorded fights to his name—and his growth-type framework was still only equivalent to a mortal-grade one at present.

Of course, Zhang Lie didn't care about this ranking. He had no intention of publicizing his strength, and indeed he had removed himself from the leaderboard months ago. Otherwise, news of his sudden growth would likely have spread throughout the settlement.

After packing everything up, Zhang Lie was finally ready to head out of the settlement once again. His next goal was to hunt down more superior-grade lifeforms, as well as to gather the remaining required ingredients for his Potion #2.