Chapter 127: Commotion at the Teleportation Altar (Part 2)

Standing some distance away from them, Zua Dvou, a young elder of the Primordial Purity Sect and an enthusiast of charm techniques, whispered quietly, "Think everything will turn out fine?"

Not turning, his eyes fixed steadily on the two figures in the sky, Golden Blade, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, answered slowly. "Don't forget, we're part of an alliance. No one's going to shatter that picture of harmony between the four sects… even though, in truth, we'd all be happy to tear each other apart the moment we got the chance. For the sects themselves, appearances, how the outside world sees them, usually matter more than anything else..."

"Hm, and still... My elder sister's spies keep feeding me information that the Heavenly Soul Sect's growing bolder, stirring up local conflicts over territory, or over some minor resource deposits..." Zua Dvou frowned slightly, turning his head toward Golden Blade.

Golden Blade only nodded in response. "The opening of the passage to the Upper Worlds keeps getting closer. Everyone's trying to stand out, to prove to their family and clan that they deserve to return... Who wants to rot away in this hole with no chance of ever advancing their cultivation?"

Turning his head toward Zua Dvou. "You wouldn't understand… Your clan sent you here to train. Unlike most, who end up here basically exiled, because their clans don't have the time or resources to cultivate too many heirs..." Letting out a deep breath, Golden Blade looked at the three cultivators, elders of the Heavenly Soul Sect, each of them at Golden Core. "Most of them will do anything to get their families and clans to notice them again, to be allowed back into the Upper World..."

Nodding, fully understanding every word, Zua Dvou suddenly smirked. "What about you? Are you preparing to prove yourself too? So the Imperial Court takes you back?"

Hearing this, Golden Blade rolled his eyes slightly. "Back where? I left of my own free will. I got tired of serving those- Ahem… I'd rather stay here. Besides, I made peace with it long ago… my ceiling is Nascent Soul, though the path to actually forming it is still a long one... And who knows what things will look like in a few centuries anyway..."

Looking around, Zua Dvou spoke in a barely audible whisper. "You know what happens for words like that! If someone heard, even I could be executed!" Still glancing around, his eyes betrayed a flicker of real panic.

Patting him lightly on the back, Golden Blade could barely hold back his laughter. "Relax! You think in every corner of every world, Upper and Lower alike, in every little hollow, every cave, someone's sitting there listening for anyone who dares talk about the old Emperor?"

"If that were true, there wouldn't be a trace of the Empire left! Just think about it… ninety percent of all cultivators listening in on and watching the other ten percent, and then that same ninety percent watching each other. Slowly but surely, the Empire would eat itself alive... Which, honestly, might not be such a bad thing. Heh..." His last words were barely audible, and he quickly glanced around to make sure everything was fine. Shaking his head, he couldn’t fully bring himself to believe his own words.

Just as Zua Dvou opened his mouth to say something, Golden Blade cut him off. "Enough. They're done."

….

Eternal Void turned and, with a single light step, found herself standing on the turtle's back.

Sia Moy began slowly descending toward the Heavenly Soul Sect cultivators.

Standing on the beast's back, she clicked her tongue and said something. A deep, muffled rumble rose from inside the white shell, and it immediately began to shake.

Whoosh!

Suddenly the shell, along with its three passengers, vanished and reappeared directly above Golden Blade and Zua Dvou.

"It's always amazed me that there are turtles with a dominant Spaceelement..." Looking up, Zua Dvou whispered, just loud enough for Golden Blade alone to hear, a flicker of envy in his eyes.

"My little Blossom is one of a kind. There's no one else like her left in existence!" Suddenly both of them heard a woman's voice behind them.

Turning, they found Eternal Void standing a few meters away, the twins at her side.

Golden Blade glanced at the stunned Zua Dvou, shook his head slightly, then turned to Eternal Void and bowed. "Miss Eternal Void, greetings. We're very glad you managed to arrive in time... Otherwise, given Sia Moy's temperament, I'm afraid-"

Snapping out of his daze, Zua Dvou bowed as well and greeted her. "Miss Eternal Void! Greetings!"

Smiling, she waved a hand and, using her Qi, lifted them both out of their bows. "No need for such formality. I hurried here as fast as I could the moment I was told that filthy bald- Hm. That Sia Moy had shown up here!" A faint, barely visible flicker of killing intent crossed her eyes.

"Saa! Soa! Check the integrity of the teleportation formation… specifically, any signs of tampering!" Turning her head, she gave the order to the twins standing behind her.

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Receiving the order, they dropped instantly toward the altar and began examining it.

Standing beside her, watching the twins work, Zua Dvou couldn't hold back. "Miss Eternal Void. Did he say why he came here?"

Turning to him, she studied his eyes closely. "Control your technique... or even I might not be able to hold myself back." Smiling ominously, she turned back toward the altar.

'Damn it! I forgot to deactivate my Enchanting Body technique!' With his face going pale, he deactivated his charm technique and lowered his head, afraid to catch her gaze again. 'That look! Like a predator sizing up its prey! Just a little longer and there'd have been nothing left of me… or my purity, uh...' Wiping beads of sweat off his forehead, he tried to act calm, careful not to let it show that every inch of him was shaking.

'This idiot...' Golden Blade simply closed his eyes, trying to detach himself from the whole awkward situation.

"Ha, why he's here... He's talking about a spy. But everyone knows the Heavenly Soul Sect, especially its upper ranks, loves branding talented disciples who have no protection." Letting out a breath, Eternal Void's face creased into a slight frown.

"Then why now? Wouldn't it be easier to do this back on their own sect's territory? Why go through all this trouble?" Golden Blade, unable to make sense of the Heavenly Soul Sect's logic, couldn't help but ask.

"That is strange... Maybe this so-called 'talent marked for branding' did something that made them move." Eternal Void looked just as puzzled. She'd often heard how the Heavenly Soul Sect branded talented disciples without protection, turning them into sect slaves. But for one of their own Nascent Soul cultivators to personally come chasing after one of them.

"There's clearly something personal in this..." Almost in a whisper, she looked toward Sia Moy, hovering some distance off, who was watching the twins' work just as intently.

….

Feeling her gaze on him, Sia Moy lifted his head and smiled at her.

Just as Golden Blade opened his mouth to say something, the runes on the altar began to glow, flickering slowly.

"It's starting! Prepare to stabilize the teleportation altar and formation!" Eternal Void dropped instantly to hover directly above the altar and began channeling her Qi.

"You heard our lovely Eternal Void. Get to it!" Sia Moy flew over as well, coming to a stop beside her, and after giving the order, began releasing his own Qi to help stabilize the altar, specifically, to keep the Qi distributed evenly across the runes.

Li Deng began murmuring something, running a finger across the rune disc in her hands.

The others spread out along the edges of the altar, guarding it against any trouble, external or internal, that might arise.

Suddenly, white flashes began appearing across the surface, instantly resolving into stunned disciples.

One after another, in a matter of seconds, more than twenty people already stood on the altar. A few moments later, more than fifty.

The instant the last rune faded and the last disciple materialized, Li Deng immediately activated the disc she held in her hand.

C-crack! WHOOSH!

A dome appeared above everyone's heads, tearing through everything in its path as it expanded, enclosing the altar within a radius of several kilometers, sealing everyone inside completely.

"The dome's fully active!" Lifting her head, Li Deng looked at Sia Moy.

….

"How can this be... out of nearly four hundred disciples, only sixty-two came back... What happened down there?!" Rage and panic boiling inside her, Eternal Void scanned every single one of the survivors.

Such a small number of survivors horrified her deeply. She immediately noticed that even several heirs of major clans, for whom this Sacred Land should have been nothing more than a training exercise, hadn't returned, and remained inside, which meant they were gone for good.

Every Golden Core cultivator from both sects stared at the survivors with barely restrained panic, understanding the sheer scale of the losses they'd just suffered, and that among the dead were people who should never have perished, and that meant there would be dire consequences.

"The heir of Clan Ray... The heir of the Hart family... Even both younger sisters of the Peak Leader- This is a disaster!!" Eternal Void, her expression grim, understood just how catastrophic these losses were for her sect. Worse still, her sect would now have to answer for the deaths of heirs from these massive Upper World clans, who were only ever supposed to gain a little experience, nothing more.

Along the edges of the altar, Golden Blade and Zua Dvou understood the full weight of what had happened too, especially Zua Dvou, since Ray Elion, who had been killed by Mo Fan out of greed for Elemental Sword. Elion was a potential personal disciple candidate for his own Master, currently waiting for them both in the Upper World.

….

'Where is he? Where is he?!' Hovering above the altar, Sia Moy studied every single face, searching for the one he needed.

Pulling out a small iron box, palm-sized, he opened it and took out a transparent cube with a hardened drop suspended inside.

Clenching the cube in his fist, he started muttering something under his breath.

The cube suddenly lit up, but a moment later, it went dark again.

"Damn it!! Li Deng! Shoa Ediso!" Fury in his voice, he could barely hold himself back from letting his Qi flare out of control.

Hovering not far away, Eternal Void sensed the shift around her, specifically, Sia Moy's building rage. She immediately activated her own Qi, wrapping the disciples of her sect in protective membranes.

"Get a hold of yourself! Don't forget where you are, and who's standing next to you!" Even knowing that if Sia Moy truly lost his temper and unleashed his Qi at full strength, her only option would be to run, given the gap in their strength, she still couldn't just stand by and let it happen, so she used that very threat to try to bring his mind back under control.

Hearing her, Sia Moy's expression instantly went neutral, and the churning Qi around him settled at once. Deliberately ignoring Eternal Void, he turned his head toward Li Deng and Shoa Ediso instead.

Understanding they were relatively safe for now, the two of them still chose to keep their distance, only bowing whenever Sia Moy's gaze happened to land on them.

"Contact the other altar, where the White Dragon Sect and the Five Sacred Lives Sect are stationed! Tell them, in my name, to check their own disciples! Now!!" Before he'd even finished speaking, he shot upward like an arrow, vanishing into the clouds.

….

"Junior Brother Mo, what do you think is happening?"

Mo Fan lowered his head and saw the puzzled look on his elder sister Hua Zhen's face.

"Maybe something happened that caught the attention of the sect's upper echelon..." Hill Shtern, a core disciple known by the title Great Moon Swordsman, sheathed his sword and walked closer to them.

"By the way, who was that?" Shtern suddenly asked, a puzzled look on his face, glancing at everyone.

Standing nearby, Lin Xue wiped dirt off her clothes with a handkerchief, lifted her head toward the sky, and watched everything unfold with her cold gaze. "That's the Leader of Hope Peak, Sia Moy. It really is strange that he's here."

"Hm, my Master once told me he never gets involved in conflicts, always hiding away in his underground lair. If he's actually crawled out of there, it has to be something serious..." Removing the wraps from her fists, Hua Zhen looked around, studying the disciples who'd been lucky enough to survive.

"Doesn't matter. It's not our concern." Looking at all his friends gathered around him, Mo Fan let out a breath. "What matters is that we're all safe!"

'But what matters most of all is that the full inheritance is mine now! Just you wait! The moment the system finishes sorting through all that data! No one will be able to stop me!' Mo Fan walked over to Hua Zhen, his elder sister, with a warm smile, and started helping her rewrap the bandages on her arms.

"I heard Leader Sia Moy is the Master of one of the disciples who was with you all… Ru Meng, I think..." Suddenly remembering this, Hill Shtern glanced around, looking for her.

Hearing that name, Mo Fan froze and turned his head. "What did you say?" He looked at him, cold in his eyes.

"Wait, he's right... I completely forgot he really is her Master. Because of his strange lifestyle, he rarely shows himself in public... Hardly anyone even knew about their bond as teacher and student." Lin Xue started nodding.

At once, Mo Fan stopped helping his elder sister and, pulling his sword from his ring, began scanning every direction, studying the face of every surviving disciple. 'Where is he? Where is he?! Just let me find you! So what if you've got some artifact that puts you on par with a Foundation Establishment cultivator... In front of my sword, you're still nothing!! Where are you??'

"Hm? What's going on?" Shtern looked at Hua Zhen and Lin Xue, puzzled, waiting for some explanation for Mo Fan's strange behavior.

Hua Zhen only shook her head.

Lin Xue, looking carefully into Shtern's eyes, finally decided to say, almost in a whisper, "Later. Not now."