Volcanic Age

Pure Faith's job was assassinations and surveillance, so he rarely participated in external affairs. In other words, it had to be either Twisted Melody or Warped Valor.

However, this fake was too weak to be Warped Valor, who was famous as the symbol of combat prowess in the Seven Stars Division, so Zhou Xuchuan's suspicion naturally gravitated toward Twisted Melody.

The division under Twisted Melody was tasked with maintaining the balance between the different factions. They were also working together with Vast Gate's people to acquire information through their agents. In other words, infiltrating the Evil Valley and controlling Dan Libai from the shadows would be the perfect role for him.

"W-what just happened?"

"What was that all about?"

The nearby warriors murmured to each other in confusion.

Zhou Xuchuan ignored their murmurs and questioning gazes. He slung Tiemu Minghuan's corpse over his shoulder and turned around to leave. He could see the tile-roofed palace in the distance. They had come from there, and it seemed that they had covered quite a bit of distance

How long has it been since I sustained such heavy injuries? Zhou Xuchuan wiped away the blood streaming down his forehead with his sleeve. His left arm was broken, so it was unusable.

He barely had any qi remaining as well, and the lack of fatigue made him feel utterly exhausted. His thigh muscles were aching quite badly, too. However, the aching and the waves of exhaustion didn't feel all that bad.

Zhou Xuchuan chuckled softly before heading toward the palace. No one dared to block his path. The crowd split open naturally.

"Huh-uh! We have an expert like him?"

"Hang on a sec! Isn't that the Neidan Sword Gate Master?"

"Yeah, it is! It's Tiemu Minghuan!"

"Oh, no! Sect Master!"

The evil faction cultivators sobered up and cried out in alarm. The agitation among the Neidan Sword Gate members was especially pronounced. Their hearts screamed at them to rush out and rescue their leader, but their legs refused to move for some reason.

Everyone could feel an extraordinary aura oozing out of Zhou Xuchuan, and they dared not approach him casually.

Well, then. Let's go with Phantom Steps.

Despite the barrage of attention, Zhou Xuchuan disappeared from everyone's sight as if he had melted into the air itself. Zhou Xuchuan had no plans of getting into an unnecessary fight here.

If he were in peak condition, he wouldn't make this decision. However, he was forced to make this decision, as he knew that he'd become too exhausted to react appropriately to unforeseen events if he were to fight in his exhausted state.

"Huh?! He disappeared!"

"What the hell just happened?"

"Did a ghost pull a wool over our eyes?"

The members of the Evil Faction muttered in stupefaction like victims of a ghostly hypnosis.

*

"Argh!" Dan Libai was blasted away, and his figure was in tatters. His bones and joints were aching painfully from rolling on the hard marble floor. He got up and glared in anger, but that was all he could do.

He couldn't hurt the Evil Valley Sect Master at all.

We lost.

How is this even possible?!

Darkness clouded the expressions of Ren Chaojian and Ge Hongxi.

The outcome of this battle was decided when the Phantom Bow Swordsman managed to drag Tiemu Minghuan outside. An Empyrean Overlord wasn't an opponent that Dan Libai could handle alone. It was already a miracle that he was still capable of moving. Ȓἁℕ𝘖𝔟È𐌔

"I shall give you an opportunity," said the Evil Valley Sect Master in a grave voice. "Confess everything and then end your life with your own hands. I promise you that you will not suffer if you do that."

"A father ordering his own son to kill himself?! Don't you think that's too much?! How immoral of you, Father!" Dan Libai exclaimed and cackled.

"Huh? Really?" The Evil Valley Sect Master chuckled wryly at that.

Both Ren Chaojian and Ge Hongxi revealed similar expressions.

"Then again, it's unrealistic to expect a man like you to have paternal love when you've been using your own son like a chess piece…" Dan Libai muttered. The next moment, a deluge of crimson light gushed out of his eyes, and strands of crimson rose from his feet.

"It's too late to beg for my sympathy," the Evil Valley Sect Master said, grunting.

"Hah? Hahaha! Sympathy? Don't make me laugh! I finally have a chance to repay this lifelong grudge, so why would I do that?!"

The last vestiges of courtesy that Dan Libai had for his father disappeared just like that. He glared at the Evil Valley Sect Master as if the latter were an irreconcilable enemy rather than his father.

"What a fool you are," said the Evil Valley Sect Master; his glare contained his uncompressed fury. His final act of mercy had been rejected, so he no longer had any reason to hold back.

Meanwhile, the crimson glow in Dan Libai's eyes intensified. Azure veins and tendons bulged all over his skin, and a wave of killing intent flooded out of him.

Dan Libai seemed like he was squeezing every ounce of power within him as terrifying strands of crimson light gushed out of his figure. The stench of blood had gotten so strong that even the Evil Valley Master's nostrils went numb.

It looked like his son was boasting about how much blood he had consumed until now!

"Die!" Dan Libai cried out and flung himself forward. The whites of his eyes were dyed in a pure crimson hue as if saying that he was pushing the Crimson-Eyed Vampiric Art to its absolute limits.

His attack contained a soul-chilling destructive power.

The Crimson-Eyed Vampiric Art was called a demonic art, after all.

Shwik!

"Argh!" Unfortunately for Dan Libai, however, the battle had already been decided.

There was no miraculous comeback nor any unexpected intervention.

The Evil Valley Sect Master's ruthless palm struck Dan Libai's chest.

Strengthened qi glowing in a crimson hue oozed out of Dan Libai's hand, which was still in midair, but the crimson light dissipated soon afterward. However, not even its dissipating strands managed to get anywhere close to the Evil Valley Sect Master.

"How… unfair…" Dan Libai glared at his father with eyes full of regret and unwillingness.

The unification of the Evil Faction was within reach, but he had ultimately failed. He thought he'd become the greatest under the heavens after murdering his own father, but his dream would remain that way—a pipe dream.

Plop.

"Tsk!" The Evil Valley Sect Master scowled deeply at his son's collapsed figure. He was a cold-hearted man, but he didn't feel good at the fact that he had to kill his son with his own hands.

He had also failed to extract any information, which was unfortunate. He didn't want to kill Dan Libai, but the strengthened qi oozing out of his son had spooked him badly enough to convince him not to hold back.

If he had held back, he would have been rewarded with a fatal injury.

"So it's over…" Zhou Xuchuan muttered to no one in particular upon witnessing the conclusion of the deathmatch between a father and his son.

***

The rebellion of a troublemaker…

The mutiny of Dan Libai, who was also known as Little Valley Master, was over.

"Logically speaking, the winner was obvious."

"Daring to go against a Ten Empyrean Overlord? He must've been insane, alright?"

"He decided to cultivate in the demonic way, so I'm not surprised at all."

The unrest spread to all corners of Murim—no, it spread beyond the Central Plains and even reached the far-flung outskirts. However, it wasn't surprising, as the event could have had far-reaching consequences.

The Murim Coalition in Anhui province…

The eternal enemy of the Evil Faction, the Righteous Faction, reacted violently to the news. They unleashed the members of the Beggar Gang and ordered them to collect as much information as possible.

"Huh-uh! I heard he had a strained relationship with his son, but to think it was that bad!" Nangong Weiwu muttered, looking confused.

The starting point of the internal strife was Dan Libai mastering a demonic art. The Righteous Faction was happy to hear that news, as it meant that the public's opinion of the Evil Faction would soon plummet to a new low.

Stories of the common folk insulting the Evil Faction began to make rounds as if everyone had reached the same conclusion. Nangong Weiwu had been aiming for that, so he fanned the flames of the rumor mill to hurt the Evil Faction's reputation.

However, he had no idea that the event would blow up like this.

Considering the Evil Valley Sect Master's personality, he would never spare his son. The most generous decision he could make was to imprison Dan Libai, but he'd most likely execute him to bring an end to this debacle.

Nangong Weiwu believed that his assumption would surely happen.

Thus, the strategists had been pondering about the most effective way to hurt the Evil Faction through this fiasco. However, the outcome was beyond his expectations. The Righteous Faction didn't even have to lift a finger for a large-scale mutiny to unfold within the Evil Valley's halls!

"So half of the Eight Gates of the Evil Dao have decided to take the Little Valley Master's side?"

Nangong Weiwu was utterly dumbfounded by the news.

The Coalition's Elders reacted the same.

There was no other word to describe it except for the word "insane."

They truly hadn't expected that half of the faction would get in bed with a lunatic wielding a demonic art!

"Who were they?"

"They were the Beast Gate, the Twin Saber Gate, the Sorcery Gate, and the Neidan Sword Gate," Vice Strategist Zhuge Xiang replied.

"I see. So the Eight Gates of the Evil Dao will soon become the Four Gates of the Evil Dao…"

The concept of forgiveness did not exist in the heart of the Evil Valley Sect Master, and a betrayal was one of the most serious crimes out there, to boot. The Evil Valley Sect Master would surely hunt down even the cousins of the traitors and execute them all.

He would do that to get rid of any sources of anxiety and potential threats.

Sure enough, he apprehended everyone involved as soon as the rebellion was quashed.

Anyone related to the principal actors of the rebellion, specifically the Four Gates, went into hiding in fear of getting wrongly implicated.

Nangong Weiwu asked, "What happened to the leaders of those Gates?"

"The Beast Gate's master, Ren Chaojian, and the Twin Saber Gate's master, Ge Hongxi, had their dantians destroyed and thrown inside a cell, sir.

"As for the Heretical Formation Gate Master Luo Jiao and the Neidan Sword Gate Master Tiemu Minghuan, they were killed during the rebellion. What's interesting about their deaths, however, is that the Evil Valley Sect Master wasn't responsible for their deaths."

Zhuge Xiang summarized the information that he had gathered from the Beggar Gang and other sources of information to ensure that the information was easily digestible.

Of course, he still included the details leading up to the rebellion as long as every single noteworthy detail amidst the rebellion.

As expected of the Beggar Gang, they still managed to collect all the necessary information, even though the rebellion had just ended. They gathered even the most insignificant-sounding tidbits.

Clearly, there was a reason they were the eyes and ears of the Righteous Faction.

"Mm? That's strange. I thought you said that the Evil Valley's headquarters had no particularly powerful experts during the rebellion? And that was why things got dangerous for them?"

Someone like Luo Jiao was not as troublesome as Tiemu Minghuan—a Harmony Realm expert who appeared like a falling meteor to become one of the One Hundred Experts Under Heavens.

Thus, it was natural for them to assume that the Evil Valley Sect Master had to have been involved in their demise, but their assumptions were actually wrong.

In that case, who could have done it?

"It was the Phantom Bow Swordsman," said Zhuge Zhonghu as he slipped into the conference room.

Nangong Weiwu frowned slightly. "The Phantom Bow Swordsman? The one we've been searching for?"

Nod.

"How unexpected."

Nangong Weiwu's curiosity was piqued.

The Phantom Bow Swordsman was an Evil Faction expert who had played a decisive role in the destruction of the Flashing Waterfall Saber Gate. However, he had disappeared right afterward, and no one had been able to find him so far.

He was obviously not an ordinary cultivator, so the Righteous Faction had ordered the Beggar Gang to find him. However, the mysterious man couldn't be found within the Murim Coalition.

However, that man had reappeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

"He might be an elder of the Xia Wu Sect," said Zhuge Zhonghu.

"What?" Nangong Weiwu was flabbergasted.

The Phantom Bow Swordsman had to be at least a Harmony Realm expert, as he fought and bested the Flashing Waterfall Saber Gate's Master Ju Zhong as well as the Neidan Sword Gate's master, Tiemu Minghuan.

However, an expert as powerful as him was actually an elder of the paltry Xia Wu Sect?

The Xia Wu Sect was the number one organization among the Black Hand gangs of ruffians, but it wasn't large nor powerful enough to boast an elder like him.

If the Phantom Bow Swordsman were the Sect Master of the Xia Wu Sect, then sure, but he was actually just an elder?

It made no sense at all.

"That's why the strategists are trying to verify this information."

"I see. We'll leave it to you, then, Vice Strategist," said Nangong Weiwu.

"Thank you for believing in us."

"Then, where is the Phantom Bow Swordsman?"

"Well…" Zhuge Xiang smiled wryly and hesitated.

Zhuge Zhonghu sighed deeply and replied in his stead, "He vanished once more."

***

Storm winds were blowing within the Evil Valley's halls, and they were terrifying winds of blood! Unsurprisingly, the order to capture everyone involved in the rebellion was issued swiftly. The majority of the rebels had been executed while some were being tortured in the prison.

The Beast Gate, the Twin Saber Gate, the Sorcery Gate, and the Neidan Sword Gate walked down the path of ruination overnight upon losing their sect masters.

"P-please, spare my life!"

"I only followed the Sect Master's orders!"

"I would have never gone against the Evil Valley Sect Master's wishes had I known!"

Those who valued their lives surrendered immediately and revealed everything.

They even revealed information about their Gates.

"Argh!"

"Ah!"

"What? Senior Brother has betrayed us? That ungrateful bastard!"

The Evil Valley Sect Master used the information that they had obtained through torture and threats to capture those who had fled. He either made them reveal other bits of information or had them executed outright.

His allies, the four remaining Gates of the Evil Dao, gleefully assisted with the clean-up operation. They had nothing to complain about when the power, previously split eight ways, was now split into only four.

Thus, they actively participated in snuffing out the remnants of the rebellion. Some of those activities included the confiscation of the fallen Gates' assets, but the Evil Valley Sect Master viewed them as compensation for their help and turned a blind eye.

"So it's the Phantom Bow Swordsman?"

The Evil Valley Sect Master had the Phantom Bow Swordsman investigated as well.

He was grateful for the mysterious expert's help, but many things about that man did not sit well with him. The Evil Valley Sect Master wasn't the type to remain still just because someone had proven to be helpful to him.

Thus, he sent a letter demanding answers from the new Sect Master of the Xia Wu Sect—the so-called Tough Bastard Jiang Ningchu.

However, the reply simply stated that the Xia Wu Sect couldn't comply with his request.

"A mere Xia Wu Sect bastard actually dares to be so cheeky?!"

"How dare they not know their place?!"

"Sect Master! We must slaughter them all!"

The short-tempered experts of the Evil Valley were furious.

They argued that Jiang Ningchu had to be captured right away and be taught a lesson.

However, the group of advisers offered a different take.

"Sect Master, sir. We have been greatly weakened by the recent events."

"With the destruction of the Sorcery Gate, our ability to gather information has been greatly curtailed as well. Even if it's infuriating, you must endure it, sir."

The Evil Valley's decline in strength was a rather obvious result, as the four Gates—the core of the organization's combat force—had betrayed the others.

The Righteous Faction and the Two Demonic Factions observed the Evil Valley like hawks. In other words, the Evil Valley had to shore up its combat force and its information network to avoid looking like an easy target.

Considering their predicament, burning bridges with the Xia Wu Sect would be unwise, and their predicament was also the reason why the Evil Valley Sect Master had decided to spare the rebels who had surrendered.

Of course, they had to be either just a minor figure in the rebellion or weren't too suspicious.

That man is quite literally a hero. The Phantom Bow Swordsman had offered help and disappeared without asking for any compensation. The Phantom Bow Swordsman reminded the Evil Valley Sect Master of the tales of legendary heroes he had read when he was still a child. After an unknown amount of time, Evil Valley Sect Master shifted his attention over to the documents resembling tiny mountains on his desk.

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