Value (Part One)

In the core area of the Yin Clan City-State, the pitch-black Heaven and Earth Tower rose majestically. The Blood Mist Barrier shrouding the entire Yin Clan City-State churned only around the tower's waist. The Heaven and Earth Tower was also the only building in the entire Yin Clan City-State exposed beyond the Blood Mist Barrier. It was simply too tall!

Named "Heaven and Earth"—from that name alone, one could glimpse the blazing ambitions burning in the hearts of the Yin Clan's elders.

The Heaven and Earth Tower was a colossal tower with a base nearly a hundred meters long and a height of almost a thousand meters. It looked like a stepped pyramid stretched long, its entire body pitch-black, like a gigantic pillar thrust into the earth. The tower was the symbol of the Yin Clan, and more importantly, the primary residence of the Yin Clan's elders.

At that moment, Yin Xuege stood ramrod straight on the highest level of the Heaven and Earth Tower. The four walls here were open, and beneath the bright sunlight, his view reached the mountains and forests hundreds of miles away. Sunlight poured in from every direction. The highest level of the Heaven and Earth Tower was not a place ordinary Yin Clan members could set foot in.

Even the brothers Yin Jihuang and Yin Jiwu could not come here during the day. For one thing, their status was insufficient. As fourth-generation descendants of the Yin Clan, they had no right to come here without being summoned. For another, their strength was lacking. With their power, if they came here in broad daylight and let the sun shine on them, they would immediately turn into wisps of green smoke.

Having brazenly revealed his Sunwalker physique before thousands of clansmen, Yin Xuege was immediately brought here by the family elders who had hurried over upon hearing the news. Yin Xuege sensed the venomous yet uneasy gazes of father and son Yin Xuejiao and Yin Jiwu, but he merely sneered inwardly!

As long as even a shred of brain matter remained in the family elders' aging heads, they would never allow anyone else in the family to do anything to Yin Xuege! A Sunwalker—this was a legend of the Blood Demon Clan. What Yin Xuege represented was the Yin Clan's incomparably glorious future!

Sunlight shone over Yin Xuege's body. He crossed his hands and rested them naturally over his lower abdomen. He stood there ramrod straight, without the slightest hint of unease or panic in the corners of his eyes or brows. He even looked with interest at the nine massive coffins made of Golden Silk Nanmu placed on this level—nine enormous coffins, each over ten meters long, extraordinarily thick and heavy.

These nine grand coffins, bearing distinct Eastern characteristics, had no carved patterns or decorations. Yet the grain of the Golden Silk Nanmu formed enormous natural paintings of winds and clouds rolling and waves surging. The nine coffins rested there quietly, yet seemed liable to rise into the air with the wind at any moment. Amid their weight and majesty, they also carried an elusive, fluid change.

Yin Xuege simply stared straight at the nine coffins.

Among the pure-blooded Blood Demons of the West, the elder-level figures—old counts, or veteran marquises, dukes, and the like—all liked to forge themselves gorgeous coffins from precious materials. These coffins were covered in countless magic formations and possessed astonishing defensive power. They hid them in their most secret lairs. Whenever they could no longer endure the loneliness and boredom brought by their long lives, they would sleep in the coffins and take a nap to soothe their spirits.

These coffins were also fortresses where powerful Blood Demons healed after suffering grievous injuries. Especially in the Primordial Era, a gorgeous, powerful coffin held extraordinary significance for a powerful Blood Demon.

Without a doubt, the elders of the Yin Clan had also adopted the habits of the Western pure-blooded Blood Demons and forged nine coffins for themselves to sleep in. However, their predecessors had ultimately been Eastern cultivators, so the coffins were distinctly Eastern in design and had all been forged according to the standards of ancient Eastern emperors' coffins.

"No pure-blooded Blood Demon powerhouse would place the coffin they sleep in a thousand meters above the ground and let the sun shine on it!" Yin Xuege shrugged his shoulders and muttered under his breath. "If they did that, they wouldn't gain any benefits at all. The sun's power would only continually weaken them and bring them tremendous pain!"

With a boom, the three-foot-thick lid of the central coffin was blasted into the air by a single punch.

A faint scent of dragon-saliva incense drifted from the open coffin. Accompanied by the crisp clatter of countless luminous pearls and fine jades striking one another, a handsome young man dressed in a purple-gold Nine-Dragon Robe with five-clawed dragons slowly stretched and rose from inside.

The enormous coffin was filled with countless luminous pearls and top-grade jades. As the young man stood, huge pearls and large chunks of jade continually slid from his body. These gems shimmered with brilliant light; every one of them was a priceless treasure.

Yin Xuege inclined his body toward the young man, then fearlessly met his gaze and sized him up from head to toe.

A faint layer of blood-colored mist rose from the young man's body. When sunlight shone upon it, it reflected a faint seven-colored halo. The young man narrowed his eyes, tilted his head back, yawned, then began counting on his fingers while muttering under his breath.

"I slept another eleven years! What a dull and pointless life!" The young man swayed, then appeared out of thin air before Yin Xuege. He swept out an arm. Before Yin Xuege could see what he had done, a thin cut had already been sliced across his face by the young man's sharp fingernail. A drop of Yin Xuege's blood flew out. The young man hooked it up with his nail and casually wiped it into his mouth.

"Sweet blood from a young man! Blood brimming with virile energy!" The young man's eyes widened in surprise. He reached out with both hands and vigorously mussed Yin Xuege's long hair until it became a complete mess. Then, without warning, he grabbed Yin Xuege by the ear and shook his head from side to side, lifting him before himself and scrutinizing him from top to bottom.

"It really is a Sunwalker physique! Who would have thought my bloodline, Yin Tianjue's, would be so outstanding? The Sunwalker those stinking bats have dreamed of for countless years actually appeared among the descendants of this 'half-breed bastard'—they'll be furious enough to vomit blood, won't they?"

Gently patting Yin Xuege's face, Yin Tianjue—the founder of the Yin Clan and the supreme Grand Elder of the Yin Clan—let out a strange, hissing laugh. His eyes spun rapidly, and a strange, eerie glimmer flickered swiftly in his scarlet pupils.

"If I remember correctly, you're that girl Huangwu's child, aren't you? That girl was rebellious from childhood. As soon as she broke through to the baron realm, she dared draw her sword on the family elders, and she nearly castrated her granduncle alive. Now there was a troublesome girl!"

"My mother!" Yin Xuege shook his head forcefully, trying to escape Yin Tianjue's careless tousling.

But Yin Tianjue's palms seemed glued to Yin Xuege's head. No matter how he shook it, those hands continued clutching his hair and rubbing it into disarray.

"Mm, your mother!" Yin Tianjue narrowed his eyes, and his smile became especially sinister and eerie. "Yin Huangwu—the most gifted descendant of my Yin Clan since we founded the clan's legacy!"

Yin Xuejiao's arrogant and vicious face flashed rapidly before Yin Xuege's eyes. He immediately tried to correct Yin Tianjue's mistake. "Yin Xuejiao, the fifth-generation direct heir of the Yin Clan, broke through to become a Star Warrior at fourteen. Everyone says he's the Yin Clan's most outstanding genius!"

Yin Tianjue's slender, fair fingers tightly pinched Yin Xuege's left earlobe. Toying with his ear, he sighed in a distant voice, "Fourteen? But your mother, Yin Huangwu, broke through to become a Star Warrior at nine, a Moon Warrior at eleven, and had already reached the high stage of a Night Warrior at fourteen. She became a baron at twenty-three and a viscount at thirty-five."

He let out several mocking laughs and shook his head hard.

"Your mother reached the rank of count at only fifty, making her the youngest count recorded in the history of the Western Blood Demon Clan! Before your mother, the youngest count in the Blood Demon Clan had only broken through at the age of one hundred and seven. Your mother's talent was simply monstrous!"

Yin Xuege's long, sword-like brows drew tightly together. He tried to break free of Yin Tianjue's fingers, but after wasting considerable strength to no avail, he could only sigh silently in resignation. Looking at Yin Tianjue, he said coldly, "I've never heard any of this."

"That's understandable." Yin Tianjue let out another mocking laugh whose meaning was impossible to discern. "Because your mother was a woman. In the purest and most traditional Blood Demon families, women could also wield great power and determine a family's future, as long as they possessed sufficient strength and methods."

"But our Yin Clan came from the East!" Yin Tianjue let out a sinister, hissing laugh. "A daughter married out was water spilled! How could those proud men allow a woman's brilliance to eclipse theirs? So as soon as your mother married, every record concerning her vanished without a trace."

Yin Tianjue flicked Yin Xuege hard between the brows and gave a soft snort.

"That includes the several personal Blood Servants your mother left behind in the Yin Clan! After you came of age, you never saw them again, did you?"

Yin Xuege's body suddenly went taut. Blue veins bulged beneath his fair skin, and the constant crack-crack of colliding joints rang from within his body. He looked coldly at Yin Tianjue and spat out each word, "So you knew everything?"

Yin Tianjue finally released Yin Xuege. He shook his hands, then folded his arms across his chest and looked down at him with narrowed eyes and a smiling expression. At first, Yin Xuege met Yin Tianjue's gaze without fear. Gradually, however, a scorching, violent aura surged from Yin Tianjue's scarlet eyes, spreading over him like a stormy sky. Yin Xuege felt his eyes swell and ache. In the end, excruciating pain filled them, and a flood of tears spilled uncontrollably, forcing him to turn his head toward the distant mountains.

"Yes, I knew everything!" Yin Tianjue muttered to himself unhurriedly.

"Even though I've been asleep all this time, nothing that happens within the Yin Clan City-State can escape me!"

Another new day has arrived. Everyone, please give this pighead a few more recommendation votes!

Awooo! (To be continued)