Ruined Monsters and Ruined Realms

"Change horses. I have urgent military intelligence to deliver." Chen Mo showed his letter and handed it to the post-station director.

Their journey this time was under military orders, and they carried a military dispatch that allowed them to requisition post-station horses to deliver military intelligence in an emergency.

The director did not dare delay. He hurriedly led out a horse. Chen Mo mounted and changed horses, then lifted the person bound behind the horse and placed him behind the saddle.

He had already changed horses several times along the way. At this speed, he could reach the military camp in half a day.

Of course, this speed counted as slow. There was nothing he could do about it—the horses at the Xingyuan Prefecture post station were not swift steeds specially used to deliver military intelligence.

Most were merely inferior horses, incapable of running very fast.

After riding onward at full speed and changing horses once more along the way, he finally saw the military camp.

At least for now, nothing had happened in Xingyuan Prefecture. Most of the Du Tian Dao Sect members seemed to be in Anyang Prefecture, and their appearance near Xingyuan Prefecture this time had merely been a coincidence.

But this was only Chen Mo's deduction. They had extracted too little information. That Lishi was at the very bottom of the Du Tian Dao Sect and knew very little.

Even if they had some major task to carry out, they would certainly have kept it from him first.

So no matter what, he had to report this information upward first.

That way, no matter what the Du Tian Dao Sect members intended to do, they would at least be prepared.

The personal guards responsible for watch duty saw him riding hard toward them and could not help looking puzzled.

"I have urgent business and need to see the general!" Chen Mo shouted, riding into the military camp.

He galloped to the front of the study, dismounted, and, without waiting for anyone to announce him, carried the Lishi straight into the study.

"Adoptive Father, something terrible has happened!" Chen Mo casually tossed the Lishi aside and hurriedly spoke.

"Hmm!" Sun Shouren sprang to his feet. His face showed both surprise and a trace of confusion, but as a veteran general of the battlefield, he had long since made fearlessness in the face of danger a habit.

He waved away the attendants to prevent any uncontrollable information from leaking out, then asked Chen Mo, "What exactly happened?"

"Reporting to you, Adoptive Father, I went with several of my elder brothers to Qing Province to investigate the bandits' whereabouts. Unexpectedly, along the way, we encountered fiends claiming to belong to the Du Tian Dao Sect.

"Those fiends possessed bizarre methods. They could turn the tongues and arms of human beings into weapons to injure others, and they were extremely hostile toward us, killing anyone they saw. Fifth Brother also captured a Lishi from the Du Tian Dao Sect, and I brought him here as well." Chen Mo gave a brief account of what had happened.

The more Sun Shouren listened, the gloomier his expression became. There were many things Chen Mo did not know, but he knew something about them.

"The people you encountered weren't fiends. They were Qi Refiners." Sun Shouren spoke in a solemn tone.

"Qi Refiners?" Chen Mo asked. Back when he had browsed the All-Heaven Grand Dao Scripture, he had already learned that those so-called Celestial Masters could refine qi and cultivate.

But what he knew was only the tip of the iceberg, because he had been unable to continue reading that cultivation method.

"Qi Refiners are different from martial artists like us. Martial artists temper their bodies and cultivate internal qi, while Qi Refiners draw the qi of Heaven and Earth into their bodies and use it to employ all kinds of methods.

"Their methods are exceedingly strange and ever-changing. Refining their own bodies into flying swords to kill their enemies is one such application.

"But in close-quarters combat, these Qi Refiners are still far from being a match for martial artists like us."

Sun Shouren slowly explained to Chen Mo, telling him what he knew.

A fifth-rank official was nothing special in the imperial capital—at most, he would be a Vice Minister of the Six Ministries.

But a fifth-rank Garrison General was unquestionably a major regional official.

Many secrets were not secrets to him. What he could learn and come into contact with far exceeded what a personal guard like Chen Mo knew.

Take inner cultivation methods, for example. The reason he had dared to tell Chen Mo that once Chen Mo succeeded in cultivation, he could ask him for an inner cultivation method was precisely because, given his status and authority, obtaining such things was not particularly difficult.

"Then why did those Qi Refiners from the Du Tian Dao Sect insist on using tongues and arms as weapons? Wouldn't carefully forged steel needles be more concealed and more effective?"

Chen Mo raised his own question. During a battle, they still had to remove an arm to use it; secretly attacking with steel needles would undoubtedly be more concealed.

"Ordinary steel needles have no spirituality, while the human body is born with spirituality. The bodies of those Qi Refiners in particular have been washed by the qi of Heaven and Earth, so after being refined, they possess even greater power.

"The reason those Qi Refiners from the Du Tian Dao Sect attacked you was most likely because they had taken a fancy to your bodies.

"Although the bodies of us martial artists are inferior to their own, they are still far stronger than ordinary people's. Used for refinement, they are not only more convenient but also more powerful."

Sun Shouren slowly answered Chen Mo's questions. Strictly speaking, these matters were not especially secret.

It was simply that Chen Mo's status was insufficient, leaving him unable to come into contact with such things.

Chen Mo had originally thought that the people of the Du Tian Dao Sect practiced an evil path, which was why they used human limbs as weapons.

Now it seemed that the Qi Refiners of this world—even if not all of them, then most—did things this way.

"Then, Adoptive Father, do you know that we also encountered someone who could not be killed?" Chen Mo spoke again. Since he had someone who could answer his questions today, he intended to seize the opportunity and ask more.

He then roughly recounted everything that had happened before and after he entered Qing Province and encountered those strange disaster victims.

After hearing Chen Mo's account, Sun Shouren's face suddenly became terribly grim. He motioned for Chen Mo to tightly shut the doors and windows to prevent eavesdroppers through the walls, and only then did he speak.

"The thing you encountered was called a ruined monster. No matter how many times you kill them, they will never die.

"The place where ruined monsters live is called a ruined realm. The ruined realm you encountered was relatively harmless. Although it contained someone who could not be killed, it was not especially strange.

"Ruined realms slowly expand as time passes. We martial artists are helpless against them, which is why Qi Refiners hold such lofty positions in Great Qian."

Sun Shouren had not explained in much detail, but Chen Mo could glean even more information from those words.

That was, there was more than one ruined realm. The one he had encountered was not especially strange, and there were other, even stranger ruined realms in existence.

"Then why have I never heard of anything like this in our Xingyuan Prefecture? Could it be that ruined monsters only exist in Qing Province?" Chen Mo asked curiously. He was indeed deeply puzzled by this.

From the meaning of his adoptive father's words, there was more than one ruined realm, and only Qi Refiners could suppress them.

If a ruined realm had ever appeared in Xingyuan Prefecture, he should have heard at least some rumors about it.

"Of course not. There are ruined realms in Qing Province, and naturally there are some in Xingyuan Prefecture as well. I don't know much about them; I've only heard several high-ranking experts from the Directorate of Celestial Observation discuss them.

"Ruined realms and ruined monsters are illusory realities. The human mind and spirit can affect them.

"The more people who know of a ruined realm—even if they have never seen it with their own eyes and have only heard rumors or a few scattered words—the stronger that ruined realm becomes.

"Seals that have already been laid down may even be broken open. When the time comes to seal it again, the price will be far greater."

Sun Shouren gave him a general account of what he knew. After all, he was a martial artist, not a Qi Refiner.

If he had not once helped several Qi Refiners handle matters of this kind, he probably would never have had the chance to learn any of this.

He would not normally tell outsiders about such matters. But since Chen Mo had already encountered a ruined realm, he had to inform him of the dangers involved.

"You absolutely must not spread even the slightest bit of information about this. Besides you, who else knows, and where are they now?" Sun Shouren asked.

Chen Mo then named the several new recruits one by one. Aside from the men who had witnessed it together with him, Chen Mo had not deliberately mentioned the matter when interacting with anyone else.

He had also specifically warned the others never to tell anyone about it.

At the time, he had simply not wanted to meddle in this troublesome matter. Unexpectedly, it had been a blessing in disguise, ensuring that the matter would not spread widely.

Only after hearing this did Sun Shouren let out a breath of relief. He knew how terrifying ruined realms were. Compared with everything else, the consequences of this matter leaking out would be the most serious.

But immediately afterward, another thought occurred to him: Why had the people of the Du Tian Dao Sect appeared near the ruined realm, of all places?

More importantly, one of them had actually been able to borrow the power of a ruined monster. Clearly, these people were no ordinary Qi Refiners.

They had now gone to Qing Province. Although he did not know their exact purpose, they most likely harbored ill intentions.

"Take my seal and lead a group of men at full speed to Qing Province. Do not come into contact with those people from the Du Tian Dao Sect. Bring your Fourth Brother and the others out of Qing Province first." Sun Shouren took out his seal and immediately began writing a transfer order.

He did not know what the Du Tian Dao Sect members were plotting, but he knew that he had to get his adopted sons and nephews out first.

These men were his trusted subordinates. Every one of them could command a battalion on his own once sent out. Without them, he would never be able to return to the battlefield in this lifetime.

Losing Zhao Yuncheng alone had already hurt him badly. He absolutely could not suffer any more losses.

"I'll carry out your orders!" Chen Mo accepted the military order, hastily assembled a group of elite soldiers, and quickly set off for Qing Province.