"Yes." The woman in white's expression changed, and she admitted it. Lying in front of an expert was foolish. When the gap in strength was too great, the other person could sense it.
"Fine. Since that's the case, you can go join these people." Sean spoke calmly.
The Coiling Dragon World was indeed a dog-eat-dog place. As long as someone was strong enough, nothing they did could be called wrong. It was just like the dark upheavals in Shrouding the Heavens.
The moment the Laws of Death could be used to refine Soul Golden Beads, the tragedies of countless ordinary living beings had been inevitable.
Even Sean might not do such a thing of his own accord. But if it happened, and the people killed had nothing to do with him, he might not interfere.
Countless tragedies like this took place every second of every day in the Coiling Dragon World. It was just like the animal kingdom on Earth in his previous life: lions killing cattle was perfectly normal.
But Shengyue City had ties to him. He had grown up there, raised by people from the Holy See, and some of them had even been his friends. Now they had all been killed. That made these people his enemies.
He wasn't capable of doing anything about it yet, so naturally he wouldn't act. But if he ever gained the power to do so, he would absolutely make sure the people behind this paid.
"My lord, no—I can do anything you want." Despair showed in the woman in white's eyes. She could just about be considered a peak Saint-level expert, but she had no confidence at all in her ability to escape Sean.
Sean didn't use the Purple Blood God Sword again. A faint gray light shot from his forehead and flashed into the woman's head. There was no fluctuation of energy. The woman in white shuddered, then dropped straight out of the sky.
Neither Shadow Clone nor the Laws of Darkness specialized in soul attacks. But the most remarkable thing about Mysteries was that once they were fused, they enhanced all abilities—including soul attacks. They simply couldn't compare to fusions involving Mysteries specifically related to the soul.
Sean's soul attacks were far weaker than his material attacks, but they were still more than an ordinary Saint-level expert could casually withstand.
Ram, standing nearby, trembled from head to toe. Even if he had fought this human woman alone, he wouldn't have been sure he could escape. Yet Sean had dealt with her with one easy move—and it hadn't even been his strongest material attack.
"Ram," Sean said.
"My lord Sean." Ram immediately shrank to the size of a cat and flew over to him before replying.
"Gather the bodies of all six people and burn them. The first person I killed had a Spatial Ring. Claim it, then put everything that can't be destroyed into it. After that, erase all traces of what happened here."
A Spatial Ring was a valuable treasure, but Sean already had one, and one was enough. At least for now, he was alone and had no faction, so he didn't need another.
"Yes, my lord Sean." Ram hurriedly agreed, then flew off to clean up.
Before long, Ram returned. There were only a few bodies, and a single fire had reduced them to ashes. A Saint-level fire-type magical beast could melt steel with a casual breath of flame. Some weapons and treasures, however, including several divine artifacts, couldn't be burned or destroyed, so they had been put into the Spatial Ring.
"I'm leaving the Dark Forest," Sean said. "I suggest you leave too. We've disposed of the bodies, but these six must have been important figures in the Darkness Church. Once they've been missing for a while, plenty of experts will come looking for them—perhaps even Deities. And then there's this Magic Array. If we stay here, we'll both draw attention."
There was an unbridgeable gulf between Deities and Saint-level experts, much like the gap between Sovereigns and High Gods. Killing the witnesses and destroying the bodies would only delay discovery a little. If Sean and Ram stayed here, they'd be courting death. Sean wasn't about to watch Ram get killed after all the time they'd spent together. Besides, all he was doing was offering a warning.
"My lord Sean, may Ram follow you?" Ram asked.
"You can, but not right now." Sean shook his head. "I need to go somewhere special, and I have to go alone. If you really want to follow me, find somewhere to hide for now. There are plenty of places on the Zhongyuan Continent where magical beasts gather. Pick one and stay there. After a few years, I'll come find you."
The Dark Forest was just one place in the Zhongyuan Continent suited to magical beasts of the Darkness Element. There were much larger gathering grounds elsewhere, such as the Ten Thousand Mountains and the Qingjue Grassland. They stretched across hundreds of thousands of miles and were home to countless Saint-level magical beasts; some even had Deities. The environment was unsuitable for humans, so these places had long coexisted with human powers on the Zhongyuan Continent.
"Fine. I'll go to the Ten Thousand Mountains and stay near Lingyang City. If you come looking for me, just set a big fire over there," Ram said. Every powerful magical beast had its own territory, and that was true everywhere. But if all he needed was a place to stay, it didn't matter where he went. If he weren't worried about being discovered by human Deities, he could even live in a city as a little cat without any problem.
"Fine. I'll definitely have a surprise for you when the time comes," Sean said indifferently.
He was leaving to attempt to become a Deity. Once he reached that level, with his weapons and the treasures he could continue to materialize, he'd be able to protect himself even against Mid Gods. And once he became a Deity, he could open the Coiling Dragon Ring and take out the Sovereign's Might inside. With that, even an ordinary High God might not be able to defeat him.
Once he became a Deity, he could find Ram simply by spreading out his divine sense. There'd be no need for the hassle of setting a fire. As for the surprise, it would naturally be a Lowgod Spark. Once he became a god, he'd need a few Deities around him who could get things done.
In fact, he'd been able to materialize several Godheads ever since reaching the Saint-level. Linley had obtained three in the Necropolis of the Gods, and Beirut had given one to Delia as a wedding gift. But Sean wasn't going to gamble on whether he or someone else became a Deity first. He'd only hand Godheads to others after he had become a god himself.
Man and beast parted without hesitation. Sean took the Purple Blood God Sword and left the sealed Magic Array behind for good. While he'd been here without fighting, he'd kept the sword stuck in the Magic Array the whole time. He hadn't known whether the sealed Magic Array he'd materialized really connected to the Plane Prison on the Zhongyuan Continent.
But now, he couldn't worry about that anymore. If powerful experts came out, the Darkness Church could deal with them. After the Darkness Church's crazed act of slaughtering an entire city, what worse things could the people from the Plane Prison do?
Strangely, though, after Sean pulled out the Purple Blood God Sword, he waited a while and even watched from a distance.
In the original story, when Linley pulled out the Purple Blood God Sword, the Magic Array had immediately broken apart. But this one hadn't. It was simply unstable now, and might collapse after some time.
He didn't know whether it was because the planes were different, or because, in the original story, Dylan had happened to notice when Linley pulled out the Purple Blood God Sword—and perhaps Dylan had acted on the other side as well.
After watching for a while, Sean stopped worrying about it. He couldn't stay here any longer.
Two years later, after traveling with care and keeping a low profile, Sean arrived at one of the most dangerous forbidden lands on the Zhongyuan Continent: the Kahali Desert.
There were no heaven-defying magical beasts here, but it was eternally dry. For hundreds of thousands of miles in every direction, there was almost no water. Even a ninth-rank Water mage would have to strain with all their might just to conjure a light rain at the desert's edge. As for the depths, anyone below the Saint-level wouldn't dare enter. The directions inside were chaotic, and once someone went in, they might never find their way out.
Saint-level experts could alter the moisture in parts of the desert, but they wouldn't bother with something so tedious. Even Deities generally didn't come here.
After several more days, Sean reached the very center of the Kahali Desert. The surrounding heat was so intense that even he found it uncomfortable.
He immediately used Earth Walk to burrow underground, digging ever deeper until he could feel the immense pressure above him reaching his limit. If not for his powerful body, even an ordinary peak Saint-level expert would have been crushed to death here.
"Materialize Miniature Plane Space." Sean communicated with the Coiling Dragon book in his mind and issued the command.
Before you continue