Outside Emerald Lake Factory

Midnight.

Inside an abandoned factory beside Emerald Lake, an exceedingly bloody sacrificial ritual was underway.

One hundred freshly slaughtered corpses hung upside down from the factory's I-beams, their throats slit by sharp blades. Blood bubbled with foam, streaming down in threads and torrents into the pitch-black prayer array below.

Bronze candle stands blazed on all sides, their wavering flames casting the figures within the factory into twisted, grotesque shapes, as though a horde of demons danced in wild revelry.

Outside the factory, Room Fire Cult martial artists clad in flaming-red robes stood guard every three steps and posted sentries every five, patrolling without cease. The entire lakeside area was sealed so tightly that not even a female mosquito could fly in.

These Room Fire Cult believers still had a bit of sense.

They knew that their recent unrestrained plundering of people had caused frequent disappearances throughout Emerald Lake Street, drawing an endless stream of government runners investigating for evidence and wanderers of the martial world answering online bounties.

The Room Fire Cult was hardly some cautious, secretive underground organization.

With so many people investigating, the sacrifices naturally became hard to conceal.

Moreover, there was a traitor within the cult. Quite a few martial wanderers already knew that tonight, in addition to summoning Shadow Guards, the shaman would also refine twelve superior Feather Ascension Pills.

These were precious medicines that could help Spirit Seed Realm martial artists shed their mortal forms and break through into the Feather Ascension Realm.

The martial wanderers flocked to them like ducks, willing to risk life and limb.

Now, only force could intimidate the petty vermin.

At around 12:15 a.m., an off-road vehicle rolled across the weed-choked riverbank. Under the watchful eyes of the Room Fire Cult martial artists, it drove straight up to the factory entrance.

Someone was waiting at the door. Frowning at the richly dressed young man in red who jumped out of the car, he asked, "Why are you only getting here now?"

"Don't look at me like that."

"I only agreed to come help the family. I never agreed to come be your Room Fire Cult's dog."

The richly dressed young man did not directly answer the greeter's question. Brushing past him, he arrived at the factory entrance.

"Your Room Fire Cult really has lost all conscience."

Seeing the corpses hanging upside down in the factory like cured meat, the richly dressed young man could not help clicking his tongue.

"Tang Xi, watch your tongue!"

"It was the clan behind you that begged to cooperate with us. Without your Tang Clan, there are still the Zhao Clan, Qian Clan, and Zhou Clan scrambling to work with us."

This newly promoted outer deacon of the Room Fire Cult was not particularly high-ranking, nor was his faith in the Room Fire God especially devout.

But that did not stop him from flying the Room Fire Cult's banner and berating anyone who slandered the cult to its face.

"Then your Room Fire Cult is truly impressive, getting more than thirty percent of the inner city's clans to secretly support you."

Tang Xi did not yield under pressure, still wearing that indifferent expression.

Yet the moment his front foot entered the factory, he sensed a chill, malicious intent rushing toward him. His tone abruptly changed, and he stepped back out of the factory.

"Your ritual has not finished yet, so I won't go in and disturb you."

"Still, I am curious. Your shaman is summoning Shadow Guards, so why did you call me here?"

Hearing this, the outer deacon suspected nothing and explained, "This sacrifice by the shaman will not only summon Shadow Guards, but also refine an additional three superior Feather Ascension Pills."

"The Tang Clan reserved one of them, saying it was to reward you and console Young Master Tang for his contributions these past few days."

Upon hearing this, Tang Xi glanced once more from the corner of his eye at the sinister, black-mist-filled sacrificial ritual inside the factory and was rendered speechless.

What exactly are these people thinking?

With such a ghastly spectacle, using human lives as sacrifice and reeking of eerie evil, even if they really refined superior Feather Ascension Pills, would I dare eat one?

Those scum in the clan really are at the end of their rope. With such paltry tricks, they want the former legitimate son of the Tang Clan to go die?

Dream on!

In the weeds less than three hundred meters from the factory, quite a few martial wanderers had already taken up their positions.

Chen Jue arrived a little late because he had needed to collect his daily Reward for Diligence.

He circulated the Concealing Spirit Technique alongside the max-level Wandering Dragon Body Technique, lowering both his aura and movements to the absolute minimum as he quietly crept to the front row of the grass.

The decrepit factory three hundred meters away belched black smoke everywhere. The air carried both the choking scent of carbonized medicinal herbs and the stench of scorched protein.

Chen Jue checked his Diligence Rewards Log and found it genuinely hard to believe that the upper limit issue with his vitality and blood, which had plagued him for so long, had actually broken through after he refined a wisp of Room Fire true qi.

[Consumed three points of Divine Essence Sediment to reinforce vitality and blood to 200%.]

The "Divine Essence Sediment" in the log should have been the obsessive consciousness carried by the Room Fire true qi when that pig-headed monster made its dying counterattack.

It was later baked to death by the furnace core in his body, which shone like the midday sun, becoming a point of Divine Essence Sediment. Then, amplified by the Diligence Reward Talent, it multiplied from one into three and ultimately became nourishment for his vitality and blood breakthrough.

"But duplicating Divine Essence Sediment costs far too many spirit stones..."

Tonight's Reward for Diligence had made Chen Jue bleed heavily.

The dozen-odd spirit stones he had scraped together were not even enough. In the end, he had to shatter more than a dozen fine Spirit Sprout Pills before he could barely gather the spiritual power needed to duplicate one point of Divine Essence Sediment.

And that was not all. By refining Room Fire true qi, the dantian furnace had gained two hundred wisps of flame true qi.

According to the principle that of every three parts gained, one came from sweat, one from Reward for Diligence, and one from external spiritual power—

Of the four hundred wisps of true qi produced through double duplication, two hundred wisps had to be supplied by him using external spiritual power.

As a result, of his remaining forty Spirit Sprout Pills, eight out of ten were gone. What should originally have been settled with twenty spirit stones ended up costing him a full 240,000 cash.

"When I was in the early True Qi Realm, I didn't feel it much. Why, ever since reaching the middle True Qi Realm, does spending money feel like water flowing away, impossible to stop..."

Chen Jue sighed inwardly, but his eyes never left the factory.

At that moment, the six hundred wisps of flame true qi stored in his dantian could not yet become immediate combat strength.

He still needed to continuously regulate his breath through internal cultivation and cycle the River Chariot four times, using it as a medium to blend with the other four types of spiritual qi and form true Five Elements qi with actual combat power.

"When all is said and done, cultivating martial arts is still reliable. There's nothing to consider—just grind away."

Chen Jue rested his left hand on his saber hilt, quietly sensing the technical improvement brought by the perfected Six Directions Saber Art.

It was an ineffable sensation—the culmination of the saber intent he had comprehended when his saber art reached great mastery. It was as though, across the eight wastelands and six directions, he could now cleave with a single slash.

Yet his true qi reserves were meager, making it impossible for him to unleash such power.

Thus, two utterly different impressions of substance and illusion tore at his understanding of saber art.

He was beginning to lose track of just how strong his own saber art truly was.

Rustle, rustle, rustle!

As the black smoke from the abandoned factory gradually subsided, the martial wanderers who had waited so long in the grass all sprang into action, advancing forward one after another.

People also pushed up on both Chen Jue's left and right.

Like Chen Jue, they were wrapped in black clothes, their faces covered by black cloth. The weapons in their hands came in every conceivable variety.

"..."

The two martial wanderers exchanged looks with Chen Jue. After their initial surprise, both tacitly chose not to attack.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Just as the three exchanged glances, more than a dozen streaks of fire trailing blazing tails suddenly rose into the sky from the Emerald Lake Street district two kilometers away. They then traced perfect arcs through the air, hurtling down toward the abandoned lakeside factory.

"Holy shit! Great Ming Divine Arrows! Divine-Fire Flying Crows!!!"

Watching the enormous firebirds streak overhead at high speed, Chen Jue and the martial wanderers were all stunned.

These were military weapons of the Divine Dynasty, used to level mountains and destroy temples, to conduct precision strikes against spirit vessels and divine warships. Only the Divine Dynasty's army could legally possess them.

Could it be that the Jiangnan Myriad-House Office had made its move?

As everyone reeled in shock, the enormous Divine-Fire Flying Crows had already fallen toward the lakeside factory like a rain of fiery meteors.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The enormous Divine-Fire Flying Crows exploded the instant they struck the ground.

No one knew what explosive substance filled the divine crows' bellies. There was not even a fiery blast sphere; after only an instant of blinding, ghastly white light, a terrifying ring-shaped shockwave visibly crushed everything in its path as it swept outward.

The entire steel-frame factory was shattered to pieces by the first Divine-Fire Flying Crow's explosion.

The following explosions sent steel beams, chunks of concrete, and iron fragments soaring violently into the sky like heavenly maidens scattering flowers, carried by the explosive shockwaves.

The martial artists three hundred meters from the blast center had no time to flee. Without exception, they were all hurled away by the layers upon layers of expanding ring-shaped shockwaves.