Blood and Chaos

After leaving the stone gambling workshop and walking a short distance through the city, Lu Chen sensed someone watching him. He glanced back casually and saw several people trailing him from afar—the Divine Ring Gate disciples who had lost to him at Gambling on Stones.

"Looks like they lost at Gambling on Stones and now plan to rob me!" Seeing this, he needed no further thought to understand their intentions.

In the Northern Region, a land steeped in blood and chaos, murder and robbery were everyday occurrences, with little difference between cultivators and mortals.

Of course, such behavior was somewhat restrained within cities, since life-sustaining oases and cities were generally ruled by sects and powerful cultivators who laid down rules forbidding combat within city limits.

Of course, if you were stronger than the ruler of the region, you naturally had no need to obey anyone else's rules.

Those Divine Ring Gate disciples certainly lacked such strength. They followed Lu Chen, hoping to seize an opportunity once he left the city.

Lu Chen frowned slightly, but he was not worried. With his current cultivation, he feared no one below the level of a Holy Land elder-that is, a Dragon Transformation Realm cultivator.

He gave a cold smile and paid them no mind. He had dared to slap the face of even a fearsome Desolate Ancient Family like the Ji Family. Why would he fear some so-called Divine Ring Gate?

"Boy, you won our source, but watch out-you might live to take it and not live to spend it." Just then, one of the Divine Ring Gate disciples approached, provoking him with murderous intent.

Lu Chen gave them an indifferent glance. Too disinclined to waste words on them, he abruptly snapped, "Get lost!"

The passersby felt nothing from his sharp rebuke, but the Divine Ring Gate disciple felt as though heavenly thunder had struck. His ears rang, and even his soul seemed to tremble. He stumbled back several steps, his expression changing. "You..."

Nearby, the others hurried over when they saw this and asked, "Junior Brother, what happened?"

The man's face was pale. "That boy's cultivation isn't weak. He may already be in the Dao Palace Realm."

"What? He's in the Dao Palace Realm?" The other Divine Ring Gate disciples were startled. Then one said, "To be safe, we need to ask the sect elders to act."

Three days later, Lu Chen left the life-sustaining oasis called Qingyun and headed toward the Holy City at the center of the Northern Region.

Unfortunately, some people refused to let him leave so easily. Shortly after he departed the oasis, those Divine Ring Gate disciples blocked his path with two old men. Clearly, someone had been tracking him over the past few days.

"There are always people in this world eager to seek death." Looking at the two Dao Palace Realm old men and the Divine Ring Gate disciples from several days earlier, Lu Chen shook his head and sighed.

"Boy, I hear you struck it lucky at Zhou's Gambling Stone Workshop and cut out some variant source." One of the old men, a Divine Ring Gate elder at the Dao Palace Fourth Heaven, looked down at him and said, "Offer it up, and I will take you as my disciple."

A cultivation sect like the Divine Ring Gate had accumulated only one or two thousand jin of source. The hundred-odd jin Lu Chen had revealed, together with a piece of variant source, were already resources they could not afford to ignore.

Thus, when the disciples approached these two Dao Palace Realm elders, they came immediately to intercept him without another word.

"You talk too much." Lu Chen could not be bothered to say more.

His palm gleamed like divine jade as golden divine flame ignited around it, taking the form of a Divine Phoenix wing. It was the Fire Clan Saint Spirit's secret technique-Divine Phoenix Slash. A terrifying aura spread as it swept like a phoenix beating its wings, transforming into a hundred-zhang Heavenly Blade that cleaved downward.

"You..."

The Divine Ring Gate elder in the Dao Palace Realm looked horrified. He had never imagined that such a young boy could be this terrifying.

Seven or eight weapons surged out of his body, shining brilliantly as they moved in front of him to block the attack.

Bang!

Unfortunately, it was useless. With a single strike, Lu Chen's Divine Phoenix Slash reduced a cultivator of his own realm to flying ash.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye, before the other Divine Ring Gate elder or the disciples could react.

They had imagined that the sect elder would capture the young boy as easily as reaching out a hand, but the result was precisely the opposite.

Whoosh!

The other elder, also at the Dao Palace Fourth Heaven, knew they had struck an iron plate today. Before him stood a prodigy comparable to a Holy Lord in his youth, someone he could not possibly defeat. He turned, transformed into a streak of rainbow light, and fled into the distance.

"Elder..."

The Divine Ring Gate disciples who had gambled against Lu Chen at Gambling on Stones were dumbfounded. A moment later, they too came to their senses and fled for their lives.

"Since you're here, why rush to leave?" A trace of coldness appeared on Lu Chen's face. He stepped forward like a phantom of flowing light, flickered once, and caught up with one of them.

Buzz!

He thrust his palm, blazing with golden divine flame, forward. Even the void caved inward, humming in waves. The Divine Ring Gate disciple was instantly smashed into a cloud of blood mist, without so much as a scream.

Then a pair of Divine Phoenix wings took shape behind him. With one beat, he shot forward like an immortal spirit streaking across the sky. Within a breath, he caught another man and stamped down, sending him down the same path as the first, vanishing like smoke and scattered clouds.

Whoosh...

Lu Chen flickered twice in succession and seized the remaining two. His powerful divine sense probed their seas of consciousness to learn what sort of sect the Divine Ring Gate was.

Afterward, he killed them as well. With that, all four men who had mocked him at Zhou's Gambling Stone Workshop disappeared from the world.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, he caught up with the Divine Ring Gate's Dao Palace elder and smiled faintly. "You're also a cultivator at the Dao Palace Fourth Heaven. How can you lack even the courage to fight?"

The old man's expression changed drastically. "Which Holy Land's Holy Son are you?"

He could sense that his opponent was also at the Dao Palace Fourth Heaven, but his combat strength was terrifyingly high. He had actually killed someone of the same realm in a single strike. As far as the elder knew, only a Holy Son nurtured by a Holy Land could be so terrifying.

"I'm merely a Loose Cultivator." Lu Chen stood in the void, watching him, and said calmly, "Tell me, what sort of sect is the Divine Ring Gate?"

"Our Divine Ring Gate's sect master has entered the third secret realm. His strength rivals an Eminent Elder of a Holy Land, and few in this region can compare to him. Don't go too far." Hearing that he was a Loose Cultivator, the Divine Ring Gate elder threatened him.

"An Eminent Elder of a Holy Land?" Lu Chen shook his head slightly. "Then I'll pay the Divine Ring Gate a visit today. But as for you..."

Hearing this, the Divine Ring Gate elder knew there would be no peaceful resolution. He acted decisively, surging with all his divine power as light blazed in every direction. He simultaneously activated the four weapons refined in his Sea of Bitterness and the four weapons from his Dao Palace, taking the initiative to slash at Lu Chen.

Seeing this, Lu Chen once again manifested the Fire Clan Saint Spirit's secret technique, Divine Phoenix Slash, powering it with Sun Saint Power. A pair of enormous immortal phoenix wings grew behind him, each divine feather shimmering with rippling light.

He spread his arms like a phoenix beating its wings, stirring heavenly winds as golden divine flame swept forward.

Cracks rang out incessantly. The weapons refined across the Dao Palace Fourth Heaven cultivator's seven cultivation stages were all smashed into fragments and scattered on the wind like dust.

"What... what secret art is this?" The Divine Ring Gate elder looked horrified, shaken beyond measure. He believed that even his sect master, who had reached the Four Extremes Realm, possessed no such terrifying power.

The old man, who had lived for centuries, felt chilled from head to toe. Those terrifying golden divine flames and razor-sharp divine wings carried an overwhelming pressure that made his whole body tremble and filled him with the urge to fall to his knees.

"You don't deserve to know this secret technique's origins, but I can use it to send you on your final journey!" Lu Chen knew that a Fire Clan Saint Spirit at great perfection rivaled an Ancient Emperor or a Great Emperor. Its secret art possessed peerless might and was a supreme technique of attack.

"You..." A chill rose in the Divine Ring Gate elder's heart. Suppressed by a cold, terrifying battle intent, he lost all the composure befitting a sect elder.

The immortal phoenix wings behind Lu Chen unfurled, golden divine radiance flowing across them. Every feather was vivid and lifelike, as though forged from divine metal, and they radiated terrifying fluctuations of energy that seized the heart and soul.

"Kill..."

Despair filled the Divine Ring Gate elder's heart. Divine light shot skyward from his body as he launched an attack, making the final struggle of his life.

Buzz!

Lu Chen stood with his hands behind his back, his body utterly still. Yet golden flames flowed over the immortal phoenix wings behind him as they slashed outward like two enormous winged Heavenly Blades.

At that moment, a terrifying pressure spread, as though an Immortal Dao Creature were spreading its wings across the sky, revealing a trace of a genuine Divine Phoenix's presence.

The Divine Ring Gate elder was terrified. The divine power within him nearly stopped circulating, and his body seemed imprisoned, barely able to move.

Bang!

The two winged Heavenly Blades struck him, making him vanish like smoke and scattered clouds. There were no bones, no blood mist-only a few wisps of dust drifting down with the wind.

"In the blood-soaked, chaotic lands of the Northern Region, there is no right or wrong-only strength and weakness!" His golden divine wings beat, and Lu Chen soared into the heavens. He was going to take a look at the Divine Ring Gate.