Rumble...
Rolling thunder echoed beneath Fire Phoenix Valley, yet only a hot, dry autumn wind swept the endless Gobi Desert.
A party of over forty advanced across the desolate plain under cover of night. Everyone around its perimeter wore black cloaks, occasionally revealing blue-black skin densely covered in incantations as they moved. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, almost soundless.
At the center of the party was a palanquin veiled in black gauze, carried by eight figures.
Jiang Qizi reclined on the palanquin, his dim old eyes gazing over land that was familiar, yet which he had not set foot on for years, filled with nostalgia for past glories.
When he was born, Spirit Dew Valley had still been a major Southern Border sect, renowned even within the Unorthodox Dao.
Unfortunately, good times did not last. After the Corpse Ancestor's downfall, the Gu Poison Sect had been exiled to the Southern Border. Then Ancestor Sikong had begun slaying demons and exorcising evil there under the pretext of "only through remaining steadfast under injustice can a gentleman be known," confiscating territory along the way.
Jiang Qizi simply could not understand it. The Corpse Ancestor bore that name because his Witch Cult foundations let him control puppets and endlessly return to life through borrowed corpses. But his master had not belonged to the Corpse Witch Sect-it had been Sikong Shitang. By that reckoning, Sikong Tianyuan was the Corpse Ancestor's junior martial brother!
Your family battered the whole world into a shambles, so how did you have the gall to come to the Southern Border and attack the Corpse Witch Sect in the name of upholding the righteous Dao?
But strength ultimately spoke loudest on the path of cultivation. Under pressure, Jiang Qizi could only flee to the muddy pits of Ghost-Cry Marsh and