Chapter 93: The Esteemed Lord of Hope Peak

Heavenly Soul Sect.

Sia Moy, the Lord of Hope Peak, was one of those elders who had chosen not to relocate to the Floating Island.

Instead, he had established himself beneath the peak itself, creating a massive ecosystem beneath the mountain, essentially his own miniature Sacred Land.

Deep lava streams curved around his domain in a circle, flowing into pure water sources that cascaded down from the Floating Islands and seeped through cracks in the stone, reaching his paradise. The mingling of pure water and lava created an ideal environment for his vast gardens.

Each garden was surrounded by its own formation and maintained a unique internal structure and climate. In some, the formation created a blazing simulacrum of the sun that dried the earth, turning it dark and cracked. In others, everything was hidden within thick fog so dense you couldn't see past your own nose.

His entire domain, every individual plot, was dotted with spirit plants and small spirit beasts that helped his servants tend to his flourishing gardens.

Running between the formations, little girls who appeared no older than thirteen, with massive, intricate brands encircling their necks, carried small wooden buckets filled with a rainbow-colored liquid.

Carefully, they used tiny ladles to water the spaces between the plants. Their faces held a slight panic, scared that even a single drop might land on the precious leaves or stems.

Running back and forth, their legs sometimes caked with mud up to their knees, they occasionally looked with wide eyes toward the center of this vast paradise garden.

At the very center stood a massive estate, built from white marble with multicolored flecks. The entire structure was meticulously covered with small paper slips resembling talismans. At the main double doors stood two wooden buckets, identical to those carried by the little girls.

Suddenly, the estate's door slowly opened. Two girls, no older than the others, emerged with grim faces, barely holding back the tears that had accumulated and were ready to spill over. Swaying slowly from side to side, they approached their buckets, picked them up, and with lowered heads walked into the garden, trying to hide their streaming tears in the empty wooden vessels.

The other servants, the moment they saw the estate door open, stopped and watched the two with grief that choked them from within, yet simultaneously, they exhaled with relief, knowing that today they had been fortunate not to have been chosen.

Suddenly, a large shadow appeared in the doorway, and all the girls quickly turned back to their work, afraid to even look in that direction.

Stepping out of the door, a completely bald little man covered in alchemy stains from head to toe, appearing around fifty years old, stretched with a groan. "Ugh! A good day, indeed!" Adjusting his robe, he smiled with satisfaction, smacking his lips and quietly humming a tune.

He was about to sit in his rocking chair on his polished porch when he suddenly frowned. "Hmm?"

Looking toward the main entrance of his private underground paradise, he saw a beam of light pass through the formation without any issue.

Extending his hand, he caught the beam effortlessly. Opening his palm, he saw a seed lying in his hand. "My disciple Ru Meng?! She was sent to the Sacred Land! Who dared!!"

BOOOOM!

Releasing his Nascent Soul cultivation at full power, the entire garden began to shake violently. The ground beneath his feet cracked and turned to ash. The stone ceiling began to collapse. Even the hundreds of formations around him failed to withstand the density of his energy.

Crash! Splash! Squelch!

The nearest servants, those closest to the bald cultivator, simply exploded like water balloons, leaving nothing behind.

The girls slightly farther away, caught by the wave of energy, collapsed to the ground and began vomiting blood mixed with organs. Lying on the earth, they died within moments, but their faces showed neither panic nor resistance. Every single one exhaled their last breath with relief, finally finding an escape from this place, from this paradise of the Lord of Hope Peak.

"My Ru Meng! My vessel! I cultivated her for myself! I waited until she reached the Foundation Establishment realm, so I could finally enjoy her! Who dared!! Aaaargh!" Holding the seed in his hand, Sia Moy didn't hold back, paying no attention to the consequences of his outburst.

"Let me find out who you are!" Channeling his Qi into the seed, he immediately began seeing a slideshow of images. Each image carried with it particles of energy belonging to whatever appeared in the frame.

"Who are you? Hm, just a disciple... With a strong Wood element aura... Only Wood... Who are you?! AH! You're the little one who became a Master Alchemist... And now you've reached Foundation Establishment realm! Judging by the energy bursts during the battle... to advance so far in cultivation in just a few years... Now I remember, the old men in the Main Council were buzzing about him... He can't be ignored... With his talent, I absolutely must take him for myself! He will be the perfect compensation! He'll be the perfect alchemy slave! And no one will tell me otherwise!" Watching the images flash through his mind, Sia Moy understood exactly what had happened to his disciple.

At first, he boiled with rage. But the more he saw, the more his eyes radiated greed. The very idea of making such a talented individual his personal slave, cultivating him, unlocking his full potential for his own benefit, made his toes curl with anticipation.

"I need to find the Sect Leader immediately!" Tucking the seed into his robe sleeve, Sia Moy vanished into thin air, leaving chaos behind.

….

Within Devil Bo's Sacred Land.

A massive group of several hundred disciples had just successfully crossed a wide red river.

"Most of the disciples are already exhausted. We should set up camp, at least for a few hours." A girl with blue eyes and a cold gaze stood shoulder to shoulder with a disciple who was staring toward the forest with barely concealed anxiety.

Looking at his face, her gaze softened slightly. "Don't worry. I'm sure Ru Meng is fine."

"I shouldn't have let her go... I'm afraid... Sigh..." Staring into the distance, into the dark forest, he stopped himself mid-sentence. Turning to her, he smiled slightly and nodded. "About the camp, good idea. The people really are tired."

Turning back, they looked at the exhausted cultivators. Some lay on the ground. Others sat back-to-back, resting. A few were shouting at those lying down, trying to get them back on their feet, worried about their own concerns.

"I'll tell the Primordial Purity Sect disciples." Glancing at his profile, she quickly turned away and immediately prepared to head back toward the crowd.

"Thank you, Sister Lin Xue!" Mo Fan called after her.

She suddenly stopped and turned her head. Meeting his eyes, she nodded and smiled slightly. Turning back, she continued walking toward the shore, her pace now slightly quicker.

Watching her go, Mo Fan turned back to the forest and furrowed his sword-like brows once more.

"Brother Mo, I... I have bad news." Suddenly, Mi Mili appeared beside him, holding an artifact in the shape of an iron heart with tiny golden hearts inside. One of them was cracked and had gone dark.

"What happened?" Mo Fan spun toward her. Seeing what she held in her hands, his expression immediately darkened, he knew exactly what a cracked heart meant.

"Ru Meng?" Through gritted teeth, his voice heavy, he asked, though he already knew the answer.

"Mhm, yes... Just a minute ago, her heart... it cracked. I'm sorry, Mo Fan." Nodding, Mili stepped closer and took hold of his sleeve.

Standing in silence for a few minutes, Mo Fan finally looked into her eyes. "What exactly happened? Can your artifact tell who did it?"

Mi Mili sighed and shook her head. "No. The artifact can only indicate the direction where she... wait, give me a moment."

"We need to find her body... and bring her back to the Sect." Turning back to the forest, Mo Fan gripped Mili's hand firmly.

Not expecting this, her cheeks flushed slightly, but she didn't pull her hand away. Instead, she moved a little closer, their shoulders barely touching.

"You know... She always told me about her big family. About her little sister and brother, they're still young and not ready for cultivation... I remember her face, the dimples when she talked about her favorite place, the massive thousand-year-old beige tree growing right in her garden..." He trailed off, his face fallen, and looked at Mili with a faint, pained smile.

Seeing the pain on his face, Mili instinctively wrapped both arms around his, pressing herself close.

Feeling her warm body, her curves, Mo Fan blushed slightly and quickly raised his face to hide it from her. "We must... no! We are obligated to retrieve her body and bury her beneath her favorite tree. So she can lie under it, beside her family and the place tied to her best memories."

"I swear! I will find who did this. And I'll cut off their head! The heavens are my witness!"

"Come, Mili. I need your help to find where her body is!" Mo Fan unconsciously clenched his free fist.

In response, she nodded with a barely audible hum, "Mhm..." And reluctantly released him.

Boom!

Behind them, they heard the distant rumble of thunder, barely reaching their camp.

….

A few days' journey from the red river, deep within the dense crimson forest.

Boom!

Ignoring the strange lightning in the sky, An walked along the ground, spinning the metal hammer in his hand, the one he had taken from Ru Meng's body. 'Judging by the dense demonic energy, this is probably something needed for the inheritance... Or maybe not. Maybe this hammer has been lying here since this space opened and just soaked up the energy over time.'

Whoosh!

Losing interest, he spun and threw the hammer into the forest, hearing only the sound of it breaking through bushes and tree branches in its path.

Raising his hand before him, he looked at the two rings on his fingers, one gray, one white. 'Though the ring is beautiful, I'd say it looks much better than that Yin Claws' one...'

Comparing both rings, he preferred the white one he had taken from Ru Meng. It wasn't about the color, it was the engravings. The artifact was crafted in the shape of a vine, clearly made for an alchemist. 'Perhaps this ring originally belonged to her master, the Lord of Hope Peak.'

'The only downside is that it stands out too much...' He tore a small strip from his shirt and carefully wrapped the gray ring.

'Time to test it.' Channeling his Qi into the ring, he tried to pull out a single spirit stone. 'Ha! It works! Should I wrap both then? Funny, this wouldn't work with a spatial pouch, since it would tear through everything before releasing an object... Is it because of the difference in craftsmanship required to form these identical yet distinct artifacts?'

Wrapping both rings with strips of cloth, he nodded with a satisfied smile. 'From the outside, it looks like I have wounds on two fingers... No one would suspect someone like me has two spatial rings.' Thinking about his appearance, he patted his clothes, a cloud of dust rose into the air. "Achoo! Achoo!"

Shaking himself off slightly, he continued walking slowly in a certain direction.

'Judging by the energy I sense, there's clearly a massive crowd of cultivators in this direction. Most likely the second group of the Alliance of Four, disciples from the Five Sacred Lives Sect and the White Dragon Sect.' Continuing his stroll through the forest, he moved toward a massive concentration of energy signatures. He was certain he wasn't heading toward his own group, since Ru Meng had been running in a completely different direction.

'Hmm... If Ru Meng had fled in this direction, she would have had a much better chance of reaching safety, and her group likely wouldn't have been caught by those demonic cultivators led by that pervert.' Checking his surroundings for signs of spirit beasts lying in ambush, he continued walking forward with steady steps.

'While I'm walking, I might as well check what's actually in her ring.' Activating his Qi, he directed it into the white ring.

'Umm... I expected her to have more spirit stones... That's not much, is it? Maybe that's why she took bribes from other disciples?' Finding a small pile of stones that didn't compare to the chest in Yin Claws's ring, An was slightly disappointed.

'Hmm? So many meditation techniques for reducing essence concentration... Strange...' Pulling out over twenty different thin books with techniques for women, he was slightly surprised.

'She was trying to suppress her puberty? But she looks over twenty, so she's probably around sixteen, maybe even seventeen... She's definitely a year or two older than the new disciples from my year... And suppressing puberty until seventeen, why?' Considering age, he realized his body was almost thirteen. But due to the physical evolution from his breakthrough to Foundation Establishment, he looked around nineteen, though with his disheveled hair and the stains on his clothes and skin, perhaps a bit older.

'Even after evolution, I still look younger than those who joined the same year as me... That's the result of proper Qi accumulation, diet, and lifestyle at a young age...' Recalling the disciples from his year and how they looked, he shook his head.

Throwing all those books to the ground, he pulled out a large bag containing a thick, slime-like liquid.

'Clearly, pill-refining techniques were used... But during the Formation stage, the alchemist deliberately disrupted the process.' Analyzing the Qi emanating from the bag, he understood everything immediately.

'Perhaps this is her master's work, but the effect... Heh. I took two steps back, thinking I was ahead, but you took four, seeing all my moves in advance...' Understanding the effect of this mass, he turned his head back and looked at the pile of books he had just tossed aside.

The effect of this strange liquid was actually simple: it accelerated the process of puberty and female physical development. Ru Meng had thought her plan to study those techniques would help her, but her master, foreseeing her plans, had prepared a massive liquid pill, several times more potent than all her techniques combined.

'What a pervert... Wait... she might be much younger than she looks... Damn...' He suddenly stopped and looked at the sky. 'Maybe she took those bribes to buy new techniques, that's why she had no spirit stones... Though she did harbor negative emotions toward me, but honestly, that's normal in this world. In a world where your surname gives you the power to climb over those with less significant names, or none at all... Ho! For a moment, I almost felt ashamed...' Raising his hand, he dumped everything from her ring at once, leaving only a small number of spirit stones.

'Sigh... Next time, I just won't look so closely at the contents of rings and pouches.' He continued walking forward.