Chapter 66: The Great Assault

While Gu Yuan was still in his cave abode refining the Crimson Fire, the situation he had feared had already arrived in the Outer Sect.

Chaos was the only word that could describe the scene. Piles of corpses covered the ground, blood dyed the earth red, and the sky was filled with cultivators locked in fierce battles.

It had taken only one day for the Outer Sect to become like this.

The situation was far worse than anything the Black Desolation Sect had experienced during its conflict with the Crimson Flame Sect. Back then, the surrounding sects had merely sent one or two elders to test the waters, unwilling to commit themselves fully.

This time, every sect and every faction that had joined the assault had come prepared to fight with everything they had.

"Deputy Sect Master Luo Yunjin, do you really want your sect to end here?"

The Sect Master of the Silent Valley Sect had just pulled away from the battered Luo Yunjin. Despite the fierce battle, his voice remained calm and his expression serious.

"Take us to the place where the Demonic Sisters are hiding. Our goal is only them. If you hand them over, I promise to negotiate with the other sects and have them withdraw."

The Black Desolation Sect, evil as it was in the eyes of the surrounding sects, had remained a tolerable existence for them. But after the Heavenly Twin Stars became its leaders, everything had changed.

The sect had become a suffocating presence in their hearts, a shadow that had grown too difficult to ignore.

Perhaps calling them a shadow was not quite accurate.

The twins were more like the sun.

They shone too brightly, and everyone feared that if they were allowed to continue growing, one day they would be burned by that light.

That was why, for the first time in thousands of years, so many sects had joined together to attack the Black Desolation Sect.

Luo Yunjin looked at the man speaking such empty words with open disdain. His promise was worthless; it was nothing more than empty words meant to make her surrender.

She took a moment to catch her breath before looking past the Sect Master of the Silent Valley Sect toward the Teleportation Array leading into the Inner Sect.

She then sent a message to her disciple.

[Evacuate everyone inside quickly. We can’t hold them back for much longer.]

Around the Teleportation Array, the remaining Outer Sect disciples were already rushing toward the Inner Sect. None of them had any hope of participating in a battle on this scale, and keeping them here would only result in unnecessary deaths.

Preserving the seeds of the sect’s future was the decision Luo Yunjin had made, a decision that would have been unthinkable under the previous Sect Master.

Bai Yuning, seeing the state her master was in, bit her lip hard enough to draw blood before firmly nodding.

[I understand.]

Seeing Luo Yunjin distracted and seemingly ignoring his words, the Sect Master of the Silent Valley Sect frowned before attacking again.

Elsewhere, at the front gate of the Black Desolation Sect where the most intense battle was taking place, Shen Lian was fighting alone.

She stood at the peak of the Spiritual Core Realm, yet she was facing an Embryo Realm cultivator and was still holding her ground.

"Is this everything you have? And you still have the nerve to attack our sect?" Shen Lian taunted as she swung her saber, forcing the man back. "A defeated dog will remain a defeated dog, no matter how many times it tries to bite."

"Shut up, fiend!"

Huo Zhengyang, the Sect Master of the Crimson Flame Sect, seemed almost driven mad by her words as he pressed the attack.

Without the Crimson Fire, was his strength really this low? Frustration burned in his chest as he unleashed his signature flame techniques, only to find them lacking their former power.

In the face of Shen Lian’s saber, his flames were little more than candlelight, easily extinguished.

The bloodlust that Ji Yue had once suppressed with ease was, to Huo Zhengyang, a deadly poison. No matter how hard he struggled, he could not escape its suffocating pressure, and the longer the battle continued, the more it gnawed at his mind.

Behind Shen Lian, another battle was taking place.

Her disciple, Zhou Yucheng, was fighting with even greater ferocity than his master. Though he had only recently broken through to the Spiritual Core Realm, he was holding off five opponents, every one of them higher in cultivation than himself.

There was no sanity left in his eyes. His gaze was fixed not on the enemies before him, but on the horizon, where a group of cultivators still stood in the sky, watching the battlefield without joining the fight.

Blood... blood from his own body, blood from the corpses strewn across the ground, blood from the enemies he had cut down. It was the single word that best described the battle of master and disciple.

"How scary..." said a man with a casual air about him.

Had Gu Yuan been here, he would have found the man familiar. He was Yunshan, the one suppesed be a disciple of the Azure Cloud Sect.

"Did you kill his parents, Your Highness? Why is he glaring at you like that?"

"Does he really look scary to you, Sect Master Yunshan?" the woman asked in return.

Dignity seemed to naturally surround the woman. She was the most talented princess of the Wei Royal Family, the family that ruled over the Great Han Kingdom.

Wei Ruyan looked at Yunshan before adding, "To me, he looks quite pitiful. He isn’t merely fighting the enemies in front of him. It is as if he is fighting against the entire world."

Yunshan chuckled but said nothing. His gaze shifted toward another member of the Wei Royal Family, Wei Zhaoming, the Crown Prince, who was fighting Tie Shan Peak Master.

The two were locked in an intense stalemate, neither able to gain the slightest advantage over the other.

After watching their battle for a moment, Yunshan asked, "Anyway, your elder brother is fighting so intensely over there. Do you not plan to join the battle, Your Highness?"

"What about you?" Wei Ruyan calmly asked in return. "All the sects in the kingdom, aside from the Corpse Furnace Sect, were supposed to attack the Black Desolation Sect together. Yet I don’t see a single disciple from your Azure Cloud Sect fighting."

"Let’s be honest," Yunshan replied. "Word has spread that the Heavenly Twin Stars are in grave condition and unable to fight. But have you confirmed that with your own eyes? Can you be certain they are currently incapacitated?"

"That..."

Wei Ruyan fell silent.

Seeing that, Yunshan smiled and continued, "Not to mention, the disciples of my Azure Cloud Sect are quite precious. I can’t simply have them throw their lives away for nothing, can I?"

You mean the lives of our royal family are worth less? Wei Ruyan narrowed her eyes but said nothing. Instead, her gaze shifted across the battlefield, settling on the other groups of cultivators, most of whom came from sects outside the Great Han Kingdom and were also standing by without participating.

Many forces had gathered against the Black Desolation Sect this time, yet each carried its own motives.

Those currently fighting were the ones who could not tolerate the continued existence of the Heavenly Twin Stars.

Those who remained spectators were waiting for the right opportunity to intervene. They had not come for the twins at all, but for the heavenly treasure said to be sealed within the Black Desolation Sect.

And then there were those whose stance remained deliberately vague, people like herself and Yunshan, who still harbored doubts about the true state of the battlefield.

In such a chaotic situation, who would ultimately stand triumphant? Who would have the final laugh?

Wei Ruyan was still pondering this when the situation on the battlefield suddenly changed.

Dark clouds began gathering across the sky, spreading rapidly until they covered the area above Shen Lian.

"She is breaking through to the Embryo Realm," Yunshan stated the obvious.

"Where once only the Sect Master and the Great Elder stood at the Embryo Realm. Now, a third one has emerged among them."

"That is only if she successfully survives the Heavenly Tribulation," Wei Ruyan corrected him. "Not to mention, the Sect Master and Great Elder are both dead. Even if she succeeds, she will be the sole Embryo Realm cultivator of the Black Desolation Sect."