Chapter 265: Wounded Envoy

At the broken gates of the Crimson Key Sect’s lower fortress, the air was so thick with the copper tang of blood and the acrid stench of burning beast-flesh that it burned the back of the throat.

Standing atop a raised ridge of shattered stone, completely surrounded by heaps upon heaps of tangled corpses, was Sect Leader Vance of the Crimson Key Sect.

His once-immaculate, sweeping robes of silver and crimson were now drenched, heavy, and completely soaked in a mixture of black abomination blood and bright red human crimson.

The hem of his sleeves dripped steadily onto the red-stained mud beneath his boots.

His long hair was matted with sweat and dried blood, but it was his eyes that radiated pure, terrifying fury.

Veins bulged along his neck and temples as he stared down at the carnage filling the ravine below.

His chest heaving, his breathing was heavy, ragged, and laced with absolute rage over the unprovoked, tide-like onslaught of monstrosities that had nearly brought his sect to its knees over the past three days.

The crunch of heavy footsteps breaking through shattered bone and dried mud drew his attention.

Two of the Crimson Key Sect’s most prominent grand elders—Elder Kaelen of the Law Enforcement Hall and Elder Moros of the War Pavilion—approached through the piles of dead bodies.

Both men were battered, their spirit-armor cracked, their faces covered in soot, and their robes torn from endless hours of desperate combat.

Sect Leader Vance didn’t turn his head fully, his blazing, bloodshot eyes remaining fixed on the valley of death before them.

“Report,” Vance commanded, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that sounded like grindstones scraping together under immense pressure.

“Give me the final count. Tell me what those mindless bastards cost my Crimson Key Sect.”

Elder Kaelen took a step forward, his hands trembling slightly as he held a cracked wooden jade-scroll containing the casualties.

He swallowed hard before speaking, his tone heavy with grief.

“Sect Leader… the lower battlements held, but the price was catastrophic,” Kaelen began, his voice breaking slightly. “There are at least eight hundred disciples who were sacrificed just to hold the main gates and keep the tide from breaching the inner valleys. Eight hundred of our brightest, young cultivators… gone in three days.”

Vance’s fists clenched so tightly that his fingernails bit directly into his palms, drawing fresh blood that mixed with the grime on his hands.

“Eight hundred…”

“That is not all, Sect Leader,” Elder Moros chimed in, his deep, grim voice carrying an even darker weight as he gestured toward the smoke rising from the distant valleys outside their mountain perimeter.

“The hordes did not just hit our fortress. They swept through the lower valleys first. Thousands of innocent civilians in the mortal towns surrounding the foot of the Southern Hashian Mountains were completely destroyed by the hordes of abominations before our vanguard could even reach them. Entire villages have been wiped off the map. Millions of mana cores worth of agricultural land, trade hubs, and resource outposts have been reduced to ash.”

Sect Leader Vance’s gaze darkened to a pitch-black abyss.

The air around him suddenly dropped in temperature as his furious, Martial-Lord level aura flared out involuntarily, cracking the stone beneath his feet and causing the nearby corpses to tremble.

“A unnatural tide of F-class abominations doesn’t just suddenly organize itself and march directly into our territory without a cause,” Vance spat through gritted teeth, his tone dripping with lethal venom.

“Someone steered those beasts. Someone engineered this madness to bleed my sect dry.”

He turned fully to face the two grand elders, his blood-soaked robe heavy against his frame.

“Issue an immediate, absolute lockdown across the entire Southern Hashian Mountains,” Vance ordered, his voice echoing over the quiet battleground like a death sentence.

“Seal every mountain pass! Activate the grand boundary arrays along the southern borders! Until we figure out exactly what happened here and who orchestrated this tide, nobody goes in, and nobody goes out! Any unauthorized cultivator caught crossing our perimeter is to be executed on the spot!”

“Understood, Sect Leader!” both elders shouted, bowing their heads deeply.

TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP!

Before Kaelen and Moros could turn to execute the lock-down order, the frantic, irregular sound of stumbling footsteps echoed from the main cobblestone path leading up from the outer valley road.

A young outer disciple in ragged, torn robes came rushing toward them, his face pale as chalk, his breath coming in wild, panicked gasps.

He tripped over the arm of a dead abomination, falling hard onto his knees before picking himself up and frantically scrambling toward the Sect Leader.

Sect Leader Vance, already pushed to the absolute limit of his patience and still thoroughly pissed, glared down at the young messenger with terrifying intensity.

“What happened?!” Vance barked, his voice booming like thunder over the quiet field of death.

“Why are you running like a headless chicken through a warzone?!”

The young disciple stopped dead in his tracks, gulping hard.

He swallowed his saliva with a sharp, audible sound, his entire body shuddering uncontrollably under the sheer, suffocating weight of the Sect Leader’s murderous gaze.

His knees knocked together, and for a terrifying second, he felt as if Vance’s aura alone would crush his heart.

“S-Sect Leader!” the disciple stuttered, clutching his chest as he forced the words out of his trembling throat. “An… an envoy of the Church of the God of the Sky has just arrived at the lower checkpoint!”

Vance’s face twisted into an expression of pure, unadulterated disgust.

“The Sky Church?!” Vance sneered coldly, waving his blood-stained hand in a sharp, dismissive gesture.

“Those hypocritical, arrogant bastards show up now, after the blood has already been spilled?! Turn the envoy back immediately! Drive him out of our territory! I am in no mood to welcome any guests, let alone those grandstanding holy fools from the north!”

The young disciple shook his head frantically, his face growing even paler as he stammered out the rest of his message.

“B-but Sect Leader, you don’t understand!” the disciple blurted out, his voice squeaking in terror.

“The envoy… he didn’t arrive in a grand palanquin! The envoy came brutally injured! His holy armor is completely shattered, his left arm is gone, and he is covered in black abomination blood! It… it seems he also barely survived the hordes!”