BOOM.
Alexei hit the ground. The impact sent a shockwave through the clearing, cracking the packed earth and making every nearby monkey yelp as they were briefly lifted off their feet.
Several monkeys lost their balance entirely and tumbled over.
The old monkey, who had been in the middle of what appeared to be his final dramatic speech, nearly lost what little breath Yan's spiritual energy was keeping in his lungs. His eyes bulged slightly as the shock traveled through the ground.
Alexei looked around.
"Did... did one of them die?"
The monkeys had been dragged into this because of him. The attack was meant for him. If one of them died because of that…
Yan glanced up and shook her head.
"They'll be fine with some rest and a bit of spiritual energy. But the old one and the black-furred monkey… I can't heal those injuries. I can only keep them stable."
Alexei followed her gaze.
The old monkey lay in another's arms. Its breathing was shallow, and its eyes couldn't focus. The rest of the troop stood close, forming a tight circle as they watched their leader.
Something about the scene felt wrong. It reminded him of a hospital room, right before someone dies.
The old monkey's mouth moved weakly, chattering something in that rapid-fire monkey language Alexei still couldn't understand.
The small monkey beside it, the one Alexei thought of as the assistant since it always followed the old one around, wiped its eyes and nodded while chattering back.
The old monkey relaxed a little. Its eyes slowly started to close, and its breathing grew even weaker.
Around them, the other monkeys began to make low, broken sounds. It didn't take a genius to recognize it. They were grieving.
Even Qingxue and Yan, standing off to the side, turned their heads away, clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing.
Alexei felt his chest tighten.
Even Qingxue and Yan, standing off to the side, turned their heads away. Neither of them looked comfortable watching this.
"Not happening."
Alexei pushed his way into the monkey circle, scanning for a clear spot.
Fortunately, all the monkeys were clustered tightly around the old one and the black-furred monkey, which made them easy targets. He pulled a Splash Potion of Healing from his inventory, aimed at a patch of ground near the old monkey's head, and threw it.
CRASH.
The bottle shattered the moment it hit.
The moment the glass broke, the red liquid inside exploded into vapor, expanding into a spiraling cloud of crimson mist that covered several meters in every direction.
The old monkey, whose consciousness had been fading fast, suddenly felt clearer. Its vision sharpened slightly. The hand it had let fall limply to the ground had landed on a sharp rock, and the pain made it flinch and lift the hand again.
Maybe it should find a more comfortable spot before dying. There was no reason to spend its last moments in discomfort.
CRASH.
Alexei threw another potion. More red mist erupted, washing over the injured monkeys in a second wave.
Since Yan had already numbed their pain earlier, the monkeys didn't notice anything changing in their bodies. They were too lost in their grief. But Yan and Qingxue, standing just outside the circle, saw everything clearly.
The moment the red potions shattered, the monkeys' injuries began to heal. Broken bones slowly set back into place. Open wounds closed. Even the internal bleeding stopped.
Their cries of sorrow grew louder as their bodies recovered.
CRASH. CRASH. CRASH.
Alexei threw three more in rapid succession, saturating the area in healing mist.
The old monkey's eyes were still closed, but its heartbeat had become strong and steady. Its breathing was regular. There was no sign of someone on death's door.
Internally, it was experiencing a crisis.
I gave my final speech. So... am I dying or not?
Why does my head feel clearer instead of fading?
Should I open my eyes and say a few more things? I didn't finish everything I wanted to say...
But wouldn't that be weird? Everyone's already crying. How do I just... get up?
Alexei looked around at the monkeys, who were recovering, then down at the old monkey lying in another's arms. Its expression kept shifting.
"Internal injuries maybe?"
He threw another potion.
CRASH.
This one was off-target. Distracted by checking the monkeys' conditions, he threw it a bit crooked, and it nearly hit a monkey's foot.
The monkey dodged instinctively, and stepped directly on a tuft of fur on the black monkey's tail.
A patch of fur ripped clean off.
"SCREECH!"
The black monkey, which had been lying there looking half-dead just moments ago, suddenly jumped to its feet. It grabbed its tail and glared at the monkey that had stepped on it, chattering angrily.
The other monkeys froze.
One of them tilted its head. It looked at the black monkey, then at the old monkey, then down at its own body.
"Chit-chit!"
That seemed to break the spell. The monkeys started moving again, touching their bodies to check for injuries and scratching their heads in confusion.
The black monkey blinked, looked down at itself, and then jumped in place. It threw a few practice punches and kicks, testing its body.
"CHIT CHIT CHIT!"
The monkeys that had been gathered around the old monkey immediately swarmed the black monkey instead, poking and prodding it all over, chattering excitedly.
Meanwhile, the adult monkey who had been cradling the old monkey let go.
The old monkey's head hit the ground.
It flinched and pushed itself up, already opening its mouth to scold everyone for being so chaotic and undisciplined.
Then it paused.
It moved its arms, stretched, and took a deep breath.
The old monkey jumped to its feet and dropped into a low stance. It ran through a series of stretches and movements.
There was no pain. It was completely recovered.
All the monkeys stared. Then, as one, they turned to look at Alexei. He scratched the back of his head, a little uncomfortable under their gaze.
"Uh… welcome back?"
---
Yan was still trying to process what she had just witnessed. She had seen many powerful healing techniques in her life, including high-grade pills that could regrow lost limbs and spiritual arrays that could stabilize even Nascent Soul cultivators on the verge of death.
Healing, no matter how advanced, still took time. The body had limits, even for immortals. Spiritual energy and medicine could speed things up, but they couldn't skip the process entirely.
A wound was still a wound. The difference between an immortal and a Foundation Establishment cultivator was just scale. An attack that left a shallow cut on an immortal would turn a weaker cultivator into dust. Recovery did get faster with higher cultivation, but not by much. Even at the peak, it was only a few times faster than a mortal's natural healing. Without spiritual energy, the body was still bound by flesh and bone.
That was why high-grade healing pills existed. And even the best ones couldn't heal someone instantly.
And yet… just a few bottles of that strange red potion, and injuries that should have taken weeks were gone.
She stared at Alexei. Monkeys were climbing all over him, chattering excitedly.
What kind of alchemy does he even have?
Before she could sort out her thoughts, the air above the clearing rippled. Several figures descended from the sky.
Cheng was among them, carrying a corpse.
He dropped it on the ground without care. Blood spread from the neck, where the head had been cleanly cut off.
Everyone frowned and stepped closer to take a look.
The monkeys reacted differently. They rushed over, surrounded the corpse, and started chattering loudly, as if throwing out a string of very crude insults at the dead man.
"I found him about five kilometers west. Judging by the leftover spiritual energy, he was at peak Nascent Soul. There was nothing on the body, but his storage ring might have something."
He held out the ring toward Alexei, who was crouched next to the corpse, poking it with his trident.
"Nice."
Alexei took the ring and passed it to Qingxue. She was the only one who could open it. Storage rings were tied to their owner's spiritual signature. Without permission, you needed a higher realm to break it.
Qingxue paused for a moment, then focused her spiritual energy. The imprint resisted at first, but it didn't last. It shattered under her control.
A moment later, everything inside spilled out, forming a massive pile nearly eight meters tall in front of them. Spirit stones, artifacts, jade bottles filled with pills, and refined materials were all mixed together.
Even Cheng, who always kept a calm, unreadable face, looked stunned.
Duan and Zhengxing had already rushed forward. They didn't even try to hide it as they started digging through the pile.
"Holy...sh...Dao" Duan muttered, pulling out a sword that radiated spiritual energy. "What kind of cultivator was this? Who carries this much wealth around?"
Just from a quick glance, there were at least thirty to fifty magical weapons sticking out of the spirit stone pile alone.
Working together, they sorted through everything.
Aside from a strange black banner about half a person's height, the rest of the haul included:
2 Heaven-tier artifacts
13 Earth-tier artifacts
20 Profound-tier artifacts
3 Earth-tier treasures
1 Profound-tier treasure
Total: 40 items of significant value
On top of that, there was a pile of mid-grade spirit stones, hundreds of pill bottles, more than a dozen jade boxes filled with rare herbs, and a stack of refined crafting materials.
Zhengxing looked at the corpse, then back at the pile again.
He had been poor for nearly a thousand years. The sect's treasury held maybe three Earth-tier artifacts, and those were treated like priceless heirlooms.
This one dead cultivator had more wealth than the entire Aureate Summit Sect.
"Did this guy really carry his sect's treasury around with him?" Zhengxing muttered, shaking his head.
Alexei pulled the black banner from his inventory and held it up. The item description had appeared in his mind the moment he touched it:
[Hundred Ghost Banner:
Spiritual Energy Circuit V
Soul Absorption V
Yin Malice V
Suppression IV
Evil Soul Nourishment III (93/121)]
"Hundred Ghost Banner," he muttered. "So... immortal-tier artifact?"
He had been theorizing for a while now that an artifact's grade was directly related to the level of its spiritual energy circuit. The higher the circuit level, the more powerful the item. But without ever seeing a confirmed immortal-tier artifact, he couldn't be completely sure.
Still, this thing definitely looked the part.
The banner was about half his height. It was made from a strange fabric that seemed to swallow light instead of reflecting it. Some parts were so dark they looked like holes in space. Faint wisps of dark energy drifted off it like smoke.
He gave it a small test swing. The sound wasn't the usual snap of cloth cutting through the air. Instead, it let out a low noise that sounded disturbingly like distant screams.
When he looked at it from the side, something else became visible. Distorted human faces pressed against the surface from the inside, like they were trapped beneath ice, struggling to break free.
"Yeah, this is definitely an evil artifact. No question about that."
The others, who had been happily sorting through the pile of spirit stones, suddenly turned to look.
"Hundred Ghost Banner? Immortal-tier?" Zhengxing said, his eyes widening. "I have never seen an immortal artifact before. They say there are only five or six still intact across the entire Eastern Territories, and I don't recall any of them looking like that."
Their gazes lingered on the banner for only a moment before they quickly looked away.
Even just staring at it for a few seconds made them feel like something was tugging at their souls, trying to pull them into the banner itself. The sensation was unpleasant.
Alexei, meanwhile, remained completely unaffected. He continued examining it, turning it over in his hands.
That interest faded quickly, though.
Immortal-tier or not, as long as the item wasn't MC-ified, it was just an ordinary banner to him. He could hold it and wave it around, but he couldn't use any of its abilities. Most of that came down to his cultivation being too low. If he MC-ified it, he could bypass part of that limitation, but anything that was locked still required the proper conditions to unlock.
"Well, that's disappointing."
He stored it back in his inventory and pulled out his pickaxe instead.
Time to mine some spirit stones.
The sect's mountain range stretched for hundreds of kilometers. Compared to that, his underground base was tiny. If he wanted to expand his spiritual plant fields, and he definitely did since more plants meant more resources, he would need a lot more spirit stones to keep the lamps running.
Zhengxing, Cheng, and Shuzhi watched as he started mining the pile.
It was clearly the first time they had seen spirit stones harvested like this. Most cultivators simply picked them up by hand. But Alexei had discovered early on that using a pickaxe was much faster, and it even sorted the stones directly into his inventory.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
The sound of his pickaxe hitting stone echoed across the clearing as spirit stones vanished one by one, compressing into neat blocks that flew into his inventory.
When he finished, his level had shot up to 186, and he had collected a total of 79 mid-grade MC spirit stones.
That was more than enough to make up for what he had spent on the farming terraces.
Qingxue gathered the remaining items, including magical artifacts, pills, and crafting materials. She placed everything back into the dead cultivator's spatial ring, then handed it to Alexei.
[Sumeru Ring:
Spatial Storage II
Spiritual Energy Circuit I]
The ring itself was dull grey, unpolished, and honestly kind of ugly. But the enchantments on it were useful.
He turned it over in his hand.
He could probably ask Duan to forge a few nicer-looking rings later. Then he could transfer the enchantments from this one onto them using the smithing table, creating multiple spatial storage rings that looked decent.
Duan, standing a few meters away, suddenly shivered as if sensing he was about to be given more work.
"Alexei... why are you looking at me like that?"
Despite being a massive man well over two meters tall with arms like tree trunks, he somehow managed to sound nervous.
Alexei jogged over to him, pulling black iron fragments from his inventory as he went.
"Here. More materials for practice."
He held out dozens of fragments. Duan's expression twitched at the sight of such a large haul, but he still accepted them and stored them in his spatial pouch.
"And these too."
Alexei pulled out three netherite ingots and held them up.
Duan frowned, leaning in to examine them more closely. The ingots were a dark grey-black color. He cycled through his memory of every metal and alloy he had ever worked with, but nothing matched.
"What kind of material is this?"
"Netherite. It's a mineral I synthesized using my abilities."
"Through your divine powers?"
Over the past few months, Duan had come to respect Alexei's so-called divine powers. The kid could casually break rules that everyone else treated as absolute.
Material compression was the clearest example.
When forging high-grade artifacts, blacksmiths relied on spiritual energy to compress their materials. The higher the compression, the greater the density and durability. At Duan's current cultivation level, he could push materials to about 37 times their original density.
Beyond that point, every increase became drastically harder. The jump from 37 to 38 times wasn't just a small step forward. It was several times more difficult than the previous one.
Across the entire continent, 100 times density was widely accepted as the upper limit. Even legendary immortal blacksmiths rarely managed to go beyond that.
And yet, the iron sword Alexei carried had been compressed to over 1,800 times its base density.
That number didn't make sense.
At that level of compression, the sword's hardness had reached something that shouldn't exist. He was fairly certain that even an Earth-tier weapon would struggle to leave a mark on it. A Heaven-tier weapon might not do much better.
As if that wasn't enough, every piece of metal Alexei provided was incredibly pure. There wasn't even a trace of impurities. It was far beyond what normal forging could achieve.
In other words, everything Alexei brought out was perfect forging material.
The only downside was that most of what Alexei gave him were common metals. The black iron was the only truly valuable material he had received so far. But now there was a new metal.
Of course he was interested.
In Alexei's hands, the netherite ingots looked small, about the size of his palm. But Duan had worked with him long enough to know better. He raised both arms, ready to receive them.
Once set down, those "palm-sized" ingots would expand into full metal blocks measuring 86 x 36 x 36 centimeters. That made them more than a dozen times larger than the standard ingots used across the continent.
"Alright, here you go."
Alexei waved his hand, and the netherite ingot in his grip vanished.
Three grey-black metal ingots materialized directly in Duan's arms, stacked together.
A crushing weight slammed into him.
The ground beneath Duan's feet cracked and sank as his knees buckled. Veins bulged across his forehead and neck as he desperately channeled spiritual energy through his body, trying to support the weight.
It didn't help.
His arms were shaking. His legs were trembling. The ingots continued sinking downward despite his best efforts to hold them up.
"What are these made of?!"
He was at the high stage of the Spirit Condensation realm, just one step away from the peak. On top of that, he cultivated his body, so his raw strength far surpassed that of a normal cultivator at the same level.
Without using spiritual energy, he could lift at least 25,000 kilograms. When he reinforced his body with spiritual energy, that number jumped to 50,000. Maybe more if he pushed himself.
And yet, these three ingots were crushing him.
"I need to drop them."
He let go and jumped back, barely pulling his feet out of the way in time.
BOOM.
The three netherite ingots slammed into the ground. Cracks spread from the impact point, and a cloud of dust shot into the air. Nearby monkeys yelped and scattered.
He looked down at his feet, where the ingots had landed just moments ago. His toes still ached from how close they had hit.
If they had landed on him, his feet would have been crushed. There was no doubt about it.
Alexei scratched the back of his head. The motion was blocked by his netherite helmet, so he ended up just sort of patting the armor awkwardly.
"I should have warned you. They're a little heavy."
Duan stared at him.
"A little heavy? You have no concept of weight, do you? None at all."
Yan, who had been watching the whole thing with amusement, walked over to the fallen ingots and crouched down to examine them.
"Is it really that heavy?"
She reached out and tried to lift one.
It didn't budge.
As a spiritual cultivator, her physical strength wasn't on Duan's level. She couldn't even shift a single ingot, let alone lift it.
"You weren't exaggerating..."
Duan, meanwhile, had recovered from his shock and returned to the netherite ingots. He crouched down, studying them more carefully this time, running his hands over their surface.
He channeled a thin thread of spiritual energy into one of the ingots, probing its internal structure.
His frown deepened.
"Strange."
He pushed more energy into it, trying different circulation patterns.
"Very strange."
"What's wrong?" Alexei asked.
"Spiritual energy won't flow through this metal at all. It just stops, like it's hitting a wall."
He pulled his hand back, looking confused.
"The ingots give off almost no spiritual aura, which means they have an extremely strong concealment effect. But if spiritual energy cannot circulate through the material, then it cannot be forged into any kind of artifact. And if it cannot be made into an artifact, what's the point of a concealment effect?"
Alexei blinked.
"Spiritual energy can't flow through it?"
That would explain why he had to enchant diamond gear before upgrading it to netherite in Minecraft. If you tried to enchant netherite gear that hadn't been pre-enchanted, the enchanting table would say the level requirement was too high.
He had always assumed that was just a game balance thing. Turns out it might have been an actual material property.
"Huh. I didn't know that."
An idea occurred to him.
"What if you forged the artifact first, using normal materials, and then added the netherite afterward? That way the spiritual energy circuits would already be in place, and the netherite would just layer on top, like coating. Wouldn't that give the artifact an extra concealment effect without disrupting the enchantments?"
Duan stared at him. His expression suggested Alexei had just told him the sky was green and water flowed upward.
"That goes against everything I know about artifact forging. Once the spiritual energy circuits are set, you can't just add new materials. It messes up the flow. The circuits break, and the enchantments fail. That's basic metalworking theory."
He looked down at the netherite ingots again. This time, he didn't dismiss the idea right away.
"Still…"
He frowned.
"If the netherite isn't fused into the artifact and only acts as a shell, then it might not touch the core circuits directly. The tricky part is controlling the boundary between the two layers. If the shell interferes with the spiritual energy flow, the artifact fails. But if it only blocks outside detection and leaves the inner structure alone…"
His eyes narrowed.
"It might work."
He picked up one of the ingots.
"No one studies methods like this because the failure rate is too high. You'd ruin most of the materials before getting a single usable result. But with your support, material cost isn't an issue anymore."
Duan looked back at Alexei.
"I can try it."
---
The sect members from Aureate Summit went their separate ways after disposing of the headless corpse and covering their tracks.
Qingxue took Alexei back to where the body had fallen to collect the experience orbs that had scattered from the kill.
They managed to gather most of them, but plenty had rolled off into the undergrowth or fallen between rocks. In a forest this dense, tracking down every single orb would have taken hours they didn't have.
By the time they returned to his house, it was already past eight in the evening.
Alexei wasn't wearing his netherite armor. Mainly because Qingxue couldn't lift it.
According to Duan, a single netherite ingot weighed 24,000 kilograms.
A full set of netherite armor, including the decorative trims, required eight ingots and eight smithing templates. That alone came out to 240,000 kilograms, and that wasn't even counting the base armor underneath.
All together, the full set likely exceeded 250,000 kilograms.
For comparison, an early-stage Dharma Aspect cultivator could lift around 35,000 to 40,000 kilograms. Even pushing themselves with spiritual energy, they would only reach about 80,000 to 85,000 kilograms.
Body cultivators at the peak of that realm could manage around 150,000 kilograms at most.
That meant Alexei's armor alone weighed more than three times what Qingxue could handle, even at full strength.
There was no way she could carry it. The numbers simply didn't add up.
For further comparison, even a peak Nascent Soul cultivator couldn't produce more than 50,000 kilograms of force in a full-power strike. At the Spirit Condensation realm, attacks usually ranged between 15,000 and 25,000 kilograms.
With this in mind, his netherite sword alone weighed over 30,000 kilograms. His earlier estimate of 15,000 kilograms hadn't been completely off, but the real value was roughly double.
That also meant the Thorns III enchantment on his armor could reflect up to 54,000 kilograms of force, which was comparable to a strike from an early Dharma Aspect cultivator.
"I could basically walk through the Eastern Territories and nothing below Dharma Aspect could even scratch me," he said, half to himself.
Qingxue glanced at him. "Most of the strongest cultivators left in the Eastern Territories are early Dharma Aspect elders. Their minds are already close to their limits. The younger, more stable ones have already left for the outer regions."
"So what you are saying is, I would be dealing with a bunch of crazy old people on the verge of a mental breakdown."
"...That's one way to put it."
----------
[POV: Unknown Pursuer]
Several hundred kilometers west of the Aureate Summit Sect, seven cultivators hovered in the air. Their cultivation levels ranged from peak Nascent Soul to half-step Dharma Aspect, and their expressions were uniformly grim.
"This doesn't make sense," the leader muttered, turning a compass-like tracking device over in his hands. The needle spun aimlessly, unable to lock onto anything. "Why can't we track his aura anymore?"
They were experts from the Thousand Winds Sect and Wolf Mountain Sect, responsible for hunting down the Ghost Sect's leader after he broke through their encirclement six days ago.
The Ghost Sect's sudden breakout had cost them dearly. They had sacrificed resources, disciples, and tactical positioning just to get one person out of the siege.
No rational sect would do that without a very good reason.
Which meant whatever that person was doing, it was critical.
The escapee had turned out to be monstrously strong. He had fought all seven of them at once without falling behind, matching their combined output with apparent ease.
Eventually, sheer numbers had forced him into retreat. But even then, he had managed to disengage without taking fatal damage.
Based on his strength and how much the Ghost Sect was willing to sacrifice to get him out, they suspected he was the sect master himself. His name was Yin Feng, and rumors said he could fight Dharma Aspect cultivators despite only being at the peak of Nascent Soul.
If they could kill him, the Ghost Sect would collapse. The entire siege would be over.
That was why they had called for reinforcements. Several more peak Nascent Soul cultivators had already arrived, and more were on the way.
"Why would he flee to such a remote area?" one of the others asked. "There's nothing out here. Just wilderness and a few minor sects."
"Maybe he is meeting someone. Or retrieving something."
"Or he is just trying to lose us in the terrain."
The leader frowned, still staring at the compass.
"Keep searching. He can't have gone far."
The reason they wanted to destroy the Ghost Sect was simple enough: revenge.
Most of the sects surrounding them had lost elders or ancestors to the Ghost Sect over the past few centuries. Those people had been the backbone of their sects. They were powerful cultivators, and their deaths had weakened their factions for generations.
In the cultivation world, survival often meant swallowing your pride. The Ghost Sect was simply too strong. They ranked among the top sects on the continent. Because of that, many of the victim sects chose to stay quiet instead of risking retaliation.
For the past century or two, though, the Ghost Sect had been noticeably weaker. Spies embedded within their ranks reported that for a time, the sect couldn't even pay their disciples' monthly stipends. When payments resumed, they were significantly reduced.
That was when the victim sects saw an opportunity. They began making quiet contact with one another, coordinating in secret. And once they started comparing notes, the full scope of the Ghost Sect's crimes became clear.
Over the past three hundred years, more than eighty sects had lost high-level Nascent Soul cultivators or higher to Ghost Sect assassination campaigns.
Most of the victims were mid-to-low-tier sects. But there were also second-rank powerhouses like Thousand Winds and Wolf Mountain.
The final spark came when a second-rank sect called Moonlight Clarity lost their heir. A Ghost Sect disciple had beheaded him in public, right in front of his assigned guardian, as a provocation.
That incident ignited everything.
Through constant lobbying and political maneuvering, the alliance against the Ghost Sect had grown from just over a hundred sects to more than three hundred.
Most of the newcomers came from low-tier sects, usually around seventh or eighth rank. At most, they sent one or two Core Formation cultivators just to show they were involved.
In real combat, they were useless. Still, their presence made the coalition look stronger, and that was enough.
The goal was simple: completely erase the Ghost Sect from existence.
To achieve that, they had paid a heavy price to win over the Three Souls Sect, which had historically been one of the Ghost Sect's closest allies.
The deal was this: if the Three Souls Sect agreed to reform and stop using cultivator corpses to create their signature corpse puppets, the alliance would petition the Immortal Alliance to reclassify them from "demonic sect" to "orthodox sect." All past crimes would be forgiven.
In the cultivation world, that kind of reclassification was like going from outlaw to government official overnight.
The master of the Three Souls Sect had reportedly been grinning so hard it looked like his face might split.
The sect itself was strong. Not quite top-tier, but close. Their strength was never the issue. It was their methods that caused problems.
They specialized in creating corpse puppets, which required dead bodies. For generations, they had been sourcing most of their materials from the Ghost Sect, who provided cultivator corpses as part of their alliance.
Originally, the Three Souls Sect only used mortal remains. That changed eight generations ago under a particularly ruthless sect master. Once they crossed that line and started using cultivator bodies, there was no turning back.
Being labeled a demonic sect meant constant persecution. Righteous sects could attack them whenever they wanted. Resources became harder to secure, and fewer people were willing to join.
Now, though, they finally had a chance to legitimize themselves.
Of course they took it.
----------
[POV: Ghost Sect]
Inside the Ghost Sect's main hall, the Third Elder sat with a deeply troubled expression.
It had already been six days since the sect master left. Without him, the situation had only gotten worse with each passing day. The siege kept tightening, more disciples were dying, and morale was slipping further and further. At this point, all they could do was hold on and hope he returned soon.
Heavy footsteps sounded from outside the hall.
An old man walked in a moment later. His robes were in disarray, and his face looked grim, like he had just received terrible news. There was anger in his eyes.
The Third Elder straightened immediately. "What did the Three Souls Sect say?"
As soon as the sect master left, they had sent an urgent request for support. They hadn't done so earlier because they believed everything was under control. Once they captured the half-demon's soul and completed the Hundred Ghost Banner, the siege would have broken on its own. Every sect outside their walls would have been easy to deal with.
Sharing the spoils with the Three Souls Sect had once seemed unnecessary, but now it felt like a decision they couldn't afford to regret.
They were desperate. The sect was already on the brink of collapse, and without outside help, it wouldn't last much longer.
The Great Elder's hands trembled as he took out a jade slip. For a moment, he just stared at it. Then he suddenly threw it to the ground, and it shattered into dust.
"Ma Shanpao told me, and I quote, that as a 'righteous and honorable sect of the orthodox path,' they refuse to associate with our demonic faction."
The Third Elder blinked, caught off guard.
"…what are you talking about?"
"The Three Souls Sect," the Great Elder said flatly. "They're calling themselves a righteous and honorable sect of the orthodox path."
The Third Elder stared at him.
"Since when does the Three Souls Sect have anything to do with the orthodox path?"
The Great Elder's eye twitched slightly.
"Apparently, since six days ago."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The Third Elder opened his mouth as if to say something, then hesitated and closed it again. A second later, he tried once more.
"Are we being toyed with right now? Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?"
"I wish it was."
The answer came without hesitation.
Something in the Third Elder's chest tightened, as if a thin crack had just formed.
They had been betrayed by the Three Souls Sect. And now those same people were calling themselves righteous.
"I think," he said slowly, "I might be losing my mind."
The Great Elder let out a bitter breath.
"You and me both."