Chapter 0231: Task Division
Ten days travel had etched into the dust on Lordi's robes as he passed once more above the familiar, vast Square of Eternal Severance at the Outer Sect. The journey back had been a silent vigil over a creeping shadow.
With each mile crossed, Ruru Rosa's breaths had grown more shallow. The sight of her reduced to a feverish weight against him, had spurred a quiet, relentless urgency in his chest.
He had not paused, not for rest nor refreshment. He flew the Blood Puppet Floats directly through the mist-wreathed mountain to Raven Silk Peak, its medical halls a beacon of faint hope. The air there smelled of antiseptic herbs and quiet despair. Only after he had seen her settled in her own courtyard, her form against the bedding of her quarters, did he allow his own momentum to shift.
Alone, he ascended to the Task Division. The Affairs Office on Raven Silk Peak was a monument to cold order. The disciple behind the reception desk moved with the bored precision of one who processed fortunes and failures with equal indifference.
Wordlessly, Lordi presented his sect nameplate. The man took it, slotted it into the grotesque, skull-like formation array beside him—a maw of polished human skull and glowing runes.
The array activated with a soft, phosphorescent hum. Information bloomed in the air—scrolling characters of light detailing the mission, its parameters, its participants.
The disciple's face underwent a slow transformation. Confusion eroded his neutrality, then gave way to pure, unvarnished bewilderment. His eyes, wide and disbelieving, fixed upon Lordi.
Leaning forward, the senior age disciple's voice dropped, tinged with a hesitant incredulity. "Wait… so you are… Junior Brother Payne?" His gaze darted past Lordi, searching the empty space. "Why are you the only one here submitting this task report? Where are all the others who departed on this task with you?"
Lordi met the searching stare. "Senior Brother," he replied, his tone even and calm, "I came back with Senior Sister Ruru Rosa. She sustained grave injuries on the task and required urgent treatment from a medical cultivator. For that reason, she could not come to give the report."
The disciple's initial tension dissolved into a relieved, almost congratulatory smile. "Oh, okay. Well then, it's truly cause for celebration that you managed to escape with your life intact, Junior Brother! To return safely from such a dangerous assignment is no small feat." He nodded, as if settling the matter.
His expression then turned one of curious expectancy. "And what about the rest comrades of your Thorn Squad?" he pressed, leaning forward again.
Lordi's voice flat. "There are no others." He sighed, let the words hang for a beat, "Every single one of them perished during the task."
A flicker of confusion touched Lordi's features. "Didn't the sect's enforcers inform you? Hmm... that all the other relevant sect comrades who joined this Outer Sect task, their soul lamps had been extinguished? Surely the guardians of the soul lamp chamber would have noticed when the flames went out?"
"Sorry, what did you say?"
The disciple's face underwent a second, more terrible transformation. All the color, from his cheeks to his lips, drained away. His congratulatory smile, still half-formed, froze and then cracked to pure shock.
"All… all of them are dead?" he stammered, the words barely a whisper.
This Hanz Clan Estate task had been no obscure errand. It had been a spectacle, one of the most widely discussed and feverishly followed task assignments in recent Outer Sect memory. It had drawn gazes and wagers from disciples at every layer of the Qi Refinement Stage.
For while only one truly cultivator star—Donovan Valdez, the Mister First Dominator himself, a peak ninth-layer powerhouse who cast a long shadow over the entire Outer Sect—had officially joined, the roster had glittered with other formidable names.
Garrick Blackthorn of the Thorn Squad, a ninth-layer master of the esoteric and formidable Zombie Morphing Art.
The lethal beauty Shirley Quinn, who commanded the notorious Suicide Squad.
Jorge Blue of the Thirst Bulls and Rodney Luther of the influential Luther Clan.
Soren Langley of the Ghost Claws—all ninth-layer experts, each a legend in their own right, each with followers and a reputation that resonated beyond the mountain peak.
Soren Langley, in particular… his clan's tendrils reached into the Inner Sect. That was the only reason two precious Dao Artifacts had been entrusted to an Outer Sect task.
And these luminaries had not traveled light. Each had been the nucleus of a smaller constellation of power—elite eighth-layer disciples, seasoned veterans at the peak of their stage. They had set out as a small army. Their preparations were the stuff of gossip: stockpiles of spirit-restoration elixirs, sheaves of offensive and defensive Dao Fulus, strategies debated in closed courtyards.
The force that had marched out was a power so concentrated it could have erased minor wild cultivation sects from the earth. Against the Hanz Clan Estate, a mortal led countryside family, it should have been an inexorable tide, a foregone conclusion written in triumph.
The disciple's eyes, now sharp with wariness, raked over Lordi. The bureaucratic haze had burned away, replaced by the cold light of assessment.
The young man's bone frame spoke of undeniable youth—perhaps not even two decades of sun cycles had shaped him. There was a slight leanness to his shoulders, a suggestion of limbs still in the final stretch of lengthening, that marked him as one barely out of boyhood. Yet, the architecture beneath the skin defied such simplicity. High, sharp cheekbones cut a defiant line, and the jaw, wide and cleanly wrought. It was a face caught between epochs: the softness of teen age had been burned away, likely by trial, leaving the stark, handsome blueprint of the man he was rushing to become.
Lordi's long dark hair was carelessly bound at the crown with a strip of faded, mortal cloth—a stark contrast to the fine spirit-silk ribbons favored by Outer Sect disciples of standing. But it was the young man's brows that gave the disciple pause. They were dark, sweeping arcs that exuded a natural, almost unconscious, commanding presence, the kind that made one look twice. Yet, drawn together by the faintest of lines, a subtle furrow rested between them. It was not a frown of anger, but a sorrow etched in slight but perpetual tension, as if he carried the weight of a memory too vast for his young bones.
The disciple's spiritual sense, honed by years of processing task reports and verifying cultivations, confirmed what the sect's formation array had already coldly stated. The aura radiating from this youth was undeniably at the peak of the eighth layer of Qi Refinement Stage. Solid, yes. Promising, perhaps. But not yet breached to the Ninth Layer. Not a level that should allow him to walk away free where elite Outer Sect experts had fallen.
The dissonance was staggering, a sour chord that vibrated in the disciple's very core. So many ninth-layer experts—cultivator stars like Donovan Valdez, who had stood a mere half-step from the exalted Foundation Establishment stage—had been extinguished. Legends like Blackthorn, Quinn, Blue, Luther, and the well-connected Langley, along with their coteries of elite eighth-layer followers, were now just names on a doomed roster.
Yet here stood Lordi Payne. Not only alive, but whole. There was no bandage, no lingering pallor of spiritual depletion, not even the subtle hitch in breath that spoke of recently mended ribs. The man stood with a terrible, unmarred completeness. The situation defied all logic, all reason.
A dark, speculative thread wormed its way through the disciple's shock. Even if he entertained the most vicious of possibilities—that Soren Langley and the others had turned on each other in a murderous frenzy over the fabled Alchemy Formula, a bloodbath of betrayal among the powerful—how could this be the result?
How could this relatively unremarkable young man, this eighth-layer newbie, possibly be the sole survivor of such an apex-predator carnage?
The mathematics of this survival were irrefutably broken. One plus one did not equal zero, with a single, unharmed eighth layer man remaining. What kind of absurd joke was this?
A cold bead of realization slid down the disciple's spine.
Wait. Hold up—
A memory surfaced. Hadn't this Lordi Payne just mentioned that one Senior Sister had survived as well? Ruru Rosa, was it? Too grievously wounded to make the journey here, he'd said. Directly to the medical hall.
The disciple's brow furrowed, his earlier shock crystallizing into something darker, more calculating. His eyes, now narrowed, swept over Lordi's unharmed form once more.
Could the honest appearance, the sorrow-etched brow, all be a masterful facade?
Could this seemingly forthright young man harbor a vicious and calculating heart beneath that tragic exterior?
A narrative began to weave itself in the disciple's mind, threads of suspicion forming a disturbing pattern. Had he perhaps manipulated some unsuspecting female cultivator—with whispered love promises, or something far darker like a affection-compulsion Gworm Manipulate technique?
Used her as a living shield in the chaos, a piece of sacrificial flesh to block fatal blows at critical moments, allowing him to be the opportunistic fisherman who skims the surface while monsters tear each other apart beneath the waves?
The pieces, however speculative, could fit. They did fit the impossible arithmetic of his survival.
Regardless of the truth, one thing was blazingly clear: this had escalated far beyond the pay-grade of a random front-desk disciple. Such catastrophic casualties of holy sect elite disciples demanded thorough investigation at higher levels.
Clearing his throat, the disciple's demeanor shifted entirely. All casual curiosity vanished, replaced by the stiff formality of a minor functionary pushing a problem upward. "The soul lamps are maintained and monitored by the Steward's Hall of the Punishment Crypt, Junior Brother," he stated, his voice now cool and procedural.
"They typically don't send advance notifications to our Task Division."
"My apologies junior brother, but given the extraordinary gravity of this matter, I must ask you to take a seat and wait in the grand reception area while we coordinate verification with the enforcers. This won't take long."
Lordi retrieved his nameplate from the still-glowing skull array. Without a word of protest, he turned and withdrew to the vast, bustling reception area, taking a seat on a cold stone bench that faced the majestic, intimidating doors of the Affairs Office.
A few moments later.
A rhythmic pressure tread close. Lordi looked up.
A small group strode into the hall. At their head was a man Lordi recognized: Joe Lion, a deacon-enforcer officer from the Punishment Crypt.
He was flanked by several attendants whose auras, though restrained, hummed with the distinctive, formidable solidity of the Foundation Stage. Their presence alone made the spacious hall feel claustrophobic.
Enforcer Joe Lion came to a halt before the seated youth. He looked down, that not-quite-smile still playing on his lips.
"Alright then," he said, his voice a low, terse rumble that brooked no discussion. He gestured with a slight jerk of his chin toward the gate from which he'd entered. "Come along."
PS:
Hey there!
Buckle up, because Book 3 is GO! The engine's roaring, and we're hitting the road. I'm gonna end the juicy side story "NTRS Journey With My Beloved Immortal Fairy Wife" next week just for you.
So, funny thing. I've been devouring male lead action novels with harem lately (you know the ones), and I keep thinking… man, this scene would go SO HARD if it had its own theme song. The kind that swells right when the hero does something absolutely, mind-blowingly epic.
And then it hit me. Our hero, Lordi Payne, totally deserves one too!
So, for the ultimate, maximum-feels experience, I have a recommendation. For those glorious moments when our Lordi Payne unleashes his power, or when his brilliantly human heart shines through the demonic chaos… cue the track.
I humbly suggest: "The Riff - Lordi".
Play it when he wins. Play it when he inspires. Play it when the story hits those sky-high peaks. Consider it his victory anthem.
Now, dive in. Happy reading, you legend!
YoungPeasant