Chương 1495: 1493. My poor boy

Once the flames of the initial explosion subsided, Faenys made her way back to where the sect used to be. The valley had turned completely barren. Buildings and vegetation were no longer existent, and the ground itself was burning. The lush green ridges to the left and right of the former settlement were enveloped in a wildfire. Many of the disciples who fled there to hide had probably met their doom thanks to their own sect leader's actions. As for the Southern blade Sect itself... it was gone.

More than gone, actually. There was nothing but a huge crater where the sect once stood. Although Men Shi was not really a challenge in a fight, Faenys had to admit that the final move of a cultivator was quite frightening. Had she stayed to face this explosion, she was not sure whether she could have survived it, even with her legendary armor, stats, and skills. Nothing remained of the sect leader's body either. If her aim with the dagger was good, then the first target had been properly eliminated.

As for the second... the old monster wouldn't have died from the successor's self-detonation, right? The boss would probably show up sooner or later, so she had to prepare. It was time for step two of the plan. She brought a burl out from her inventory. Giving of the characteristic green light, it was a seed for a sapling of the guardian tree. Looking around, the Chosen of Phobos had her doubts. The ground around was dry and barren, burned and still burning in many places.

"Would the seed be able to grow in this kind of environment?" she thought to herself, holding the burl in her hand. It was not actually within her calculations that the sect leader would raze his own sect to the ground.

"Oh, well. Karina said it was enough to plant it..." she mumbled when worrying started annoying her. If it didn't work, she would blame the dryad. In the center of the crater, she found a spot with some soft ground that was not burning and put the seed in a hole there. Now, there were only two concerns. The first was getting the Soul Piercer back, because she didn't have a backup for that thing. While concern two wasn't around yet, the former bandit spent a while looking for the dagger among the dirt and ruins.

The biggest pieces left of the once proud sect were debris the size of bricks. Here and there, she found molten weapons, making her concerned for the Soul Piercer. She sifted through fine rubble and broken ceramic She started at the center, where the sect leader killed himself, and worked her way outward. After half an hour of rummaging through the dirt, she was finally able to find the dagger by pure luck. A glint of silver had caught her attention and allowed her to find it.

The relic-rated dagger was badly damaged and burned, but it still seemed good enough for a fight. Considering this damage, it was no wonder there was nothing left of the Southern Blade Sect. Just when she wanted to return and check on the tree, she felt the wave of something pass over her. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. This feeling was disconcerting. This was the sensation of a cultivator's divine sense washing over her.

It resembled the feeling of being appraised, but more alien. She looked around, finding an elderly man who had appeared at the edge of the crater. Although she had felt his divine sense, he didn't speak to her or approach her. He didn't even look at her. With measured stepped he simply entered the crater and walked down to the center. The tree had not sprouted yet, but had the old man already found it with his divine sense?

The first thing the burl was supposed to do was burrow down to the source of energy of the land, as most of these sects were built on dragon veins. Technically, the old man shouldn't be able to find it, unless he already knew what to look for. He knelt at the center, touching the earth where Faenys had just buried the seed. She got ready to strike first, before he could harm the tree; however, she stopped when she heard him mumble.

"To think he would be forced to make such a drastic decision... My poor little Men Shi. If only this old man had been a little faster," he sighed and stood back up again. Now, he turned to her.

"I reckon you are the one who forced my grand disciple to make such a decision?" he asked, his steely black eyes resting on her like bottomless pools of water. For a moment, she was unsure how to react; after all, this man was technically a legend, which commanded her respect to some extent. Through Faenys' lens, cultivators were actually not that different from players. In some way or another, power systems had a similar progression. Maybe not in the basis or way of progression, but in the grand scheme of things.

While players gathered experience, cultivators collected energy. Cultivators had realms, players had milestones. At some point, they had a change in resources to surpass their mortal shackles and gain a power that defied the laws of the world. The difference was that players had a greater variation of powers, while becoming an immortal was always the same. It was similar to dragons, which inherited their legendary power from a myth.

To her understanding, the legendary part of an immortal was that they gained eternal life. Apparently, they would still age... Slowly, but they still did. Kinda defeated the purpose of living forever. However, it still meant this was a man who left the shackles of mortality behind. Although they somewhat gained a law-defying power, the cultivators mostly gained a huge power boost for entering a higher realm. This was why she stayed extremely vigilant, unlike when she fought the sect leader.

She was 100% in the present, unleashing her full power and ready for a tremendous battle, when she finally answered.

"Well, I did come here to kill him, but I really didn't think he would do that," she said with played apathy.

"Did you know I was here when you decided to kill my grand disciple?" the man asked, his voice quivering, almost imperceptible. It sounded like a mix of suppressed anger and sorrow. Faenys might have felt sympathy for the old monster if she didn't know exactly what these people had done on Urth. She had personally fought the elders of this sect during the Battle of Gamma. This was a man who created a sect of genocidal slavers and kidnappers. She had no sympathy to give to such a man.

"Considering I'm here to kill you too, I would say I knew you were hiding somewhere around here," she mocked him coldly.

"Those will be your last words!" he exclaimed, and instantly a glint of sword energy appeared. A wave of energy, so sharp it didn't just cut space but commanded the world to be severed, appeared out of nowhere, aiming to take her head in one strike. The old man's eyes opened wide. Halfway between him and the Chosen of Phobos, the energy was canceled out by a similar strike of equal strength. Faenys had expertly countered the strike without even getting flustered by the surprise attack.

"You don't get to decide that, you old fossil," she said with a smirk, as the auras of Konabos and Phobos restarted to put pressure on the old man. Her target had come out; it was time to fight seriously.