Not all of the members of the Remnants of Yin had fought together before, and most had no chance against one of the Greats on their own, but the situation managed to bring their combat styles into a unified state, allowing each one to cooperate with one another without flaw.

All five elements were unleashed at once, talismans and artefacts being used to barrage the member of the Great Luo Family with attacks while protecting against the many point beams that he was easily able to shoot out rapidly. Although this man appeared to have the exact same cultivation realm as his sister, as well as the same number of anchors and the same techniques, he was somehow significantly tougher, albeit they did lack the defence of Wei Yi’s bloodline power that had dulled most of Luo Zhong’s attacks.

For the first few moments, Luo Wu was overwhelmed by this sudden rush of attacks from people with such great enthusiasm, as he had never encountered so many men and women who could attack one of the Greats with eagerness and readiness, even as he managed to wound a few of them within seconds of the battle beginning.

However, with every further second that passed, the rage in his mind cleared, and he was able to put up more of a fight. The whip wielded by Luo Lia Kun that previously evaded his grasp entirely was struck and then shattered by one of his beams, the floating flaming axes that attempted to barrage him from behind were scattered by one careful pulse of the energy of his anchors, and many of the third realm combatants were severely injured not long after the battle began.

“It seems that I was right to believe that scum like you would only harm our Yi City. Once I am done with you, I shall exterminate some of the other groups in this district to clean it up.”

“Good luck with that,” Wei Yi suddenly said, “Nothing in Yi City belongs to you.”

“What did you-” Luo Wu was about to reprimand her, when her words brought a faint spatial fluctuation to his attention, causing him to look down onto the ground. A large array had enveloped the entirety of the two rooms, although there was now little separation between them, and lit up the air with silver and crimson light.

As a member of a Great Family, he couldn’t possibly misidentify what he was seeing.

“Our prison realm-”

“IT. ISN’T. YOURS!” she interrupted him, the transportation array activating at that moment and plunging all of them into darkness.

 

Everyone in the room, the corpse of Luo Zhong included, were sent into the prison realm exactly as they were positioned in reality, and while none of them were made unconscious, most had to recover from the sudden movement.

As the owner of the Kong Prison Realm, as well as someone that had come and gone into it countless times, Wei Yi recovered from the move between reality and the spatial realm far quicker than anyone around her, and instantly reached out to Yi Shi Ming.

“Apply the planar energy draining and conversion law to that man’s location, right now!” she shouted, knowing that the spatial spirit would hear her, then released what little energy she had managed to recover – mostly bloodline power, which seemed to regenerate most quickly, surpassing the recovery rate of both her mental energies and physique energy by a wide margin – to restrain Luo Wu.

“Done.”

Before the member of the Great Luo Family was even able to awaken, the air around him suddenly became crimson, all of the planar energy around him vanishing at a great speed, restrained only partially by the anchors around him. Wei Yi pulled back her energy in order to prevent the spatial law from devouring all of the energy in the prison realm, forming a barrier around Luo Wu that was just strong enough to keep the unbound planar energy in the air from entering.

He did come to only a moment later, and immediately attempted to kill the person he saw before him, but he felt any planar energy that he attempted to release instantly transform into a red mist that was entirely out of his control, suppressed by a far more powerful, unrelenting will.

Furthermore, his many anchors, some of which had already been slightly affected during the combat before this, were audibly cracking.

‘Had this fucker not been one of the Greats, with their anchors always on the outside of their bodies, they might have endured until the rest of his cultivation was lost. With that many anchors, however, I don’t even know if he is able to put them back into his dantian… Serves the asshole right,’ Wei Yi thought, watching with glee as the man’s anchors constantly suffered from more and more damage.

“What is this place?” Luo Lia Kun asked when she and most of the Remnants of Yin also recovered.

“The Kong Prison Realm. I will explain more, but for now, you should remain on guard and watch this cunt suffer all the way to his death… If I get to kill more of them this leisurely, I’ll run out of curses to throw at them, won’t I…” Wei Yi muttered to herself, “Just stand back and be careful.”

Although she hadn’t used any of her killing will, the vice-leader still found herself being intimidated by her voice, prompting her to immediately call out, “Understood!”

She and the others retreated, although that did not stop them from looking around the prison realm, especially at the enormous anchor in the distance that lit up the entirety of the world in a mixture of colours and lights that altogether resembled the sun’s light, but only barely. It took most of them a moment to realise exactly what they were seeing, for none of them had anticipated that anyone’s anchor could possibly become as large as what was now before them.

In addition, while they observed the anchor from below, with it towering above every single one of them, the impression that they received of it significantly differed from before.

No matter how attention grabbing it was, it was unable to prevent those who fought the Greats for many years from looking back down upon Luo Wu, who had lost the entirety of his furious nature and was now confused and terrified, as some of them had been for far too many years.

When he found that he was unable to mobilise his planar energy outside of his body no matter what he did, as it would melt immediately due to the prison realm’s entire planar energy conversion ability being applied to a single small area, he tried to break out of the barrier that he thought was responsible for this. However, with a physical form that had never been trained beyond the bare necessity, his body was entirely incapable of penetrating energy of the third realm.

“This is our prison rea-”

“NONE OF THIS BELONG TO YOU! This is the Kong Prison Realm, made by Kong Shi Meng for a purpose that you clearly did not understand if you simply used it to deposit individuals into it that you did not have the chance to kill! You were never the masters of the prison realm, and the only time one of you entered, they were turned to naught but a corpse with a bunch of anchor shards around it,” Wei Yi said, “The prison realm is not yours, Yi City is not yours, and yet you defile it each day with your presence, siphoning away knowledge and understanding from the world – and for what? What do you achieve besides driving us all into the ground?”

“You mere mortals would never understand! It is our destiny to rule and protect this world in our own way! It has been bestowed upon us by the heavens!”

“Again? Have you nothing new to say?” she asked, summoning a number of people from the prison realm to her position so that they could see a members of the Greats finally perish, “All of these people had been forced into this spatial realm, where you did not even know of the spatial spirit that controlled it, all for trying to save the world! If you are working for that goal, then why will you not say a single thing to us? Why are you weakening the Planar Continents with your actions? You are all either liars, or your plans are so foolish that you do not deserve to exist.”

“No! You are insignificant! A pathetic mortal! You-” his words were cut short by a shattering.

One of his many anchors, the one that had suffered the most during his thirty second battle with the Remnants, finally succumbed to the pressure of the prison realm and shattered into many little pieces, with one remaining while the rest turned into slightly denser clouds of killing intent and filled the air around him with denser crimson.

As powerful as a large collection of anchors was, it required the full amount to sustain its full ability. With one gone, the next cracked within seconds, and then the next, and the next.

“My anchors! No! No!”

No matter how much he cried out, not a single person would – or could, for that matter – do a single thing to stop the conversion of planar energy, especially since Wei Yi was the only one that actually understood what was happening. In fact, the more she watched, the greater understanding of the process she gained, taking a step towards some kind of greater comprehension of the very nature of the force before her, and not just its direct effects.

‘Wei Yi, since you have begun to cultivate the Dao itself, I shall intensify the effects for you. If you are able to comprehend something like the Conversion Dao, it would doubtlessly be immensely beneficial to you,’ Yi Shi Ming spoke directly to her, slightly altering the law within that space in a small manner.

To the other observers, little changed, but she greatly appreciated the gesture.

With every broken anchor, the look on the Great Luo Family member’s face grew more and more panicked and it seemed that the breaking anchors, as well as the draining of energy within his body, finally began to inflict physical pain alongside the mental one that he had been dealing with since the sudden appearance of the prison realm.

One of the new recruits shakily stepped forward, still injured from the earlier battle, and asked, “Um, Wei Yi… should we stop… that-”

“Why did you join the Remnants of Yin, and so decisively at that?”

“I… I heard about Their-”

“In this spatial realm, you can say the name of the Great Families as much as you like. It’s been said here for countless decades, and it will continue to be said until they are wiped out.”

“T-Then, I heard about what the Great Families do… I wanted to stop them, but… doing this… isn’t it too much?”

“Too much?” Wei Yi practically whispered that, not taking her eyes off the man before her, but the woman that asked that question felt as if a mountain had been dropped onto her, as a boundless quantity of killing intent poured out just from the question being asked, “I suppose that you haven’t had everyone you know be slaughtered by these people. I suppose that you have not yet noticed how many innocents have been sent into a realm of torment, where they expected these people to die, just because they went against their plans. I suppose that you haven’t heard how ready Luo Zhong had been to kill every last one of you because of a single thing not going her way!”

Her words reminded the new recruit of what had just happened, and gave her little choice but to step away if she didn’t want to be stared down by everyone else within the Remnants of Yin, which, given her plainly weak spirit, was not something that she wanted.

The way in which Wei Yi didn’t even bother to look at her also made her question whether she would even have a place in the Remnants once this was done, as the authority with which she spoke seemed to supersede that of Luo Lia Kun and their now-dead leader by an enormous degree. Of course, she didn’t know that her focus was simply on the process of one kind of energy transforming into another, nor that she would indeed not see much kindness from Wei Yi for her remarks.

Only once the last anchor cracked did she step forward and press the member of the Great Family down to the ground with her boot, making sure that he got at least a little dirt in his mouth before shifting her position slightly and jamming her foot down with greater force, intentionally cracking a rib in the process.

“You have one chance to tell us what the thing you’re supposedly protecting us from is before I kill you,” she stated, having already recovered more than enough energy to be able to kill this man at any point, no matter how she chose to do so, “I’d also advise you not to say any more bullshit like you’ve been trying to, since I am certain that there are numerous individuals here who will have far more patience than I and could easily torture you for decades, until you forget that the outside world even existed.”

“We are… chosen… by the heavens…”

Adhering to her words, she instantly brought her foot down once more, piercing his back and crushing his heart without a moment of hesitation.

“Fuck you and your kind, Luo Wu. I’d never let you live, no matter what,” Wei Yi said quietly, pulling the heel of her boot out of his back and cleansing it with physique energy, turning around only when she felt that she had calmed herself sufficiently, “Sorry for bringing some of you here without proper warning, but you may step away now. Meng Chu, claim a spot for the Remnants of Yin, and bring them there. I shall be back in a moment.”

She quickly left the prison realm, not giving them an opportunity to question her instructions nor her actions, instructing Yi Shi Ming to move most people back to where they should be while placing everyone from the Remnants at the border of Beast’s Rest to let them be guided by Meng Chu.

The moment she regained her senses on the other side, she took the half-lit transportation array and forced it to expand further, covering the entirety of the Brotherhood of Power headquarters in order to bring everyone within it with her. So far as she was able to tell, not a single member of the Brotherhood had anything suspicious about them, whether they were current members or those that had caught wind of the situation and attempted to escape, like Mo Zhouquan, and so she decided that they could follow their leadership into the prison realm.

Due to the day’s occurrences, almost everyone was present at the building, and by some fortunate coincidence the few that weren’t were those that Wei Yi didn’t really care about.

Before they had a chance to flee, the transportation array enveloped all of them and forced them into the spatial realm within her dantian. She allowed herself to remain and shrunk the array once more, attempting to wipe out any traces of it that she could to not give her abilities away to the Greats, and then brought herself back into the spatial realm with an array of the minimal size to envelop her entire body.

Naturally, the structure of the Brotherhood of Power was left behind. It was possible to bring across large physical objects such as a residence or headquarters, but it wasn’t so much that she lacked the power to take everything and more that causing the place to suddenly vanish wouldn’t be very helpful to her goal of avoiding too much attention.

The disappearance of a single organisation, while obviously unusual, could be explained by countless means, including that they decided to depart for another district in hopes of better success and business. Since all of their items were taken as well, save for everything that was bolted down since it would take far too much effort to remove all such things from the floor before bringing them with herself, it could easily be seen as a rushed but reasonable departure by the majority of the Brotherhood of Power.

Perhaps even the hole in the ceiling and the broken office would be explainable under that same theory, as it could have resulted from some conflict that prompted this sudden relocation.

Some lengthy exploration of the matter would naturally expose numerous flaws, but the few members of the Brotherhood that remained would be unlikely to bother, since they could just join the other groups that sat around the same area. It would be far, far too costly to get some cultivators skilled in various investigative methods to understand what happened, and too time consuming as well.

 

Once more within the prison realm, all of the other members of the Brotherhood of Power came to in a large, open field, lit by an unnatural light, with numerous items that were previously near them lying on the ground, with no trace of their rooms nor furniture in most cases.

The occasional floorboard and cabinet did end up in the prison realm, but that was less common than not.

Since their rooms didn’t make it, all were able to look around and notice a woman standing atop a hill, with a few others beside her. Not everyone was able to recognise the crimson-haired woman, but everyone knew of Luo Lia Kun, who stood next to her, albeit slightly lower on the hill. From this alone, it was clear that the crimson-haired woman had to be on a similar level to their vice-leader, if not superior to her in some way.

“Wait, Wei Yi? What’s going on?” Chao Ru unknowingly answered one of the questions that everyone had, and the name itself finally brought recognition and understanding into the eyes of many.

Not everyone had been present during the duels between the Gang Hong Clan and the Brotherhood of Power, but most had learnt of some of the things that happened there, including the insane recruit that had a fondness for tearing out the hearts of others and had a rather fantastic set of phoenix-related techniques that allowed her to light up the district for a brief moment.

“Hello, everyone. You have all been pulled into this realm – my realm, for the moment – and unfortunately, if you prefer to keep your life, you cannot leave. If you do not care less about this and just want to go off and find something to do here, go ahead. The nearest city is in that direction, less than an hour away. It is called Beast’s Rest, and so long as you pay attention, you won’t get into trouble,” she said, resulting in no end of confusion amongst everyone present, “If that is not to your liking, get a seat somewhere and listen up. There’s a lot that you need to learn.”

Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, the secretary of the Brotherhood stood up straight away.

“I would prefer not to get involved. Is there a role similar to my previous one that I can occupy?”

“I’m sure there is. Do you mind acting as the secretary for a brothel?”

“No, not at all. So long as coin is involved, I will do whatever is necessary… Although I would prefer to be near a bunch of attractive women all day.”

“Same, actually. Go on, then,” Wei Yi said, letting her depart from sight before turning to the others, “If none of you intend to do the same, then we should proceed. You have one final chance to stand and depart, and if you do not, then you will need to bear the full extent of the danger associated with the knowledge you will gain.”

She allowed them another chance, but after a few moments, none of them rose.

As giving them any more chances to leave would be unreasonable, she raised one hand and created a great wall of killing will, which was the energy that she was able to stretch out the furthest, solidifying it to prevent a single person from leaving before everything could be explained.

If someone was to rush out during the explanation, perhaps thinking that they got the entire story without hearing some vital part of it, they could be troublesome to deal with, which would not be advantageous to Wei Yi or Luo Lia Kun, who had not really been consulted before being thrown into that arrangement on the hill but who was not against inducing the rest of the Brotherhood into the Remnants, or whatever group Wei Yi was leading in the prison realm. There had been no explicit confirmation of her status, but judging by the fact that it was her anchor that illuminated this spatial realm, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that she was either the leader, or someone extremely close to them.

“Very well. Everyone, let us begin from the founding of Yi City…”

 

“The Master of Yi City was called Kong Shi Meng?”

“The Greats are the remnants of those clans that sought to undermine his legacy and claim it for themselves?”

“The dreaded prison realm was made by Kong Shi Meng for the sake of refining dangerous energy?”

Questions, or, rather, requests for confirmation, flooded in quickly, and she answered them similarly quickly, giving only a single response to a single question before ignoring it, since she knew that it would be difficult for everyone to accept a number of the things that she told them without letting them have some time to themselves. At the moment, such a thing would naturally not be convenient, given how they were in a sealed area with not too much room to spare.

Although their placements did resemble those of their original positions in the Brotherhood of Power headquarters, that building had many floors while this field had only one, giving them less room.

Ultimately, however, Wei Yi was able to relay everything that she wished these people to know, simultaneously showcasing some of her abilities as proof that the previous persona was a mere façade, making sure to look just enough at certain people for them to understand that this didn’t mean that their interactions were false as well.

Chao Ru and Zhi Qiu Ya were the primary receivers of this gaze, but not the only ones.

By bringing up her injuries, even those that were able to heal, she was able to avoid questions that were relevant but those that she either didn’t wish to answer, or couldn’t answer for whatever reason, and brought this meeting to an end, allowing everyone to head off to Beast’s Rest to find themselves a place to stay and to get used to the routine of this spatial realm. They also received the training techniques Wei Yi had created so that they would be able to stand together with those of the Kong Prison Realm in goals and methods, allowing the descendants of the ancient warriors that participated in the War of Yin, as well as many others, to join the new generation that would carry on a similar fight.

When everyone had left, Luo Lia Kun the former vice-leader included, despite the many questions that she also had, Wei Yi was able to return to the site of Luo Wu’s death, where his body and that of Luo Zhong still lay.

Within their bodies, the faint light of embers emanated only to her, just as the energy in the place of their former anchors could only be observed by her and nobody else. While the anchor energy was timeless, these embers, as well as the potential physique or bloodline that she could plunder to strengthen herself in return for the weakening of the Greats, had an expiry date, and it was not one that she wanted to risk any longer than necessary.

She kneeled beside the body of the man first, lifting the glowing embers out of his body and pressing them against her chest, allowing their power to become one with her own, then moved on to the woman, performing the most gracious of the looting actions before moving on to the things that were slightly less pleasant to behold.

Next came their bloodline, which would likely be burned if she attempted to scour their bodies for physique energy first.

To make things quicker for herself, she grabbed one of the bodies and tossed it onto the other, forming a dense viper of bloodline power which she promptly sent into their bodies, allowing it to fill one and connect to the other at the same time. It slithered through their blood vessels, devouring anything relevant to itself that it was able to find, acting much like her physique and showcasing that it was the correct choice to select her Ascendant bloodline over the other two.

When the energy of their bloodline was absorbed into her own, nudging her bloodline cultivation forward, she was able to see vague images that much resembled the scene of her initial bloodline awakening, except the Golden Qilin was now absent, the cosmic cloud was much stronger, and that it was now devouring a set of forty sprites that were almost shaped like talismans.

‘Wait a minute, forty sprites?’

These images did not last long, given that her awakened and wholly unique bloodline appeared far superior to their own, at least when not awakened, but it was more than enough for her to comprehend one possibility that she had never considered before.

Although it was most certainly a wild theory, it was able to explain why they told her to blame her parents for their actions, why her blood appeared so pure when she first added the Disciple of Iron to her cultivation technique. It would be obvious why her Yi family features were so clear even before she had begun to cultivate at all, and it would explain a part of her natural talent, as well as why someone would go to such effort in order to prevent it from being exposed, even if they did fail in the end.

Perhaps it was even responsible for the ease with which she was able to integrate those anchor shards that now hovered and floated around her anchor – and did bear a resemblance to the sprites.

‘My father was no one unusual, but my mother was newer, and I knew less about her. On the day that they died, I recall her being the one to ask my father to take me outside to play. My father was in the family records, but my mother was not. He did not have particularly distinguishable red hair or silver eyes, but my mother most certainly did…’

It pained her to even contemplate the possibility, but it seemed that there was one likely possibility.

‘I may be a child of someone from a Great Family… the Great Yi Family, at that… If that is the case, then my parents were clearly killed because they couldn’t tolerate a child being born to one of them and a normal man, although to go to such an extent, they clearly had a greater reason for acting,’ Wei Yi concluded quickly, given that the arrays beneath her shack in the Yi District were more than sufficient to have dulled all of her strengths in the time that she had lived there, ‘Given that they usually only have two children, for them to so readily kill one doesn’t make sense unless there is something hidden from the world… The method of acquiring so many anchors, perhaps?’

With this potential possibility, not only did she not hesitate to loot, pillage and destroy the bodies of the Greats, she did it even more quickly and readily.