Standing up and looking at the crowd with a serious look, Avery tried his best to sound grand and dramatic.

  "I have come here to warn you all of the terrible disaster I have foretold is soon to befall your Gushanhui sect. Heed my word, for the catastrophe is impending, and the time to prepare is now!”

  Avery winced at his own words, embarrassed by how edgy and grandiose he had made his statement sound, despite it conveying practically no information. As such, it did not surprise him that his exclamation only met confused stares, and he hastily continued, wanting to clarify.

  “There are traitors among you, who wish to take this opportunity to take over the leadership of your sect!”

  Seeing that no one believed him, he pointed aggressively at the sect leader, and started telling them everything he knew.

  “You will be one of the first to die. You hold the commanding token of the sect formation, so deacon Xia Yong and five inner elders will be waiting to assassinate you as soon as you return to the sect! “

  However, instead of the shock and horror he was expecting, they were all wearing agreeable smiles, as if they all believed all this was just a joke. They clearly held him in extremely high regard, but now they are not taking him seriously, even though he had been very clear on how serious the situation was, and his voice contained no inclination of levity.

  Just moments ago, they were obviously looking up to him with immense respect and reverence, so why were they acting so flippant about his warning now?

  "Please, you have to listen to me, this is important. You must believe me, or you will die!”

  Seeing nothing he said had any effects, Avery thought he must not be expressing himself well enough to convey his urgency. The worst thing was that while his words did not convince them, they caused him to form very heavy karmic connections.

  Since they were not listening to him, he decided he needed to be more direct. Drawing yet another set of runes in the air, he cast a huge illusion, painting the scene of the rebellion he had foretold in the sky.

  This did catch their attention, but not in the way that Avery wanted. Almost the entire sect was gathered around him, and that of course included plenty of traitors. As soon as he started broadcasting their treachery, they did not hesitate to start fighting for their lives.

  Avery had imagined they would quietly surrender when they lost the element of surprise and had to face an enemy force who had an overwhelming numerical advantage. Instead, they were galvanized by the prospect of impending defeat and seemed desperate to take as many lives as they could with them.

  This scene was incongruous with what he had seen in his divinations, where it had been difficult for all parties to kill their friends and colleagues, and where everything had been done to minimize the violence.

  He knew he was lacking in his understanding of the human psyche, but how could he have been so wrong? Far from helping anyone, his meddling had considerably worsened the situation, all the while burdening him with hundreds karmic ties that rapidly approached the weight of those linking him to the black dragon.

  The image of an orderly crowd listening peacefully had devolved into a messy melee. Spells and martial arts techniques were flying everywhere, in a way that did more collateral damage than actual harm to the intended target.

  What should have initially been a precision strike against the upper management of the sect, taking power as cleanly and quickly as possible, had turned into a messy bloodbath hundreds of times worse than the one Avery had originally predicted.

  It was by far the most violent event he had ever been in. Admittedly, it was only the second fight he had ever been in, and the first one had lasted less than ten seconds, but the point still stood. He had failed terribly, doing something that should have been extremely easy.

  He almost didn’t notice his own actions as he drew an unprecedentedly powerful spell in the air, determined to bend reality to his will, forcing the universe to comply and stop this madness.

  It was his most powerful single purpose spell he had ever cast, a huge runic pattern that would gather all the qi in the area and use it to render everyone unconscious. Yet the closer he got to completing it, the harder it became, in a way completely different from any of his other experiences in drawing runes.

  It would be invisible to a mortal's eye, but through his Dao vision, he could feel millions of minuscule golden chains restraining his body and spirit, stopping him from completing his spell. For reasons he did not understand, the Heavens were preventing him from taking part in this battle, despite being responsible for it.

  He did not give up right away and tried everything he could think of to stop the stupid fight. He tried to cast dozens of different spells but was stopped each time. He tried talking to them, or getting in the way of their attacks, but was always ignored. It was almost like in their eyes, he had ceased to exist.

  Nothing he did led to a positive result, and just made him feel miserable. At this point, it seemed inevitable that this was the beginning of a tragic, albeit short, war, and one that Avery should have been able to easily prevent. One he had tried to prevent, but the only thing his meddling had accomplished was to start the revolution sooner, and make it bloodier.

  He was not moved by the violence itself. He had seen far worse when the Sil’piceus were reigning in his inner world. He only felt irritation, at these imbeciles for throwing their lives away so impulsively, and at himself, for being incapable to do anything right. He was at fault for all this fiasco, and ever since he had come to this village, not a single thing had gone his way. Poor planning, poor preparation and poor execution had made this one of the worst days in his long life.

  He should never have come here, should have never forced himself to do the "right" thing despite being disgusted by these cultivators. It had only brought along misery and pain for all parties. He was an immortal, and had no business treading the red dust.

  The cultivators who had all gathered to listen to him didn't even notice him flying away and hiding in the clouds, looking down upon their petty squabble dispassionately.

  Avery watched the war unfold with a detached feeling. Instead of shock and horror at all the suffering he had caused, all he felt was profound relief each time one of the cultivators died, and that one of the karmic ties weighing down on him was dissolved by the power of the river of forgetfulness.

  As for the karmic flame that was now flickering sinisterly on his runic body, it was painful, but he had lived through worse. Since it had no impact on his connection to the Tao, he could easily ignore its continuous soul attacks and was rather excited to take some time to study it.