“What is going on?! Why have your assassins not taken care of Mei Xilan Sui yet?!”

“It seems they are more powerful than I gave them credit for.”

“I don’t want to hear excuses! I want them dead! Dammit!”

Luan Desheng watched, amused, as Qiang Bao paced back and forth across the ostentatious hall. This man had become so easy to rile up recently, ever since he discovered that the emperor’s daughter was alive. He got upset at the smallest things now. Just the other day, some poor handmaid had stepped in front of him while he was walking down the hall. He had beaten her to within an inch of her life.

Life had become boring since they overthrew the monarchy. In truth, Luan Desheng felt like Qiang Bao had been having too easy a time of it. This was the most excitement they’d had in years. That it came at the expense of Qiang Bao was just the icing on the cake.

Luan Desheng did not like Qiang Bao nor did he care for the man’s ambition; he only agreed to help him because the Suit Kingdom was the best place to hide himself from those who sought to do him harm. Long ago, he and his sect had messed with the wrong people, people they should never have messed with, and the result was their near total destruction. He had escaped with a few others and managed to evaded his pursuers with the heavy use of artifacts. However, they still would have found them if he didn’t find a place to lay low.

The Sui Kingdom was isolated from the rest of the world. It was more than just the mountain range that surrounded it on all sides. Powerful magical beasts inhabited the mountain range, some that had even reached the Realization Realm.

There was an old legend from long ago, which spoke of how the first emperor of the Sui Kingdom created a pact with the magical beasts of the Siwang Mountain Range. In exchange for their protection, he would send virgin sacrifices to them once every ten years.

Virgins were highly sought after, especially among dual cultivators. Men and women who practiced dual cultivation wanted people who had their chastity intact because they still had their yin or yang essence. Practitioners of Caibu, which was a predatory dual cultivation method that drained one person to enrich the other, were especially fond of chaste cultivators.

He didn’t know if the history of the first Sui Kingdom emperor was true. However, the Sui Kingdom did send out young maidens once every ten years to climb the Siwang Mountain Range. Most returned unharmed, but a few would vanish. The girls who returned never seemed traumatized or sad, so nobody ever said anything against this tradition. Whatever went on when they climbed that mountain also remained a mystery. The women who returned refused to say anything.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when Qiang Bao whirled on him.

“Are you listening to me?”

Oh? Had he been talking. Luan Desheng had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed.

“Of course,” he lied smoothly.

Qiang Bao glared at him for a moment longer before turning away in disgust. This also amused Luan Desheng. Up to now, Qiang Bao had been too afraid of him to openly show his hatred, but as he became more desperate, his true colors bled through his actions.

“How do you plan to deal with Mei Xilan Sui?” asked Qiang Bao.

“Hmmm.” Luan Desheng cupped a hand to his chin. “Up to now, I have hired outside help to deal with them, but it’s clear that normal assassins won’t do the trick. I suppose it’s time to send out my disciples to take care of them.”

“Are you sure your disciples are up to the task?”

“Of course. I have personally trained them. Two of them are peak Deva Realm cultivators and my core disciple recently reached the Seeker Realm. They will be more than up to the task.”

“… very well. I’m trusting you on this. Don’t disappoint me.”

“Of course,” Luan Desheng hid his amused smile behind a disrespectful martial bow. Qiang Bao saw how he barely bent forward and turned away in disgust. This man hated him, but he could do nothing because it was only thanks to Luan Desheng that his sect had reached the position it was in today.

Luan Desheng left the hall and traveled down numerous flights of stairs. This palace had a large basement, which used to be a prison for people who committed the most heinous crimes, but it had since been renovated into a place suitable for training cultivators.

Access to the facility was a closely guarded secret that not even Qiang Bao knew about. The entrance was concealed within the palace's lower dungeons, hidden behind a heavy, ornate door engraved with a sealing array that kept people who didn’t have a special medallion from being able to see it.

He walked down a dimly lit stone corridor that wound through the facility’s subterranean maze. Torches lined the walls, the flickering flames casting eerie shadows, dancing shadows that created a suitably unsettling atmosphere. These corridors led to various chambers. Each one was designated for a specific aspect of his sect’s cultivation.

Scattered throughout the facility, often bathed within the eerie glow of sacrificial fires, were a number of altars used for dark rituals that increased a person’s cultivation. He passed by one such altar on his way. It was surrounded by a sacrificial pool filled with dark, viscous liquid. The heavy scent of copper hung in the air.

He eventually found his way to an area that housed numerous cells. They once housed the kingdom’s most dangerous criminals, but now they had been repurposed as meditation chambers for his disciples. Here, cultivators learned how to embrace their inner demons and unlock their true potential.

 “Jiang Xue, Lu Chen, Mei Hua… I need you three to come out here. Now.”

The moment his cold words rang out, three cell doors opened and three people emerged.

First among them was a tall and slender figure with an ethereal presence. She had long, flowing midnight-black hair that cascaded down to her waist and eyes as dark as the abyss. Her pale skin was almost translucent. It gave her an otherworldly appearance that, when combined with her dark eyes, most would have found both beautiful and disturbing. Her form fitting dark robes were adorned with silver embroidery, which shimmered in the torch light as she walked forward and knelt down.

“What is your bidding, Master?” she asked.

“Jiang Xue, always so obedient. Can’t you show a bit of a rebellious streak?” asked the second woman in the group. She was lithe and graceful. Despite her small stature, there was an air of elegance about her. Loong, silver hair flowed like liquid mercury, and her eyes shimmered with an enigmatic, amethyst glow. The flowing robes that adorned her full figure were decorated with flower patterns that looked to bloom as she moved.

“You should show more obedience, Mei Hua,” Jiang Xue said with a frown. “This is the man who raised and protected us since we were young. Where is your filial piety?”

“Don’t have any of that.” Mei Hua waved her hand through the air with a nonchalant, uncaring demeanor. She smiled when Jiang Xue glared at her.

“You two need to stop arguing. It’s getting tiresome,” said the only man in this group.

The two women whirled on him. “Don’t tell us what to do, Lu Chen!”

He just sighed again.

As the only man in this trio, Lu Chen was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a rugged appearance. His skin used to be a bronze color from spending hours training in the sun, but now his skin was pale from years in this dark cell. He had short-cropped hair and his eyes were a piercing blue that gleamed with ambition and greed. Those eyes stood in contrast to his calm, warrior’s demeanor.

These three were Luan Desheng’s top disciples.

Jiang Xue, his core disciple, had been born into a noble family from the Qing Province. They had nurtured her with love and care, fostering within her a sense of loyalty, and then they sent her to be married off. She had done so out of loyalty to her family. The man she was married to, however, had been horribly abusive. He had violently taken her first time, beating her to a pulp in the process. After that, the man had repeatedly raped her, until Luan Desheng found and saved her.

She was extremely loyal to him not only because he had rescued her and allowed her to get revenge on her ex-husband, but also because she was dependent upon others. Jiang Xue could not live without being loyal to someone. Her family had ensured that, and Luan Desheng had taken advantage of it. She was his core disciple and the strongest among them.

The other two did not have the same loyalty toward him that she did, but that was fine. They both had their reasons for joining him.

Mei Hua was a talented healer whose obsession with mastering soul manipulation and desire for eternal life had led her astray. Luan Desheng found her after she had been accused of inhumane experiments on her fellow cultivators. In exchange for becoming his disciple, he allowed her to perform all the experiments she wanted.

On the other hand, Lu Chen was a once formidable warrior known for his martial prowess. His lust for power and desire to transcend the mortal realm was what led him to Eclipse Soul. Under Luan Desheng’s tutelage, he learned to harness the power of the soul to enhance his combat abilities. Out of all his disciples, this man was the most likely to betray him one day, but that, too, was fine. He trusted Jiang Xue to take care of this man if the time ever came.

“I have a task for you three,” he said.

His three disciples straightened and looked at him. He smiled. They might act frivolous sometimes, but they knew when to be serious.

“It must be a serious matter if you’re having all three of us go,” said Mei Hua.

“It is quite serious,” Luan Desheng admitted.

“What would you have us do?” asked Jiang Xue.

“We received word a while back that Mei Xilan Sui is alive.”

“The former princess of this kingdom? I would have thought she was dead,” Lu Chen said, tilting his head curiously.

Luan Desheng nodded. “So did I, but she is alive, and she’s coming back to reclaim the Sui Kingdom.”

“And you want us to kill her?” asked Mei Hua, making a face. “I gotta be honest, this girl can’t be that strong. Why send all of us? Lu Chen should be enough to kill one girl.”

While Lu Chen and Jiang Xue frowned at her, Luan Desheng merely smiled. “Perhaps if she was alone, but she has a powerful ally with her.”

He went on to explain how a man known as Jian Wu was traveling with Mei Xilan Sui and what sort of powers he possessed. The three listened attentively. While Jiang Xue had a troubled furrow in her brow, Lu Chen silently stroked his chin and Mei Hua was licking her lips.

“This boy sounds like he would be a good guinea pig to experiment on,” she said at last. “Space manipulators are very rare, and he sounds much better than most.”

Luan Desheng shrugged. “You can experiment on him all you want if you can capture him. However, your primary goal is to kill Mei Xilan Sui. Do not forget that.”

Mei Hua giggled. “Don’t worry. We’ll get the job done.”

“Do not speak so frivolously,” Jiang Xue scolded. “We only have secondhand knowledge of their strength. We have no idea how powerful Jian Wu really is. We’ll need to gather information before we engage him in combat.”

“Where are they now?” asked Lu Chen.

“They left Kěnéng just a short while ago. They were last seen traveling north. Unfortunately, our spies lost them when they entered Cuòjué Forest.”

“Cuòjué Forest, huh? That place is home to a large number of dangerous magical beasts,” Lu Chen murmured. “I even heard a rumor that a flood dragon lives there.”

“I’ve heard the same rumor,” Jiang Xue confirmed.

“They won’t remain there for long. Their goal is to come here. You can choose to wait for them to emerge, or you can enter and search for them. I’ll leave the method of killing Mei Xilan Sui and everything else up to you,” Luan Desheng said before dismissing the three.

He smiled as they left. It had been a long time since his disciples had gone out on a mission, and he was curious to find out how they would do.

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