Mornings in Xuanjing City were usually awakened by the cries of vendors echoing from every street and alley.
But today, a completely different kind of clamor swept through the entire city—not the hawking of spiritual materials or elixirs, but a sound of nearly terrified, suppressed discussion.
"Extra! Extra! Breaking news! The Azure Cloud Sect has been wiped out!"
"W-wiped out! The Azure Cloud Sect!"
"The sect masters of the Upper Three Sects all died in battle, and three great Mahayana experts were beheaded!"
A peddler wearing a rough tunic and trousers, carrying a stack of brand-new broadsheets, shouted himself hoarse as he weaved through the crowd.
The broadsheet in his hand featured a headline printed in thick black ink that was shocking to the eye:
"A Titan of the Donghua Divine Continent Collapses Overnight! Three Great Mahayana Experts of the Azure Cloud Sect Perish! Centennial Celebration Turns into a Slaughterhouse!"
Beside the text was a slightly scribbled illustration depicting the broken Azure Cloud Mountain Range and black energy soaring into the sky.
This shout was like pouring a ladle of cold water into hot oil, instantly detonating the entire Xuanjing City.
"What?! What did you say? The Azure Cloud Sect is destroyed?"
"Are you crazy?! That's the Azure Cloud Sect, the number one sect in our Donghua Divine Continent!"
"Nonsense! I am a disciple of the Azure Cloud Sect!"
Hearing the peddler's shouts, the eyes of some cultivators were filled with disbelief and horror.
"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! The Azure Cloud Sect has three Mahayana Patriarchs keeping watch! How could it be destroyed just like that?"
Many cultivators stopped the peddler.
"Give me a paper!"
"Read it! Read it! It's written clearly right here! Qingyunzi, Ling Qing, and Xuan Sha—all three Patriarchs are dead! Not even their divine souls remained! Also, the sect masters and elders of the Scarlet Cloud Sect, the One Origin Sect, and a dozen others all died at the Azure Cloud Sect's celebration!"
Seeing more and more people gathering around, the peddler simply unfolded a broadsheet and shouted while pointing at the text.
The crowd instantly exploded. Countless cultivators surged forward, fighting to buy the report. For a moment, cries of "Ten low-grade spirit stones a copy!" rose and fell, but even the high price couldn't stop the crowd's fanaticism.
"My god... Qingyunzi was a Mahayana realm old monster! How could he..."
"And Elder Ling Qing, his wood-element Daoist magic was perfection, and he was extremely good at defense... how could he have fallen too?"
"It says here it was done by a mysterious mighty figure named Ye Chuan and the remnant of the Yuxu Sect, Bai Qianshuang!"
"The Yuxu Sect! Weren't they wiped out by the Azure Cloud Sect? How is someone still alive?"
"It's said that mysterious mighty figure used a Ten Thousand Soul Banner to swallow the entire Azure Cloud Sect."
"E-evil cultivator..."
...
Meanwhile, many cultivators headed toward the Azure Cloud Mountain Range.
Among them were curious rogue cultivators, disciples of sects that had grudges against the Azure Cloud Sect, and a few elders from neutral forces.
Everyone wanted to see with their own eyes if that colossal sect had truly become a pile of ruins as the report claimed.
Arriving at the foot of the Azure Cloud Mountain Range, everyone was shocked speechless by the scene before them.
The main peak, once shrouded in clouds and mist and dense with spiritual energy, was now broken in half. The mountain body was covered in pitch-black cracks, and the air was filled with the thick smell of blood and scorching.
The archway at the foot of the mountain had long collapsed. Amidst the shattered wood and stone piles, scattered skeletons of Azure Cloud Sect disciples could still be seen.
"Is... is this really the Azure Cloud Sect?" A young rogue cultivator's voice trembled, his eyes full of disbelief.
He had come to the Azure Cloud Sect three years ago to seek medical help. At that time, the sect was majestic and imposing, and the disciples were all arrogant and overbearing. Now, only broken walls and ruins remained, like a purgatory on earth.
The crowd walked up along the broken mountain path. The deeper they went, the more miserable the scene became.
The jade bricks on the plaza were all shattered. The coiled dragon pillars had fallen to the ground, the reliefs on them hacked beyond recognition.
The Azure Cloud Sword at the top of the sacrificial altar was long gone, leaving only a pitch-black sword pit that still retained the aura of chaotic power.
The tragic state of the scene made everyone present frown.
"Look over there!"
A cultivator suddenly pointed to the depths of the main peak, where a palace hall lay half-buried in rubble.
The crowd walked over quickly and pushed open the collapsed palace doors. A nauseating, sweet, and metallic stench pounced on their faces.
The scene inside the hall made everyone gasp.
Dozens of huge bronze cauldrons were placed on the ground. The cauldrons contained a residue of dark red liquid, and the edges were stuck with bits of torn clothing and bones.
The stone walls beside the cauldrons were carved with dense runes. Upon careful examination, it turned out to be the long-banned Soul-Devouring Spirit-Refining Technique!
"This... they were refining cultivator souls into spiritual liquid!" A white-haired elder's expression changed drastically as he pointed at the residue in the cauldron.
"These dark red liquids are spiritual fluids refined from the essence blood and divine souls of cultivators! The Azure Cloud Sect... they were actually doing this kind of dirty business!"
The crowd was in an uproar and gathered around to check.
On the ground beside the bronze cauldrons lay countless cultivator identity tokens. The largest number bore the words "Yuxu Sect," clearly left behind during the massacre of that sect.
"No wonder the Azure Cloud Sect could rise above so many other sects. It turns out they relied on such evil methods!"
The cultivators found it hard to believe.
"They kept claiming the Yuxu Sect was a demonic sect, yet they themselves were doing things even filthier than a demonic sect!"
"Slaughtering the Yuxu Sect wasn't just for their spirit veins and cultivation techniques; it was to seize the divine souls of the Yuxu Sect disciples to refine this evil liquid!" another cultivator added, his eyes full of disdain.
"No wonder the Azure Cloud Sect always wiped out small sects and claimed they were demonic sects. It turns out..."
"Wait, the Azure Cloud Sect even used their own disciples to refine spiritual liquid?" Another cultivator noticed a Azure Cloud Sect disciple's token with the name Zi Ning'er on it.
"This seems to be a Direct Disciple?"
In the crowd, a few surviving outer sect disciples of the Azure Cloud Sect slumped to the ground, looking at the scene before them, seemingly unable to believe it.
This...
They had always thought their sect was a model of the righteous path, but they never expected such a dirty secret to be hidden behind it.
"So... the Azure Cloud Sect was actually such a heretical and demonic sect..."
"How could this be..."
"Urgh..."
The news quickly spread back to Xuanjing City, shaking the entire Donghua Divine Continent.
Cultivators who originally had complaints about Ye Chuan's act of exterminating the sect now fell silent. Compared to the Azure Cloud Sect's atrocity of refining cultivators, Ye Chuan's revenge had instead become an act of enforcing justice on behalf of Heaven.
The broadsheets in Xuanjing City were updated again. The front-page headline changed to "Secret Demonic Hall Discovered in Azure Cloud Sect Ruins, Soul-Devouring Spirit-Refining Technique Exposed to the World."
The article described the scene in the hall in detail, accompanied by illustrations of the bronze cauldrons and runes. For a time, curses against the Azure Cloud Sect covered the earth, while the names of Ye Chuan and Bai Qianshuang changed from evil cultivators to righteous people clearing away sin.
The news of the Azure Cloud Sect's destruction also reached the ears of certain people.
Inside a certain palace hall, a figure was sitting in a seat, with a newspaper placed before her.
"Yuxu Sect, Bai Qianshuang...?" The figure saw the content on the publication and slowly lifted her face.
That stunningly beautiful face was actually identical to Bai Qianshuang's!
"..."
"Master..."
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
u Chenyuan transmigrated into a female-oriented novel about a real and fake heiress, becoming the CEO elder brother of both. Unfortunately, the entire Lu family—including himself, the CEO—were mere cannon fodder in the story. Determined to save himself, Lu Chenyuan took action. The spoiled, attention-seeking fake heiress? Thrown into the harsh realities of the working class to learn humility. The love-struck real heiress? Pushed toward academic excellence, so lofty goals would blind her to trivial romances. As for the betrayed, vengeful arranged marriage wife… the plot hadn’t even begun yet. There was still time—if he couldn’t handle her, he could at least avoid her. "CEO Lu, are you avoiding me?" Mo Qingli fixed her gaze on Lu Chenyuan. For the first time, the shrewd and calculating Lu Chenyuan felt a flicker of unease.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
