Hunt, that was the word Liang Chen had used to describe his actions against the remaining Wrath sects. But was that really the word to use, was Liang Chen really a hunter? No, Liang Chen was no hunter, he had no prey to stalk, no tracks to follow as he made his plans. He was a butcher, not a hunter, and the remaining Wrath sects had to find that out the hard way.
First on the list was the Abandoned Heart's Wrath, mainly because it was the location that housed the final reward Purgatory had prepared for him. The Wrath they styled themselves after, as well as their lamentation, was that of someone who had been abandoned by those they cherished. Dark emotions that festered like venom, disappointment and hatred that could twist minds as they cried all alone.
But now they weren't alone anymore. One by one they had gathered together, their tears and internal venom pooling together into a single festering ocean lashing out against the people and world that had abandoned them. If they had the time then they may indeed have the chance to swallow up all those who had abandoned them, the chance to settle their wrath.
But that time was something they would never get. Be it fortune or misfortune, time itself had not decided to abandon them, arriving at their doorstep in the form of Liang Chen. And then the butcher revealed himself.
There was no fight. No tracking, no tricking, no whittling down their numbers quietly. It was just a massacre, a wave of death that washed away their festering hatred as if it was making a mockery of it. The Harbour of the Abandoned, Sect Leader Hyong Hao fared little better than the rest of his sect, he wasn't even as strong as Tian Shenju of Sky's Wrath or Yi Ze Ruan of Ocean's Wrath so he met his end even faster than they had.
182 364 people, that was how many members the Abandoned Heart's Wrath had. The world had no shortage of abandoned people, crying souls begging for revenge and company, so perhaps it should be no surprise that it was this sect that had the most members among the subordinates of the Nine Wraths sect.
Some of them may have tried to flee when things looked bad, when the massacre truly bloomed into carnage. But in the end, Liang Chen's wrath was not one that allowed others to escape, it was an all-encompassing web that placed a scythe against your throat the moment you touched it. And of those nearly two hundred thousand people that touched the web, only nine got to walk away alive.
Perhaps it could be called a good harvest, most of the other sects he had visited earlier barely had one or two people that were worthy of sparing. Or perhaps it could be seen as a tragedy, that Purgatory corrupted people so thoroughly that only nine were clean enough to be spared in the end. Liang Chen was the type that leaned more towards the second option so he showed no joy as he allowed the nine to escape, descending into the treasury of the sect.
The item he was looking for was easy to find, and not just because Purgatory's Cradle was pointing him towards it. It was hovering in the centre of the treasury, a nearly invisible tornado surrounding it and keeping it afloat. It was a book with an extremely plain title, Heart of Wind.
Purgatory's Cradle had seen his law of wind and decided to present him with a gift geared towards it. It was a cultivation manual that focused fully on the law of wind, once mastered all the wind in the world would be your servant, your eyes and ears. But what a shame it was that the book was of little use to Liang Chen, forget the fact that it focused on just a single law, he didn't even know how he was supposed to cultivate right now.
His Dragon Lotus had vanished after his transformation, the centre of his power had shifted away from the lotus and spread out to his entire body. Anima Essence, Qi, Fiendgod Essence, none of them meant anything to him anymore. His body was his soul and his soul was his body, and both were his energy, falling into none of the categories. No, now they simply fell into the category of energy, pure and untamed energy waiting for a chance to rush out.
But he still kept the book, as well as the other resources in the treasury. Resources would always be useful, especially since he had weaker disciples he had to take care of now. The book was the same, the best he could do was glean some interesting uses of the law of wind from it, but some of his disciples would be able to make good use of it. One such disciple was the blind Hui Xin, that poor broken girl who quietly cried for revenge.
"Hmm, perhaps she'd have ended up here if she ever got to leave the hidden realm."
Liang Chen couldn't help but mutter slightly as he thought about it. Thinking about it, a good portion of the disciples he had taken in over the years fit in rather well in this sect. Had he not met them when he did then there may come a day where he would have stood opposite of them instead, assuming they managed to survive the predicaments they were in when he originally met them.
But in the end, the past was the past, and he had personally experienced how unchanging and merciless the past was. He shook his head to discard the thoughts, leaving the ruins of the sect and heading towards his next target with Shen Fei and Zhao Xu in tow.
The Land's Wrath, the last sect before the Nine Wraths sect. Just like Tian Shenju's Sky's Wrath and Ze Ruan's Ocean's Wrath, it was a sect that carried the wrath of the world, not of man.
The land could accept being eroded by time or destroyed by disasters, but it could not accept what man did to it. Digging it up, melting it down into twisted structures, a mockery of what it used to be. With each step they took they ruined another stretch of land, with each settlement they made they inevitably left another stretch of land uninhabitable. It could not accept them so it raged, and Juela Shang Yi was the woman who had the duty of representing that wrath.
But in the end, the day where it was time for her to put that duty down came. It was almost eerie how quiet it was. She had expected, or possibly hoped, that the end would at least come with a great big bang or a fanfare. But no, the only sound that accompanied it was soft footsteps and a somewhat sad expression. Was that right, for the end to look so sad?
Others may not think so, the one who wrought such devastation and carnage had no right to look sad as he did it. He should be cruel and vicious, otherwise, he wouldn't be wreaking such havoc. But Shang Yi had a different opinion, and perhaps that was why she was the sect master of a Wrath-aligned sect.
"Yes...that's the look. To feel wrath is to lament, to lament is to feel wrath. When we scream we also cry, and when we cry we also scream. One scream meets another and a symphony is born, a world is changed..."
That was the mantra of the Nine Wraths sects, you could not feel hatred without lamenting the source, and every time you cried in sorrow over something you would inevitably also feel wrath. So it was just fine for Liang Chen to look sad, it would even be fine if he cried for the people he killed. That was what it meant to be wrath.
"I'll be going ahead first, Storm Lord. The wrath of the land, the cries of the earth, I'll leave them to you. I'll watch for the day they'll find a home in your Arbiter's Wrath..."
Shang Yi's sentence was punctuated by the sound of gurgling blood, she had ruptured her own lungs and throat so that she could put an end to her life with her own hands. But she died with a small smile on her face, her duty came to an end but she had someone she could hand it over to so her wrath wouldn't fade here, not yet.
Liang Chen gave no response to Shang Yi's parting words, quietly glancing down at her body for a few seconds before he put it into his interspatial ring. He swept the sect clean, once again leaving nothing but ruin and death in his wake.
Seven sects, seven wraths. The Wyvern's Wrath, The Wrath of Man, the Haunting Soul's Wrath, The Sky's Wrath, the Land's Wrath, the Ocean's Wrath, the Abandoned Heart's Wrath. One by one they had fallen, one by one they had been buried by his hands. Now, the only thing standing between him and Purgatory was the final sect, the Nine Wraths sect.
They were the ones who stood at the centre of it all, they were the ones who pushed and prodded this twisted land deeper into its bloodshed, aiding it in its descent. And they were his final target here, his quiet footsteps bringing him towards them, his arrival as sure as the passage of time.
The Nine Wraths sect was mostly shrouded in mystery, even to Liang Chen. He hadn't been able to read the memories of the stronger sect leaders, and the other members had never gotten to set foot in their core sect so they had no idea what lay there. As such, when Liang Chen arrived in front of the Nine Wraths sect, he was seeing it for the first time.
And his first reaction was surprise. There was no grand city surrounding it, no gargantuan headquarters housing their elite disciples. No, the Nine Wraths sect was just a lone marble mausoleum standing on a stretch of dead land, cracks spreading across the dry yellow earth, a lone and forgotten tomb. Sure, the mausoleum was bigger than most, but it barely stretched two kilometres in each direction, it was smaller than some of the guard towers that the other sects had.
But Liang Chen didn't let the appearance fool him. He could feel it in the air, a tingling of power, a sombre atmosphere that made him feel like he was standing alone in the rain. He could also feel it in the earth, there was something below them, buried in the earth, gazing furiously at the sky. He could feel its wrath, it was like whispers in his ears, like the screams of the vestiges he dug up.
He stepped towards the mausoleum with calm and slow steps, but Shen Fei and Li Zhao Xu seemed to bump into something when they were about a kilometre or so away from it. They tried again and again, even unleashing their Qi, but they simply could not take a single step closer.
"There's no point forcing it, if you can't get closer then it's because Purgatory has decided to reject you."
A voice reached them from behind while Liang Chen was observing the two to see what was stopping them, the hairs on his neck standing on end. His head swivelled around to see a young man standing in the entrance of the mausoleum, a baggy white robe covering his body. He had a head full of unruly brown hair and somewhat sunken in blue eyes that carried a calm light,
His robe was baggy, but just looking at his face and hands was enough to tell Liang Chen that he was skinny, to the point where he actually looked as if he had been starving for a while. His fingernails were a dirty white and covered in spots, but it, strangely enough, didn't seem like they were that way because they were actually covered in dirt, it just seemed like they grew like that.
"I've already put over some tea, but if you prefer alcohol then you'll have to bring your own, I don't normally stock things like that. I'll be waiting inside, Storm Lord, let's have a little chat before we tear into each other."
The man looked like he had only come out to clear up the group's confusion, turning around and addressing Liang Chen over his shoulder. He walked back into the mausoleum but left the stone door open, a subdued herbal scent drifting out. Lao Ye, the lord of the Nine Wraths, had extended Liang Chen an invitation.
Hunt, that was the word Liang Chen had used to describe his actions against the remaining Wrath sects. But was that really the word to use, was Liang Chen really a hunter? No, Liang Chen was no hunter, he had no prey to stalk, no tracks to follow as he made his plans. He was a butcher, not a hunter, and the remaining Wrath sects had to find that out the hard way.
First on the list was the Abandoned Heart's Wrath, mainly because it was the location that housed the final reward Purgatory had prepared for him. The Wrath they styled themselves after, as well as their lamentation, was that of someone who had been abandoned by those they cherished. Dark emotions that festered like venom, disappointment and hatred that could twist minds as they cried all alone.
But now they weren't alone anymore. One by one they had gathered together, their tears and internal venom pooling together into a single festering ocean lashing out against the people and world that had abandoned them. If they had the time then they may indeed have the chance to swallow up all those who had abandoned them, the chance to settle their wrath.
But that time was something they would never get. Be it fortune or misfortune, time itself had not decided to abandon them, arriving at their doorstep in the form of Liang Chen. And then the butcher revealed himself.
There was no fight. No tracking, no tricking, no whittling down their numbers quietly. It was just a massacre, a wave of death that washed away their festering hatred as if it was making a mockery of it. The Harbour of the Abandoned, Sect Leader Hyong Hao fared little better than the rest of his sect, he wasn't even as strong as Tian Shenju of Sky's Wrath or Yi Ze Ruan of Ocean's Wrath so he met his end even faster than they had.
182 364 people, that was how many members the Abandoned Heart's Wrath had. The world had no shortage of abandoned people, crying souls begging for revenge and company, so perhaps it should be no surprise that it was this sect that had the most members among the subordinates of the Nine Wraths sect.
Some of them may have tried to flee when things looked bad, when the massacre truly bloomed into carnage. But in the end, Liang Chen's wrath was not one that allowed others to escape, it was an all-encompassing web that placed a scythe against your throat the moment you touched it. And of those nearly two hundred thousand people that touched the web, only nine got to walk away alive.
Perhaps it could be called a good harvest, most of the other sects he had visited earlier barely had one or two people that were worthy of sparing. Or perhaps it could be seen as a tragedy, that Purgatory corrupted people so thoroughly that only nine were clean enough to be spared in the end. Liang Chen was the type that leaned more towards the second option so he showed no joy as he allowed the nine to escape, descending into the treasury of the sect.
The item he was looking for was easy to find, and not just because Purgatory's Cradle was pointing him towards it. It was hovering in the centre of the treasury, a nearly invisible tornado surrounding it and keeping it afloat. It was a book with an extremely plain title, Heart of Wind.
Purgatory's Cradle had seen his law of wind and decided to present him with a gift geared towards it. It was a cultivation manual that focused fully on the law of wind, once mastered all the wind in the world would be your servant, your eyes and ears. But what a shame it was that the book was of little use to Liang Chen, forget the fact that it focused on just a single law, he didn't even know how he was supposed to cultivate right now.
His Dragon Lotus had vanished after his transformation, the centre of his power had shifted away from the lotus and spread out to his entire body. Anima Essence, Qi, Fiendgod Essence, none of them meant anything to him anymore. His body was his soul and his soul was his body, and both were his energy, falling into none of the categories. No, now they simply fell into the category of energy, pure and untamed energy waiting for a chance to rush out.
But he still kept the book, as well as the other resources in the treasury. Resources would always be useful, especially since he had weaker disciples he had to take care of now. The book was the same, the best he could do was glean some interesting uses of the law of wind from it, but some of his disciples would be able to make good use of it. One such disciple was the blind Hui Xin, that poor broken girl who quietly cried for revenge.
"Hmm, perhaps she'd have ended up here if she ever got to leave the hidden realm."
Liang Chen couldn't help but mutter slightly as he thought about it. Thinking about it, a good portion of the disciples he had taken in over the years fit in rather well in this sect. Had he not met them when he did then there may come a day where he would have stood opposite of them instead, assuming they managed to survive the predicaments they were in when he originally met them.
But in the end, the past was the past, and he had personally experienced how unchanging and merciless the past was. He shook his head to discard the thoughts, leaving the ruins of the sect and heading towards his next target with Shen Fei and Zhao Xu in tow.
The Land's Wrath, the last sect before the Nine Wraths sect. Just like Tian Shenju's Sky's Wrath and Ze Ruan's Ocean's Wrath, it was a sect that carried the wrath of the world, not of man.
The land could accept being eroded by time or destroyed by disasters, but it could not accept what man did to it. Digging it up, melting it down into twisted structures, a mockery of what it used to be. With each step they took they ruined another stretch of land, with each settlement they made they inevitably left another stretch of land uninhabitable. It could not accept them so it raged, and Juela Shang Yi was the woman who had the duty of representing that wrath.
But in the end, the day where it was time for her to put that duty down came. It was almost eerie how quiet it was. She had expected, or possibly hoped, that the end would at least come with a great big bang or a fanfare. But no, the only sound that accompanied it was soft footsteps and a somewhat sad expression. Was that right, for the end to look so sad?
Others may not think so, the one who wrought such devastation and carnage had no right to look sad as he did it. He should be cruel and vicious, otherwise, he wouldn't be wreaking such havoc. But Shang Yi had a different opinion, and perhaps that was why she was the sect master of a Wrath-aligned sect.
"Yes...that's the look. To feel wrath is to lament, to lament is to feel wrath. When we scream we also cry, and when we cry we also scream. One scream meets another and a symphony is born, a world is changed..."
That was the mantra of the Nine Wraths sects, you could not feel hatred without lamenting the source, and every time you cried in sorrow over something you would inevitably also feel wrath. So it was just fine for Liang Chen to look sad, it would even be fine if he cried for the people he killed. That was what it meant to be wrath.
"I'll be going ahead first, Storm Lord. The wrath of the land, the cries of the earth, I'll leave them to you. I'll watch for the day they'll find a home in your Arbiter's Wrath..."
Shang Yi's sentence was punctuated by the sound of gurgling blood, she had ruptured her own lungs and throat so that she could put an end to her life with her own hands. But she died with a small smile on her face, her duty came to an end but she had someone she could hand it over to so her wrath wouldn't fade here, not yet.
Liang Chen gave no response to Shang Yi's parting words, quietly glancing down at her body for a few seconds before he put it into his interspatial ring. He swept the sect clean, once again leaving nothing but ruin and death in his wake.
Seven sects, seven wraths. The Wyvern's Wrath, The Wrath of Man, the Haunting Soul's Wrath, The Sky's Wrath, the Land's Wrath, the Ocean's Wrath, the Abandoned Heart's Wrath. One by one they had fallen, one by one they had been buried by his hands. Now, the only thing standing between him and Purgatory was the final sect, the Nine Wraths sect.
They were the ones who stood at the centre of it all, they were the ones who pushed and prodded this twisted land deeper into its bloodshed, aiding it in its descent. And they were his final target here, his quiet footsteps bringing him towards them, his arrival as sure as the passage of time.
The Nine Wraths sect was mostly shrouded in mystery, even to Liang Chen. He hadn't been able to read the memories of the stronger sect leaders, and the other members had never gotten to set foot in their core sect so they had no idea what lay there. As such, when Liang Chen arrived in front of the Nine Wraths sect, he was seeing it for the first time.
And his first reaction was surprise. There was no grand city surrounding it, no gargantuan headquarters housing their elite disciples. No, the Nine Wraths sect was just a lone marble mausoleum standing on a stretch of dead land, cracks spreading across the dry yellow earth, a lone and forgotten tomb. Sure, the mausoleum was bigger than most, but it barely stretched two kilometres in each direction, it was smaller than some of the guard towers that the other sects had.
But Liang Chen didn't let the appearance fool him. He could feel it in the air, a tingling of power, a sombre atmosphere that made him feel like he was standing alone in the rain. He could also feel it in the earth, there was something below them, buried in the earth, gazing furiously at the sky. He could feel its wrath, it was like whispers in his ears, like the screams of the vestiges he dug up.
He stepped towards the mausoleum with calm and slow steps, but Shen Fei and Li Zhao Xu seemed to bump into something when they were about a kilometre or so away from it. They tried again and again, even unleashing their Qi, but they simply could not take a single step closer.
"There's no point forcing it, if you can't get closer then it's because Purgatory has decided to reject you."
A voice reached them from behind while Liang Chen was observing the two to see what was stopping them, the hairs on his neck standing on end. His head swivelled around to see a young man standing in the entrance of the mausoleum, a baggy white robe covering his body. He had a head full of unruly brown hair and somewhat sunken in blue eyes that carried a calm light,
His robe was baggy, but just looking at his face and hands was enough to tell Liang Chen that he was skinny, to the point where he actually looked as if he had been starving for a while. His fingernails were a dirty white and covered in spots, but it, strangely enough, didn't seem like they were that way because they were actually covered in dirt, it just seemed like they grew like that.
"I've already put over some tea, but if you prefer alcohol then you'll have to bring your own, I don't normally stock things like that. I'll be waiting inside, Storm Lord, let's have a little chat before we tear into each other."
The man looked like he had only come out to clear up the group's confusion, turning around and addressing Liang Chen over his shoulder. He walked back into the mausoleum but left the stone door open, a subdued herbal scent drifting out. Lao Ye, the lord of the Nine Wraths, had extended Liang Chen an invitation.
