Li Shen and the group disembarked from the boat before they all looked towards the town that was some distance away.
Li Shen turned towards Jun and asked.
“Is there still no response?”
Jun's expression was one of worry as he said.
“No Master, they aren’t responding. What if-”
Jun paused, unable to finish his sentence as his eyes glossed over.
Fei Yin patted his back and said.
“No, don’t think that way. We’re here now so we’ll go in and find them.”
“Exactly, why are you crying like a baby?”
Mu Fan furrowed his brows while making that follow up comment
Jun sniffed and wiped his nose with his forearm.
His expression then turn cold before he said.
“If anything happened to them I swear I’ll make those Demonic Cultivators pay.”
Jun and Lihua were in charge of gathering intelligence in the Faction, with both of them having formed groups of their own on Li Shen's orders.
Jun’s group was named the Beggar’s Association, it wasn’t located in the Celestial Academy and instead was separated into several branches around the Maple Continent.
They didn’t want to limit their power and reach to only just the small confines of the Celestial Academy.
But with that said, both groups were still small as they were in their initial stages of development.
Members of the Beggar’s Association had infiltrated the town to scout the place, but on their way here Jun was unable to reach any of them.
Jun was worried since these were people he hand-picked and trained, with Li Shen giving pointers ever so often. If anything happened to them when he as the leader had ordered them to go in he wouldn’t be able live with that.
Li Shen looked at the town from the mountain they were on.
‘This is the first time something like this has happened. Even though I gave Jun free reign on operating this group as his own, he isn’t unwise to choose incompetent people. And there’s Lihua who helped train them in disguise and infiltration.’
All of the group members were mortals, child beggars that had nowhere to call home.
Jun was the one who chose to form the group like this, and Li Shen agreed because as mortals they wouldn’t attract attention during times like these.
But what was this situation?
Li Shen felt that something wasn’t right with this town.
As the sun went down over the horizon, the town from here looked it was slowly being engulfed in gloomy darkness.
“Faction Leader aren’t we going in?”
Fang Chen asked from the side.
Jun hearing this looked towards Li Shen but saw he was remaining silent.
He hurriedly said.
“Master, we have to go in! Something might have happened to them, and the more we stall the farther away our chances are to save them!”
Li Shen hearing Jun let out a sigh.
“What about your members in the other villages?”
“I already ordered them to retreat.”
“So, it’s only this town.”
Li Shen then remained silent as the others waited for his orders.
“Before the communication was lost, they found the Demonic Cult’s hidden base to be in the west area of the town. It’s not a coincidence that we lost communication with all of the Beggar’s Association members so they most likely figured out we’re coming. If that’s the case we’ll just enter through the front gate.”
Li Shen turned to Lihua.
“Have your members evacuate the town residents, if a battle breaks out they’ll be in danger.”
Lihua nodded and Li Shen then turned to Fang Chen and Fei Yin.
“Get you’re group members ready to go in.”
Jun and Lihua weren’t the only ones that had formed a sub division group in the Faction. Fang Chen and Fei Yin had done the same, and they were the Faction's spearhead in their battle against Demonic Cultivators.
“Li Wen.”
Li Shen said to his bodyguard who immediately took out a broadsword that double in size to carry both him and Li Shen towards the town.
Yang Su floated into the air and followed behind them, while the others used their own methods.
In a matter of seconds, the group reached the town's entrance.
Despite it looking like a town, it was more like a large village on the verge of becoming a town.
The population was around two thousand to five thousand people.
However, despite that, when Li Shen and the group entered it was completely dead silent.
Li Shen stepped off the sword and walked forward, a frown on his face.
A few steps into their walk, Lihua read a message from a jade slip before she turned to Li Shen and said solemnly.
“Faction Leader, the houses are empty. They're no residents in the houses.”
Li Shen’s frown deepened even more.
Suddenly, a figure in black battle attire leaped from a nearby building to land in front of Fang Chen.
Two blades were at his waist while the bottom half of his face was covered.
Cupping his fists, he said.
“Sub Division Leader, the entrance leading to Demonic Cult’s base in the west area has been sealed by dirt and rocks. Our men are currently trying to open up an entrance.”
Just as he finished his sentence, another figure leaped from another building to land in front of Fei Yin.
He was wearing similar attire as the first person, but he wore green robes and only had a single sword at his side.
“Sud Division Leader, we found something at the town’s center.”
“What is it?”
Li Shen asked.
“It’s…”
In the town center, Jun was on his knees staring at eighteen dead bodies that had bloody holes where their eyes should be.
Blood leaked from their mouths as a result of their tongues being cut out. Their hands had stumps with their fingers missing as well.
Fei Yin, Fang Chen, and Mu Fan had on disbelieving expressions at first but anger quickly began to rise in their hearts.
This once again reaffirmed in everyone's mind that Demonic Cultivators don’t deserve any sympathy.
These group members were tortured before being hung on a pole in the town center.
On the ground in front of them was a message written in blood.
It was a symbol of a scorpion.
“It’s my fault, their deaths are on me.”
Jun had his head down while his emotions run rampant in his heart.
Li Shen next to him immediately spoke up.
“No it isn’t, it’s mine. I made the call to decide to go after a mid-level base.”
Li Shen raised his hand when he saw Lihua about to speak.
“You couldn’t have known this would happen when you chose this town. As the Faction Leader, I’ll shoulder all the deaths of the group.”
Li Shen then looked at the dead bodies.
“Until you all form your respective groups fully and become independent, I’ll shoulder everything. But this isn’t going to be the last time this happens. The cultivation world and death are synonymous, but I’m not saying this is something you should get used to, you just need to make sure events like this become a driving force to-”
Li Shen didn’t get to finish that as another figure in black robes rush towards them.
His eyes were trembling and his face behind the mask was paled. He seemed like he had just seen a ghost.
Everyone turned to watch him approach Fang Chen before he stuttered out.
“S-Sub Division Leader, we opened up a pathway to the underground base, b-but we found the missing towns' people. They're all down there, they were buried alive.”
Everyone froze when they heard that.
Men, women, children, the old and the young. Everyone in the town was murdered.
“Just who would do that? Didn’t the Demonic Cult get a warning from the Righteous Faction that if deaths of this scale happens a war was going to break out? Who in the Demonic Cult was here?”
Mu Fan was still in a disbelieving state as he said that.
"This was done by the worst of the Demonic Cult. To kill so many people was obviously done by someone who didn't have a shred of value for human life. There was no need to kill this many innocent people but whoever they were did."
Fang Chen spoke up, but it almost sounded as if he was just reminding himself why his hatred for the Demonic Cult shouldn't fade away.
Li Shen was unable to remain calm anymore.
His anger was already ignited when his members were crucified, but now, he was absolutely livid.
His eyes landed on the symbol of the scorpion before he swiftly turned around.
“Lihua, come with me. Everyone else stay here to check the other villages and towns nearby. Jun you go back to the Academy to report this.”
“But-”
“That’s an order.”
Jun hearing that stood up and cupped his fists at Li Shen’s back before saying.
“Yes, Master.”
He then produced his white wings and took off in the direction of the Celestial Academy, but not before glancing at his members and gritting his teeth.
Li Wen produced the boat and Li Shen immediately leaped on. The boat then shot off into the night, leaving Fang Chen, Yang Su, Fei Yin, and Mu Fan to complete their tasks.
**
Hey guys, remember I said some stuff happened behind the scenes? Well it's popped up again. This month for some unknown reason my privy tiers vanished spilling out the chaps that were in it. Your welcome regular readers ;)
Anyway, I've been working with my publishers and Webnovel to fix it, and that they did! However, now I'm required to post privy chaps ruining my daily update schedule. I've honestly been stressed out this past week, I was planning on having a new privy tier and post two chaps a day this month but this happened screwing me and you guys over. However, after this is sorted out fully I can go back to normal updates.
As for the power stones goals, they're still ongoing! So vote! vote! vote! We're near to reach our first goal and when we do I'll owe you guys 2 extra chaps this week on top of the privy chaps. Hope you guys can understand as I'm trying really hard to not let you guys down.
-from Tseth, your sleep deprive author (*0*)/
Updat𝓮d from freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.co(m)