The Modern Martial Immortal

The grand auction had come to a close. With the death of a Yin Lunar Sect Void-Refining fiendish cultivator serving as a cautionary tale, the event passed without the slightest disturbance. Everyone obediently followed the rules.

This was all the more so once Yaoguang declared that he would accept custom Dao Artifact orders, leaving the crowd to guess whether an artifact paragon stood behind him or the Penglai Dao Lord backed him directly. Naturally, until more was known, nobody dared act rashly.

Yet, while none dared move recklessly, there were many cultivators waiting to watch the show too. The Yin Lunar Sect had lost a Void-Refining fiendish cultivator, and everyone knew they would not let the matter rest.

On top of that, Sect Master Zong Wenxian was sure to drag his feet if Yaoguang ever needed support. He could not refuse to send aid, but he would give the Yin Lunar Sect a window of time to exploit. It remained to be seen whether Yaoguang could weather the assault from the fiendish cultivators.

***

"Various goods worth four billion Pure Yang Grand Pills," Yaoguang muttered as he took a look inside his storage treasure, now packed to the brim.

He did not put these things to use right away, but turned his attention to the ancient tree in his mental world.

Two Dao Artifacts sold. The cost of one of them especially had been extremely low, which had increased his experience by...

"This little?!" Yaoguang frowned.

He added the experience to the Immortal Dao branch, and it only pushed his progress from the original 36% up to 45%. Not even 10%.

"It doesn't even match the amount I got for refining a Void-Refining fiendish cultivator. Killing Evil Eye earned me around 11% in experience, and yet two Dao Artifacts only come to 9%?"

This was extremely inefficient. Of that 9%, he guessed the Void Sword accounted for only 3%, while the lightning halberd made up the other 6%.

"At this rate, if I rely on selling Dao Artifacts alone to raise my realm to the Dao Lord Realm, I'd need more than thirty of them. I currently need around five years to forge each, and if luck runs against me, it could take me ten, or even twenty. In other words, filling the remaining 55% of experience would take close to a hundred years even if things go smoothly."

A hundred years could not really be called slow. But measured against his usual cultivation speed, calling it slow was an understatement. It was slow to the point of exasperation.

If I want to advance quickly, I still have to put in the work through the Daemon Hunter branch. Yaoguang mused, his thoughts turning to the situation he now faced. The Yin Lunar Sect...

He waved an empty hand, and an image appeared before him. Soon, Chi Yu's figure took shape.

"Deputy Sect Master," he said, greeting Yaoguang.

"Any movement from the Yin Lunar Sect?" Yaoguang asked. Then, as if something had occurred to him, he added, "What about the Lu family, the Li family, the Jing family, and Wu Changfeng? Any unusual activity from them?"

"Yes." Chi Yu answered at once, though her expression was a little odd. "But it's rather strange."

"Strange how?"

"Isn't the tribute date almost upon us? We'd assumed the Lu, Li, and Jing families would make it hard for us to collect the resources we're due to collect, forcing us to take out the difference from our own pockets. Instead, it's gone smoothly," Chi Yu said. "The Lu, Li, and Jing families have been remarkably cooperative. Our people had hardly arrived before all the resources were gathered in without a hitch. The sect's tribute for this decade is no longer a problem."

"Oh?" Yaoguang thought it over and soon understood why these families had grown so docile.

Before, they had gone against him for two reasons. First, they did not know his true strength. Second, they figured his coming to the southern domain amounted to plucking the fruit from Zong Wenxian's tree, and that Zong Wenxian would never let it slide.

With Zong Wenxian's methods, they had reckoned, it would not be long before Yaoguang was beaten down and grew as meek as that deputy sect master of the northern domain. Even if he thrashed about energetically, hoping to accomplish something great, he would in the end share the fate of Song Youque, seized upon and carved up among them.

But now, the situation had clearly shifted. The abilities Yaoguang had displayed, while perhaps not yet enough to threaten Zong Wenxian, at least meant that the sect master would struggle to find any effective means to restrict him, at least for some time; his future had grown murky and unreadable.

Under such circumstances, the Lu, Li, and Jing families naturally wouldn't act rashly to avoid being caught in the crossfire and reduced to ashes.

"I believe that the Lu and Li families have fallen in line. The one standing behind them is, after all, only a peak master, not even a lineage leader. Their interests aren't so deeply bound up with Zong Wenxian's, and their backing is not as strong. But the Jing family bowing its head and caving this meekly?" Yaoguang said, then stated plainly, "Step up surveillance on the Jing family!"

As he spoke, something else occurred to him, and he shook his head. "Never mind. With the auction over, the Heavenly Dragon-Slaying Array naturally can't be kept running. Without the array as cover, sending you to watch the Jing family would risk exposure too easily. I'll see to this one myself. You handle your own duties and just get the tribute ready."

"Yes." Chi Yu hurriedly answered.

Once Chi Yu had left, Yaoguang wasted no time. With a flicker of his figure, he slipped out of the Southern Capital without a sound. With his current mastery of Void Flicker, even a Void-Shattering cultivator would never sense the faintest trace of him unless they kept their full attention fixed on the area he occupied. And the Southern Capital only had a few Void-Refining cultivators at most.

With just a few flickers, he had arrived at a city five hundred thousand kilometers from the Southern Capital. In the great rift valley north of this city grew the environment suited to Carefree Grass.

Most of the Jing family's people had originally been stationed at the core of the southern domain, the Southern Capital itself, but once Yaoguang took over the city and seized control of the Heavenly Dragon-Slaying Array, feeling their safety was no longer assured, the Jing family had retreated to their family's second stronghold, the area they called Carefree Valley.

The valley's innermost region was shrouded by an array spanning fifteen hundred kilometers in every direction. Though the array was only level 11, over the years the Jing family's constant improvements had made it no less capable of slaying and trapping enemies than a level 12 array.

Only Yaoguang was himself a level 10 array caster and had mastered exceedingly refined void Dao Techniques. Furthermore, the array could not possibly stay running at full power at all times, so its detection power wasn't always as high as it could be. It didn't take long before Yaoguang had reached the array's very core undetected.

"Its offensive capability rivals a level 12 array, and with a Void-Refining cultivator like Jing Zhengyang presiding over it, it likely has the power to trap and kill a Void-Refining cultivator," Yaoguang observed it for a while and offered the assessment with a smile.

After looking around, he came to a cliff's face. He hewed out a cave five meters deep and three meters high, and without disturbing the workings of the Carefree Valley array, he laid down a concealment array for himself. Then, with the True Spirit Light, he cast his sight upon Jing Zhengyang and the others, less than fifty kilometers away.

If I want to kill him, I can seal Jing Zhengyang with the Heaven-Sealing Stele before he has time to react, then leave Carefree Valley with a single Void Flicker before they can activate the array. But killing is easy; it's the investigation afterward that's the trouble. Standing behind the Jing family is Jing Yuntian, a Void-Shattering supreme elder. Yaoguang thought.

While maintaining True Spirit Light to observe Jing Zhengyang and the others, he also focused part of his mind on comprehending the two great Dao Techniques he had recently acquired, the Sovereign Human Emperor and the Torrent of Time.

Though he could not actually practice them yet, his understanding of both deepened steadily as he worked through them.

Fortunately, Jing Zhengyang and the rest of the Jing family did not keep Yaoguang waiting long. Or rather, with a profit of four billion Pure Yang Grand Pills dangling before them, neither the Yin Lunar Sect nor Jing Zhengyang could sit still.

Yaoguang had been lurking at the cliff face for only three days when the aura of another Void-Refining fiendish cultivator appeared within the True Spirit Light's perception.

"Here already," Yaoguang remarked.

At once, he activated the Supreme Selflessness, so that the fluctuations of his psychic thought seemed to merge completely with the heavens and earth. Then, maintaining the True Spirit Light form, he swiftly moved to just outside a pavilion built within the valley. And then he took out the Recording Stone.

***

"So it's the Eight Desolations Fiend Lord's eldest disciple, Perfected Lord Crimson Malevolence? Forgive me for not recognizing you." Jing Zhengyang kept his guard up as he watched this Void-Refining fiendish cultivator arrive like a wisp of black smoke, yet he greeted him as amiably as he could.

"Family Head Jing, this new lord of the southern domain from your sect doesn't seem to care about the rules." Crimson Malevolence conveyed through psychic thought, the fluctuations within it brimming with a cold, sinister air.

"You're well aware of our sect's tradition. Every deputy sect master moves to one of the four domains to temper himself, and only by resisting the sect master's oppression can they one day become the new sect master. It's precisely this method that makes every generation of our sect masters outstanding, and it's what's kept the Heavenly Dao Sect from declining over countless years. So this deputy sect master's attitude does not represent our sect master's attitude," Jing Zhengyang explained.

"It's precisely because we understand this that my master sent me to handle your proposal for cooperation... Consider it a mark of our sincerity," the Crimson Malevolence Perfected Lord said, then went straight to the point. "Yaoguang. The Yin Lunar Sect will take him. What is it you want?"

"Take him? That won't do. The Yin Lunar Sect can only get Yaoguang's corpse. The Jing family's ancestor, the sect master included, will never permit a living deputy sect master to reach the Yin Lunar Sect," Jing Zhengyang said. "As for what we want, we only wish for Yaoguang to leave the southern domain as a corpse, so that peace returns to it."

Crimson Malevolence's emotional fluctuations shifted oddly. "The Dao Artifacts on Yaoguang, and the four billion he just made from the auction, you want none of it?"

"Those are your spoils of war. We won't make things difficult for you," Jing Zhengyang said.

The fiendish cultivator's expression turned puzzled. Then, as if something had occurred to him, "You'll only let us leave the southern domain with Yaoguang's corpse... Are you after that mysterious artifact paragon behind him?"

"Whether there's an artifact paragon at all is still uncertain." Jing Zhengyang smiled. "We're only taking a gamble."

"Is that so?" Crimson Malevolence asked flatly, then shrugged. "Back to the crux of our cooperation, then."

The fiendish cultivator's psychic thought locked onto Jing Zhengyang, sensing every fluctuation in his emotions. "Does the Jing family really have a way to sabotage the Heavenly Dragon-Slaying Array? To keep it from activating properly?"

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