Chapter 412: Survivor
“You came to me alone because you know that I cultivate the Blood Spirit Art and wish to talk to me about Blood Fiend Sect?” Qin Lie became cautious on the inside, subconsciously touching the spatial ring with a finger, ready to react to anything.
“Of course.” Bei Mo smiled.
He took one step after another toward Qin Lie, and when yellow rings began to appear on Qin Lie, he slipped past him and headed toward the inner regions of the Blood Cloud Mountain Range.
Qin Lie was surprised.
Bei Mo’s footsteps were easygoing as he showed his back to Qin Lie and walked in the direction of the inner regions of the mountain range on his own.
There were plenty of dried gray brown bones along the way. These dried bones once belonged to the disciples of Blood Fiend Sect. They were all killed more than a thousand years ago.
Bei Mo carefully avoided these bones. He did not step on the dried bones even once, seemingly afraid that he would disturb the slumber of the remains.
“More than a thousand years ago, there were several tens of thousands of Blood Fiend Sect disciples who cultivated the Blood Spirit Art. Very few of them—not even twenty percent—relied on consuming blood to survive.” Speaking as he walked, Bei Mo’s tone was calm. “Eighty percent of Blood Fiend Sect disciples never consumed human blood and only worked hard to temper their own blood energy. Women, the elderly, and the young were among those people. Some were babies who had never cultivated in their entire lives, and yet they too were struck by that disaster.”
Xue Li’s deep sigh resonated within Qin Lie’s mind.
“Follow him and hear what he has to say,” Xue Li advised.
Qin Lie immediately followed after Bei Mo.
“The three great families—the Xiahou Family, the Lin Family, and the Su Family—all knew about Blood Fiend Sect’s circumstances. They knew that eighty percent of Blood Fiend Sect’s disciples were innocent. However, they never told the other Silver rank forces this, instead telling those wolves that everyone in Blood Fiend Sect relied on consuming human blood to live… that all of them had fallen to evil ways.”
Bei Mo laughed coldly. “They naturally could not wait for Blood Fiend Sect to be slaughtered to the last person. When Blood Fiend Sect was strong, the three great families could only humbly obey them, afraid to put up even the slightest resistance. How could they possibly let go of the chance to free themselves and rise to the top when it was finally presented to them?
“Their poison made all of the Silver rank forces go mad with carnage. With their goal to exterminate all of Blood Fiend Sect, the Silver rank forces began a sweeping operation on the entire Blood Cloud Mountain Range. My senior said that, during that battle, Blood Cloud Mountain Range was stained with blood, and the many palaces that Blood Fiend Sect built atop the mountains were destroyed. Everywhere within five hundred kilometers was filled with cries of pain and death. It was an appalling sight.
“After the battle, every Blood Fiend Sect disciple in the Blood Cloud Mountain Range was killed. It didn’t matter if they’d consumed human blood before, if they cultivated the Blood Spirit Art, or if they were a child or not. All of them were slaughtered to the last man.
“Many years later, the three great families slowly rose to power. When the other Silver rank forces had already forgotten about Blood Fiend Sect, they were still sending experts to the other continents and secluded islands in the Land of Chaos to find martial practitioners who cultivated the Blood Spirit Art and relentlessly kill all of them.
“They are afraid that Blood Fiend Sect will rise to power once more. They are afraid that Blood Fiend Sect will return to the Heavenly Calamity Continent and take back everything that was rightfully theirs.”
Bei Mo suddenly stopped.
Qin Lie gave him an odd stare while frowning. “So you support Blood Fiend Sect?”
Bei Mo smiled faintly. “If the Blood Spirit Art you cultivated weren’t pure, I would not have wasted my breath. I wouldn’t have even said a sentence more to you.”
“I think that we’re of the same sect then.” Qin Lie chuckled.
Qin Lie did not need Xue Li’s reminder to see the truth. Just from Bei Mo’s attitude and abnormal actions alone, he could tell.
“Although Blood Fiend Sect was destroyed more than a thousand years ago, there are still people who survived that disaster.” Bei Mo did not deny it, and with narrowed eyes, he indifferently said, “Those who survived did their best to escape from the Heavenly Calamity Continent. They switched to new identities and cultivated other spirit arts to conceal themselves, struggling to survive while afraid of being discovered.
“There are very few people who would dare to return to the Heavenly Calamity Continent, much less come to the Blood Cloud Mountain Range because, every so often, the three great families would join forces and send their experts to scour the Blood Cloud Mountain Range. Any suspicious people would be killed on the spot.”
Bei Mo looked at him with a serious expression. “I have reminded you again and again to leave this place, but you simply refuse to listen. Now that I have explained everything to you, it would be best if you immediately departed as far from Blood Cloud Mountain Range as possible. There’s no telling if the experts of the three great families will patrol this area and discover your existence. It will be too late for regrets once that happens, and just like these dried bones, you will slumber here forever.”
“Go to the seventh mountain in front of us!” Xue Li suddenly cried out. “Bring this man along!”
This briefly stunned Qin Lie, who then frowned and said, “Follow me.”
As soon as he did, he started moving faster and slipped past Bei Mo like a breeze between the mountains. He went toward the seventh mountain.
Bei Mo’s eyes were filled with doubt. After a brief moment of hesitation, he finally obeyed his curiosity and followed Qin Lie.
The Blood Cloud Mountain Range was made up of fifteen connected mountains that were each several thousand meters tall. When Blood Fiend Sect had been powerful, grand palaces were built on all fifteen mountain peaks. Many Blood Fiend Sect disciples had lived and cultivated on every mountain.
Of the fifteen, the seventh mountain was at the center of the Blood Cloud Mountain Range and was more than ten thousand meters tall. Numerous clouds circled the halfway point of the mountain and shrouded its peak.
The seventh mountain was where Blood Fiend Sect had been located. It was the main mountain where the sect master of Blood Fiend Sect had lived.
The remaining fourteen mountains surrounded the main mountain in a ringlike pattern. Blood Fiend Sect’s elders, enforcers, and disciples would live in the belly of these mountains, and there were even blood pools inside of them that the disciples would soak in to temper their blood.
At present, all fifteen mountains were devoid of human life. There was only a sea of dried bones and corpses that had decomposed after being left untouched for more than a thousand years.
The palaces atop the mountains were in shambles, and the giant caves inside the mountains were either collapsed or destroyed. The massive amount of spirit materials that had been stored inside of them had long since been stripped clean by the Silver rank forces, the Xiahou Family, the Su Family, and the Lin Family.
Rotten bones were the only things that appeared along Qin Lie’s path.
These bones were all grayish-brown in color. They did not have the jade-like sheen of a dead expert’s remains. It was obvious that the ranks of the deceased had been incredibly low.
An hour later, Qin Lie stopped at the foot of the seventh mountain where there were several thousands of grayish-brown bone remains. These bones were either disintegrating or dismembered, and a tragic aura permeated the land beneath the blood red clouds.
“Many corpses of experts were collected by the clansmen of the three great families after their bodies rotted away. The remains of an expert were as translucent as jade, and they could be used as materials in artifact forging. The remains of Nirvana Realm and Imperishable Realm martial practitioners contain huge amounts of energy and can even be used as energy sources for many great formations. The three great families naturally did not want to leave such resources untouched.”
Standing still, Bei Mo looked at the piles of bones and spoke with a thoroughly icy tone, “The corpses of these low rank martial practitioners did not meet the requirements of artifact forging. Of course they were carelessly abandoned—no one could be bothered to bury them all.”
“Go up the mountain and find a cave that leads to the belly of the mountain,” Xue Li instructed.
Thus, Qin Lie climbed up the mountain.
The seventh mountain was ten thousand meters tall. Its body was huge, and its surface was bare. Not a single plant lived on it.
After climbing three thousand meters, Qin Lie arrived at the midpoint of the mountain. Under Xue Li’s constant guidance, he headed for a cliff at the mountain’s rear.
Bei Mo followed him the entire way, the confusion in his eyes continuing to grow. He got more and more curious about Qin Lie’s actions.
Another hour passed, and Qin Lie saw many giant caves in an area that faced away from the sun.
These caves were all connected to the belly of the mountain. Qin Lie randomly selected one to enter and found that the belly of the mountain was rather wide. As usual, corpses and remains could be seen everywhere.
It was obvious that the interior of this mountain had been carefully cleaned out in the past.
Every Blood Fiend Sect martial practitioner that had lived here had probably been found and slaughtered.
“Stop!” Xue Li exclaimed.
Qin Lie’s footsteps came to a halt.
Bei Mo, who had followed him all this way, also stopped and looked at Qin Lie with bewildered eyes.
“Release me,” Xue Li said quietly.
“But he’s…” Qin Lie was surprised.
“I wish to meet him,” Xue Li said.
This was the belly of the seventh mountain. It was close to the light that came from the cave entrance, so although this place was dark, their vision was not affected too badly.
If they continued to go deeper, it would get darker and darker, eventually becoming so dark that one would not even be able to see their own fingers.
“What do you want to do?” Bei Mo asked Qin Lie.
“Someone wishes to see you.” Qin Lie narrowed his eyes and unlocked the seal inside the Soul Suppressing Orb, releasing Xue Li from his containment.
A thread of bloody light flew out of Qin Lie’s forehead. Xue Li’s fragmented soul slowly condensed to form a bloody soul wisp.
Thinking that Qin Lie was going to attack him, Bei Mo’s expression changed. He was about to subconsciously move toward the cave entrance.
“Your surname should not be Bei, but Mo, right?” Xue Li spoke in the human language. In a deep tone he asked, “Who is Mo Jun to you?”
“Who are you? How do you know my father?” Bei Mo yelled.
“You are very similar to your father.” Xue Li let out a sigh. “Is your father… still alive?”
“He is alive.” Bei Mo’s curiosity was piqued. “I am actually called Mo Bei. Who are you? Why do you only have a fragment of your soul?”
“I am Xue Li. More than a twelve hundred years ago, I was once the newly appointed sect master of Blood Fiend Sect,” Xue Li said quietly.
“Senior Xue Li!” Mo Bei screamed all of a sudden.
Xue Li stared deeply at him, saying, “I have never cultivated the evil art, and I have never harmed my own kind. I believe that your father knows this.”
“My father once told me that the person who descended into the path of evil was in fact your junior brother, Jiang Zhuzhe. Not long after you were imprisoned, Jiang Zhuzhe killed the old sect master, and in the process, the matter of him consuming human blood was quickly exposed. However, at the time there were already plenty of disciples who had been corrupted by him. There were even plenty of elders who lost their way and consumed human blood to cultivate.”
Mo Bei grew agitated as he explained in a loud voice, “It was uncontrollable! After more and more disciples discovered that they could use other people’s blood to cultivate faster, quickly accumulating their strength and rising in realm, they gradually went insane and began hunting countless martial practitioners belonging to vassal forces on the Heavenly Calamity Continent. They eventually went too far and enraged the Silver rank forces of the Land of Chaos. Blood Fiend Sect walked to its doom because of their evil deeds.”
“How many survivors are there?” Xue Li said, trembling.
“Jiang Zhuzhe brought a few trusted aides with him and actually managed to survive with Blood Escape. No one has heard about him since then, and no one knew where he went.” Mo Bei took a deep breath and said, “My father and your wife left Blood Cloud Mountain Range after the old sect master was killed. When the disaster happened to Blood Fiend Sect, they had actually been gone from the Blood Cloud Mountain Range for a very long time. That was why they managed to survive.”
“My wife! Is my wife still alive?” Xue Li’s soul began to shudder intensely.
“She is alive. In fact, you also have a daughter,” Mo Bei said softly.