Chapter 172: Strike First and Strike Hard

Kang Lin and her team had barely completed their mission to round up the corpses of the rank seven spirit beasts when she heard two immense lightning strikes in the general direction of the village.

“That’s not good,” she told Hou Yazhu, the Rising Tide Sect guard who had been assigned to her group. “Those strikes were powered with a lot of qi. They didn’t sound like practice to me.”

“Go,” the man said. “I can protect the two juniors in the unlikely event something happens. If there’s trouble in the village, you’ll be needed.”

She briefly thought about arguing. Her job as the highest ranked, after all, was to see to the protection of the team. But the man was right. The sect only had access to three Foundation Establishment cultivators, and she was one of them. It wouldn’t take her long to check what was going on if she ran full out. If it was nothing, she’d come right back. If not… Well, it would be good that she checked.

“Thanks,” she said and took off at a run.

Speed had always been one of her focuses as a cultivator as it resonated with her lightning aspected qi. Though she didn’t actually have a movement technique that utilized the manipulation of external qi, she had long mastered her Lightning Dash in the Qi Gathering realm. At Small Success and to some extent Large Success, the skill had only been useful for short dashes. By Mastery, however, she’d gained enough experience to be able to use it over long distances.

With her advancement to Foundation Establishment and the accompanying increase to all her physical traits, it felt like she was flying over the ground as she sprinted, dodging trees and rocks with ease and never misplacing so much as a single step. A distance that had taken her team more than a day to traverse consumed less than an hour.

She still missed the fights, arriving to find Ye Zan dead and Master having departed. Three presumably Golden Core realm cultivators from the Jade Chameleon sect had attacked, probably in retaliation for the killing of Teng Chun. Which meant that Teng Jian, the boy’s father, was likely one of the assailants.

“It will be fine,” she told Yang Xiu. “This kind of thing happens between sects all the time. They attacked. Master won. The Jade Chameleons will not hold the fight against The Rising Tide Sect, especially since Grandfather warned them against acting.”

The girl glared.

“What?” Kang Lin said.

“You think I’m worried about those scum attacking us again? About our safety?” Yang Xiu said. “I want Master to destroy the sect down to the last member and wipe ever vestige of it ever existing from the face of the planet.”



“What? Why?”

“They killed Ye Zan!”

Kang Lin wanted to say, “So?” She rethought the response before actually speaking though. She hadn’t seen the other girl angry often, and there was a madness to her tone. Words were not going to sway her.

As Kang Lin glanced around, she saw that same attitude reflected everywhere, even on the normally placid Zou Tian. Even the meek Wan Ai looked ready to spit nails.

Beyond the small number of guards that had been hired along with Ye Zan, none of these people had known the man for even as many as six months. Life was cheap in a sect. It was like they didn’t expect anyone to ever actually die.

That was when it hit Kang Lin. That was exactly what the members of the Rising Tide Sect thought. They’d challenge the heavens together, never experience hardship or death, and ascend to immortality together.

She frowned, understanding why they might have gained that impression considering their Sect Leader.

It was both not her place and beyond her capabilities to explain to them the realities of sect life. Instead, she went with placation.

“It’s okay,” Kang Lin said. “Master will make them pay. I’m sure of it.”

As in literally pay. He will surely be as reasonable and extract payment from the Jade Chameleons for their trespass, right? Otherwise, he’d be putting the fledgling Rising Tide Sect up against one of the big three.

Talk about dangerous.

And not just for him and the sect. For everyone. For Grandfather, who would have to make a choice to either back a friend of the sect or seek to maintain the already shaky truce with the Jade Chameleons.

That sect had already lost three Golden Core cultivators, a significant setback. A quick war might just benefit the Poison Claw Sect greatly, depending on which way the Swift Blizzard Sect went.

Kang Lin felt a headache coming on just thinking about the possibilities. Today’s events could have ramifications that reached far into the future and upset the balance of power on the entire continent. She was really glad that she didn’t have to decide her sect’s actions going forward.

Even knowing the message would not be able to reach Grandfather before Master made it to the city, she quickly penned a report outlining what had happened.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Good luck, Grandfather!

Having cut through the forest not all that long ago, Benton knew the basic direction of Sixth Flawless Flowing City, so he flew on that heading over a lake rather than following the road to Vermillion Incomparable Rain Town.

In any other circumstances, he was sure he would have loved the feeling of flying through the air on what amounted to a surfboard, but the loss of Ye Zan had sapped all the joy from the experience.

Benton’s thoughts naturally turned to vengeance. His first idea was to destroy the entirety of the Jade Chameleon Sect, as he’d promised his sect members. Raze its buildings to the ground. Kill all its members in Sixth Flawless Flowing City. Find its main sect grounds. Raze and kill there, too. Every man, woman, and child that ever even thought about wearing a gray robe would be destroyed.



That thought finally gave him pause. He wasn’t honestly thinking about killing children, was he? No matter what punishment the elders and maybe even regular sect members deserved, the children were blameless. As were the mortals that worked for the sect. Should a janitor die because of the actions of three Golden Core cultivators?

Su’s sect would have disagreed with that line of thinking. To them, leaving behind even a single mortal relative of a member invited the chance for retribution in the future.

And Benton could see that point of view. Cultivation fiction on the planet abounded with such tales. A man's sect was destroyed. His cultivation base was ruined. An auspicious encounter leads him to becoming very powerful and visiting vengeance on the sect that wronged him.

A tale as old as time and something that really could happen.

To ensure that events like those didn’t happen, all Benton had to do was to reject everything that made him the man that he was. Forget forgiveness. Empathy. Compassion.

Simply kill anyone that might one day bear him ill will.

He would not do it. He could not do it.

The city was rapidly approaching, and he had to make a decision before he got there. Not only that, but with all his enhancements to Speed, his flight approached the velocity of a jet fighter. He’d used a lot of qi during his battle with the three cultivators, and even his prodigious regeneration wasn’t up to the task of returning his levels to an acceptable level in such a short time span.

Spotting a clearing below, he landed and began to Meditate as he considered his plan.

Though he was resolved not to destroy the entire sect, he was entirely justified in unleashing his anger. He’d promised his sect that Ye Zan would be avenged, and by the heavens, Benton would do that avenging.

Not only that, but he’d sent a warning about his anger in an attempt to dissuade the Jade Chameleons from responding with an attack against anyone other than him. It was imperative that the sects learn he was not to be trifled with. Otherwise, his people would never be safe.

Benton let out a breath. Maybe he was rationalizing doing what he, at heart, wanted to do, but he felt better that he wasn’t acting purely from anger. There was definitely a justification for whatever carnage he decided to inflict.

So what was a just punishment?

Not killing every man, woman, and child. Preferably, not even killing any of the low ranked members, anyone in Foundation Establishment and below. They might as well all be children anyway as far as he was concerned.

How about all the Golden Cores that were Jade Chameleon Sect members? Even that seemed … extreme. If they fought against him, he’d kill them. Otherwise, he would not seek out their deaths.

All those exclusions left … what?

The sect grounds.

From what Kang Ya-Ting had told Benton, the sects in the city were showplaces designed to highlight wealth and power. Even more so than the main sect’s grounds away from the city, the resources poured into those ostentatious displays were enormous. Losing all those materials and fruits of years of labor would be a serious blow.

Benton nodded. He would completely obliterate the Jade Chameleon Sect’s grounds in Sixth Flawless Flowing City. Every building would be razed to the foundations. He’d literally salt the ground. Well, more like Void the ground. But that qi usage would yield the same result. No herbs would grow there for generations after he was finished. No metaphorical brick would stand on another metaphorical brick by the time he was finished.

Yes.

That punishment was a fitting one for Ye Zan’s death.



Well, not really. Nothing could bring the guard captain back. No punishment was enough. But the main culprits had been killed, and Benton understood that, on some level, the three had acted on their own.

He honestly didn’t know if he was going too far or not going far enough, but it felt like the best solution he could come up with.

Next problem, how to go about the attack?

In some ways, sects were incredibly bureaucratic. Benton was sure that, in order to wipe one of the sect grounds off the map, there was some form he needed to fill out at the City Lord’s office. Then a clerk would check it in triplicate, requiring Benton to pay a fee before stamping permission.

There were no Nascent Souls in that city, however. The nuclear deterrents lived at the main sect grounds or, in the case of the City Lord, at the Emperor’s Palace. To Benton’s understanding, the three sects were roughly similar in power, though one would wax and another wane with the specific number of Golden Cores available. All had exactly four Nascent Souls each, however. As did the Emperor’s faction. Though the royals had grown a bit in standing since the destruction of the Righteous Rain Sect by expanding their recruiting in the city.

After Benton’s recent fights, he felt confident about his ability to defeat any number of Golden Core cultivators as long as he wasn’t protecting weak allies. His ability to use multiple aspects and create Concepts and techniques on a whim simply made him too powerful for any normal cultivator in his realm.

Nascent Souls, on the other hand…

That beast had been tough. An aura was no joke. He probably could take down one of them in a solo battle. Maybe. But if two or three came against him at once, he had no chance.

His actions were definitely going to anger the Jade Chameleon Sect. More than anger. They’d already lost three Golden Core cultivators, which was both a significant setback for them and a huge loss of face. The destruction of their base in the city would reduce their influence by a large degree. They would not be able to let such an attack go unanswered.

In an ideal world, the Poison Claw Sect would stand with him, and the Swift Blizzard Sect would remain neutral. But Benton didn’t know if either of those outcomes were likely, just as he didn’t know how the City Lord would react.

Benton went back and forth a lot on whether to attack immediately or to try to build political support first. In the end, his decision came down to a lesson learned in Su’s lifetime—cultivators respected strength above all things. Going hat in hand to the City Lord or the other two sects and asking permission was to admit weakness. His best chance of coming through the situation with his life and sect intact was to strike first and strike hard.

And deal with the consequences later.