Chapter 291

Chapter 291: Victory and Defeat

The moment the elder appeared, every face changed.

“Mu Xiao, it is you,” Ember’s eyes turned icy as she said: “Why you? How could it be you?”

Mu Xiao, Grand Elder of the Sunset Glow Sect, was one of the top experts of the Human Race. That alone did not shock Ember. What truly enraged her was this: Mu Xiao’s parents, wife, and children had all died at the hands of Devil Seeds. He had started on the path of cultivation to wipe them out. Everyone knew the Grand Elder of the Sunset Glow Sect hated devils to the bone. In every battle against the Devil Clan, he charged at the front.

For so many years, he had made exterminating Devil Seeds his duty. Ember had considered which people inside the Human Race might be tainted, but she had never once thought it would be Mu Xiao. Were his rage and grief when his family was killed all fake? Were all the years of righteous fury fake as well?

The net was cast. Ember looked at Mu Xiao without expression and asked only one question: “Why?”

Mu Xiao’s face stayed calm as he said: “City Lord, my rage back then was real, and my hatred after that was real too. But do you know what it cost me?”

He spoke evenly: “A body full of wounds, a cultivation that could not advance, and endless pain, that is all hatred brought me. I thought I would hate the Devil Seeds until the end of time. But do you know how amazing a Devil Seed is? I was once an ordinary Tribulation Crossing Stage cultivator. Now I am the Grand Elder of the Sunset Glow Sect, a peak Tribulation Crossing Stage expert, only one step from the supreme. Could that pitiful, hate-filled me have gained power like this?”

He said: “Back then I was young and naive. I let useless feelings control me and wasted my cultivation. When I learned to cast off extra emotions, I became something higher.”

His eyes grew feverish as he went on: “The Heaven Severing Lands are full of such higher beings. One day we will drive out the lower creatures and claim this beautiful world.”

Ember stared at him, cold and distant. So in the end, it was only for power. To gain power, he threw away everything, even hatred and conscience, even his place among his own people, and became a true devil.

“You are very honest,” Ember nodded. “Then I will not hold back.”

Mu Xiao smiled: “City Lord, you are in trouble, are you not? If this avatar is destroyed, your true body will be affected. Today is the day you die. Do you know why I am talking so much? Because I am about to send you and Li to the grave together.”

A huge phantom tree rose behind him as he spoke. In the time he used for words, his secret art was fully set. Magic surged around him. Ten thousand vines spread from the giant tree, each vine glowing with strange devil patterns. Space shuddered wherever they passed.

“This move is All Spirits Wither,” Mu Xiao said softly. “You and Li will not be lonely on the road. Everyone here will die with you.”

The vines around Li Shuang sprouted devil patterns too. She felt them tighten and tighten until her whole body seemed ready to shatter into a thousand pieces. Under that extreme pressure, the Heaven and Earth Furnace in her sea of consciousness spun faster and faster. At the edge of life and death, the furnace showed a strange reaction. Li Shuang was watching the furnace when, in the next breath, a sigh sounded. The bindings around her loosened at once. The danger passed, and the furnace calmed down again.

Li Shuang stared, then snapped her head around. Ember, who had been badly wounded, was healing at a speed her eyes could follow. Her aura climbed, higher and higher, to the peak.

Vines all over the field dropped from the tree like they had met something terrifying. Mu Xiao’s face changed. “You, Ember, you were never injured.”

Ember did not waste breath. She looked at him once. A purple thunderbolt appeared behind Mu Xiao and stabbed straight into his sea of consciousness.

Pain crashed through him. For a heartbeat he felt lost. The City Lord had hidden a purple thunder in the void long ago. He had lost the bet, and now he would die.

At the very end, he felt strangely blank. [Am I human now, or a devil?] He stared at Ember. [How good. She never doubts herself. She always looks forward. Only people like that become true giants.]

Blood red from that night seemed to spread across his sight. [I once swore to kill every devil under heaven. But now…] He gave a bitter smile. [If my parents, my wife, and my children saw me like this, they would not know me.]

Mu Xiao did not know if he regretted it in the end. His mind scattered and his life slipped away. His flesh peeled off, and beneath it stood a True Devil black as pitch. The True Devil turned to flee, but thunder poured down like rain and left not a single bone.

In the Heaven Severing Lands, the faces of several True Devils changed. Something was wrong. Before they could react, Ember’s true body looked at them without expression. The Threads of Law in her hand turned into a blade and chopped down at the lead True Devil. The two heads he had just grown fell at once.

“Retreat,” the lead True Devil yelled in panic. The seven True Devils fled into the depths of the Heaven Severing Lands.

Ember watched without chasing.

“City Lord Yu, we did it,” several supreme experts rushed over in joy. The plan from the Heaven Severing Lands had failed across the board, while many hidden Devil Seeds had exposed themselves. By the results, the Human Race had won a great victory.

“City Lord Yu’s avatar has refined the Path of Thunder to this degree, even we did not know that,” one said with a click of the tongue.

“The City Lord’s Path of Rules has grown a lot too,” another added.

“If not for the Heaven Severing Lands, I would want to charge right in now,” a third said.

Ember only smiled and said: “The Heaven Severing Lands will not act again for a while. We will keep suppressing this place.”

They all agreed.

In the Soul Prison, thunder swept clean the land. The devil qi faded, and the world felt fresh again.

Ember looked at Li Shuang and You Lan and said: “You two, come to the City Lord’s Manor.”