Against the Gods

The eastern part of the Black Soul Mountain Range was the territory of the Black Soul Divine Sect.

Lei Kuangfeng was the Vice Hall Master of the Thirty-sixth Hall. He was of a big and tall stature and his face had a grave and stern expression. His eyes contained a mighty look in them as they stared fixedly at all the orderly disciples standing in front of him.

“Hall Master went over to Darkya City this morning in order to take care of some matter there. Therefore, I’ll be supervising the assessment this time.” Lei Kuangfeng swept his gaze over the disciples, before he said in a heavy voice, “You are the hundred most outstanding ones among the thirty thousand disciples of the Thirty-sixth Hall! The future of our Thirty-sixth Hall and even that of the whole Black Soul Divine Sect, rests upon your shoulders and you should be proud of it!"

“But, only twenty people can participate in the Sectwide Grand Competition in three months. Today, the first assessment will be conducted. If you want to participate in the Sectwide Grand Competition, then you’d better show me your real abilities!”

There were a hundred Black Soul Divine Sect disciples present before him. Moreover, it was obvious at a glance that they were disciples from the younger generation. Despite that, the aura of their profound strength was very astonishing. Nearly sixty percent of them were at the late stage of the Divine Origin Realm and the remaining forty percent had already reached the Divine Soul Realm. The strongest few were even close to the middle stages of the Divine Soul Realm.

Those who were able to attain such cultivation level, under sixty years of age, were absolutely considered impressive and superb geniuses in a lower star realm.

They were the hundred most topnotch people, among the tens of thousands of disciples, in the Thirty-sixth Hall of the Black Soul Divine Sect. Even among the younger generation of the entire Darkya Realm, they would all be deemed topnotch existences.

“The rules have been stated very clearly. You’ll be only given four hours.” Lei Kuanfeng raised two fingers. “Within these four hours, you all must come back here, no matter the result. If you take more than that, even if the difference is as insignificant as a breath time, just directly get lost from the sect without coming back here. Is that clear!?”

“Yes!” All the disciples answered uniformly.

“Good! The assessment starts now. All of you get going!”

Hearing Lei Kuangfeng’s order, all the disciples quickly dispersed from the place. Their figures swiftly disappeared to every corner of the Black Soul Mountain Range while Lei Kuangfeng stayed in place, with his eyes closed as he rested his mind.

In a valley between two short mountains a short while later, a disciple of the Black Soul Divine Sect could be seen slowly walking forward. He was enormously proud of being a young disciple of the Divine Soul Realm and hence, also had the qualification to act on his own.

He sensed the aura of a profound beast that wasn’t too far away from him slowly drawing near… However, he was completely unaware that there was someone a bit more than one and a half meters away that his spirit sense wasn’t able to detect, that his eyes couldn’t see. As he walked forward, that invisible figure quietly raised the blue, small, and exquisite short blade in its hand.

DING!!

Profound energy that was not at all strong and could even be rated as weak erupted from the figure but it soon vanished in an instant before it could be sensed. The Black Soul Divine Sect disciple felt itchy at his neck all of a sudden, as if he was bitten by a mosquito. He subconsciously stretched out his hand to swat it but the scene ahead reversed abruptly in the next instant…

His head smoothly fell down from his neck, without giving him the time to show fear on his face, or even being able to cry out.

Following the release of his profound energy, Yun Che’s figure also appeared and he quickly pointed backward with his finger. The still standing corpse of the Black Soul Divine Sect disciple began to immediately get covered in a thin layer of ice. His entire body was completely frozen before the aura of his blood could spread out.

Yun Che didn’t even turn around his head to take a glance at him. He took two steps forward and then, his figure disappeared into thin air again.

It was at this time that another figure of a Black Soul Divine Sect disciple appeared at the entrance of the valley. The instant he caught sight of the headless corpse, a frightened expression emerged on his face. He was about to run away on impulse, when a streak of cold light suddenly shot out from his right and pierced through his throat!

In another direction, four disciples of the Black Soul Divine Sect were walking forth in a group. Yun Che hid himself on a mountain rock that was around fifty meters tall, as his indifferent gaze locked onto them.

Using Moon Splitting Cascade along with the Sound Butterfly Blade, he was confident that he would be absolutely able to assassinate anyone under the Divine Tribulation Realm, without making a sound or facing any danger. But in the case of having many assassination targets, it was required to instantly take down the other party, before they could sense the killer’s presence. Assassinating two people simultaneously was still alright but it would be a bit troublesome against three people. Considering there were four people in the group, it would be a bit too difficult to assassinate them without letting others know of his presence… After all, they weren’t ordinary disciples of the Black Soul Divine Sect.

When the four people came within his line of sight, he didn’t make any move. Instead, he undid the invisibility state, as scarlet-old flames ignited in his indifferent pupils.

A formless soul power spread outwards and enclosed the surroundings.

Illusory Realm Domain—Red Butterfly!!

The four disciples stopped in their tracks at the same time and their gazes gradually fixed ahead. In all of their eyes reflected the figure of a scarlet butterfly that was currently dancing in the air.

“Do you see a butterfly that appears like fire?” One of the disciples asked.

“Man, do you even need to ask the obvious? But, it’s my first time seeing such a butterfly. Could it be some kind of fire spirit?” another disciple replied. He didn’t sense anything odd, looking at the scarlet butterfly dancing “before his eyes.”

“How is it possible for a fire spirit to be here? Oh, one more came… Now, over ten more fire spirits joined the other two. This is so strange. Just where are they flying over from?” While speaking, he was completely unaware of his eyes growing wider and wider and his voice becoming increasingly feeble.

“Seems like… more and more… more and more… more… and more… more…”

Within their line of sight, one fiery scarlet butterfly increased to two and then, they again increased to more than ten… several hundred… several thousand… while they were in a daze… until their entire field of vision and surroundings were filled with them… Eventually, they could see no scarlet butterflies in their line of sight, which was now solely occupied by an intensely burning flame.

By the time the flame extinguished, the fires of their souls had also been thoroughly exhausted.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Like a pile of wooden logs that was blown down by the wind, the four disciples of the Black Soul Divine Sect fell down one after another, in the short period of two breaths. The way they died looked exactly the same… They all had a dull expression on their faces and their eyes were opened wide, but they didn’t have any luster in them and just appeared grayish white.

Their bodies were still emitting the auras of their lifeforce, their blood was circulating as usual and their hearts were beating at an even rate too… However, they would never be able to wake up again.

Yun Che’s figure also disappeared from the place at this time, as he approached the next target while invisible.

Red Butterfly Domain was the power of the eighth stage of Golden Crow’s Record of the Burning World. It was the second mental domain that Yun Che had come to possess after inheriting the Dragon Soul Domain. But the difference between them was that the Dragon Soul Domain had an incomparably tyrannical soul-terrifying effect. On the other hand, although the Red Butterfly Domain wasn’t as overbearing as the Dragon Soul Domain, it had an even more cruel and ruthless effect—Burning the soul to extermination!

What was even more fearsome was the fact that it allowed the use of the power of the Golden Crow flame with the soul as a medium, which made it possible to use the power of the Golden Crow flame without releasing it outside the body. So long as one was able to control it well, they could employ the power against an opponent without letting the other party detect its emission!

————————

There was still nearly two hours before the assessment came to an end but Lei Kuangfeng opened his eyes all of a sudden.

He sensed something odd.

The mountain region before his eyes was unusually silent. There were no shouts of the disciples nor roars of profound beasts and even the wind blowing past his ears was incomparably clear.

An indescribable sense of uneasiness abruptly awoke in his heart. He flew up into the sky, as he swiftly unleashed his spirit sense but failed to sense the aura of any disciple, even after a long time.

The feeling of uneasiness in his heart grew bigger and he promptly flew to the depths of the mountain range, with his gaze sweeping down. Finally, at some point in time later, he sensed auras of several living beings… but soon after, his pupils shrank and he flew downward.

There were bodies of six people lying dead, straight on the ground. Their eyes were wide-open but there were no pupils showing within them. Their breathing and auras were extremely frail and there were no injuries or aura of blood present on their bodies. However, none of them budged an inch, as if they had lost their souls.

“What… what is going on here!?” Lei Kuangfeng was greatly shocked in his heart. Then, he suddenly jumped to his feet, released his profound aura and roared in a very loud voice, “Who is it!? Who has the guts to dare plot against my Black Soul Divine Sect! Show yourself!!”

His roar reached far, far to the distant places in the mountain region but there was no response at all to it.

As the layer of ice melted, the originally sealed auras of blood also began to disperse into the air. Tracking down the auras, Lei Kuangfeng found corpses of the disciples one after another. The way all of them died was identical. They had been beheaded and the places where their heads had separated from their bodies were so smooth, as if they had been deliberately polished.

There were some heads with a terrified expression on them and some of them even looked calm.

Those disciples who still had their heads on had bulging eyes, without an exception. They did seem to have lifeforce but their consciousness had already turned into nothingness.

Following the discovery of more and more dead disciples, Lei Kuangfeng gradually widened his eyes in fear… six… ten… thirty… sixty… one hundred…

In the end, he found the corpses of all the hundred disciples, none of whom was lucky enough to survive!!

To his surprise, he didn’t sense any unusual sounds, movement, or aura this whole time, nor did he hear the sound transmission of any disciple.

There was only one explanation to it. Whether the disciples were acting alone or in a group, all of them were killed in an instant, not even allowing them to make a sound! Otherwise, as long as someone let out a slightly loud scream, even if for half a breath, he would have been able to sense it.

In comparison to being able to instantly kill them, the thing that was even more terrifying was the fact that to instantly kill a disciple of the Divine Soul Realm, even a practitioner of the Divine Tribulation Realm would need to employ at least fifty percent of their energy. He could have easily sensed such an amount of energy when he was himself not that far away from them, even if the other party restrained it right after the release.

But, he actually hadn’t sensed a thing while the hundred disciples met with such sudden deaths!

Such fear of the unknown made Lei Kuangfeng’s scalp go numb. A chill frantically ran down his spine… Impossible! It was impossible for such a thing to happen. Don’t tell me it’s the work of some gho… ghost or spirit?

“Who is it!? If you have the guts, get the hell out here now!! How dare you provoke our Black Soul Divine Sect!? Just you wait and see. Your nine generations of relatives will be thoroughly exterminated by us!!”

While crazily howling, Lei Kuangfeng quickly turned around in the air, looking in all directions. His howl did seem to have astonishing force, but he was trembling and frightened within.

He could have dropped the matter if it concerned only ordinary young disciples of the Black Soul Divine Sect. But… the hundred disciples who had met strange and sudden deaths were not only extraordinary disciples, they were also the most outstanding hundred disciples of the current generation in the Thirty-sixth Hall. Their deaths were an incomparably enormous loss to the Thirty-sixth Hall, as well as to the Black Soul Divine Sect.

The most direct consequence of this incident would be seen in the Sectwide Grand Competition. Their Thirty-sixth Hall would straight away sink down to the bottom of the rankings and the young generation of the hall would not be able to show their faces to others.

Feeling chilly and afraid in his heart, it didn’t take that long for his imposing attitude to crumble. He randomly picked up the bodies of two disciples and quickly flew away in the direction of the sect headquarters. When he arrived at the previous location, he suddenly sensed a pretty strong smell of blood.

At the place where he was waiting for two hours with closed eyes earlier, there were two phrases written in quite big and bloody letters at this time:

The lives of a hundred thousand Black Soul Divine Sect disciples, to commemorate the souls of the wood spirits!

—Ling Yun.

The aura of blood was permeating the air, clearly indicating that it was written just a while ago. However, whether it was earlier or right now, he hadn’t sensed the existence of any aura.

Lei Kuangfeng felt his body begin to shiver uncontrollably. He took out a Profound Imagery Stone and imprinted the image of the bloody letters. No longer daring to let out shouts, he instead rushed to the sect in a desperate hurry.