Alex went to check up on Wen Cheng. After seeing him breathing a bit more easily, he sighed in relief. 'A few days to recover,' he assessed.
He walked out of the Elder's hall and looked at the surrounding. The sect valley that would always be cheerful, even at nighttime with disciples running all around, trying to perform alchemy was totally empty tonight.
The bright streets of the valley looked gloomy from the lack of any human in it.
Alex looked up at the sky, stars gleaming in the nighttime, some brighter than others. The moon seemed a little paler tonight as if the moon itself grieved over the tragedy it witness from the sky.
So many things had happened today and yet… it has still only been 5 hours at most. The time wasn't even 4 am in the night.
Everyone was ordered to go back to their homes to rest, so Alex returned too. He went back to his home and went into a room.
His cultivation base was close to the Bone Tempering realm by now. The yang energy was slowly dissipating from the surrounding. It would still take until morning if not more for it to completely disappear.
Alex decided not to dwell on it anymore and logged out. He opened the capsule and walked out. In the middle of the night, the world was silent.
He got onto his bed, but he couldn't sleep. His eyes were wide open as the feeling started to overwhelm him.
He didn't feel hungry. He didn't feel sleepy. He didn't feel tired. The only thing he could feel was pain. A deep pain that was etched into his soul itself.
The grief, the pain of the loss— it had followed him across bodies, across worlds.
Once again, Alex cried. This body hadn't cried prior to this, so when he cried, the tears flooded his face. Snot dripped down his nose, but he couldn't care any less.
He cried like he had never before. It was close to 4 am in the morning and the rooms had good noise cancellation, so nobody could hear him cry.
Alex wanted to rest, but the tears wouldn't let him. He didn't even feel like he could cry himself to sleep.
No one was there to console him for his loss. Alex felt alone in this place. So, he got back onto the capsule and logged into the game once again.
The grief once more transcended space and came over in his new body, but he had already cried enough and there were no more tears.
He was told to rest, but he didn't think that was possible for him at the moment. He walked out of the room and left the house.
He went up the mountain and walked over to his master's house.
The front yard was fully destroyed, the house turned to rubble. Alex walked past the large patch of blood that was the result of the Third Elder's death.
He then walked up to the other smaller patch of blood that belonged to his master.
He touched the blood on the ground that felt like his tear ducts, completely dry. Even as he looked at the blood on the ground, he didn't feel like crying. He was emotionally exhausted from crying already, numb to the pain.
He felt sad, but that was it.
He then looked ahead of him, a little further away from where the blood was. That was the place where the bastard had fallen over to the ground.
He looked at the ground, and it was clean. Not a single hint of blood was on the ground at all.
Alex was confused at first, but then he remembered what had happened. Due to his master freezing him with all of the attacks, the bastard had never really suffered any wound that made him bleed.
Even the one wound in his chest where the sword had stabbed, the bastard hadn't taken the sword out and was thus not bleeding.
The lack of any emotion other than sadness was slowly changing.
"My master bled so much, and yet he doesn't even bleed a single drop of blood?" the emotion in his heart grew stronger.
"My master was poisoned, and yet he walks away so easily," the emotion continued to grow stronger.
"My master died, and yet he lives." His emotions reached a crescendo.
Rage.
The rage of a thousand suns burned in him when he thought of the unfairness. That bastard lived while his master died.
He gritted his teeth as his eyes narrowed with hatred like never before. His face was a tempest of fury.
He looked up towards the top of the mountain where the bastard had gone towards and left there himself.
Alex understood clearly, more than anyone where the bastard had gone to. So, he decided to go there as well.
He would go there and find that bastard. Then, he would enact his revenge by delivering pain unto him a thousand times more than what his master suffered.
He promised that in his heart.
Alex started walking. He walked up the mountain until he reached the peak. There were 2 elders standing guard there, but he didn't care to stop when they told him to.
They barely had any strength to stop him anyway. He looked down from the massive cliff and jumped.
* * * * * *
A figure appeared outside the city walls. As he got closer to the city, he felt his cultivation base disappearing.
At first, he was incredibly scared. However, after realizing that he was just being suppressed, he sighed in relief.
Still, his cultivation base was in the upper True realms, so he could easily fly over the walls.
The guards were in a terrified state, so when they saw someone fly over, they immediately got to arm. However, in their current state, they couldn't fight the person at all.
The figure looked at the destruction around the city and frowned. He flew down to one of the guards and spoke, "You! What happened here?"
The guard was fearfully putting his spears towards the man, but when he realized who the person was, he immediately put his spear down and bowed.
"Greetings, your majesty!" he shouted. The other soldiers and guards heard him and immediately stood up to bow towards him.
The new figure who had come to the city was the emperor.
"What's going on here?" the Emperor asked again.
"Your Majesty, we-we suffered a bandit attack," the guard said.
"Multiple bandit groups had joined together and attacked the city, Your Majesty," another soldier said. "But we fought them off."
"Where's the city lord?" the Emperor asked.
"He is in his manor, your majesty," the guards said.
"Alright, keep up the good work," the Emperor said and went towards the city lord's manor.
He entered the manor and had the city lord explain to him in detail.
"I see," the emperor said after understanding the current situation. "And what is this suppressing aura around here?"
"That I am baffled by myself, Uncle," the city lord said. "Fortunately, it's slowly dissipating. Anyway, what are you doing here?"
"Sigh, I came here because I heard that kid was back from the beasts' territory. There are some people that want to meet him."
