3 Children?

Righteous sword saints of light sect

Below the withered mountain

2nd floor prison

Loud laughs could be heard from the four mortal disciple 8-star guards currently on duty.

"I bet 3 fasting pills 4 will die today!"

"No no, I heard yesterday there are only seven left down there, there no way only four will die. I bet 3 fasting pills at least 5 will die!"

"you guys clearly have no idea of the conditions down there, I talked to Sam earlier, I bet 3 fasting pills all seven will be dead by tomorrow morning hehehe.

Larry you should go run down and ask if John wants to get in on the betting, I heard he'll be receiving a foundation building pill at the end of the month.

If I get my hands on that, breaking into the grandmaster realm can be done in a single breath"

"oh stop dreaming with your little talent and work ethic there's no way the sect would waste such a precious pill on you!

Already so old and still dreaming of making breakthroughs? Keep dreaming, even if you manage to break through into the Grandmaster realm that's definitely the limit of your talent.

You would have higher hopes of saving the pill for that daughter of yours. I heard she's already at the 3-star disciple stage and she's only 16.

If your smart you would give her your full support and ride her coattails into early retirement hehehe."

Bantering back and forth the four didn't even notice a shadow has been silently watching them from the corner of the prison this entire time.

"is this sect so poor that they don't have life tokens for their disciples or is it so big that the lives of a few Mortal masters don't matter to them at all?

There's no way the death of a few guards can go unnoticed right?"

The stairway leading out of the third floor was about a half of mile long, after nearing the end Alucard could clearly hear the betting of these guards and was immediately ready to kick ass and take names later.

But after realizing they hadn't been notified about the happenings on the third floor he decided to wait and gather some Intel first.

After listening in for several minutes and still seeing no reaction Alucard couldn't help but think the sect itself must be lacking in strength and resources since the guards he's come across both times are so lax and seem to not take cultivating seriously.

Who in their right mind would be napping and gambling while on duty instead of driving spiritual energy throughout your body to reach the next realm quicker.

"I guess the fall of this sect will come much sooner rather than later hehehe.."

Pushing his way out of the shadows Alucard appeared in the blind spot of the guards, lifted his hand up and pointed in the direction of where they were sitting.

From the tip of his index finger four drops of blood floated out and hovered in front of him. Driving his Blood Qi the drops of blood each expanded from the size of a drop to a meter long throwing javelin.

Although his Qi cultivation was low, his body cultivation was already at the grandmaster level and each of the tiny javelin's was filled with his vital energy.

After fully forming and solidifying he coated each of the javelin's in soul force to help finish his plan.

Although it seems like all this took a long time, the time from him leaving the shadow and fully executing his Infinite Blood Ocean battle arts only a brief few seconds have gone by.

Within 7 seconds all four guards had their hearts impaled and had lost consciousness. It would be nice to think they were on their way to the river stix but Alucard blood arts really are to vicious.

Completely devouring his opponents of their Qi, vitality, and their souls in mere moments. Unlike when driving the technique through his body or the body of his companions, when facing a foe he doesn't need to be gentle.

Directly ripping out every ounce of their power to help further push his cultivation. Before long the guards bodies mummified and four drops of blood essence protected by a membrane created from the javelin's came floating towards Alucard.

"I don't have time to keep starting and stopping on my journey out of this prison. Although slower, I can still drive the cultivation technique while on the go.

It just takes more time to digest the increase in power. But I'll continue to make breakthroughs along the way."

After swallowing the newly gained blood essence Alucard started paying attention to the prisoners on this floor.

"from the looks of it these are practitioners that cultivate the devil arts. Despicable humans only they would form such a disturbing cultivation technique in the pursuit of power. "

Devil cultivators should not be mistaken for demons. Being a demon is a racial trait, devil practitioners are humans that sacrifice babies to their Gods and rape young men and women of their primal yin and yang essence.

Their victims if lucky enough to come out the other end alive, have almost no chance to cultivate to higher levels in the future unless they switch to practicing the devil arts themselves.

This endless cycle of sacrificing innocent blood and souls has continued on for millennia, most practitioners were victims themselves at one point. But it doesn't excuse their choices afterwards.

"if I wasn't afraid your blood would taint me with your disgusting ways I would devour you all right here and now.

Luckily all of your cultivation bases have been crippled so you won't have to worry about becoming shriveled up mummies Right now.

But I'm not going to let go of your other uses that easily Hahahaha!"

Taking his time Alucard would phase in and out of every cell, make a grasping motion and ripped out the souls of each of the prisoners.

Having your soul ripped out while still alive was an awful sight to behold. It was like an invisible rope was being pulled out of their chest throwing their head back while having their chest pulled in the opposite direction.

At the moment of losing your soul, the soul flame would envelope their entire body making them look like they were being burned alive. All these devil practitioners souls were of various shades of red and black speaking volumes to the atrocities they've committed.

The soul flames would of course resist leaving the protection of their vessels, but after being tortured and malnourished what kind of resists could these prisoners offer.

It only took a light yank and Alucard hands were being filled with soul fire. Most cells only held half a dozen people at most, so after doing his rounds he successfully accumulated about 83 souls.

What was troubling was that the two cells at the end of the corridor, opposite each other, were more than double the size of all the other cells in which he found a group of malnourished children. These more than 40 children gave off no signs of having cultivated before. What reason could they be imprisoned for?

Unlike the guards and the other prisoners you could tell that all these children most likely came from the same place. They all had hazelnut colored skin with gold, brown, and red undertones. Their hair was of a weird reddish brown color and their eyes were actually scarlet around the pupil and bled into an almost gold color as the iris expanded out.

"can any of you speak?"

Having not hid any of his actions several of the children had seen him going around killing not only the guards but also the devil practitioners. Many were shivering, too frightened to step forward.

Eventually from the groups a boy who couldn't be older than 14 who was holding another young boys hand, possible his sibling, gathered the courage to step forward. The first thing out of his mouth the was a bit curious.

"Are.. are you a demon? Like the ones that we are told about in stories?"

Frowning a little bit alucard used his spiritual sense to scan the boys body. Although his body was bruised in several place and he was malnourished like the rest of them, nothing else seemed out of the ordinary.

"I can only imagine what kind of tails you parents have told you in the night to make you behave. Yes i am demon kin. But no i am not going to needlessly kill you, those guards and prisoners were served the death they deserve. Nothing more, nothing less."

To his words only a few of the children let out breaths they themselve probably didn't even know they were holding. But out of the corner of his eye he could see even more ball their fists up tighter as if resolving themselves.

After hearing the demons words, the boy looked around at several of the children and when their eyes met with each other they all gave slight nods. Whatever they had been discretely talking about during Alucards massacre they seem to have come to a unanimous decision

Standing a little taller after straightening his back the boy looked Alucard directly into the eyes which was even a bit more shocking, looking a vampire in the eyes? Does he not fear his own death?

"Several of us older kids are willing to give you our lives if you promise to kill the elders of this damnable place! The only other thing we ask is to let the younger children go without forcing them into slavery or to become your meal!"

Such strong words coming out of the mouth of someone so young brought a smirk to alucards face. But this small gesture caused a bit of panic and confusion among the children.

Several of them had argued that this plan would never work and what would the lives of a few children mean to a demon who could kill them with the single wave of his hands?

Misinterpreting alucards gesture, the young boy who spoke out immediately kneeled down and knocked his head against the ground over and over again. He didn't say a word but his intentions were clear. He was begging alucard with his life on the line.

All he wanted was for his younger brother to be able to escape the confine of this disgusting sect and try to live a normal life!

Having no intention of taking the lives of any of these children alucard didn't immediately explain himself. First he wanted to see if he could milk any information out of these children. As a vampire he could always sink his fangs into one of their throats and directly pull their memories out as he bleeds them dry.

But he already said he had no intention of killing them and with how malnourished they were a drink for a few moments is all he would get out of them and that would hardly be enough time to get all the information he wanted. First off, to drink the memories threw a person's blood can be painful for the one being bled if they resist in anyway or if they are unpracticed in letting their mind relax and having someone else in there probing.

Second, forcing the memories out of the guards would be fine but they were all grunts of the sect. They could hardly have any useful information and the process would take some time to complete. If he was to waste time he would just wait for a more opportune time, and for the fish he catches to be much bigger than these small fries.

But these kids should not need much coercing and they clearly don't have good relation with the sect either. Simply asking may bare him much more fruit in this moment instead of leaving a bad taste in their mouth about him. With a wave of his hand the young boy was immediately lifted off the ground. That wave also carried some of his intentions of allowing qi to gather in the bodies of these children getting them to relax and helping relieve some fatigue.

"Before all that, you may address me as Lord Alucard, what's your name young one? Why don't you tell me your grievance with the sect and what reason they have all of you locked in here?"

Knitting his brows together the young boy gathered his thoughts before he spoke again.

"I.. I'm Roy, the Chief of Star light ruby village. Two months ago, our village which is usually under the protection of the sect, was plundered and destroyed by the heretics that you've killed in this place.

The sect knew that our village was a potential target for their attack, but instead of protecting everyone they further baited the heretics out hoping for a chance to gather them all up and kill them.

In the process they waited for an entire day to go by after the initial attack before they launched their plans to capture or kill the heretics. Our village was destroyed during that time completely burnt to the ground, all of our parents and other villagers were either raped or killed to satisfy the heretics.

After killing our parents the heretics had gathered all those under the age of 17 together, they planned to ship us back to their blood altar. To either become a sacrifice or to have our primal essence extracted from us. Of course those that survived would then be coerced into joining them and would eventually become heretics themselve.

When the Righteous Sword Saints of Light finished killing and subduing the heretics, they then turned to us. Their excuse for holding us here for two months is that they don't know if any of us have already been tainted by the heretics teachings. But their actions speak volumes of their true intentions.

If the outside world knew that a famous sect such as them allowed a village to be massacred without even killing a Grandmaster level heretic, everyone would be up in arms to revolt against them.

This sect likes to act like their hands are clean and that they are the chosen to lead people into the light by their ancestor God, but during the time that we've been here they have snatched 19 of us away to be the play things of several of the upper echelons of the sect. A few times those children may come back. But after the third or fourth time, we never see them again.

They took one of us yesterday and that would already be that child's fifth time going. We know we will never see him again, and they will be back again tomorrow to choose a new one of us to keep the elders company…"

Spending his last life as a demon and many lives before that as various kinds of cultivators, alucard was no stranger to the wicked ways of the world. It was always the power that be, those who portrayed themselves as spotless perfect groups that knew no wrong; That would have some of the darkest secrets within.

To think he would incarnate into such a vile sect and had to kill his way out to escape. These cultivators were all trash and there was no need to leave any legacy behind of such a place. Now to see if this group of children had a better understanding of the strength of this sect.

From the child's words, this apparently couldn't be a small sect if they had a standing among the populous and cultivation world. A sect that would care so much about their image is usually no less than a tier two sect. This could even be a tier one sect. But the chance of the later are extremely unlikely. What kind of tier one sect has mere Grandmaster and Master level cultivators guarding a prison. And since i awoke at the lowest floor, all the guards leading out of here will only continue to grow weaker.

The underlying meaning behind all these things left a lingering fear in alucards mouth. He hoped the information these children provided would dispel these fears.

"Roy, are you saying that they set their plan up hoping to catch higher level heretics but none showed up?"

Roy gentle shook his head before explaining.

"That's not it Lord Alucard, from what we could hear the guards gossip about over the last few months. The heretics actually had not only Grandmaster level cultivators but also several Warrior level cultivators with them.

This sect has a territory spanning 5 thousand kilometers they couldn't hold so much land if they didn't have their two Grand elders who are in the Mortal Warrior Realm and the current sect master who has the best chance of breaking into the Mortal Lord realm in the next 200 years.

If he manages to break through he will be 1 of no more than 200 Lord level powerhouse giving him outstanding leverage and pull throughout the land. The sect may even be able to be pulled in by one of the 50 6-star kingdoms who have a Mortal King realm cultivator at their helm!

But it seems that during the battle one of the grand elders stayed behind to protect the sect while the strongest grand elder and the sect master went out to wait for the heretics.

The heretics brought four Mortal Warrior cultivators for their hunt which was outside of this sects plans. During their fight the grand elder fought off three of the heretics Mortal Warriors while the sect master was holding one down in an attempt to pick off the weakest one and to join the grand elder as soon as possible.

Unfortunately the three heretic Mortal warriors could tell what the plan was and quickly used a spell formation that trapped and depleted the grand elder of more than two thirds of his Qi keeping the battle at a stalemate for hours.

Luckily for the Righteous Sword saints of light without all four Warrior level masters the spell formation wasn't complete, so it took a huge toll out on the three heretic leaders.

With the last of his Qi cultivation and several life treasures, the grand elder of the Righteous Sword Saints of Light Sect detonated his cultivation base. Leaving the strongest heretic on the other side with a single breath of life remaining, while the remaining two were heavily wounded.

How could this sect be the only ones with treasures, especially going up against a group of murderers like the heretics. Having used their own life saving items and knowing that after the life token back at the sect shattered reinforcements would be sent to the battlefield, the Mortal warrior heretics quickly used their heavyweight cultivation base to throw the war into chaos.

They quickly regrouped with their last Mortal warrior that was also heavily wounded, grabbed all their cultivators of Grandmaster level and fled the scene on a skyship. Leaving behind all their low rank cultivators.

Although it is said that their strongest Mortal warrior was on his last breath, without seeing his dead body there's no possible way to know if he's actually died."

Long winded as it all may sound, those bits of information are actually precious to Alucard at the moment. Wasn't he planning on eradicating this sect from the history books? Not only did one of this sects protectors die, the sect master should still be recuperating from the battle, and their strongest in tact fighter is only at the Mortal Warrior level.

Even though the information he gathered was very helpful, it also brought him to another conclusion. With a frown on his face Alucard went into some deep thinking.

"It seems that traveling through chaotic space has landed me in a 1-star world an one that still seems young at that. The only thing below a 1-star world is an unranked world because of their lack of spiritual energy or powerful cultivators from the death of their realm master."

Heaven Realm practitioners also known as the pinnacle of the true God greater realms are called such because upon reaching that level they literally unify the cosmos they have created with the heavens themselves.

The slice of heaven they reside in is considered a 9-star world. Every 9-star world has several 8-star worlds attached to it, which are usually just lesser realms that you can travel too. And every 8-star realm has even more 7-star realms directly below them. So on and so forth all the way until you reach the 1-star realms at the bottom.

How many Heaven Realm practitioners are there? There's no real way to know unless you are at the Earth God greater cultivation realm at the very least. But for every 1 Heaven realm cultivator there are thousands of lesser realms under their control.

Without the aid of fortuitous encounters, to begin cultivating worlds you must reach at least the Immortal greater cultivation realm which is also known as the Lesser god realm. At that cultivation realm opening a rift into the void becomes as easy as breathing. Using the endless space between realms you would slowly collect celestial liquid, after it accumulates and if you're lucky enough to have the proper cultivation technique you will be able to turn the liquid into a dimensional seed. After fostering that seed and nurturing it in your soul realm for a few thousand years it'll eventually sprout into an unranked realm.

After that you are to pure your Qi essence into the world and help fill it with life, it will eventually become a stable 1-star realm and as your realms grow you will yield dimensional stones. These stones can be used to instantly open other realms instead of having to wait thousands of years for one to naturally form.

The more realms you birth the further your cultivation will go and improve, helping you ascend from lesser God into the True god realms, i.e. Earth God, Cosmos Celestial, and Heaven realms. Each one of those realms requires you to have either have cultivated a certain number of realms at specific levels, or to be appointed by someone you have sworn fealty towards to appoint you with a certain number of realms under them to watch over.

The later route will allow your cultivation base to grow but you will only be considered a False true god. Not able to wield anywhere near the total amount of power real True god level practitioners can wield.

Unranked realms lack of spiritual energy and inability to birth cultivators makes them easily forgotten about. Every so often those realms will experience a lucky occurence where tears in the void may open a portal to a higher realm. In those brief moments that the void is open, if connected to at least a 3-star realm, gives that unranked realm a chance to acquire spiritual energy. Mutating the land and beings living in those realm eventually allowing them to become a 1-star realm.

But those instances are far and few in between. The most important parts of knowing what level the realm you are housed in are; one the quality of spiritual energy in those realms, and two the level of the strongest cultivators in those realms as well.

If a 2-star Spirit disciple cultivator tries to use their cultivation base in a 1-star realm, they will directly receive heavenly punishment. The heavens in those moments will attack the perpetrator with 9 heavenly lightning bolts to try and eradicate the anomaly.

Often times you can see cultivators who are at the Lesser Saint 9-star mortal realm hold off on trying to make their next breakthrough, because they know the moment they breakthrough into a higher Greater Realm than the ranking of the actual realm they are located in, the heavens will open up a path to a higher tiered realm.

Of course you could chose not to take the path to the new realm but that would mean you must suppress your cultivation until you have the will to migrate. But that usually doesn't happen because someone is usually in charge of that realm and has a powerful backer in the higher realms. Although that backer might not send powerful people down to a lower realm, but their access to resource and weapons is on an unimaginable scale.

Whichever clan occupies the top definitely has several powerhouses that could foster just about any issue that comes their way.

Of course the demons are in a different predicament then most of the other races since, to often all the other races gang up to stop demons from reaching the heaven realm in anyway they can, even at the cost of their own life. There have been times where false true gods are ordered to descend into lesser realms and destroy demon clans that the normal populace of that world cannot handle. Of course the consequences of the false true god using their cultivation base in a lesser realm is of course to be attacked by heavenly 9 lightning.

Unless they have life saving treasures strong enough to endure the wrath of the heavens, they quickly lose their lives after the battle. Of course their great true god lords scoop their souls up and help them reincarnate in a higher tier realm as compensation. But it is a terrible feeling to have spent thousands of years to reach the false true god realm and then have to re-cultivate from the beginning all over again.

The demons usually fight it out with the lords of the realm in order to harvest the dimensional stones in their possession and even sometimes destroying those realm to obtain even just a single dimensional stone.

Alucard's last life had him born in a 6-star realm, being one of seven Divine Core formation realm demon practitioners and clearly one with excellent talent. His grandfather who had reached the Nivana Rebirth Greater realm had given alucard a dimensional stone to cultivate a realm on his own.

This was a technique used throughout the multiverse. If the demons didn't try to help the younger generations cultivate small realms on their own, demons would have been wiped out long ago. If his grandfather broke through to another realm a higher level cultivator would descend and try and wipe them out.

The main difference between a dimensional stone and dimensional seed is that the realms opened with stones must be attached to a realm of greater power to foster a small world. You can attach a 3-star dimensional stone to a 4-star world. Realms made from the dimensional stones will also have doorways that lead into these lesser realms.

That is how the Hero's chosen by their respective sects got into Alucards world in an attempt to steal the resources his world had. It would also give them much glory to return to their realm with the head of a demon lord in tow.

Dimensional seeds on the other hand do not need to be attached to a world at all. The seeds are cultivated inside the practitioners soul realm. So only those they allow into their realm are able to come and go as they please. Seeds also don't take up any space from the owner of that series of realms. So the owner of a 6-star realm could having tens of thousands of cultivators throughout their lands who were also cultivating an untold number of lesser realms.

Their are those who have a slim chance of further breakthroughs or lacking resources so they set up spell formations that allow other cultivators to come in and out of their personal worlds at their own discretion. World cultivation is only shackled by the cultivation base of the one who owns them.

There's no way a Mortal cultivator at any level would have enough Qi to sustain 2-star realm. Now a Spirit realm Cultivator could cultivate a 2-star realm but the realms growth would be slower than if it was being cultivated by a Nascent soul realm cultivator.

Those kinds of people usually have specialties in their personal realms that cannot be easily obtained in their current world. Such as cultivating medicinal gardens or planting emperor grade jades that help minerals and gems grow in their mountains. Some people know they won't make anymore breakthroughs and use their realms to farm spirit stones of various qualities.

Increasing the quality of the resources and amount of life in the world can help the realms grow larger and maybe even produce more dimensional stones that can be sold at astronomical prices.

The biggest catch to cultivating realms is that each tier can only hold so many lesser realms. A 2-star realm can only have two 1-star realms attached to it. While a 6-star realm can have six 5-star realms, with each of those realms able to hold their own lesser realms as well. A fully cultivated 6-star realm could hold 1,236 lesser realms, all ranging from 5-stars all the way to 1-star.

Once your realm reaches its upper limits, it can be upgraded to the next tier, a 6-star realm becoming a 7-star to reach that, at least 1 of the 5-star realms must also be able to become a 6-star realm. That growth will allow you to cultivate six more 6-star realms. Having one realm already reach the 6-star level and another four realms at the 5-star level. You would get space to start cultivating a new set of realms from the beginning.

This is one of the times you might see the master of a realm use a dimensional stone. Placing a 6-star dimensional stone down would speed up the process of growing his 7-star realm to the next level.

Alucard had hoped he could re-cultivate his realm but with a 4-star dimensional stone it seems he still had a long way to go before he could rebuild his palace and give his family a new home. Another drawback about using dimensional stones is that, the dimensional world can never grow past the realm it was planted in.

Allowing his thoughts to wonder may have seemed like a long time but with a soul based cultivation at the Lord lesser realm he shifted through his thoughts quickly. To the gathered children it seemed he was only contemplating for no more than a few breaths of time.

"Okay Roy, you've been more helpful than you know. I've heard your request and since today's a day of celebration for me I will remove the elders of this sect. A small bonus to you guys is that not only will i let you all keep your lives, i'll release you from your bonds. Just stay in here until tomorrow and you shouldn't have any trouble leaving the sect on your own."

Upon hearing the demons words, many of the children threw their arms up and gave great roars, several others just held onto the person closest to them and silently cried against each other.

It was this declaration that would change the lives of these few dozen children forever. In these few moments of joy in a prison, under a silent mountain, in the corner of a mid-tier sect, the seeds of something grand were being sown.