8 INTRUDER?

When Shen Zhi entered the arena, Yulian's eyes bulged out.

She had silky white hairs alongside with a pair of unblinking silver eyes. Her jade-like skin and creamy face were resembling a snow-white lily's showy bloom and indescribable elegance. Her light red lips were glittering like the petals of a marigold flower that was under the morning sun. She was an absolute beauty in his eyes.

Yulian had never seen someone so dazzling before. He became stunned while looking at this peerless girl and couldn't remove his eyes from her.

In the following moment, Yulian suddenly awoke from his earlier status. The girl abruptly looked towards the below of the Upper Echelon seats, and again their eyes met with each other.

At that moment, he discovered. The thing that attracted him the most about the girl wasn't her peerless beauty. The tremor his body experiencing told him sharply.

The girl was a predator, a living death god walking among the humans. She was giving a sensation like everything she stared would undergo the feeling of death.

Fortunately, the girl removed her gaze quickly and faced Moreth. Then Yulian discovered one more fact. Unlike him, Moreth was looking completely normal. She did not seem to have any problems.

'Is this because she is a cultivator?' He thought.

When Shen Zhi stabbed Moreth from her shoulder, Yulian became sure of his earlier statement and fascinated at the same time.

Shen Zhi wasn't like the other participants. She defeated Moreth directly. Not because she was way stronger than Moreth, she did it instantly, because she had a goal in mind.

Her ways of doing things were brutal. If she has been on a battlefield, her every action would carry the intent to kill. She would attack only the vital points of her opponents and killing them as quick as possible.

'That's what's missing! That is how things should have done. Instead of doing pointless flashy actions, a cultivator should focus on the outcome and his/her goal. If you want to defeat your opponent, you should do it as fast as possible, no matter who your opponent is. If you want to kill, you should not give your opponent any chance. Take everything from your opponent and not give anything in return. A cultivator should become devoid of any kind of mercy.'

…

Soon, the arena was in chaos.

Everything was happening above him. Therefore, he couldn't see anything.

He felt a strong suffocating feeling for an instant, then the feeling disappeared. A moment later, an even more terrifying feeling replaced it!

He felt like his head was about to explode! Intense pain caused him to scream on top his lungs. He was hitting his head to the boxes, sometimes against the walls. He clutched his head with two hands and clenched his teeth strongly, tried to bear the pain with everything he got.

"W-What's happening… Arghhh!!! Ahhhh…" He screamed continuously for a while. Then his weak body couldn't bear the pain anymore, and he lost consciousness.

He didn't know, but the reason for this maddening pain wasn't exactly Martintor and the old man. The pain was coming straight from his soul. The two Venerable Realm experts were just the trigger.

A few minutes after he fainted, the door opened. Two disciples of the family came in.

"We found him! So the trash has been here all this time." Said one of them.

Yulian was lying on the ground. His saliva was flowing out of his mouth. There was only white color on his eye sockets. His pupils couldn't be seen at all. His head was bloody and swollen at some places.

"What the… How disgusting… What was this human garbage doing here?" The two disciples grimaced.

"Stop blabbering and let's carry him to Castle Master as soon as possible." The other one commented.

"Ugh… He is sticky. " The whining disciple took Yulian from the ground, and the two left the room.

…

In a deep cave, there was a giant door. The door has made from the strongest of the material that exists on the continent - Titanite. As being the entrance of the treasury, it has to be strong naturally. There were many protective formations around the entrance. Both inside and outside of it.

Energy formations were illuminating the place.

One could see, there were three people at the entrance. A female was lying on the ground, and two men were standing beside her.

The female was none other than Clarea Rosencoffen!

Her raven black hair was disheveled, and her one-piece blue dress was in tatters, there was also some blood on it.

Naturally, the two men standing beside her were Martintor and Vikrice.

"Big brother… this can't be a frame-up, right?" Vikrice asked to Martintor.

When they arrived at the treasury, the two found Clarea stuck in a trap formation inside of the treasury room. The cause of the tattered dress and blood was the formation itself.

She was holding a dark red colored tube in her hands. Its contain was the blood essence of The Red Castle's Great Ancestor!

At first look, everything was clear.

She wanted to steal the bloodline for his trash son. She had considered the competition as an opportunity and made her move. She had successfully stolen the bloodline, but when she had tried to leave the treasury room, she had fallen in a trap formation.

That would be what the majority would think in this situation. However, many things were suspicious in this little plot.

First of all, the Great Ancestor's bloodline would not work on Yulian. With his declining vitality and zero cultivation, it would only cause his death. Clarea would never try something like this.

The second point is, the intruder alert can only be triggered from the outside, not from the inside. Clarea already had the Ancestor's blood on her hands. Then how did she triggered the intruder alert when she was about to leave the treasury room?

"It is a frame up actually," Martintor answered back.

"What? She is your main wife, the First Lady of the Red Castle, and the Great Ancestor's rules… Why did you do this?" Vikrice had a complicated look on his face. He could be considered an honest man.

"I am not the one framing her up. It is Castilla's doing. I'll just condone everything she had done." Martintor had a calm expression.

He was aware of Castilla's actions in this last few days, but he did nothing to prevent her.

"I know it is for saving yours and Red Castle's faces but still… They are Rosencoffens. You can continue hiding Yulian and Clarea knows…"

"EVERYONE KNOWS ALREADY!!!" Martintor howled at Vikrice, causing his voice to be cut in his throat.

Vikrice, "…"

Vikrice got afraid of Martintor's high pitch voice. Silence enveloped the cave for a few breaths of time, before Vikrice asked with quiet words. "W-what about Karmic Backlash?"

"Although Clarea has been carrying the Rosencoffen last name since our marriage, she is not a true Rosencoffen. There is no Red Castle blood in her veins. Killing her won't cause a problem. It will only be breaking Great Ancestor's rules. In order to clean our Red Castle's name, you can accept that much, can't you, Vikrice?" Martintor threw a minacious look at Vikrice.

"B-Big brother knows the best. What about Yulian?" Vikrice was sure that Yulian's fate would not be any better than Clarea's but he asked anyway.

"Yulian… He is still carrying my blood. Killing him might cause Karmic Backlash." Martintor answered after contemplating for a few breaths of time.

At this moment, Clarea lifted her head and looked upwards to the two man.

She was truly in a sorry state. Even her sorry figure was looking beautiful in a different sense.

Clarea was the daughter of a local lord in the western region. Martintor had seen her in a banquet. He was the kind of a man who wanted the best of everything at those times, and she was the best woman in the banquet, overshadowing all other noble women.

Despite his unfeeling nature, Martintor couldn't help but get fascinated by her back then. She was beautiful enough to be called the number one beauty of the western region.

However, neither Martintor nor Clarea could possibly have predicted the events would come to this point.

"Martintor… You son of dog! You finally have the guts to do this… Hah… Haah!" Clarea said with difficulty. She just woke up from her coma. Every breath was hard to take in for her current self.

"I didn't do anything." Martintor said, devoid of any feeling toward her.

Vikrice looked at her and pity bloomed in his heart. He reached her with his hands, injecting some crimson qi inside of her body. Soon, her breathing gradually stabilized.

Martintor let Vikrice do it. He wouldn't care for something like this.

"How did I marry a monster like you. Alongside with Yulian, I should have run away from this place… from you! If it wasn't for my father…" Clarea said in a hoarse voice.

She had woken up in the trap formation with the Great Ancestor's blood in her hands. She was a clever woman. She could guess what these loathsome people were planning.

"Your fate has bound since the moment you gave birth to a source of shame for us. I truly had not done anything in the past but I will be the one finishing this nonsense." Martintor turned his back and said coldly.

"Vikrice, take this woman away and prepare for an execution in an out of sight place. Wait! Before that, take Yulian to the medical hall. Get him castrated before throwing him to a place forsaken by the god! I don't want him to spread my noble blood at any chance. Heed my order immediately!" Martintor's unfeeling voice caused even Vikrice to have cold sweat on his back.

"As you command, Castle Master!" He answered with a fist on his chest, his face pale from fright.

Hearing the words of Martintor, Clarea unexpectedly started laughing. Her laughter was increasingly becoming more violent.

"Ha ha... ha ha ha… HA HA HA! Framing and killing your own woman, thowing your own son to wilderness, breaking Great Ancestor's rules... Your sins are accumulating... Great Martintor unexpectedly is amount to this much!"

"You are a person calculating everything in the chess board. Today's events are the most severe of mistakes you have ever made. I wonder how you do your calculations. If you ask me, you'll eventually pay for your sins a thousandfold!"

The brothers felt weird upon hearing the words of Clarea. She wasn't this kind of person, and she was about to die. It was quite nonsense to them.