Tribunal Exile

Primordial Mountain.

In the war hall, the red-haired man sat on his throne, whilst the Primordial Sage continued to float by his side.

After Yaan left the Lunar Song Tribe, the sage turned towards the Blood Plane Lord and told him some good news.

"He has made a breakthrough with his progression in soul path. He learned from the Fiend Transformation technique and will now continue to progress."

Hearing this, the red-haired man sat up and grinned fiendishly.

"As expected of that one. That abomination of the dao is truly a jack of all trades."

The Primordial Sage then went on to say:

"But he has broken two minor war flower laws. One purposefully, but well concealed. One accidentally, but known to all. He is also hindered by his uncertainty regarding the major scrolls."

Hearing this, the red-haired man snorted.

"That damned War Flower Deity, why did she need to make her empire so complex?" After saying this, he fell into contemplation. Eventually, he turned to the Primordial Sage and posed a question.

"His progress will be faster if he understands the complete rules of the game. Can we arrange this without hindering the overall objective?"

"It is possible." She nodded lightly. "But we cannot intervene personally. The best course of action is to have War Flower Deity release a Rank 8 beast upon the Lunar Song Tribe. The-"

The Primordial Sage suddenly stopped talking, which was never a good sign. The red-haired man asked what was wrong, but she only answered after a few moments.

"We can no longer intervene in time. In half a day, he will be found guilty of breaking the minor war flower law to a moderate degree. The punishment of tribunal exile will follow ten days later."

"So tedious!" The red-haired man growled out, clenching his fist. "Won't this just slow his rate of growth? We should-"

"This will not necessarily restrict his growth." The Primordial Sage interrupted him emotionlessly.

The red haired man stopped what he was saying. After pondering her words, he sat back in his chair, resting his chin on one hand as he waited for the Four Planes' sequence of events to continue to unfold.

**********

For the first time since he reached the Vital Qi Spirit realm, Yaan's spirit soul had finally made some significant progress. After the battle at the Lunar Song Tribe, his spirit soul reached 65% progress towards becoming an Arch Spirit.

There was a side effect to Yaan's progress. He had expected this, but he hadn't expected it to become so severe so early on…

The slaughterous feelings emanating from his soul were overwhelmingly intense. During every waking moment, he had the burning desire to kill everything around him, regardless of the consequences.

His dao of slaughter comprehension did not assist him in resisting this feeling. In fact, the fragment of the slaughter dao that Yaan had comprehended seemed to drive him further and further into the depths of insanity!

As such, Yaan secluded himself away for some time, refusing to see anyone, and only allowing Ga Shu to reside relatively nearby due to his ability to protect himself.

"Hah…hah…hah…" Yaan breathed heavily, trying to calm himself, but failing completely. It had been ten whole days, yet the bloodthirsty feeling was not dissipating in the least.

"On the bright side, resisting these murderous urges is helping to temper your psyche cultivation." Rui chimed in, watching Yaan with an expression of intrigue.

He was now treading a unique path, and as a person who had once trail-blazed certain paths herself, she naturally found theses sorts of things to be very interesting.

"My lord…we have a visitor." At this moment, Ga Shu's entered the basement from outside. He sounded wary, immediately causing Yaan to raise his guard.

Yaan made his way outside, only to find the official investigator from before waiting for him, wearing that same plain expression.

"Elder Red of the Bloody Totem Tribe. Your case has concluded, and I am here to inform you of the result. You have been found guilty of breaking the minor war flower law to a moderate degree. The punishment is tribunal exile. To clarify, this means that you may never again join a tribe, nor create a tribe of your own. Please have a nice day."

The immortal official departed as swiftly as he came, leaving both Yaan and Ga Shu staring after him dumbfoundedly.

Yaan silently returned back inside the temple, sitting down and furrowing his brows, all whilst trying to prevent the now overflowing killing intent from erupting outwards.

He sat in silence for some time, but eventually, someone came knocking.

It was the Bloody Totem Tribe Leader. Clearly, based on her severe expression as she sat opposite from him, she had heard the news.

"Senior, what are we going to do?" She asked in a slightly helpless, unsettled tone.

"We?" Yaan raised an eyebrow. "I have been exiled, there's nothing that I can do now…"

She grit her teeth and clenched her fists.

"So it's just like that?" She spoke quietly. "Just like that, it's all over?"

She suddenly looked up at him with a burning gaze, and shouted:

"After all the crazy wars you waged, after all the enemies you made, do you know what will happen once others find out that you have been exiled?! We will be destroyed! Enslaved! Slaughtered!"

"You mean, just like we have been doing to others?" Yaan asked with a mocking smile.

"Yes. Exactly." She seemed to calm down in an instant and nodded. "Which is why I want to ask you, what do you plan to do now? What is it that you truly want, senior? Even if you are not in our tribe…perhaps we can still cooperate."

Yaan raised an eyebrow. This woman really was impressive. She was still trying to salvage this seemingly hopelessness situation, even now.

But her words struck a chord with him.

"I want to kill." Yaan stated bluntly.

She stared at him silently, waiting for him to go on.

"I want to kill…a lot. 4-Star, 5-Star, and especially 6-Star beings. That was why I waged war. So tell me, what can you do for me, and what do you want in return, Bloody Totem Tribe Leader?"

Some time later, the tribal woman left Yaan's abode with a serious expression, an expression of determination and resolve. She knew that the path ahead would be filled with trials and difficulties, but she was prepared to brave them all head on.

Their agreement was that she capture and bring to Yaan as many prisoners of war as physically possible. This would be the entire Bloody Totem Province's efforts, so the fruits of their labours should not be bad at all.

And in return?

It was simple: Ga Shu's 'friendship' and Yaan's silence. Indeed, he only need to not tell anyone that he had been exiled. So long as he kept his silence on this matter, others would not find out that he had been exiled for a certain period of time.

All official punishments which could not be handled by the kingdom itself were dealt with by the investigatory sect, a group within the empire which managed all serious incident investigations, judgements, and enforcement of punishments.

Since Yaan's punishment came from the investigatory sect, nobody else in the kingdom aside from himself, Ga Shu and the leader of his former tribe, knew anything about his exile.

Ga Shu left the Bloody Totem Province Alliance following Yaan's exile. The Greenwood Tribe, his late wife's former tribe, was well protected and taken care of, he could rest easy there.

Ga Shu was not part of any tribe…but if anyone threatened the Bloody Totem Tribe, or any of the other tribes in the alliance, Ga Shu would make a casual appearance and scare them all senseless.

That would be more than enough.

In this arrangement, Yaan would not be able to kill anymore 6-Star warriors. He was unlikely to be given any Rank 6 beasts either. He would need to rely on quantity over quality…

And the quantity would need to be extremely high.

Within a matter of weeks, the quantity became extremely high.

At this point in time, the information regarding Yaan's exile had not yet been leaked, so the kingdom's tribes still felt horrifically fearful towards the Bloody Totem war banner.

The Bloody Totem Tribe used this fear to quickly spread their might across the kingdom, crushing and conquering even more tribes, whilst taking many, many captives.

All the while, Yaan sat back in his secluded temple, waiting on his daily delivery of prisoners.

With each delivery, there would be at least ten 4-Star warriors and hundreds of 3-Star body temperers. He was occasionally brought 5-Star warriors, two or three times per week.

This arrangement wasn't nearly as good as when Yaan had been a member of the Bloody Totem Tribe, but given that he didn't need to put in any work for it, it was a pretty great deal.

He killed every captive brought to him. Given the number of Rank 3 body temperers bound and dragged his way, he ended up killing hundreds of people every single day.

Slowly, as the slaughter in his soul grew stronger, Yaan cared less and less about abiding by any sort of moral boundaries or limitations.

Before long, he reached the Early Vital Qi Core realm, meaning that his soul had ascended into an Arch Spirit!

Yaan released all of his pent up slaughterous desire once each day, massacring the entire crowd of prisoners that were brought to him.

For the remainder of the day, his mental will power was truly tested. Just restraining himself from going out and doing something insane took every ounce of will power he could muster. At least it was helping with his psyche power cultivation.

On the matter of psyche power cultivation, Yaan had already reached an incredible height. He possessed a Thousand Sage Grade sea of consciousness, and now, he could manifest 9,200 psyche avatars!

Unfortunately, from 9,000 onwards, every extra step was difficult and longwinded. As time passed by, he began to wonder if achieving the 'Myriad Sage Grade' sea was actually possible.

Meanwhile, Ga Shu adapted to his newfound immortal strength. He still treated Yaan no differently, like his lord and benefactor, despite the entire cultivation step difference between them.

Yaan knew that Ga Shu would be able to achieve more if he went off on his own, joining a kingdom-ruling tribe, but the Aztec man would not do so. After all, the entire reason he had chosen life over death during his immortal ascension tribulation, was because he needed to live in order to repay his benefactor.

But, now that Ga Shu was an immortal, he possessed certain abilities. His movement speed was shocking, he could traverse tens of thousands of miles in a single hour, even when flying at a leisurely pace. He was able to explore the world, to procure rare and valuable treasures and resources…

Ga Shu was reluctant to leave Yaan unguarded, but Yaan insisted that he go out there and gain a better understanding of the surrounding few kingdoms.

This would be of use to the both of them. He also wanted Ga Shu to try finding some valuable resources, if possible, immortal resources and treasures.

But how could immortal treasures be so easily found? Even after months of searching, he only found dozens of Rank 6 materials, as well as many lower ranked materials which were unavailable in this kingdom.

Thanks to Ga Shu's travels, their understanding of the surrounding kingdoms deepened, but this didn't make Yaan feel relieved at all. The strength of the kingdoms surrounding them made Yaan feel a sense of pressure…when compared to the seven kingdoms which bordered the Kingdom of Lunar Song, the Kingdom of Lunar Song was certainly the weakest!

Two of those seven kingdoms were actually Rank 8 kingdoms, meaning that their ruling tribes were backed by at least one 8-Star Immortal!

8-Star Immortals were also called Ancient Immortals, they were all beings that had lived for an extraordinarily long period of time. No Ancient Immortal could be underestimated, Yaan knew that he couldn't hope to contend against such a being.

As for the other five kingdoms…

Even the weakest of them was led by a tribe with five 7-Star Immortals, and in that 'weakest' kingdom, there were actually two other Rank 7 tribes; they were constantly fighting between the three of them!

The Kingdom of Lunar Song was basically a safe haven in comparison!

When Yaan learned of the atrocities committed across the various lands, he was no longer surprised, nor appalled. He himself had done terrible things, though compared to each and every one of those immortal tribes, his recent actions couldn't even be considered a moderately bad deed.

Even in the Kingdom of Lunar Song, Ga Shu recently learned that the Lunar Song Tribe had risen up by waging endless war. War was normal, but their approach towards it was…extreme.

Back then, before they gained control over the kingdom, the Lunar Song Tribe massacred 50% of the tribes they warred against. In those cases, they killed every living being within the tribe, with no exceptions.

As for the other 50%, they were so afraid of being part of the half that would be massacred, that they submitted wholeheartedly and became the slaves of the Lunar Song Tribe.

The Lunar Song Tribe used their male warrior slaves as cannon fodder in war. The mortal males were used as manual labour. They used the females to birth more slaves, endlessly, without a break, until the women collapsed and died due to being unable to tolerate it any longer.

This was the Lunar Song Tribe's first few thousand years of history, a history that they had done their all to erase from this world. However, for an immortal visiting an enemy kingdom, such information was easy to obtain.

Ga Shu was gone often these days, leaving Yaan alone, to practise in 'peace'.

His surroundings were peaceful, but his mind was anything but.

The daily tribute of sacrifices hardly did anything to quell the ever-growing bloodlust in his heart. When he last sent Ga Shu out, he mentioned this issue, hoping that Ga Shu would be able to find a solution quickly.

In an attempt to calm himself, Yaan tried to practise his sword arts, but this was fruitless. His mind was too chaotic to focus on calm and elegant footwork, there was no point even trying.

He couldn't learn any spells in this state, not any complex spells at least.

The only thing he could do, was to cultivate his psyche power.

After Ga Shu visited the Kingdom of Five Seas, a kingdom renowned for their markets open to all immortals from all reaches of life, he managed to bring back enough of the materials that Yaan required in order to build another one of Rui's formations.

In his mentally distracted state, he made many frustrating errors in setting up the formation. This task which should have taken him at most three hours, ended up taking five days.

But in the end, he made it; he finished building the torment of mind formation.