Great Elder Wan

Within the core of the Heavenly Path Sect…

This area, which was located on the upper three miles of the mountain, was home to the most valued genius disciples and the highest ranking elders; the core disciples, the great elders and the sect lord!

Earlier today, the sect detected that the life signal from one of their inner sect disciples in charge of supervising an outer sect village had disappeared. This was certainly a problem which needed to be investigated, but it wasn't something that required the attention of the sect's upper echelon. Someone would be assigned to investigate the death, then arrangements would be made to replace the unfortunate disicple.

Before this assignment could even begin though, the sect was alerted to a much more concerning situation.

Currently, around one half of the sect's great elders were gathered in the meeting hall before the sect lord.

"Sect lord, what is the reason for this emergency meeting?" An old woman asked with a wrinkled frown. She was busy today and only bothered showing up because the sect lord happened to bump into her personally.

"Great Elder Dae Hou, I called this meeting due to the strong aura of slaughter and death that I sensed earlier from the outer sect."

"A strong aura of slaughter and death? Is it an attack from the demonic beasts?" She raised an eyebrow, showing a little interest now.

"It's hard to say exactly. It was also reported that the inner sect disciple who was in charge of that village died this morning. However, there was a gap between that incident and the current situation, so perhaps the truth is more nefarious…"

"Murder? Hmm. I suppose we should send someone to investigate." The old woman nodded.

"I volunteer." A man stood up and spoke firmly.

"Great Elder Wan, you don't need to bother yourself with this matter!"

"Great elder, please allow me to go in your steed."

"Great elder-"

"Enough." Great Elder Wan spoke abruptly as he raised his hand, causing the hall to go quiet.

Great Elder Wan was highly respected in the sect, owing to his status as the strongest elder aside from the sect lord himself. In fact, he had another title: vice sect lord! It was only natural that some of these other elders would do their best to gain his favour by offering to take on this tedious task.

However, he had plans of his own.

'This aura I'm sensing, it feels quite similar to that one time…I absolutely must investigate this myself!'

The sect lord glanced at Great Elder Wan suspiciously. He was apprehensive of Great Elder Wan, since their cultivation realms were actually at the exact same level. He was only able to obtain the position of sect lord due to his slightly superior battle power, so he was always worried that this ambitious elder might one day surpass him.

In the end, the sect lord had no good reason to refuse Great Elder Wan, so Great Elder Wan was sent alone to investigate this matter, and to handle whatever it was that had happened.

**********

Back in Zong Village, Yaan's mindless slaughter continued to terrorise the other children in the village. He had already killed everyone hesitant enough to remain behind without immediately fleeing for their lives. He was now wondering through the village like a sadistic lunatic, seeking out more people to kill.

His mind had descended into a psychotic state, whilst his five senses were all overwhelmed by the Slaughter Aura and the bloodthirsty desires which it produced. He felt like his soul was soaked in a sea of blood, and this feeling caused him to emanate a horrendous slaughterous aura in all directions.

Youthful bodies were scattered throughout the village, though more than half of them were piled up in the centre, just outside of Xinti's home. The aura of death which was released by the recently deceased did nothing to help Yaan's state of mind. As he was right now, it was impossible for him to recover with his own efforts alone.

The entire village was filled with the metallic stench of blood, pervading into everything it touched.

"Shush, it'll be ok, don't worry…"

"But big sis, I-I'm scared!"

"I know, just stay quiet, please Jenny…"

Two sisters hid under their wooden bed within their home. They were amongst the newest arrivals to the village and decided to share a house together. At ages six and eight, they were too weak to fight and too slow to run, so they chose to hide in their home.

Bang!

The door was blown open and the younger sister let out a reflexive scream. The older sister felt a sense of despair that quickly transformed into sheer terror when she was dragged out from under the bed by a bloody hand.

Yaan lifted the girl up to her feet, then stared at her for a moment. He saw the tears streaming down her face, yet felt nothing but the desire to kill.

Chi!

He stabbed into her heart using a knife that he had found on the ground after his axe snapped in half.

After seeing her sister drop to the floor, dead, the younger sister began sobbing uncontrollably.

"Mama, papa, please help me…"

The world was not so kind as to heed her request. Moments later, her lifeless body fell down to the ground, joining her sister in death.

After killing the two helpless girls, Yaan grinned evilly with a smile that did not feel like his own. His expression was twisted and the smile did not look happy, but…pained. In fact, if anyone looked closely, they would realise that amongst the blood which now covered Yaan's injured body, two red streams were falling from the corners of his eyes…

He didn't linger around and soon left the house in search of his next target.

Suddenly, Yaan rapidly turned around, only to see an old man wearing an elegant red and white robe, staring at him with a blazing gaze. If he were in his right mind, the unrestrained aura released by this old man would have terrified him to the point of knocking him unconscious.

"Haha, it really is the Fiend Transformation Technique! I never thought that I would see such a crazy practice again, but it seems that the heavens really do favour me, to send me such a glorious opportunity!"

Seeing the elegantly robed man laughing happily, Yaan ignored everything he said and charged at him without a second thought.

"So he lost his sanity, I suppose this is to be expected though. It's good that he hasn't quite yet reached 100, it's not too late to fix this." Great Elder Wan muttered to himself, then held up one finger and pointed towards Yaan.

He muttered five strange words in an unknown language, then a green light flashed from his finger tip and penetrated Yaan's forehead.

Yaan's eyes rolled back in his head and his body lost all tension. By the time he hit the ground, he was completely unconscious. Due to the momentum built up during his crazed dahs forwards, he slid forwards for a few feet, through the mixture of dust and blood which coated the ground.

After knocking Yaan unconscious, Great Elder Wan slowly exhaled green mist and closed his eyes. A second later, he reopened his eyes and smiled happily.

He walked over to Yaan, then stared down at his body for a moment as he pondered over something. After a few minutes, the great elder began to form various hand seals, drawing in a pure white energy from somewhere within his body. Each hand seal accumulated more energy, sending it into an ominous looking grey circular symbol. After the symbol finished absorbing his energy, it slowly fell towards Yaan.

"Hah!" With a final shout, a ball of white light shot out from the old man's mouth, then slammed into the symbol, fusing together and shooting into Yaan's body. The symbol phased through his tattered clothing, then disappeared past his skin and entered deep inside his flesh.

"Success." Great Elder Wan now looked even more overjoyed. His eyes shone with an excited light. When his gaze passed over Yaan's body, the excitement became stronger. He looked like he was examining a rare treasure.

"With this, my chances of success have risen ten fold! To think that I would be so lucky as to run into a half-demon, and a fiend at that! Now that my preparations are complete, I just need to raise it into a Demon Core Realm creature, then I can refine it into a puppet! If I plan everything carefully, I should be able to use the process to gain enlightenment and ascend to the illusive Origin Soul Realm! Hmm, reaching that realm could be difficult, but this is still the best hope I've found in a long time!"

"First though, I'd best clean up these witnesses." He looked around slowly, sighing regretfully and shaking his head.

"Killing children is not something I like to do, but for my cultivation, for the sect, I have no other choice…please accept my apologies, young ones. I will make your deaths painless."

After quickly locking onto the life signals of those children who were either hiding or escaping from the scene, it didn't take Great Elder Wan long to kill the remaining 27 individuals instantly and painlessly using his refined methods. He didn't look happy about committing such an atrocity, even closing his eyes and muttering a second apology for his actions. After slowly opening his eyes and turning back towards Yaan, the pity vanished from his gaze and a pleasant smile returned to his aged face.

The old man laughed with joy as he picked up Yaan's limp body and stepped onto a flying sword. He showed no further emotion towards the tens of bodies of children scattered around the village, choosing to ignore the carnage left behind by Yaan as he flew up the mountain, returning to the core sect.