「Within the Luoyun Sect.」
Staring at the empty grand hall before him, Ye Chen snatched up a straggler and demanded, "Where is Tongtong? Where did you take her?"
Qin Ruotong was the only family Ye Chen had in this world.
He would never allow her to suffer even the slightest harm!
At the sight of Ye Chen's crazed, demonic expression, the captured Elder was terrified, his body trembling uncontrollably.
He had been hiding in a side chamber of the inner hall, thinking he could escape unscathed.
But he never expected Ye Chen to find him!
"D-Don't kill me!"
"I'm not on the same side as the Grand Elder and the others..." he stammered, his face a mask of terror.
Ye Chen simply frowned.
"Are you incapable of understanding me?"
The Elder's heart skipped a beat. He hurriedly stammered, "Th-that little girl... she was personally escorted to the Cold Wind Sect by the Sect Leader..."
"Why?" Ye Chen's expression grew darker, but he was more confused than anything.
"It's said... it's said that after she was injured, the Grand Elder discovered that she very likely possesses the Chaos Five Elements Body as well! It's just that, for some reason, her body's constitution has never awakened. That's why the Sect Leader took her to the Cold Wind Sect, hoping to ask for Fairy Luoxia's help..."
At these words, Ye Chen's rage instantly boiled over.
'They won't even spare a little girl! Are these bastards even human?'
'They're worse than animals!'
"So they want to drain her of her blood and marrow for Alchemy, is that it?"
Ye Chen sneered at the Elder, who had wet himself in terror. "So this is how your so-called righteous sects operate!"
With a casual flick of his wrist, he crushed the Elder to death, then rose to his feet and strode out of the hall.
"Young Master Ye..."
"Young Master Ye!"
Outside the hall, all the Demon Dao experts he had freed from the dungeons were already gathered.
They had already witnessed his methods. The Demon Dao aura emanating from Ye Chen was even denser and more profound than their own!
This filled them with a mixture of reverence and admiration for Ye Chen.
"You haven't left?" Ye Chen frowned, looking at the dense crowd before him.
"We owe our lives to you, Young Master Ye! We await your command!"
"We would walk through a mountain of blades or a sea of fire without hesitation!"
The crowd declared in unison.
"Very well." Ye Chen nodded. "Guard the mountain gate here. I'll be back soon."
"As you command!"
"By the way, what should we do with these stragglers?"
Ye Chen focused his gaze and saw, in the clearing ahead, numerous members of the Luoyun Sect kneeling on the ground, their hands bound, their faces a mixture of terror and humiliation.
When the forces of the Demon Dao had swarmed the mountain, they had assumed that with Li Moyun present, everything would be fine.
But fate is fickle. Who could have predicted that Ye Chen would kill Li Moyun in an instant? They were all subdued before they even had a chance to flee.
"Saint Heir, save us!"
"That's right, Saint Heir! You can't just stand by and watch us fall into the hands of these fiends!"
Seeing Ye Chen was like spotting a lifeline, and they all began desperately crying out for help.
They seemed to have forgotten how they had kicked him while he was down after his cultivation was destroyed.
Ye Chen gave them nothing more than an indifferent glance before turning to leave.
As he left, he tossed out six simple words: "Do with them as you please."
"NO!!!" As the surrounding Demon Dao cultivators closed in with sadistic grins, the remaining members of the Luoyun Sect were consumed by a profound despair.
"Didn't you all enjoy torturing us before?"
"Now I'm going to let you experience what it's like to beg for death but be denied!"
A young man from the Demon Dao slammed his foot down on the head of a Luoyun Sect disciple.
As he watched the man's skull slowly deform beneath his boot, he felt an incomparable, savage glee.
From that moment on, the air above the Luoyun Sect's mountain was filled with the sound of incessant, horrifying screams that lingered day and night.
It was a sound that would chill one to the bone.
Ye Chen, however, paid it no mind. He left the Luoyun Sect's mountain and made his way toward the Cold Wind Sect.
...
Nestled within the misty, picturesque Qilian Mountain Range was the Cold Wind Sect, one of the three great sects of Lei Province.
Ye Chen's speeding figure slowed to a halt. He had just reached the mountain gate when his path was blocked.
"Halt!"
"Stop right there!"
The two Cold Wind Sect disciples guarding the gate were menacing, their expressions cold and severe.
As disciples of one of Lei Province's three great sects, they were accustomed to looking down on others.
"Hm?"
"This guy looks really familiar... It's Ye Chen from the Luoyun Sect!"
The two stared at him, their expressions a mix of shock and suspicion as Ye Chen's figure loomed larger before them.
"Ye Chen?"
"The good-for-nothing fiancé of Saintess Zhou?"
Their expressions gradually twisted into sneers.
"I hear your meridians were all destroyed. You've become a cripple with no cultivation?"
"Come here to leech off Saintess Zhou?"
One of them sneered. "Why don't you take a piss and look at your own reflection? A cripple like you still dreaming of latching onto someone of her status?"
"Back when you had talent, you were barely worthy of the Saintess. Now? You should give up that fantasy before you humiliate yourself further."
Because the Luoyun Sect had wanted to curry favor with the Cold Wind Sect, an engagement had been arranged between Ye Chen and the Cold Wind Sect's Saintess, Zhou Qingyue.
At the time, Ye Chen was a heaven-blessed prodigy of extraordinary talent. Coupled with the fact that Zhou Qingyue was a full forty-odd years his senior, the Cold Wind Sect had naturally agreed to the arrangement.
Later, when Ye Chen was ambushed and his cultivation was destroyed by Li Moyun, the Luoyun Sect reported the matter to the Cold Wind Sect immediately.
The upper echelons of the Cold Wind Sect had anticipated this. They knew the so-called engagement was merely a ploy by the Luoyun Sect to lull Ye Chen into a false sense of security; it was never meant to be real.
They knew Ye Chen was fated to have his blood and marrow drained for Alchemy by the Luoyun Sect. As long as the Cold Wind Sect received a portion of the resulting Five Elements Pills as payment, they didn't care about the meaningless engagement.
Now, learning that Ye Chen had become a cripple, the Cold Wind Sect's leaders knew the Luoyun Sect had already begun the process of draining his blood for Alchemy. With perfect, unspoken agreement, the two sects immediately dissolved the engagement.
The disciples of the Cold Wind Sect had always felt that a commoner like Ye Chen was far beneath Saintess Zhou, and that the engagement was him punching far above his weight. Now that his cultivation was gone, they naturally saw him as a laughingstock.
'So Xu Yingwu really did come here...'
At this, Ye Chen actually felt his urgency lessen.
If Qin Ruotong truly had the Chaos Five Elements Body, they would be reluctant to harm her before draining her for Alchemy.
'After all, the Luoyun Sect had poured nearly half its resources into raising me!'
When they saw Ye Chen ignore them and continue walking toward the gate, the two disciples' faces darkened.
"A mere cripple dares to covet our Saintess?"
"Let me tell you, the Saintess is currently entertaining Young Master Yang Yin of the Nine Nether Sect! Young Master Yang has admired her for a long time. You don't stand a chance, so stop daydreaming!"
However, Ye Chen acted as if he hadn't heard a word, his pace never faltering.
"As long as we're here, you won't take a single step into the Cold Wind Sect!"
Enraged by Ye Chen's utter disdain, the two gatekeepers attacked in unison to block his path.
In the past, they would never have dared to attack Ye Chen.
But things were different now. Against a cripple, they had nothing to fear!
"You're courting death."
Ye Chen shot the two disciples an indifferent glance and struck out with his palm.
SPLAT!
Two clouds of blood mist erupted in the air.
Having casually slapped the gatekeepers into oblivion, Ye Chen strode unhurriedly into the sect.
Even as they died, neither of them could understand how they were unable to block a single strike from this "cripple."