While Kael was savoring Seraphine’s body, two people he knew well were preparing for a rather unpleasant encounter in the City of the Serene Cloud—the city that surrounded the sect and served as its capital.
Sol and Lucian.
The two stood in front of one of the most famous pleasure houses in the city, their gazes flickering nervously as beads of cold sweat trickled down their temples.
Red lanterns swayed above the entrance, and muffled laughter drifted out from inside. Neither of them was in any mood for it.
They were in this state for one simple reason. Inside, a representative of the Golden Alliance Sect was waiting for them.
Although the Fallen Sword Sect was a considerably powerful regional sect, it was merely one of the thirty vassal sects of the Golden Alliance Sect, the ruler of the Snowy Valley Region in the north of the Gray Peaks Continent.
And with the Golden Alliance being one of the continent’s Seven Great Sects, led by a Void Venerable, the Fallen Sword Sect was nothing more than a fly before a lion.
Exchanging one last tense glance, the two stepped forward and pushed through the doors of the pleasure house.
Warm, perfumed air greeted them, along with the soft strumming of a zither from somewhere deeper inside.
A maid approached them immediately, her hips swaying with every step. Her provocative neckline barely contained her ample breasts, the soft mounds bobbing gently with each stride and threatening to spill free at any moment.
A sensual smile played on her painted lips.
"Young Master Sol, Young Master Lucian... have you come here in search of some fun?"
"No." Sol shook his head, his voice drier than he intended. He didn’t even spare a glance at her cleavage. "We’ve come to see Young Master David."
"Oh..." The maid’s smile faltered, a faint shudder running through her before she regained her composure. "Please, follow me. I’ll take you to Young Master David."
Taking the lead, she guided them up to the fifth floor of the pavilion.
The laughter and music faded with each flight of stairs until only the sound of their own footsteps remained.
She stopped in front of an ornate golden door, curtsied before the two of them, and hurriedly withdrew, almost fleeing down the hallway.
She already knew that Young Master David was in a foul mood, and she had no interest in becoming yet another victim of his wrath—not even if it meant being summoned to warm his bed.
Not that he was particularly aggressive toward the women who served him in the bedchamber.
The problem was something else entirely: he was so small down there that the girls barely felt a thing, and having to fake moans of pleasure the whole time became a bit exhausting.
And since he never gave the girls any bonuses or special payments, no one really liked serving him.
The two young men swallowed hard before pushing open the door.
The room beyond was bathed in a dense, heavy red light, and the air was saturated with the scent of fine liquor.
There were no women inside. Only a young man with short blue hair, an arrogant gaze, and a handsome face, reclining lazily on a divan.
It was David Fallenwall, an prominent external disciple of the Golden Alliance Sect, already at the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm.
He was from a rich family, and his father was an Elder in the Golden Alliance Sect.
"Ah..." A long sigh escaped his thin lips as he set the bottle of liquor he had been drinking on the table with a dull thud.
"Sit down." David’s voice echoed through the room, cold and devoid of any trace of emotion.
Still trembling, the two sat down on the sofa directly across from him, perched stiffly on the edge of the cushions like men awaiting a sentence.
"You know..." he began, waving his hand lazily.
From the shadows, a servant emerged without a sound, set a cup of steaming tea before him, and vanished just as quietly.
"I told you both that, as soon as I became an inner disciple, I would give you letters of recommendation to join our sect as guest disciples."
He took a slow sip, letting the hot liquid and his own cultivation burn away the last remnants of his drunkenness.
"But we agreed that, in exchange, you would cultivate that woman, Seraphine, so she could become my cultivation furnace... So tell me, why the hell did I just hear that she was handed over to another man as a concubine?"
David’s voice rose, and his terrifying cultivation pressure crashed down upon the two of them.
"Do you know how difficult it is to find a suitable cultivation furnace? Do you know the risk I took in buying that demonic cultivation technique from you, based solely on the promise that I would have her as my furnace in the future?"
Only the powerful sound-suppression arrays surrounding the room kept the entire building from shaking under David’s thunderous roar.
For those inside, however, it was like being struck by a punch straight to the chest.
Sol and Lucian gasped, the metallic taste of blood rising in their throats as their insides twisted under that oppressive weight.
Lucian, in particular, took it the worst.
He, too, was at the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm, the same as David, yet he couldn’t even withstand the other man’s pressure.
That was the power of a cultivator belonging to one of the Seven Great Sects.
His foundation was on a completely different level from theirs.
"Hmph." David grunted, slowly withdrawing his pressure.
Sol and Lucian immediately slumped forward, bracing themselves against the table as they gasped for breath. Lucian wiped a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth with a trembling hand.
Honestly, David would have preferred to simply ask his master to resolve the problem, but he couldn’t, for two reasons.
The first was that the Golden Alliance Sect avoided acting tyrannically toward its thirty vassal sects.
Unless he had a legitimate reason, his master wouldn’t lift a finger. The sect had no desire for another bloody civil war like the one three thousand years ago, sparked by the tyranny of its previous leader.
The second was that he was cultivating a demonic technique, one sold to him by the very two bastards sitting in front of him. That was a secret that could never see the light of day.
He needed to take Seraphine quietly, kill those two to bury the secret, drain her of everything she had until she was nothing but an empty shell, and then return to his position as representative as if nothing had happened.
Unfortunately, Seraphine was no longer in Lucian’s hands, and worse, she might have already lost her purity.
She would still be useful without it, but her effectiveness as a furnace would drop considerably.
"Kael... that’s the son of a bitch’s name, right?" David rose in one swift motion, his eyes filling with pure murderous intent. "Is he going to join the Secret Realm of the Divine Mist?"