Chapter 779 Could only be a rogue cultivator
?"How tragic.." muttered Yang Qing with a sigh as he read through the final part of the report which was the rationale for her sentencing.
Blood debts and the collection of said blood debts was something even to date with the Order's presence was allowed. Cultivators fighting over treasures, kingdoms feuding for countless centuries, vengeance being repaid, the Order never prosecuted such cases as it was the way of the world.
However, if certain lines were crossed in the pursuit of that debt, then they would be involved. Ideally, if Luo Siyun had massacred only the Zhang family and the royal family, the Order would not have acted. That was a debt that she was owed, however, from the notes of the sentence, Luo Siyun was given a 100,000-year sentence because among her victims there were 9,786 who didn't have a cultivation base. They were those who were unlucky enough to be caught in the aftermath of her attacks.
Mortals were the bottom line of the Order and the reason they were created and Luo Siyun had breached it. Even though the report didn't contain a descriptional list of the victims, Yang Qing had sufficient imagination to guess a bit about them.
Gentle Rock was a rank 3 kingdom which by virtue meant its lands were rich in cultivation resources and environment and Luo Xue had been executed at the capital which meant the environment was bound to be richer than other regions in the kingdom.
Which group of people were likely to have no cultivation base in a place as prosperous as the capital?
Yang Qing understood why she was given such a steep sentence for her deeds. She was given a hundred-year sentence for every indiscriminate life she took, and in the end, the number was rounded up to 100,000 years likely because of who the majority of the victims were.
Considering the stance the Order took on such violations, she was lucky to have gotten away with such a sentence which was likely made in consideration of the circumstances that led to it.
At the end of the report, Shao An noted that Luo Siyun had been cleansed of the baleful and murderous qi that surrounded her, and coupled with her already enacting her vengeance, her path into becoming a cursed blade had been severed which was why he had placed her on the list of consideration for the rehabilitation program.
After finishing her report, Yang Qing quickly proceeded to the next person on the list. He only had four slots from the list of seven he had been given. He would only make his judgment after he had thoroughly read through all of them, and he felt it would likely not be easy pickings.
The next on the list was a cultivator by the name of Pan Xing. He was a rogue cultivator imprisoned for 38,000 years and had only served 377 of those years. He had been arrested for plundering. He had plundered countless known sects and clans of their prized treasures while it was also rumored he had killed a few talents from prominent organizations while he was exploring mysterious realms.
Mysterious realms were in essence hidden worlds with their own rules of operation. This was what made them extremely dangerous. Other than the dangers posed by the realm itself, cultivators were one of the greatest dangers in that place. Because of its isolatory nature, it was the perfect place to murder without worry of being found out.
It was always said stepping into a mysterious realm was like experiencing a rebirth. Your status or station in life had no relevance in there, and because of the mercurial nature of mysterious realms, some came with strange governing laws like suppressing the use of all artifacts within the realm itself, restricting cultivators to a certain realm or age, with others even sealing the senses of those who walk into them.
In the end, all who walked into a mysterious realm started at the same line, and whether they lived or died ultimately depended on their abilities in part and a whole lot of luck. In there whether you were from a rank 1 organization or a rank 4, none of it mattered, you would both die just as easily if you were careless, either to the machinations of the realm itself or to each other.
The capriciousness of it all was the reason the Order never judged any cases regarding what happened inside a mysterious realm. All who were willing to venture into them had to accept the risks that came with it whatever they may be or how far-reaching they may be. If a rank 3 disciple somehow killed a disciple from a rank 2 sect and they were unlucky enough to have a witness to the deed, whatever happened after that disciple left the mysterious realm, the consequences would be theirs to bear. The Order would not step in, the same way if that disciple ended up harvesting a great reward instead of a disaster, they would not think of sharing their spoils with the Order.
Disaster and reward were theirs to bear in equal measure which was what happened to Pan Xing. While exploring a mysterious realm he stumbled onto a natural treasure, a pearl built from the essence of a thousand realms illusory clam which granted its owner the ability to seamlessly blend through and survive in countless environments by avoiding detection whilst the pearl transformed the user's body to adapt to the location they were in and this adaptation included phasing through various protections that were not stronger than the pearl's ability.
These protections included formation arrays. Using the pearl, Pan Xing walked through the front door of countless organizations and robbed them senseless, while killing a few that he had grudges with. Out of hubris, he made his deeds known because if he didn't, because of the pearl's abilities, those organizations would have never known he was the one to do it.
As per the report, Pan Xing in his earlier years was infatuated with a girl from the same city as him. They were childhood friends and in jest when they were small they had said they would marry one another, only Pan Xing had taken it seriously. When he reached of age, he sent a formal proposal.
Both his family and hers were cultivation families of similar stature, and considering their history, Pan Xing assumed his proposal would go through without a problem. They were already close friends, their families were close, and when it came to talent even if he wasn't a genius, he wasn't average either.
At sixteen he was already in the foundation realm with a blue-grade pillar and some sects had even made offers for him to join them it was just that he decided to hold out for the very best.
From the report, Shao An did say Pan Xing admitted he had been very greedy as the sect he was waiting for was one of the two holy lands. As a hot-blooded youth, he couldn't imagine anything less, and his childhood sweetheart was the final piece of the equation to complete the picture.
However, the dream life envisioned he imagined was shattered. While he was out growing and improving his strength the girl of his dreams fell in love with another, a core disciple of a rank 2 sect, the White Thundercrane Sword sect.Pan Xing gave in to anger and attacked the disciple only to be soundly trounced by the disciple. He would have been crippled and his clan destroyed had the childhood friend not pleaded for him and his family.
The events that transpired that day became known far and wide and all the sects that had been approaching him in the hopes that he would join them all rescinded their offers for fear of drawing the ire of the White Thundercrane Sword Sect.
Even though the sect didn't pursue the matter of his actions, other sects would avoid him for fear of being tainted by association. His talent wasn't enough for them to risk it and the sects that were pursuing him, none of them were of the same level as the White Thundercrane Sword Sect.
Those sects were not the only ones who drew a hard line on the sand against him, as his family did the same. Out of anger for almost being subjected to a complete cleansing for his foolish act, and the fear of becoming an enemy of a rank 2 sect, while they were only a rank 4 clan, the clan cut off all relations with him and he was removed from the ancestry records. They cared not that he was one of the greatest talents in their clan in a while, none of that mattered, the clan came before a single individual and prolonged association with him risked the fate of the entire clan. Having him around was no different than keeping an unstable cursed artifact. One never knew when it would explode.
The families and other organizations around them may have attacked them in the name of upholding justice on behalf of the slighted White Thundercrane Sect in the hopes of currying favor with the sect, and having Pan Xing around was the greatest excuse those organizations could have in attacking them.For self-preservation they banished him, and publicly at that.
In just a single day his entire world had shifted. He was no longer the prized talent of his clan that was dotted on by almost everyone, the sects who lined up with gifts had shunned him like a plague, with some even threatening to cripple him if he dared approach them, and the woman whom he thought he would share all his glory with, loved another.
A single misstep and he fell from the heavens above and was buried in all kinds of dung on the earth's ground, having worms for company.
He did hope that maybe just maybe someone from the Holy Land would approach him, but they never did, and joining the Order was never in consideration as he never believed in its maxim. Like most, he believed its presence was an eyesore, ruining what a cultivation world was meant to be, thus the only path he saw before him was to be a rogue cultivator.
What happened that day left him jaded, bitter, and resentful of all prominent sects, clans, and other organizations. To him, they were of the same ilk as the White Thundercrane Sword Sect.
With bitterness and a desire to show up to his childhood love that she had made a mistake, Pan Xing trained ferociously and unreservedly. No risk was too great for him if it meant he would grow stronger and his efforts paid off as he ascended to the palace realm and even acquired a precious natural treasure in the pearl of the thousand realm illusory clam in the process.
By his admission, he screamed in manic joy when he got the pearl. He felt like the heavens were supporting him becoming even more zealous in the process.
Using the pearl, he robbed and plundered countless prominent sects, clans, and other organizations and he even used it to fulfill a few assassination contracts, amassing a lot of resources in the process and improving his cultivation base as a result, his aim, reaching the domain realm and rob the White Thundercrane Sword Sect blind, ruin them before finally slapping them silly like that disciple did to him. He had it all planned out as he envisioned what he would do when his childhood love pleaded for that disciple's life.
When he started the heists, he was covert, but later after numerous successes, and the hot rumor that surrounded the mysterious thief, he outed himself. He could care less if his identity was revealed. With the pearl, he could live even comfortably in the most toxic of places, his victims could never find him. He was confident of even hiding against a domain expert.
He hoped his name and exploit would reach the ears of the White Thunderhead Sect, specifically, the hateful couple.
His notoriety grew with the more prominent sects, clans, and other organizations he robbed. Despite how much they tried they could never catch him which garnered him mixed sentiments. Those organizations even ones he had not yet robbed hated him, while rogue cultivators all around sang him praises with every steal he made. It also helped that he shared some of the spoils with countless rogue cultivator factions even donating and supporting various academies, martial schools, and organizations that were known for helping rogue cultivators.
His growing repute within the rogue cultivators' community became another layer of protection for him. Even though most factions looked down on them, they were also wary of them. Within their community hid countless sleeping beasts that had the capability of shaking the continent when roused which made most factions mindful at times of how they handled rogue cultivators.
However, Pan Xing's luck eventually ran out when one of the clans he wanted to rob ended up having a hidden domain expert that had just freshly broken through, thus news hadn't quite got out. The pearl he had grown to have great confidence in was shattered, along with whatever confidence he had built up over the years.
He would have had his cultivation crippled when he got caught had news not broken out that he was caught which created a storm as a rogue domain cultivator intervened, which prompted other sects and clans that had disputes against Pan Xing to join in retaliation which only served to draw in more sect, clans and other organizations, and the rogue community got stirred to, and eventually over hundred palace realm experts and seven domain experts were almost going to blows.
Luckily the Order stepped in time, and forcibly inserted itself into the situation. From the record, even if Pan Xing's case should have been handled by a palace court judge, it was a domain judge who ended up doing the proceeding. He got 38,000 years which was mostly because of his affiliation with the assassin syndicate he did jobs for, the red scythe mantis.
Both the rogue community and the sects and clans felt the sentence was unfair, but ultimately there was little they could do about it, not without risking falling out completely between the two sides.
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